Hi all
This is my senior year and i have a graduation project to make. Im a big games fan i have more than 300 games since 1990s. So the best project i could think of doing is a game . I dont want to do no database , compiler , file system etc... for my graduation project. Making a game aint easy as playing them . Anyways my point is i need as much help as i can get.
Im doing the coding and graphics all by myself. I bought 3ds Max for acadamic use. I bought wolfgangs book "beginning Direct3D Game Programming" its pretty good. Im good in C++ but i know nothing about D3D excpet u need to install it for games to work . Im doing good in 3ds Max made some cool stuff.
If anyone got any advice on books to buy, resource sites, etc.. i be very thankful.
I bet u all will think im nuts for thinking of making a game all on my own. I got about 6 to 7 month to present it hope thats enough time or maybe it isnt.
thxs alot
I assume you want to make Quake10?? Why buy 3DMax for a college project? I did a Invader type game for my project and got top marks. I was meritted on my C++ programming techniques not game play or graphics.
Think about a small project as 6/7 months is not long. Especially when you have to document your project.
This is my senior year and i have a graduation project to make. Im a big games fan i have more than 300 games since 1990s. So the best project i could think of doing is a game . I dont want to do no database , compiler , file system etc... for my graduation project. Making a game aint easy as playing them . Anyways my point is i need as much help as i can get.
*snip*
A game is really just an elaborate database, file system etc etc. Knowledge of a lot of the "boring" aspects of CS like Data Structures and Math is absolutely crucial in developing games. I would recommend that, besides the D3d book you bought, you also invest in a good algorithms book as well as an OO software engineering book. Good luck.
ugenn: Oh, get off your high horse. This person sounds like he''s a CS senior in college. I''m sure he''s taken an algorithms course, a datastructures course, and many OO engineering courses, and if he''s smart, has kept the books. He''s not saying he doesn''t want to or hasn''t learned how to write a filesystem or compiler, he just would rather write a game, and i don''t blame him for one second!
EagleWarrior: if this is your first game, which it sounds like, don''t expect to make anything huge. Hell, if this is your 12th game, don''t expect to make something huge unless you expect to be a senior for several years or you''re a truly prolific coder. Games are big, complex messes that can require tons of time and more fine tuning than most software to get it to a fun state.
The way i see it, you should go in one of two ways: write only part of a game, say, a 3D engine with collision detection and sound-- and don''t for a second think that''s a trivial thing to do-- or write an entire game, but make it a 2D game, fairly simple, but with everything done, graphics, sound, control, networking if applicable, and gameplay. In my experience, most advisors would be more inclined to go with the former, but maybe you''re in a different situation.
The important thing is to leave yourself more time than you think you''ll need, ''cause you''ll need it.
quote:Original post by Shelrem ...unless you expect to be a senior for several years...
Why do I find that absolutely hilarious?
/me composes myself
You might want to check out the postmortem on Beam Runner Hypercross [GamaSutra.com] by Team Whopass. It''s a graduate-level project in a game design course at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill). Note that there were six or so members of that team, and even they had to scale back. I''d suggest you go for something elementary, slightly innovative but possessing familiar traits. How ''bout a 3D bomberman clone? (Bomberman is always fun, and being a 4-player game has an interesting social aspect).
I know im not going to make Quake 10 or some huge game.Im not just doing this game for my graduation project doesnt mean after im done i will forget about it u can say the graduation was just something to get me started in game programming. I know im going to get a A in it even if i dont thats k all i care about is learning something i would like to do.
and yes i did keep my books incase i need em .
Thxs alot for your help. i will check out these books Drizzt thxs
I will keep u guys updated on how i do in the next 7 month. If i dont i would probably be dead .
Whilst on my course a couple of us decided to do a game for our final projects. About a term into it, both of us had reduced the size of the projects and decided to specialise in specific areas.
The problem with doing a full game is that you end up spreading yourself quite thinly. By specialising you get more scope to improve your code and produce a much higher quality project. Rather than do a game thats *ok* , I''d reccommend picking a subject area within games and do that to the best of your ability. It leads to a much more indepth report, much higher quality optimised code and helps a lot when looking for a job. FYI, we both got firsts with honours.....
quote:Original post by Shelrem This person sounds like he''s a CS senior in college. I''m sure he''s taken an algorithms course, a datastructures course, and many OO engineering courses, and if he''s smart, has kept the books. He''s not saying he doesn''t want to or hasn''t learned how to write a filesystem or compiler, he just would rather write a game, and i don''t blame him for one second!
Heh. Don''t be so sure. (And I am not insulting the original poster here, just stating a fact.) I am on my final year and will have graduated by the summer, and I''ve not needed to know how to write a filesystem or compiler. (We were taught the basics of writing a recursive descent parser in year one, but you didn''t need to be able to write one to pass the module: just to understand it.) Most of the people on my course never have to create a data structure: they get taught the STL in year 2 and either use that (or more commonly, stick to arrays) until they finish. And I''ve not had any algorithms course at all. In fact, most of the people on my course don''t even like coding, because they find it too hard. They''re programmers who don''t really appreciate object-orientation (even though all our programming is in C++), rarely fully understand pointers, have never created their own data structure (never mind filesystem or compiler), know next to nothing of the standard library, and so on. Yet they''ll be employed as programmers next year while I''ll be sat at home starving cos I don''t want to work on databases and payroll systems
So, yeah, if you''re a programmer who doesn''t know what algorithmic complexity, inheritance, ADT, recursive descent, or indirection mean, then getting a few good books first would be nice Otherwise, the standard advice of, "start small, finish what you start" applies.
. I dont want to do no database , compiler , file system etc... for my graduation project. Making a game aint easy as playing them 
