Good game creation software?

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zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,866
31,364
146
interesting.

well, I finally ran unity after downloading the other day. fuckers want me to install quick time to watch tutorial videos. ...lol.

guess I won't be watching any tutorial videos.

quick time? really? I thought that shit was dead?
 

AyashiKaibutsu

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2004
9,306
4
81
interesting.

well, I finally ran unity after downloading the other day. fuckers want me to install quick time to watch tutorial videos. ...lol.

guess I won't be watching any tutorial videos.

quick time? really? I thought that shit was dead?

I usually keep quicktime alternative on my computer incase I need to watch anything ancient.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,866
31,364
146
lol

Looks like Torque is the winner!

seriously. It's worth paying $99 for roughly the same? software, just so I can get a quicker jump-in.

but no--still not doing that. I have no idea how long this would keep my attention, as it is. haha.
 

Glitchny

Diamond Member
Sep 4, 2002
5,679
1
0
Yeah I don't know for sure that they use that program, but while searching for game creation software a link that took me to Phrogram said that they did.

Do you have experience with Unity? I haven't tried either yet, but Torque looks really good and it looks like more projects have been developed with it to a higher degree.

I've used Unity but not extensively. It is a more powerful and full featured engine than Torque is. Also last I heard the makers of Torque were facing bankruptcy and there were a bunch of other issues with the company.

My current employer actually was looking into Torque for our new development platform and after 2 years of testing we scrapped the whole thing and are now moving to Unity.

Behind the major players (Unreal/Id Tech5/Frostbite etc) Unity is generally considered one of if not the best engine to use.
 

paperfist

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2000
6,539
287
126
www.the-teh.com
seriously. It's worth paying $99 for roughly the same? software, just so I can get a quicker jump-in.

but no--still not doing that. I have no idea how long this would keep my attention, as it is. haha.

Long term it's $1500 ;)

I can't believe you're gonna install QuickTime over spending $99 :p

I've used Unity but not extensively. It is a more powerful and full featured engine than Torque is. Also last I heard the makers of Torque were facing bankruptcy and there were a bunch of other issues with the company.

My current employer actually was looking into Torque for our new development platform and after 2 years of testing we scrapped the whole thing and are now moving to Unity.

Behind the major players (Unreal/Id Tech5/Frostbite etc) Unity is generally considered one of if not the best engine to use.

I was reading about Torque and bankruptcy last night. The whole concept was to have a open source platform, but that didn't work so they started charging. Then they got into financial trouble in '09, sold out to another company and then were recently required by the original group at the start of 2011. So bit of a rocky road for sure.

I guess I'm going to take the zinfamous route and try out Unity first cause it's free and I'm a Gemini that looses train of thought easily :D
 
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Dec 30, 2004
12,553
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I'm wondering if you guys know of any game creation software that isn't all programming oriented?

So far I see Game Maker standard http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/windows

There's also Moai which is based off of Lua http://getmoai.com/get-started/

And then Phrogram which Full Sail apparently uses to teach its students with: http://phrogram.com/content/about.aspx

I'm not looking to put out the next Quake or anything, just looking to fiddle around a bit with a transport type of game. I know a little Basic of yore, some php and java script, but I'm no programmer :)

http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html














jk
 

ioni

Senior member
Aug 3, 2009
619
11
81
interesting.

well, I finally ran unity after downloading the other day. fuckers want me to install quick time to watch tutorial videos. ...lol.

guess I won't be watching any tutorial videos.

quick time? really? I thought that shit was dead?

Never heard of youtube? Plus Unity has full game projects that you can just open and poke around it. Better than watching a tutorial imo.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,866
31,364
146
Long term it's $1500 ;)

I can't believe you're gonna install QuickTime over spending $99 :p



I was reading about Torque and bankruptcy last night. The whole concept was to have a open source platform, but that didn't work so they started charging. Then they got into financial trouble in '09, sold out to another company and then were recently required by the original group at the start of 2011. So bit of a rocky road for sure.

I guess I'm going to take the zinfamous route and try out Unity first cause it's free and I'm a Gemini that looses train of thought easily :D


I'm not installing quick time. It's only required to watch the tutorial videos.

I'd simply rather not watch the tutorials if it means not installing viral software on my computer.

as for Unity, I now recall reading an article about small time developers not too long ago, and I believe Unity was discussed. That, and the description on the home page tells me that the free version is a free license until your company turns in $100k in profits.

After that, it's an annual license, I think? and the full version is $1,500.

That's a pretty awesome deal.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,866
31,364
146
Never heard of youtube? Plus Unity has full game projects that you can just open and poke around it. Better than watching a tutorial imo.

yeah. I logged in to the internets just now to start hitting up youtube for videos, actually.

I was playing around with one of the projects last night.




I have no idea what's going on, lol.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,866
31,364
146
holy crap. so, running unity while watching youtube videos at the same time...having some serious video orruption. I can't see what I'm typing right now, lol.

losing much of text and labels in the browser, already had a quick crash and reboot of video drivers, according to ccc.

...how is this not playing nice with my 5850?

me sad. :(
 
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ioni

Senior member
Aug 3, 2009
619
11
81
Weird, I never had any trouble running Unity and I'm still rocking my 8800GT. I have a 920 though, so maybe it's more CPU intensive. Btw, a warning about Unity. Unity uses a left hand coord system and pretty much all the major 3D modeling tools use a right hand one. There are ways to resolve the problem depending on the modeling tool, but it doesn't always work.
 

Locut0s

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
22,205
44
91
To be honest it's not really possible to make a game with any type of tool without knowing SOME programming or what amounts to programming in the end anyway. Unless you want to make some really generic boring cut and paste type game. Don't get me wrong you don't have to learn C++ or anything but most game making tools will employ some type of simplified scripting language that you really will have to master to make anything interesting and this IS essentially basic programming.

At least the last time I looked at such programs this was the case. That was a long time ago though so I guess I could be wrong.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,866
31,364
146
To be honest it's not really possible to make a game with any type of tool without knowing SOME programming or what amounts to programming in the end anyway. Unless you want to make some really generic boring cut and paste type game. Don't get me wrong you don't have to learn C++ or anything but most game making tools will employ some type of simplified scripting language that you really will have to master to make anything interesting and this IS essentially basic programming.

At least the last time I looked at such programs this was the case. That was a long time ago though so I guess I could be wrong.

so what's a good resource for learning this stuff? It looks like Unity is happy with C#--whatever that is, and java.

also, what is left/right hand coord system and what is the impact?

I like this guy's series of tutorials
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm5vEzzv1wY&feature=BFa&list=PL5F7C30850E6BF20B&lf=rellist

I just started watching them, and I like that he takes the time with some super basic programming explanation.

You guys probably can't appreciate how inexperienced I am with what to many of you, is probably second nature. The first and only time I ever messed around with any programming language was, I think, Basic in a 7th grade "Lego Logo" class. lol. --you know, make a ferris wheel out of legos, program some movement instructions.
 

Glitchny

Diamond Member
Sep 4, 2002
5,679
1
0
so what's a good resource for learning this stuff? It looks like Unity is happy with C#--whatever that is, and java.

also, what is left/right hand coord system and what is the impact?

Unity uses C# so you can probably get by just learning that, or Java, they are very similar.

The left/right hand coord system refers to the orientation of the x,y,z coords. one the z is coming out of the screen, the other it's going into the screen. It comes into play when loading 3d models and such.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,866
31,364
146
Unity uses C# so you can probably get by just learning that, or Java, they are very similar.

The left/right hand coord system refers to the orientation of the x,y,z coords. one the z is coming out of the screen, the other it's going into the screen. It comes into play when loading 3d models and such.

Ah, so when importing 3D models created from just about anywhere, they are going to be improperly rotated--or worse, inside-out (or something like that) in the Unity space?
 

ioni

Senior member
Aug 3, 2009
619
11
81
To be honest it's not really possible to make a game with any type of tool without knowing SOME programming or what amounts to programming in the end anyway. Unless you want to make some really generic boring cut and paste type game. Don't get me wrong you don't have to learn C++ or anything but most game making tools will employ some type of simplified scripting language that you really will have to master to make anything interesting and this IS essentially basic programming.

At least the last time I looked at such programs this was the case. That was a long time ago though so I guess I could be wrong.

UDK has a scripting UI that let's you avoid writing any actualy code. But you still need to be able to think like a coder to use it with any proficiency.

so what's a good resource for learning this stuff? It looks like Unity is happy with C#--whatever that is, and java.

also, what is left/right hand coord system and what is the impact?

I don't think Unity uses Java. I know it uses C# and javascript. I'm pretty sure all of Unity's examples in their docs (which are really good) on their website are in javascript.

Honestly, the best way to learn a language is to set a goal of something you want to create and then use the internet for docs/examples whenever you get stuck. Javascript (JS) is easy to start with for a beginner. It's an extremely lenient language. w3schools.com is another good resource for learning JS.

For the coord systems, when you model something in a 3D modeling tool, there are axis which you align your model against. Unity conveniently has a function call to let you get the forward/right/up vector of a model. So if you want to move your model forward, you can do something like forward() * 3 to move 3 units forward. The different coord systems are mainly an annoyance and makes coming back to your project later confusing. Because you'll be wondering why you are calling move right to move forward.
 
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zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,866
31,364
146
see? I just assumed java was short for javascript. I guess that's two different things? lol.

thanks for the tips. I'm going to look at those tutorials.

I honestly need to learn some type of programming language, as it is a rather large part of what most do where I work (genome assembly). I do all of the molecular work and data creation, but after that, it's a a thick fog for me, heh.

this seems like a good way to get me to tool around and teach myself something new--and potentially useful, for once.
 

Locut0s

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
22,205
44
91
see? I just assumed java was short for javascript. I guess that's two different things? lol.

thanks for the tips. I'm going to look at those tutorials.

I honestly need to learn some type of programming language, as it is a rather large part of what most do where I work (genome assembly). I do all of the molecular work and data creation, but after that, it's a a thick fog for me, heh.

this seems like a good way to get me to tool around and teach myself something new--and potentially useful, for once.

Yes programming knowledge, even just the basics is very useful.

A few notes on javascript. It's a fun language to learn as It's very lenient as mentioned above. But It's also a very sloppy language, allowing you to do all kinds of bad things not recommended or allowed in other languages. One big plus with javascript is that It's one of the languages that powers the web so if you learn it you are a big step on your way to writing interactive web sites.

I'll post / send you some more info later.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
see? I just assumed java was short for javascript. I guess that's two different things? lol.

Yeah... two completely different things. :p

If I were to use it, I'd probably program it in C#. It may be slightly harder to learn, but object oriented languages tend to be more natural when you get used to them.
 

Glitchny

Diamond Member
Sep 4, 2002
5,679
1
0
see? I just assumed java was short for javascript. I guess that's two different things? lol.

Javascript is an ugly mess IMO. Should have been replaced long ago but it's too embedded in the web.

Java however is a decent language, it and C# are very similar, learning one of these would be helpful to you.
 

paperfist

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2000
6,539
287
126
www.the-teh.com
Honestly, the best way to learn a language is to set a goal of something you want to create and then use the internet for docs/examples whenever you get stuck. Javascript (JS) is easy to start with for a beginner. It's an extremely lenient language. w3schools.com is another good resource for learning JS.

w3schools.com is an awesome resource. It might even be worth while for him to mess around with a website a bit to learn javascript.
 

exdeath

Lifer
Jan 29, 2004
13,679
10
81
Pfft, lame newbie using that silly OO crap. Us true game coders roll in ASM. :cool:

True dat.

sei
clc
xce
sep #$20
lda #$00
pha
pld
lda #$8F
sta $2100
nop
lda #$07
sta $2105
nop

:awe:
 
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