Has anybody taken any courses at GameInstite? Tell me about your experience. Are the courses good?

I can honestly say I wasn''t impressed over-all.

I took the DPlay class and the D3D class. The DPLay class was ok, but we really didn''t cover anything that wasn''t already in a million tutorials and websites.

The Direct 3D class was a complete disaster. The professor was never around, the source code never compiled, the PDF files would not even print, and I ended up getting a full refund for the course.

For a zero-level newbie, the classes might be ok. But if you have any experience at all I''d stay away.

-M

I took their D3D course (or most of it) as well and after 8 weeks I asked for a refund. If you are looking to do DX coding, just find a good book. The material and presentation will be better.

I will give them credit for trying, but the product was just not what I was looking for.

borngamer

I''ll agree with the above two. I took the OpenGL and terrain rendering one just to see what it was about. Nothing there you can''t learn in a book. And books present it a lot better. Plus they use their own SDK for game stuff, but never explain it. I swear that the last chapter of each weeks lesson for the OpenGL class was "So we need a new class for our engine, here''s the blahblah class, have fun with it" But there''d be no source, and nothing explaining it. And the class they named, wasn''t even in the SDK. They''d give exercises, but the only way you knew about em was to look on the download page. And the only way to find out what to do in the exercise was to hunt thru the code to find a comment telling you to implement something. Exercise for the 2nd week didn''t even have a comment. You had to figure out on your own what was missing and add it. And they were never mentioned by the instructor. Only the students. Instructor never replied either when I asked if a solution was the right one, even though 5 other students did, also asking.

So, overall, I would not reccommend it. Better investing in a book, and cheaper too.

-Mod

The BSP course looks like it would be informative (assuming you don't already know how to write a bsp parser, pvs calulcator, and a portal engine). It also looks expensive.

I was a little under-whelmed with the material covered in the DP8 course, it just scratched the surface of networking a game. The DP8 course sounds like the instructor, Stan Trujillo, was much better than those other courses though. He answered all the posted questions, and hosted several chat sessions where you could hop on irc and talk to him. He also explained, in decent detail, the relevent eiSDK classes (even briefly ones from other courses, like input, and graphics) and the eiSDK examples using DP8. The course was centered around peer-to-peer games, and I'm working on a client/server one, so the issues I care about more weren't covered as much. Overall the course wasn't bad, I still have some material to go over again, and it sped me along developing my packet-pounder, which is what I really wanted out of the course. The problem was that is was 6 weeks, which is 6 lessons, which isn't enough for the topic at hand.

The biggest problem is it's cost compared to a book on the subject. Though you do get access to functional source code, which you often do not get from a book (either there's no full-source, or it doesn't work).

They just started out at gamesinstitute, and well, it can only get better...

Magmai Kai Holmlor
- Not For Rent

Edited by - Magmai Kai Holmlor on August 17, 2001 2:55:41 AM

Just thought I’d make a few points from the perspective of someone who is an instructor at GameInstitute. You’re free, of course, to disregard my opinions as self-serving and defensive. I don’t disagree with much of what has been said in previous posts, but I do think that some of it is unfair.

The D3D course crashed and burned. We all agree on that. We wish it hadn’t happened, but it did. The instructor at fault is no longer with GameInstitute, and the course is being completely re-tooled. This was an unfortunate isolated incident, and, you got your money back as a result. Nuff said.

Buster says:

>The DPlay class was ok, but we really didn''t cover
>anything that wasn''t already in a million tutorials
>and websites.

Aside from the obvious exaggeration, I’d be impressed if you could point me at ANY tutorials/websites that cover DirectPlay, version 8, in detail. I did a lot of surfing in preparation for this course, and I did find a few tutorials. Most of them cover DirectPlay 3 (which was released in ‘96, I believe). I didn’t find anything longer than a page that dealt with DirectPlay 8, and that’s very significant because DirectPlay was completely redone for version 8. The entire API has been replaced. The course culminates in two simple games that use DirectPlay 8, and the source code is carefully explained. This is not an advanced networking course. It doesn’t say so in the title or the course description. For you who took this course and didn’t learn anything, then you obviously already know DirectPlay 8, and shouldn’t be surprised that you didn’t learn anything.

Two of you mentioned that buying a book is a better investment. This surprises me, since part of what you are getting IS a book in online form. You can download the material, print it out, and return to the course materials online whenever you want, (even after the course is over). There are rough spots, naturally—all these courses are very new (we offered discounts early on for exactly this reason.) But consider also that you get working source code, a message board dedicated to the class, audio clips, and contact with the author. Why then, should a course at GameInstitute cost less than a book? Have you priced college courses lately?

Stan Trujillo
Instructor – GameInstitute.com

Stantr,

Ive been thinking of taking a course or two there, are there any that you would reccomend? Is the BSP, PVS, CSG course any good?

Well, clearly I'm biased, so I think they're all great!

Seriously, I honestly can't say that I'm all that familiar with the courses other than the two I teach (three very soon--we'll be launching an introductory C++ course sometime next month).

I've looked at all of the courses, and they all seem informative and very up-to-date, but I'm too busy writing new material and answering student questions to spend as much time as I'd like looking at the other courses. So I have to rely on what I hear from students.

I hear very good things about the BSP class and the math class. I also understand that the OpenGL class is well receeived, but clearly Modian disagrees with that. I teach DirectPlay and DirectInput, both of which have changed dramatically in DirectX 8, so there's a lot of new information in those courses.

Naturally, I'm going to tell you to give us a try. You can drop out and get your money back during the first week, so if the first lesson doesn't impress you, then you haven't lost anything.

Hope that helps...

Stan Trujillo


Edited by - stantr on August 21, 2001 7:56:17 AM