glRocks, my god!!! How did you right something like that??!!! I understand how to write an opengl/graphics game...but how in the hell would I write a 3d modeling app!!! It just boggles my mind thinking of how something like that would even be written...oh well I got a long way to go...maybe 2 years from now once I get to college I might start learning more about that!


-blide
blide@mail.com

check out my game demo at this URL -
http://server35.hypermart.net/raptorentertainment/RoughTerrain.zip
It is a strategy game based engine which shows some landscapes created out of a height map.
Let me know how good it is as well!

Hey, thank you guys. I''m glad you like it.

Anyways,

I just ended my first year in college.
The only thing I knew before going to college was Visual Basic.

So, when school started I learned some directdraw/sound/input
and made a wrapper for it.

After a half a year I was still stuck to doing just 2d; I mean the only 3d app I made was the spinning cube, and most of the code wasn''t even my own.

But Dave (he''s the modeler) was already making models in studio max.
So I decided to finally start 3d.
I got The Red & Blue book and started reading.

After a few months I was working on 3ditor.
I learned alot on this project because I was faced with
stuff I never done before. i.e. how do you select a point in 3d space or how can I freely add and romave poly''s (I never heard of linked list before this project)?

Now don''t think it has all been easy for me, I mean there were days that I was banging my head against the wall (poor wall).

About a month before finals I started on a new project called canyon reaper.
You basically had to fly through a canyon (duh!).
The only problem was that it was always straight ahead and I found it too constricting; so I canceled it and started on a new engine a 2 weeks after finals.

So, I''m now working on the editor for the game.
I ''ve now come to a point were I''ll have to put my nose in some collision detection and after that I should be able to start on the game.

Well gimp I guess the answer to your question is about a year.

Now for blide.

I to expected alot from college. I don''t know what they give in your country.
But the only thing we learned was c++ for dos and COBOL.
The worst thing is that COBOL will be our main course next your
and that sucks big time.

The only advise I can give you is: don''t wait for school/anyone to teach you haw to do stuff. Because the only thing you learn is the basics. In the end it''s all up to yourself.

And I must say I''m probably the only guy who mist classes or fell a sleep during classes because he was programming whole night.
But I got through my first year and I know a lot more than my fellow students.


Well hope I could help.

CU

The Rock
-BAD software-

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

Recursion bad. Big stack pushes every call. Use iteration.

You bonehead. Recursion is one of the fundamental aspects of complex data structures and algorithms. If you don''t understand it, you''re lost.

Don''t expect to learn a lot in the way of programming from college. Most good coders that I know taught themselves. Actually, all good coders I know taught themselves. You get to learn boring things like COBOL and FORTRAN in college.

glROCKs: Have fun with the collision detection... I finally got mine working. I guess I should have made the editor myself, I was loading in files from 3DS MAX. That screwed me up beyond belief. When cross products no longer follow the right hand rule you know you have problems. Nice modeller though, I''m about to start work on one. You use doc / view for that right?

-BacksideSnap-

bishop_pass he meant not to throw out the idea of recursion, but simply implement it through iteration.

The *idea* of recursion can be implmented through iteration. Now sometimes it''s not as easy as just using straight recursion, however depending on what your doing you *can* take a significant performance hit.

For more information check out the following great book: (Probably the best book written on Algorithm Design and Analysis)

Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson and Rivest. Published by McGraw Hill.

-BacksideSnap- : I don''t really now what you mean by doc/view.
The editor uses OpenGL for rendering and
DirectX for input.
When I started this editor, the only windows
programming I knew was setting up the window.
I''m not using MFC, just some windows api''s

The Rock
-BAD software-

quote: Original post by glROCKs();


-BacksideSnap- : I don''t really now what you mean by doc/view.
The editor uses OpenGL for rendering and
DirectX for input.
When I started this editor, the only windows
programming I knew was setting up the window.
I''m not using MFC, just some windows api''s

The Rock
-BAD software-

Ahh... That answers my question. Doc/View is an MFC architecture.

-BacksideSnap-