I see a lot of people questioning my intelligence, but I can assure you, my intelligence is not what''s in question. I''m just concerned and have no idea what is wrong with my program. Send me a letter via E-mail to get the code. I get this error:

classFirst-chance exception in Blitex.exe: 0xC0000005: Access Violation.



"Remember, I'm the monkey, and you're the cheese grater. So no fooling around."
-Grand Theft Auto, London

most people relate genius with a technical field (i.e., scientists are supposed to be really smart).. i think that''s mostly because the average person looks at a formula and doesn''t know what the hell it is, but most people can read a book or listen to music.

intelligence is a kind of relative thing.. watch too much TV and your IQ drops (granted, not a terribly accurate measure of intelligence, but there''s been studies to prove that).. do something that uses your mind, like reading (or.. say.. game programming) and you IQ goes up..
you''re right psycho, just ignore the people bringing up intelligence..

perhaps i''m an odd person, but nothing motivates me like hitting a brick wall.. when i hit a problem or a snag, i do nothing but think about it, read about it, study it, try to figure out what''s going on and why it won''t work.. there''s nothing like reaching a limitation for making you blast past it...

about the 2D/3D war, i think it''s irrelevant. it''s the game itself that matters. i think the problem comes with the amount of extra work needed to do 3D (or the amount of cash needed to license an id or unreal engine), so less focus and/or money is put toward the rest of the game..

personally, i think there''s enough people getting into graphics programming. i want to be to AI/Physics programming what Carmack is to Graphics programming..

Thanks for the motivation. However, should you have a program (a full program including the Win32 initialization) then please, let me know. If anyone else would like to help me, you are welcome to.

"Remember, I'm the monkey, and you're the cheese grater. So no fooling around."
-Grand Theft Auto, London

A few points:

1. First of all, John Carmack is not a super-genius. He has simply had a few really nice ideas, and acted on them before anyone else did.
Think about it...SOMEONE had to invent the raycaster. It was just a matter of time.
The same thing goes for Bill Gates''s success story.

2. Second, I can somewhat agree with the genetics argument. There ARE some people with a gift for certain things, but as long as you aren''t a tree, you should be able to figure things out and excel in whatever area you really apply yourself in. (Preferably one that you like.)

3. Back to the original poster''s message, I say to him that frustration is a GOOD thing. You may think i am crazy, but think about it. We''re all human. If you feel frustrated, you aren''t alone. This means that every time you plow through and succeed, 20 people may have just failed in your footsteps because they flat out gave up. This puts you that farther ahead in the long run. After all, that''s what you''re after, right? Being the best?

-Justin Hust
The Project
http://members.xoom.com/jhust/

psycho, i am familiar with that error message. it means you''re trying to dereference a NULL pointer.

Are you sure? And if you're right, how would I fix it?

Edited by - psychoprog on 2/26/00 10:29:26 AM

I wouldn''t want to be the next John Carmack. I''d rather be the next ME and come out with my own original concepts and ideas. That''s probably the best way to look at it. If you try to dupe what Carmack has done you''ll only be following in his footsteps.

What I mean by "like Carmack" is that I want to come up with a new Genre of gaming and create good games of that genre. He also seems to code fluently and well. Me, however, well, I''m having problems loading a bitmap and no one can help. Every suggestion I have tried has not worked. It seems like no one can help me out. I don''t know what to do!

Well, if you''re still in any doubt about whether you can do it if you want to, don''t be. You may not ever be the greatest programmer in history, but at least you can aspire to be. If game programming is the course you want to follow in your life, don''t let failure stop you. If you get stuck on something, someone out there knows how to do it and will help you. However painful the learning process, eventually you will succeed. Books are always useful; I would particularly recommend André LaMothe''s books if you are writing in VC++...anyway, if you worry that others out there find stuff very easy, and you can''t even understand the first line, take a step back and think what it is you''re trying to achieve by reading the code. If you don''t understand one piece of code, try another. Eventually you''ll get good enough to read the code which was unintelligible before. And above all, don''t worry about becoming the next John Carmack, Sid Meier or whoever. True programming greatness is something you are either born with or not born with, and you can''t change it, but if you want to write games, if it will make your life that bit happier, go for it. And remember, you don''t have to understand every bit of source code ever written, you just write in your own programming style and write things which work, then concentrate on making them better. And if you get depressed because you think everyone in the world is a better programmer than you, don''t worry...we all go through it sometimes. The reality is that you are never the worst programmer on Earth, and also that you are never the best...somewhere out there, there is somebody better than you. When you learn to accept that, you will be a happier person and a better programmer for it.

Well, hope this marathon of a message helped somewhat...

[GxS] Wedgie

My word of advice would be to not feel bad about yourself for not understanding something, but to instead study the subject until you can grasp it.

The first step to learning something is understanding what you don''t know, and then moving on from there. How well you know something is directly related to how much you want to know something.