Getting into game programming?

#1

What is the best way for a kid like me to get into game programming? Should I start reading those doorstopper books or should I got a college with a game design project? I’m truely at a lost as to how I can get into 3d Game Making.
I’ve had this belief lately that if I want to become adequate enough in a game programming I’d need study every single aspect of C++. Is this really necessary?

#2

Well C++ is the most popular language yes. In a game development team you would only be expected to work on one aspect of the game. For instance you could make a level editor whilst someone else makes the battle engine, someone else controls AI etc.

At the moment I am using DarkBASIC Professional from www.thegamecreators.com. This is a very simple language to use but still very powerful. It is a great place to start. I am going to take ICT, Maths and Physics at college and the a degree in Game Development in university. That is in the hope of getting into game development.

#3

thanks i’ve been thinking of learning programming as well
but i was pretty stuck where to start
i have just one question. it’s just i’m wondering if it’s possible to learn programming without taking a class?

#4

YES! If not, then I guess all the C/C++ and php I know means nothing. Sure programming runs in my major, but I haven’t taken a programming class yet and I learned C/C++ on my own (guess I have a head start on the other students when I take the class). I actually started learning C++ first but switched off to php (it’s a C-based language but easier then c/c++) which helped me pick up c/c++ pretty fast when i wnet back to it. Other then experimentation, I used the web “book” by Bruce Eckel (http://bruceeckel.com/) “Thinking in C++” to learn c++. You probably won’t learn as much on your own (compared to multiple courses), or learn those things that you hate to do since your not forced, but you’ll learn what you have to, to do what you need to do.

#5

You can learn to use a programming language on your own.

It’s best to take various classes in college because you get introduced to numerous fundamental ideas, topics, algorithms and what have you, that are available. So, when you get out in the real world and faced with a particular problem, you’ll say to yourself, “I may be able to solve this with an algorithm I learned from a course I learned two years ago”.

By going to school your mind is opened up to so many ideas. If you go at it alone it may take you longer and you end up limiting your knowledge with what you yourself can find. You’ll probably end up only looking up topics that are easy and not necessarily the ones that are more important and much more complicated.

#6

Be careful, however… you may want to diversify your ‘futures’ while taking courses and doing self-learning (because game design is not quite yet a widely accepted program at most higher learning facilities… I went to college with a game already in mind and the school was so behind the times I finally left for another program and persued my game design interests privately.)

Now, I am not warning you due about the educational arena, but about the work arena… right now there’s a serious conflagration brewing in the gaming industry due to certain unmentionable companies either gobbling up the competition and putting you out of work OR hiring you and working you at crunch speed, without break or vacation, for years on end, until you finally burn out at the ripe old age of 25 or so… people are leaving the industry almost as fast as people are entering it.

With lucky, the abuse will eventually bring the offending companies down and better working environments will replace them… considering how fast paced the industry is, that may even be soon, before you are out of college… who knows!?! Maybe not… but the overall point is… it’s not the healthiest industry at the moment, and you’d educate yourself not just on how to do the work, but how to survive it, too.

Still, I think it’s the right thing… people look down on games, a bit… but they are already near surpassing (if not already) the raw magnitude of profit enjoyed by the movie industry… plus games, almost without exclusion, are a lot healthier for the brain than movies… even books; why? there was a discover magazine article about it just this month… games, even shooters, which seem brainless, tend to increase in difficulty as your brain increases in aptitude… it provides the same kind of curve you’d want for your weight lifting routine as you go from a pansy to a dude… static developments like books or movies, while great and wonderful, do not adjust to the user… if you packed away a novel every day for a week, you’d not get the same mental workout and progression you would by taking on a challenging game for a meager couple hours a day; You don’t want to overdo it and become a delinquent, sure… but games are powerful tools, both in this regard, and in education…

Just take care in devoting yourself to it as a career… it’s a cesspool right now… with luck it’ll change.

:wip:

#7

since summer holidays has started I’m picking up 2 books tommorow, a 1200 page book on c++ (a begginer to pro kinda thing) and a 1000 page everything you need to make a game from start to finish, I"m just afraid that c++ will be way over my head…is it user friendly?

#8

Once you learn the syntax and get into the mind set of thinking in c++, reading/writing code will be like reading/writing in your native language. I’m not sure how hard c++ really is to learn though since I knew php very well before learning c++. Don’t know about the user friendly part, seems like a wierd question for a programming language. Just expect it to be a while before you make a game.

#9

I would recommend a C++ beginners book from Deitel. I’ve used their books to learn Java and C++ for college courses. I learned Java first and found C++ shared similar syntax so it was an easy transition. Java is going through a lot of changes especially with version 1.5. If only they have a system-dependent compiler.

I would get the programming book first and the game book later. By the time you feel compitent with C++ the game book might have gone through another revision.

#10

My opinion best way to learn most thorough content for my money.

3DBuzz
and
3DBuzz

check out the OpenGL demos on the main page
and do yourself a favor and pickup this REA’s Essentials C++ “its a complete overview”
I am not a very academically smart guy and I actually unserstood what i learned this way.

Lost…

#11

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