I know application programming, can anyone teach me game programming?
Author
Okay I am well versed in application programming. The last "game" I programmed though was a dumb maze in QBasic in the 90's. I've never dealt with OpenGL, SDL, DirectX (and the rest of the Direct family), or any other "graphics" engine. Probably the closest thing I've gotten to game programming is making animations within Java using Swing and AWT. So now that you know I'm an experienced programmer, I'm sure you want to see my experience - http://nathandelane.awardspace.com/programming.php - Does anybody want to be my mentor? Can anybody take me into their project and help me get started in game programming? I want to learn, and I'm ready for the challenge! I can do backend stuff, and I'm really good at math (now) and figuring stuff like that out. So can anybody help? Thanks.
Nathan Lane
w: http://nathandelane.awardspace.com/
Well if you're having trouble finding somebody to mentor you, there are plenty of game development books for non-beginning programmers. Books tend to be a good way of learning, so your best bet would probably be to pick a few of those up and work through them. If you are an experienced programmer as you say, all that would be left for you to learn is an API (DirectX, OpenGL, jME, Slick, etc.) and the components of a game and how a game works. Both of those tend to be the focus of a lot of those previously mentioned books.
Im a beginner in C++ but I can say that the book "Focus on SDL" is pretty helpful to me so far...
Author
See that I suppose is where my problem lies though - I have no money - nothing extra to get me going, so all I have to rely on are dumb tutorials that don't teach me very much, don't explain all of the details of compiling and linking, try to get me into the high level too quickly. I want to participate somewhere - I'm not prideful - I KNOW that I can't write a video game on my own. Does somebody want to mentor me?
Nathan
Nathan
ah a mentor would be awesome. Unfortunately people just dont have the time. Im pretty new to programming and what has helped me start is just googling tutorials and trying to learn as much as i can. The books are invaluable to learning as well. If you really want to learn your going to have to bite the bullet and just buy a few books.
Author
Okay, well at this point I'd be inclined to say nevermind...if I weren't so set on learning. I know that nobody has "time" but how did those people who don't have time learn? I know bunches of stuff, and I'd be very happy to mentor anybody learning something that I know (Java SE, C#, Ruby scripting - not rails though, XHTML, javascript, VBScript, OLE/COM, UNO) But I guess the point is, maybe I am "making" time to teach those things to others. How do you think programmers become great? Well the majority of them have "too much" time, and I want to learn from one of them. Not teaching others, or passing on what you've learned seems selfish to me. And I don't think that a "real programmer" should be selfish.
Thanks, I'll look somewhere else I guess.
Nathan
Thanks, I'll look somewhere else I guess.
Nathan
What is it exactly that you would like to learn? Just saying "I want to learn game programming" is way too vague. You will get much better response if you ask specific questions. Most programmers are happy to help others, but we tend to focus our effort on those who show that they are active learners and not just sponges waiting to be spoon fed.
If you can build an application, then a game is not that much more of a stretch. The structure of the code of a typical game is a little different that a typical business application, but the programming concepts are the same: collect input, process input, update internal state, produce output. So how about tell us what you are stuck on instead of stomping away in a self righteous huff.
If you can build an application, then a game is not that much more of a stretch. The structure of the code of a typical game is a little different that a typical business application, but the programming concepts are the same: collect input, process input, update internal state, produce output. So how about tell us what you are stuck on instead of stomping away in a self righteous huff.
Think about it. Your asking people to give up their time so that you can save some money not buying books without them getting anything in return. People are always happy to answer questions here. In a way the entire GD community has become my mentor because I read the threads on here an learn from them. People have lives, jobs, and families, it is not selfish of them to not want to spend their time teaching someone stuff that person can learn out of a book with little trouble. If you want to learn, read the tutorials, buy some books, and by all means ask questions on here. You will get more answers than you could have ever wanted.
If you know C# why not give XNA a try? From the sounds of it you are already far ahead of most of the beginners here. Many beginners learn on their own, I did. It isn't particularly difficult, you just have to start somewhere. I assumethat you won't need to make console games (as you are already aware of the programming aspect) so games to start making now to learn the basics would be pong, tetris, asteroids etc.
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