Thread: Beginner...

I totally disagree with Silvercoord..........not really but it is fun just to disagree with him for the heck of it. He is the poster boy for OpenGL here and I guess I'm becoming a poster boy for Direct3D...and, of course, assembly. He has challenged me in many areas which I thoroughly enjoy and have learned much from.




Go get some books on 3D math. Not the textbook college ones because they are explained by people who could make tieing your shoe into rocket science. Most modern 3D math books are written with you and I in mind and are extremely good sources of information.

By the way, Outcast 1 is a far cry from Quake 3. Outcast 1 used a voxel engine and voxel texturing. The objects were rendered as though the camera was looking down on top of them - for more information you can do a google on it and there is a huge site which talks about it. Unfortunately Outcast 1 is a ........ poor example of a voxel engine - Nova Logic's Voxel Space 1,2,3 (Comanche series, Delta Force 1 and 2, Armored Fist 1 and 2, etc) are much better examples of very very good voxel engines with 6, yes count 'em 6 degrees of freedom.

Anyways as to which API is better is like whether or not turkey is better than ham. It's purely preference. Personally I like turkey so I'm definitely a DirectX dude.



Welcome to the exciting world of game programming - there are no limits.

You could go look at the darkbasic website if you just wanted to program some cool 3D games for your own amusement. I wouldn't mind having that either but don't want to spend the money for it. All of my books I have are checked out from the library.

You learn by doing. Go and try to write something, and ask questions once you've got a specific question. In my experience, especially with sites that actually get traffic i.e gamedev.net, potential helpers put the most effort in when
1) you prove you've tried
2) you prove you've thought about the problem and you really are stuck
3) you produce (commented) code that you wrote that shows 1 and 2

I don't think you can learn any thing by just checking out books from the library... first the selection is always bad and too old, most of the time.

It doesn't seem that way at my library. You have understand that I knew almost nothing about a month ago. Now I'm loading bitmaps ( ) Soon I'll have a finished game that I can show you guys.

You are right. Eventually I'll have to buy a book. I found an Instructional CD still in one of the Andre LaMothe books !!!! Usually those badboys are long gone. I got Direct x SDK off of it and some great 3D samples and code.

Money is tight for me at the moment.

I like to think about things a little longer than most before I begin to do something. Not sure why. Toward the end of my academic career, I was spending 12 hrs + on take home math tests. They were take home and still impossible !!! Also the tests were usually only 3 or 4 problems !!!


It's funny, there are tons of programming books still in the library but I can't find a decent Texas Hold 'em Poker book.

ok i have a question. im a bit confused. i went through beginning C++, and i want to get into graphics design. thats what OpenGL is for right? i just got some books on game development. in one book it deals with graphic design, but it doesnt teach OpenGL. instead it teaches how to use graphical editors like Genesis3D and something else. so, do i like really need to learn OpenGL? i saw some examples in the tuturials. do game devs actually do it that way?

Go here for tons of links to books you need to read.