Help me please!!!!

[Korgoth]

Hi guys,
I am a complete noob when it comes to coding, but I really want to get started learning c++ and a graphics language (ogl, or dx)... I need to know where to start.
I talking about the very begining. Can you guys answer these questions and maybe provide a few links? I'll love you for it! :angel:

1:What programs do I need?

2:What tutorials should I follow?

3:What books should I buy?

4:What else should I learn?

5:Whats your favorite soda?

Thanks!

 

[ambershee]

Hmm, okay. I would recommend starting with a lower level C language before moving into nasties like the potential the public realm HL2 source has to be!
Take a look at Quake 1 or Quake 2 - both are relatively cheap and cheerful, there's a lot of documentation already out there and it uses an augmented version of C that makes it much more simple to utilise when required. Quake 1 even has the full engine source out there already for free! - that can give you some good insiders as to how the engine can potentially work for a great deal of titles and 3d rendering projects.

1: Many games come with the LCC (a low level compiling agent) within the SDK (Normally contains a map editor, a public source code and some documentation of sorts). That can be used when you can't afford a compiling agent. I recommend MSVC++ 6.0 for all your compiling needs.

2: Tutorials? That's entirely up to you. It's a case of googling it! In the case of aforementioned Quake 1/2 - there's a huge amount out there already that'll take you through most of the basics and edit the vast majority of the public source code.

3: Blarg. Books don't need to be bought in truth. Most of the coding in books is rather limited, and naturally there's always a tutorial on the net somewhere to rival it.

4: To search for the required data using various techniques and find your own mark-up technique of laying out your code. People don't tend to work on this much, but an efficient layout doesn't half make things so much easier for yourself and others to read your source at a later date, and modify it if need be!

5: Eh? Wouldn't know. Like a good cream soda every now and then when sugar highs are required to keep the work flowing!!

 

[Onions]

You want visual studio .net if you can afford it. if not there are plenty free compilers out there.
You want to learn c++ before dabbling in a graphics api, or indeed a game sdk! Plenty of tutorials online for that, but a book may be handy. Google for recommendations. Soda is overrated, real programmers know that coffee is the way

 

[Korgoth]

Hey thanks for the replies guys!
My action plan that i've gathered so far is:

:Find a compiler (how much is VS.net?)
:Google tutorials, learn me some basic C
:Work in source (or some other engine) get my skills up to par...
:eventually break off into DX or OGL when i think the time is right
"and keep practicing...

Does that sound right? My main goal, I want to write a 3d model viewer to use for a future portfolio
where my potential employer can run the viewer and pan/rotate and move around the models getting a good look at them, maybe even running animation if I think I can tackle it... How reasonable does this sound?

 

[mrchimp]

Personally I'v been pretty happy learning C++ from internet sources and useing dev-C++. I'm currently makeing a pong game with an ancient API called allegro (just need to get collision detection working, I think my event handellers are buggering it up).

http://www.bloodshed.net/ //dev-C++ IDE, comes with gcc compiler I think
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/ //most of what I know has been learnt from this webpage, everything else has come from looking at certain API's documentation, examples and experimentation.

Screw spending money on books and expensive compilers when you can do it all for free... well you might have a hard time makeing a GUI with Dev-c++.

 

[Onions]

learn c++, not c
c can wait, most of the sdk will be c++

 

[bobvodka]

your plan isnt far off, however to be able to work properly and effectively you need to do alot more than learn basic C++, that might well let you hack around with the HL2 SDK (but i'll reserve final judgement on that until i see it) but hacking is no real subsitute for learning properly and that can take a long time

 

[Korgoth]

I'd love to go to school and learn, if I could find the time, and money I might just do that... I have yet to dive in and see if i really like the programming enviroment yet. I sort of like to be the jack of all trades master of none guy, i'm sure that will come back to bite me in the arse when i go looking for my dream job in the game biz. Thanks for the links guys... I'm going to get to work I guess!

 

[Onions]

though one may eventually learn properly by hacking first and asking questions later, no?

 

[bobvodka]

its not the best route as, in the words of weird Al, "everything you know is wrong"
learn it properly from the start and you'll be MUCH better off

 

[Fallout2man]

Hi guys,
I am a complete noob when it comes to coding, but I really want to get started learning c++ and a graphics language (ogl, or dx)... I need to know where to start.
I talking about the very begining. Can you guys answer these questions and maybe provide a few links? I'll love you for it! :angel:

1:What programs do I need?

As someone mentioned earlier, Dev-C++ is great for learning.
when you become serious about wanting fast and optimized code
you'll want to get the latest Professional copy of visual studio .NET.

Suffice to say, it costs an arm and a leg (thousands of dollars), so it's only for if you are very serious about coding, it produces the fastest code of any compiler.

2:What tutorials should I follow?

http://www.cplusplus.com has some great stuff to help you get started out.

3:What books should I buy?

Can't help you much there, I don't believe in buying books to learn for anything other then college, I just download everything else.

4:What else should I learn?

If you're talking APIs, OpenGL's a lot easier to pick up for a beginner, but in production it takes more time overal to use the latest features due to most requiring the use of vendor specific extensions. OGL is also cross-platform, so if you need to code for more then windows, you'll want to know it.

DirectX is harder to learn, but once you get it down it can do overal more things with less code, leading to less time spent coding. It's windows only though, so don't learn it unless you're sure you won't need to port to other platforms. Something to remember though, OGL is only a graphics library, DX is an entire suite of things for handling graphics, sound, music, input, internet, etc.

5:Whats your favorite soda?

Mountain Dew.

Thanks!

 

[bobvodka]

OpenGL's a lot easier to pick up for a beginner, but in production it takes more time overal to use the latest features due to most requiring the use of vendor specific extensions.

gah, i'm sure i've said before, all the 'latest features' are avaible standard cross vender functions (the only exception to this is pre-dx9 cards and complex shaders, DX9 and on this has been addressed), yes they have to be access via extensions on windows due to no updated lib because MS is [lazy|evil|useless] but with 3 extension loading libraries in existance this is a trivial task

 

[mortiz]

Book's aren't bad, and there generally a lot more complete than tutorial's you'll find on the internet, meaning you have all the information in one place.

I recommend this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...508/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i8_xgl/202-2768427-6332625

It'll teach you the basics as well as some of the more professional stuff.

 

[Computer5k]

nehe.gamedev.net <- Lots of great OpenGL tutorials.

 

[Stingey]

just dload some tuts get the dev thing compiler and don't think its easy/fun like i thought

 

[mortiz]

just dload some tuts get the dev thing compiler and don't think its easy/fun like i thought

It's quite a feeling of accomplishment when things work

 

[pixartist]

It's quite a feeling of accomplishment when things work

yeah and thats the main reason for me to program!

 

[Rafa 5.0]

It's quite a feeling of accomplishment when things work

WHEN they work. :angel:

 

[we11er]

Personally I use Borland's command-line compiler and a simple editor with syntax highlighting. I'm not one of these idiots that just refuses to use an ide for no reason, but i'm quite happy with doing it the way i am, i feel i have more control over my files and code etc.

And of course you could obtain a backup copy of Visual Studio off a p2p program - note I said *backup*

 

[Phisionary]

Has anyone read Thinking in C++?? I read a review that said it was good, but wondered if anyone has read it, with game coding in mind. I believe it discusses OOP and the like. I've head OOP is not neccisary for games, and is rarely used in any meaningful way (in games i mean). Any comments on that? Anyway, it's available free here.
I'm just starting it, hopefully i'll get something out of it.

 

[we11er]

Well take a look at halflife's SDK. It's all OOP. Which makes things so much easier with objects/monsters. You can have things like

Monster.Eat( Person );
Monster.TakeADumpOn( Person.Face() );

etc etc.