Frustrated...
In trying to make a game, I have become extremely frustrated.
At first, I used plain DirectX, calling it's raw functions on global data. That proved to be remarkably hard to maintain.
Then, I wrote wrapper-classes. That took a long time in and of itself, and was made harder because I needed more functionality than I had originally planned, which screwed up my original design.
Now, I'm thinking of using a premade engine, like Ogre. However, that carries much to much overhead. Not processing overhead, but the overhead of it's learning curve, and of trying to fit your ideas into their designs.
All in all, I'm stumped. Were any of you in my situation? What did you do?
"A lesson lived is a lesson learned." - Hatebreed
"Every faluire is a step towards success."
I can't give anymore adivice than to say that planning your designs is huge. Every time you do it, then sit down and code out your design, you'll get better at coding, and planning/designing your code.
At least thats how it seems to work for me ;).
Personally I would sit down and think about what I really needed, and take another whack at working out my own DX wrappers. But that's just me...
Cheers.
"Every faluire is a step towards success."
I can't give anymore adivice than to say that planning your designs is huge. Every time you do it, then sit down and code out your design, you'll get better at coding, and planning/designing your code.
At least thats how it seems to work for me ;).
Personally I would sit down and think about what I really needed, and take another whack at working out my own DX wrappers. But that's just me...
Cheers.
Thankfully(?) my ignorance allowed me to work through the fact that the DX on global data was terribly hard to maintain, since I didn't know any better. I learned the DX calls enough to get comfortable with the simple ones, and better yet, learned how certain things worked, and others did not.
Now I'm on version 2 of my gui system, and it's probably 10x faster and 10x smaller than the previous. Heh, now thinking about it, I'm probably on game #7 or 8, each that much better than the last. It's like Moore's law of Game Design.
Now I'm on version 2 of my gui system, and it's probably 10x faster and 10x smaller than the previous. Heh, now thinking about it, I'm probably on game #7 or 8, each that much better than the last. It's like Moore's law of Game Design.
Why not use an engine?
From the quote above it seems as though you are trying to make a game, not an engine. I was in your shoes a while back where I thought that I had to do everything myself.
What you end up doing is fiddling here and testing this, and you never get around to actually making the game. Why re-invent the wheel. Use an engine. You don't have to use OGRE. Theres another good another engine called Irrlicht, which is very good.
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/
I'm using it at the moment and I can certainly say that I have got 200 times further than what I have before. Irrlicht is very easy to learn as well. Irrlicht also supports OpenGL, DirectX up to DirectX9c. Irrlicht also gives you more control.
Quote:In trying to make a game
From the quote above it seems as though you are trying to make a game, not an engine. I was in your shoes a while back where I thought that I had to do everything myself.
What you end up doing is fiddling here and testing this, and you never get around to actually making the game. Why re-invent the wheel. Use an engine. You don't have to use OGRE. Theres another good another engine called Irrlicht, which is very good.
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/
I'm using it at the moment and I can certainly say that I have got 200 times further than what I have before. Irrlicht is very easy to learn as well. Irrlicht also supports OpenGL, DirectX up to DirectX9c. Irrlicht also gives you more control.
Quote:Why re-invent the wheel.
Yeah, but how would a ferrari look with wooden wheels? :)
You don't have to reinvent, but you have to fine it.
Everybody is in the "engine-fever". 10 years ago when the therm "engine" didn't exist, how did they make games? :)
If you wanna make games, you should forget about engines.
I'm personaly an "oldtimer" coder, and I start a game from scratch every time:) (except basics: eg: string class...etc)
Because every type of game needs different data structures and different approaches. If you have an engine you are "limited" and you'll spend at least the half of your time on tweaking the engine and the gameplay to make them work together. And if you are making game-oriented "disposable-engines" you can keep it much more simple and everything will work the way you like.
A lot of people don't agree with me, but it works for me :)
-marci
Quote:A lot of people don't agree with me
Ok, I'm not going to start a flame war, but I'm one of them.
Quote:I'm personaly an "oldtimer" coder, and I start a game from scratch every time
Do you work for a games company, I don't. But I do work for and IT company. If I had to start everything from scratch they would kick me out.
What is the point? Say you make a particle system which works fine, why would you go and make it again. The same applies to an engine. An engine isn't an executable. If you want to change it you just get the source and re-compile. Providing that it is open source like OGRE and Irrlicht.
Quote:If you wanna make games, you should forget about engines.
I'm not sure where this comes from. If you're making an engine you aren't making a game. This will probably spark a lot of contraversy but think about it. Why do you think you can write an engine and sell it. I haven't heard of anybody selling game code.
Quote:Yeah, but how would a ferrari look with wooden wheels?
Thats why an engine is flexible, you can choose, wooden wheels, metal, whatever you like.
Quote:You don't have to reinvent, but you have to fine it.
I totally agree.
Quote:Original post by thedevdanI'm willing to bet that the effort spent learning how Ogre works will make you a better programmer. Ogre has a pretty great design, and, whether or not you actually use it for your game, you'll be that much smarter once you have an understanding of how it does things.
Now, I'm thinking of using a premade engine, like Ogre. However, that carries much to much overhead. Not processing overhead, but the overhead of it's learning curve, and of trying to fit your ideas into their designs.
Hi thedevdan,
An engine comes from your experience. My engine has evolved from 8bpp DirectDraw to 3D Sprites to a 3D engine. Many many hours of work involved (years). But sometimes a new change produces a new image like the water effect in this one:
http://www.spritekin.com/warscale/screen10.jpg
So, maybe you are going too fast. You want to understand an engine and thats big. Try some smaller game first. Just select one engine and stick with it, or make your own.
As everyone says... win experience. Your skills will grow with you.
Luck!
Guimo
An engine comes from your experience. My engine has evolved from 8bpp DirectDraw to 3D Sprites to a 3D engine. Many many hours of work involved (years). But sometimes a new change produces a new image like the water effect in this one:
http://www.spritekin.com/warscale/screen10.jpg
So, maybe you are going too fast. You want to understand an engine and thats big. Try some smaller game first. Just select one engine and stick with it, or make your own.
As everyone says... win experience. Your skills will grow with you.
Luck!
Guimo
Dude, OGRE takes about five minutes to learn before you're making apps. Just take a look at the tutorials.
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