Intimidated, not sure where to start.

Brandon Hawkinson · 2012-12-18T21:32:32

After hours upon hours of searching throughout the internet for information on game design and development, I've finally come down to a last resort of asking other people for help. After searching other websites, GameDev.net seemed like the forum of choice, after purchasing a membership, i'm now here with my story and questions. I am very intrigued by video games, they havnt always just been mindless products that major game companies produced. I quickly fell in love with RPG's, most notably mass effect, i quickly saw it as art. I currently play EVE online as well, you can probably see my prefered genre, sci-fi, sandboxed styled games. The openess of these games empowers me to create in a way i've never been compelled before, and I'd like to channel that into developing my own video games. However I am absolutely clueless on where to begin, i'm intimidated by the process, hesitant to start. My friend described it as having to cross a raging river, without knowing how to swim. I have absolutely little to no knowledge of programming languages. However, I know some basics about the industry, that knowledge only extends to the fact that the industry tends to use C++/Java. Although, no one answers the question, why? I am a type of person who needs to understand something before I can do it, as simply doing it feels empty and unsatisfactory. So why do developers use C++/Java over HTML, or even visual basic? Is there an easier way to learn these languages instead of mindlessly jumping into them? What is the visual process? What exactly is a sprite sheet, and how does it meld with 3d or even 2d design? This is the part of the industry that I love, but have no idea how to go about it. I currently own a membership to the student version of adobe creative cloud service, I have extensive skills in illustrator and photoshop. I've been using those to make websites with muse (staying away from that intimidating code! ). The drawing ability is there, and the ability to put it on the computer is there also. However I am not familiar with 3d design, map design, sprites and animating. What are the steps to creating the visual bits and pieces? And if applicable, why is it that way (aside from common sense)? And now the game engines, I understand that they are used to put everything together, but where do they start to come into play? I'm very confused about the process with the engine. What can be done inside the engine, and what needs to be done outside of the engine? It all comes down to the question "Why?" with the game engine. Most importantly, I think I may just need a nudge in the right direction. I've been slowly and steadily understand the adobe products and the workflow, how they can interact together. And this is what I want to learn with game developement. As I said before I am very intimidated by programming, and the production workflow of video game design, I'm clueless, every tutorial i've found just says "Program, deisgn, game engine". Its not simply that easy, or else everyone would be doing it. Thanks for reading, I hope I can learn a lot by being part of the community, and hopefully giving back the hospitality and the vision the folks here will bring me. Coming from the EVE-Online community, this is considered a wall of text, so here's the TL;DR(Too long didn't read summary) of my questions: 1) Why do developers use C++/Java over HTML, or even visual basic? 2) Is there an easier way to learn programming languages instead of mindlessly jumping into them? 3) What exactly is a sprite sheet, and how does it meld with 3d or even 2d design? 4) What are the steps to creating the visual bits and pieces? And if applicable, why is it that way (aside from common sense)? 5) When does the Game Engine start to come into play? 6) What can be done inside the engine, and what needs to be done outside of the engine?

Dynamo_Maestro

770

December 17, 2012 01:02 AM

I came from EVE (bitter vet, ex troll), and happily quit

Mainly because programming was far more fun (and because 0.0 became shit)

The best way to think of programming / game programming in terms of EVE is you are doing the skill queue in real time, instead of spending days / weeks for a lvl 5 etc you are doing it, and same as it is in EVE you are NEVER not learning something. Much like EVE you dont fly a ship with terrible skills despite being able to fly it, you fly it when you have skills, my point is you need to learn Programming before Game Programming, but time flies so fast while programming that honestly you will be creating games in no time.

4) What are the steps to creating the visual bits and pieces? And if applicable, why is it that way (aside from common sense)?

The reason this cant really be answered is, its because one would have to explain how to graphics program, a very easy way to think of it is, you provide data (vectors, points etc) to the GPU and ask it to draw and discard it as efficient and fast as possible. Result being the user see's 'visual bits and pieces'.

What was your ingame name, corp, alliance?

minibutmany

1,998

December 17, 2012 01:54 AM

4) What are the steps to creating the visual bits and pieces? And if applicable, why is it that way (aside from common sense)?

In more simple games, you usually need not even worry about the GPU, but focus more on the graphics API built into the class structure of many languages. When displaying something on screen, you can render it in real time by drawing simple shapes based on perhaps a calculation that you made earlier, or you can draw pre-drawn images to the screen. The first option involves more code, the latter involves better drawing/3D modeling skills. Many times you will have a healty mix of both methods. As many have said before, it is most important to get the basics down for one language starting with console apps, then windows and finally games. (I personally spent way too much time making twext based console games but found that without haveing to worry about graphics I learned quite a bit about programming in general)

Stay gold, Pony Boy.

Brandon Hawkinson

157

Author

December 17, 2012 04:02 AM

What was your ingame name, corp, alliance?

Right now im flying under the character NFain in the drone region coalition X) Im working towards wormhole sustainabilty (The only fun part left in eve).

[quote name='bhawk245' timestamp='1355698679' post='5011391']
4) What are the steps to creating the visual bits and pieces? And if applicable, why is it that way (aside from common sense)?

In more simple games, you usually need not even worry about the GPU, but focus more on the graphics API built into the class structure of many languages. When displaying something on screen, you can render it in real time by drawing simple shapes based on perhaps a calculation that you made earlier, or you can draw pre-drawn images to the screen. The first option involves more code, the latter involves better drawing/3D modeling skills. Many times you will have a healty mix of both methods. As many have said before, it is most important to get the basics down for one language starting with console apps, then windows and finally games. (I personally spent way too much time making twext based console games but found that without haveing to worry about graphics I learned quite a bit about programming in general)
[/quote]

Console im guessing is the basic computer console, I never knew apps could be developed in there #noob. What type of code does it use, also would running a virtual linux box be a better approach to learning programming?

Cornstalks

7,033

December 17, 2012 04:07 AM

Console im guessing is the basic computer console, I never knew apps could be developed in there #noob. What type of code does it use, also would running a virtual linux box be a better approach to learning programming?

You don't actually develop apps in the console. Rather, the most basic apps run in the console. To get a proper window (like every normal application you use), you have to do extra work (a very beginner shouldn't be messing around with proper windowed apps for awhile). Without this extra work, apps are "window-less" and, when run, open a console to show their text input/output.

[size=2][ I was ninja'd 71 times before I stopped counting a long time ago ] [ f.k.a. MikeTacular ] [ My Blog ] [ SWFer: Gaplessly looped MP3s in your Flash games ]

minibutmany

1,998

December 18, 2012 09:32 PM

Thank you Cornstalks for clearing that up. Just write programs without graphics, windows etc. To send output to the console use:
cout << "hello world";
in c++
System.out.println("hello world");
in Java

If you are still running an Apple 2 or ms-dos then you would be developing your applications in a "console" type of way with BASIC.

Stay gold, Pony Boy.

Intimidated, not sure where to start.

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