Hello guys,
I want to make a FPS game quite a time. (but i'm gonna start more easy of course)
I wanted to use an engine, but i had zero programming skills, so i had to learn to prgram first.
I thought of beginning c++, but i read that will be to hard to start with.
So i search some on the internet and i think i'm gonna start with java and frome there move on to c++
I only have two questions: Is this a good idea and what is a good source (book, site, YT serie, etc.) to learn java.
Many thanks
I think Java is a good choice. Maybe this site can help you. Also bookmark tutorialspoint.
And once you know a bit of Java, you can try to make a game with JavaFX (note that JavaFX could not be the best option for a high performing game, but for simple games is good enough and easy to learn).
If you have an Android-device (phone or tablet), I found it quite satifying to create my own Android game. Although mobile development may not be the first thing that comes to mind for making an FPS, it does help you learn Java and have something to show for it quite quickly. The Android developer pages (http://developer.android.com/training/index.html) contain loads of good documentation and tutorials.
From there, you have picked up enough programming skills and knowledge to transition to a more FPS-minded environment or even C++/Unity/etc...
Thanks, but Avalander i read your post and i took a look to the site (http://www.learnjavaonline.org/) and i really don 't want to be annoying, but a friend said today to me that
this site: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial is way better. I only don't know if he knows where he's talking about and could you (or someone else) please tell me which is better :)
cheers
You need to have in mind that programming Java for Android isn't the same that programming Java for desktop. Language is more or less the same but the classes that you use might be quite different here and there.
Second link you posted is "official" documentation about the language. Oracle its the company that owns Java (which isn't the same Java that Android has). So whatever you find there you can be sure that it works like it says it does.
It has a couple of beginner friendly tutorials and other tutorials that are more tailored for "Ok, I know Java, I just want to know how feature XYZ is used.". So you'll find varied information there.
Moreover, always consult the javadocs for the standard library. All methods and classes in the standard library are documented. By default (on all popular IDEs like Eclipse or Netbeans), when you hover over some standard library method/class, you get a pop up with the javadoc for that method/class. Read those, they'll help you a lot. Coding in the dark (ie, without docs) isn't much fun when you just want to learn.
You can also consult javadocs online too, for example, java.lang.Object javadocs.
Well, the tutorials of oracle are, of course, complete and useful. When I was learning JavaFX I used their tutorials. The bad thing about them, especially the beginner ones, is that they are very slow. They explain lots of concepts that are hard to really understand until you experience them coding. On the other hand, learnjavaonline.com has a nice user interface, you can run the code examples, has a console where you can directly write code and see what happens and has an exercise at the end of every subject.
What I suggest you is to try to follow the tutorials on learnjavaonline.com and if you don't understand something in them, go to oracle's to see what they say ("hey, I don't understand that thing about objects at all, let's see what those guys in oracle say about it"). Also you can try to follow one tutorial on both sites and see which works better for you.
Hope I've been helpful.
Udacity has a nice beginner course on programming, using Java. I don't think it can get any easier than that, especially since it seems that you have no programming experience at all. Make sure you check Oracle's official Java documentations while you do the course. This will give you a good fundamental understanding of programming basics, object-oriented concepts, and Java's standard library..
Once you finish the course and want to start making some simple games, you can use libGDX. There are several tutorials online that will get you up to speed with it. It's probably Java's closest counterpart to XNA/Monogame. It does have a few quirks (namely, inconsistent coordinate system), but it's a solid framework.
