   need help on end project
  ok guys heres the deal. i am going to start game programming using C++ because i have this dream to make a small wow-a-like that i can implement new stuff to all the timefirst offi am not doing this for financial gain i am doing this because i am looking into game development as a career. but anyway this game will consist of a character in a small village. on the borders of this village will be monsters which he can kill. the dream i have is to create this and then let my friends test it and then implement some of there and my good ideas.right now i am trying to formulate a plan.and this is where i need help.so far i have looked at books online to try and judge which will help me most.i am going to buy c++ primer plus so far and thats about all i have decided upon.but i want to know what exactly i need to learn to make this game.can u please tell me what things i need to look into e.g directxand can u please recommend a good book which will help someone very new to this how to do it?thanks :D   
Quote:Original post by emforceand this is where i need help.You don't want help. You have asked before and was told that your plan is unrealistic. Now suddenly an end project appeared, which means there is a deadline of sorts.With your current skill level, it is impossible to accomplish something like this.I have suggested several alternatives that would actually make your plan possible. Have you even looked at Multiverse platform?   ;  in terms of an end project i mean that it will hopefully be achieved before i go to uni in 3-4 years   ;  and about the multiverse thing i have looked at it its the fact its already prescripted code i dont like. i want to be able to build this and many other games be it 2d or 3d from the ground up but i want to know what work has to go in to create all these games.for example i already know that to create models for my game i should use blender or maya and then use something like directx to animate them. but i want to know any good books that can teach me this and pull it all together so far the book that is winning is game coding complete 3rd ed but i dont know if that will help me lay the foundations for all 2d-3d games i want to make. i want to know should i get this or many smaller books that go into great detail and if soo what should i get? what collection of books will make it possible for me to make a small 3d room and a character and also give me the knowledge to make its UI look appealing while also being able to implement things like levels. so far all i have mainly gotten is either prescripted game engines which i dont think i would like as much as doing it myself andthe old dont do c++ post   ;  3-4 years is perhaps a realistic timeframe in which to learn how to do most of the stuff required to build a game like this. But you will not have actually built in by then.Unfortunately, it seems like you don't actually want advice, you want magic to happen. If you have 3-4 years for this project, but you're a raw beginner, C++ is not the most effective way to get to that end goal -- and yet it appears you refuse to listen to advice to that end. Likewise with the usage of third party libraries. So what are we supposed to do? The plain facts are that you don't have enough experience to build this thing in four years, and you are refusing to make the choices that would make it a more realistic goal. No matter how hard you push, the square peg isn't going through the round hole.Consider this: people spend four years in college doing CS degrees (having started college with no programming experience before, in many cases) taught by professors who are usually experts in their field. At the end of all that, they graduate as minimally competent developers who are able to get started in entry level positions in the games industry. But in the same amount of time you want accomplish orders of magnitude more, and via the most inefficent means available to you, taught entirely by yourself since you only want to consider advice from others that you like, regardless of whether or not it's good advice.Now, since it appears you've already been told why C++ is a sub-optimal choice for a first language and decided that you'd rather ignore that advice, the least you can do is elect to start with a good C++ book. I wouldn't purchase anything -- there are good books online for free (often better than what you can find in stores). "Thinking in C++" and "C++: A Dialog" are good options. Google for them, they're free.Once you've spent some time working through those texts and doing the sample problems in there, start branching out into making your own simple text-based games. "Guess the number" and "hangman" are typical first projects.Once you make a few of those games, and have been studying the language for a while (a few months, probably), you can look into moving on to simple 2D graphics. You'll want to look into a third-party library like SDL or SFML to do this, it will be the most ideal way. You should expect to spend a while (maybe a year or more) in this particular domain -- making 2D games of increasingly complexity -- before moving on. You can start looking into more advanced math as you do this (a good book is The Geometry Toolbox). You'll need to know matrix and vector operations (basic linear algebra) pretty well before you think about learning about 3D graphics.   ;  well if i am only going to accomplish the learning of the game in 3-4 years i am going to do that.can i just say sorry i got told that it was quite realistic to create a very minute 3d game that allows you to do this. but i guess what i am really trying to ask is what should i learn in order to make this dream a reality someday and what books i should get to help me learn all this stuff as it seems complicated to me.;Quote:but i guess what i am really trying to ask is what should i learn in order to make this dream a reality someday and what books i should get to help me learn all this stuff as it seems complicated to me.I would advocate Python over C++, initially. But beyond that most of what I went over in the second half of my post addresses this issue.   ;  well if i switched to python what benefits would i see?my first initial thoughts were that there would be no point to learning a language other than c++ because i would be at a disadvantage if i choose to do it as a career. but i am starting to have serious doubts about this. i mean if i choose to do python would it help me in the end if i go on to learn c++?   ;  A good programmer knows many languages. If you believe that you will be able to select one language and only one language and stick with that for the rest of your career, you are in for a harsh dose of reality.The advantage to using something like Python initially is that, primarily, it's an easier language to pick up -- it has less obscure edge cases, less undefined behavior, less of a culture of "the programmer is always right." The last item in particular is important -- as a beginner, it's unlikely you actually have the experience or understanding of the language to know when you are correct. Additionally Python is a higher-level language than C++, which generally means you get more done in less time. There are no downsides with respect to "power" or "performance" that a beginner will run into using Python -- the beginner is the limiting factor on the quality and capability of the programs produced, not the language.So in short, you will be making progress faster and easier, at the same time learning about language-agnostic programming topics (for example, breaking down reusable bits of code into functions, et cetera) that can applied to other languages when you go and learn them, allowing you to learn those other languages more quickly.   ;  well if i learned python then would i still use things like direct3d to animate my models. and use things like blender and maya edu to create my models and use them in my games?if yes then can u recommend any good books that teach my how to program python or free ebooks?thanks alot   