Java?

Harudath

Hey guys, myself and some friends were thinking about making a game, we need to learn java to do it, does anyone know where we can get some free tutorials/lessons? We need to create a logon system and also possibly a billing section Any help would be greatly apreciated, thanks in advance.
Harudath

kryyst

Ummmm do you like have any programming experience at all? This isn't the sorta thing you just really learn from a book. Google 'Free Java Tutorials' and that should get you started. But it's a huge jump to go from learning how to do "Hellow World" in java to making Java Quake for example.

RWB

Here's a start...
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Java/Game-Programming/1

Dunno how much programming you know, but if it's only HTML for example, you have quite a ways to go.... but good luck none-the-less!

Ohh and hey tell us what your looking at actually doing... we could give you more pointers. For example if it's a FPS you want, don't re-invent the wheel... use the Unreal engine or even the Half-Life Source, if you have UT2004 you just need to find some tutorials on making mod's for example.

Harudath

We were thinking about an MMORPG, or something along those lines, I scoured google and nothing was obvious. And we generally know nothing about how to go about it We're just some highschool kids that want to make a game and possibly make a profit... eventually. What we thought was... use java for the logon screen and stuff, then the movement and thing would be animations linked to keys... I think. Give me a slap and laugh at me where I'm riddiculously wrong.

RWB

This question is ambitious and has been asked by many folks a million times, and generally nothing comes of it. It takes a lot to make a game, it takes much more to make an MMO. There are many forms of MMO's though, web/text based... or graphical World of Warcraft like.

There are some projects in the works such as Planeshift which are MMO's being made by the open source community which can show you just how hard it is to make an MMO like that.... it's been in the works for many many many years now and is still in the works.

Don't want to disparage you, but it's just unrealistic to go from zero to light speed like that. Do a smaller game first, something you can honestly see yourself doing and finishing... once your done you'll have a finished item and you'll have your morale up and you can go for greater things.

CyrixInstead

As RWB says, very ambitious.

You need to learn basic skills first, and buying a book would be helpful. I haven'y seen many books on Java game programming, as I used c++, but I'm sure they will be out there.

To give you an idea of what you might be able to produce, take a look at any website with forums and an arcade, and play some crappy games... the really bad ones in the RPG genre.

They will be made using similar programming data structures and techniques, so that may be what you can produce with lots of hard work.

The only way you're going to get a decent game people will somehow pay for (I'd steer clear of this initially) is by putting in many (hundreds) of hours. Unless you're super programming geeks.

Don't want to put a downer on it but I'd be happy to try the game when it's released

~Cyrix

CB

Start practicing and learning by remaking some classic games:

Start with Tic-Tac-Toe. Once you get a working version of that, try to make your own edition of LightCycle. Then try Pong. Then a Mario Bros-esk platform jumper. Once you've (re)made all of those successfully, reevaluate your plan to make a mmo.

kryyst

I hate to say give up the dream....But lord man get a realistic dream. As it's been said start with something basic. Even outside of the fundamentals the scope you are talking about is ridiculous. Start small as it's been suggested try and make something basic like Tic Tac Toe, then Pac Man and up and up. Your login screen is the last of your worries.

Harudath

Heh, did I make it sound like I wanted an instant global best-seller? I didn't intend too, anything above Runescape graphics would be a dream lol. We're going to start with basic, almost PsP pokémon style movement and graphics and work our way up from there Unless there's another way to go about it, like I heard someone say that WoW is just linking animations to keyboard buttons and things for movement etc.

Harudath

And I know it's the least of my worries, but I just want to know how I would go about doing these things.

primesuspect

You should start by taking a class at your local community college or continuing education center. Basic computer programming, etc.

Is there a reason you chose Java? Generally C++ is used to write games.

Harudath

What kind of game do you mean? In an ideal world, we would want to be able to get WoW type animations, is that C++? Or linking back to my animations question.

primesuspect

Yes, c++ unless you plan on writing your own 3D engine, graphics API, and everything from scratch in Java. DirectX and openGL both use C++.

These are fundamental basics, and I'm not even remotely a programmer. You need to start at square one and learn the pre-programming stuff before you can even think about writing a game.

Do like the others said. Make tic-tac-toe. If you can do that, you're on your way.

Harudath

Awesome, thanks Part 2 Any reccomended applications? I tried netbeans for months, and I never managed to complete Hello World -.- I copied everything word for word and it still didn't work. Any alternatives?

sharkydart

You might want to start not with a graphical game, but with a server/client chat program. I'm not sure if you really appreciate the complexity of what you are getting into. If you actually want to get something off the ground ever, realize that you are more than likely going to have to quit WoW. Are you psychologically prepared for that type of commitment? ...that would be if you already understood what you'd need to be doing.

Start simple. I can't stress this enough. Otherwise, you'll end up countless hours on what a certain character will look like rather than things that are actually important.

Like everyone has said, don't let the near insurmountable odds of getting a project off the ground discourage you from trying.

At this point, I wouldn't even mention thinking about trying to make money off of your product, because you just sound like a budding Donald Trump as far as unabashed greed is concerned. You're only chance at making money at this stage would be to put in tons of hi-res nudity. There you go - work on a menu system and displaying images within a defined space.

Harudath

LOL, very inspiring, and no, quitting wow is not an option And I really don't appreciate how hard this is, unless I'm completely unphased, I'm blissfully unaware There's 4 of us willing to learn the programming, we've come up with a name as a start xD My first post was kind of stupid I guess, what I meant was how would I go about starting this long and bumpy road. :P

sharkydart

get one of the 'Core' Java books (if not a couple of them), and make sure you are getting the latest one(s) - 7th edition, although I'm not sure what the changes from the 5th, 6th editions were. ...you might be able to obtain the eBook versions if you look; also, your local public library might have some decent books.

don't write any code until you have come up with a graphical representation of your program - a software model, and an object model for all the different things you'll have to do and keep track of.

to call it a long and bumpy road is accurate, but a drastic understatement if all 4 of you continue to throw your time and money into WoW.

RWB

I might suggest a middle ground, this will help GREATLY.

First, think of the time you're going to invest... what is that time worth to you?

Second, take that net worth and look into investing in a game engine or the books for a game engine. These are pre-built, but you can do whatever the hell you want. Change up the physics, how things are done, etc.... this will save you a lot of time.

A long time ago I spent an easy $100 on the Torque Game Engine, for my own game I was was planning at the time. Add another $40 for the book, 3D Game Programming All in One. Things have changed there since I bought my Indy licence, they have a lot of helping development kits which can greatly cut down the development time of your game. But you don't need them. It's a good cross-platform engine, looks nice, easy to work with, and the community is pretty damned huge and helpful.

But that is me, there are other fine(free) game engines if you look. I used to have a bunch of resources for this but a quick Google came up with the following: A List of Game Engines @ the Wiki, Which is exactly where I originally started off too haha. Just read up on those.

After you have a game engine picked out for the type of game you want, you'll need a 3D modelling program if you're going for a 3D game. Blender is a high quality, very fine, very free product. The interface may seem daunting at first, but you can get to understand it in an hour and you'll wonder how you'd ever do with out it. Because of all of this, many of the game engines have built in support for blender which makes it easy to export things. It is in Blender that you'll create the models and animations you want. Here is a huge resource you should get to know.

For textures you'll be using gif, jpeg, or even png files. You'll want to get to know how to compress images so they are a small file size yet still look great!!! This is a big thing! I could write a book on it, but many others already have. A quick example though(I don't have the time to do visuals right now). In your game if you have a baseball on the ground and a..... giant globe the size of your bedroom.... do they require the same sized texture images? No.... if the texture is too big on the baseball you'll never notice because you're monitor has only so many pixels, so you're wasting memory. But the globe, if you had a small texture on it, it would look like crap. But too large of an image and it won't help in appearance, but it will hurt memory. Another quick thing is reusing textures.... if you're modeling the inside of your bedroom does each wall need its own texture? Let it tile... but learn how to make good tiling images.

So modelling can take a while to do, but then as you can see texturing can as well. Once things are modelled, textured, and animated(if it needs it), you'll export it, pop it into your game engine, link things together, build it up, and you have a game. Of course that makes it seem way more simple than it is.

Ohh yeah one more thing, I built my own game level in school, it was a class project. The class was 2 months, the first month was teaching us how to work with this middle ware program called "Middleware". It was at the time owned by Criterion, but now it's owned by EA and is used by many of their games. It's a commercial product, and was at the time roughly $300,000 for the base product. Frankly, the Torque Game Engine is better in my mind, but I want to give you a time scale here. The last month was me and 2 other guys in a team working together to build a single, SIMPLE level. Basically all you could do was run around, shoot a gun, see sprite pop-up on objects as bullets hit it. That's all. The levels all the teams were able to create were nice, but all they were are levels, no missions, no interactivity, no other players. So everything looked nice after a month of work, but at the same time it only took a day or two to take the models and everything and put them into the game engine. In fact one guy in my group decided to do nothing, we had no idea until the last day so I had to rush and pump out a bunch of random objects, texture, export, import, place and rebuild the level on the last day the project was due.

I'm kinda getting off topic a bit, but the level for that class was done in a month... and as I said it was nothing super fancy. But add the 2 month course before this one for learning 3Ds Max, the month to learn real-time modelling, and the month to build our level, and it was 4 months for something simple. You will want to have a director of the game your making, someone who can keep track of everything everyone else is doing because you'll need someone to get to know modelling, another person for textures, and another to get to know the game engine, and so on.... of course then you become dependant on people who may not be dependant.

Anyways, I am ranting mostly, but also I am trying to give you as much info as I can. I'd love to see you get something done... I had the same dream, but I just got too busy. I just woke up when I started typing this and I already gotta get ready for work haha.

Harudath

Yea, I was almost grinning until I read the last line You did make it seem very simple but that's everything I needed to know Thanks very much! xD I'll let you know how retardedly in over my head I am and at which point I start crying from depseration Thanks again for all your help and wish me luck lol.

CB

RWB wrote:

Once things are modelled, textured, and animated(if it needs it), you'll export it, pop it into your game engine, link things together, build it up, and you have a game. Of course that makes it seem way more simple than it is.

Wow... you make it sound so easy....

I know of projects that get to the 'pop the graphics into the engine' step, and flounder forever at that step due to technical difficulties.

RWB

Technically it's easy, Realistically, it's impossible.

I simply love that saying. Though I never had a hard time importing models into any of the game engines I've used.... it was creating those model's and texturing them properly that was a pain in the ass. I'm not a big texture guy, I am not fond of UVW maps, and having to rewire meshes on a 2D plane so that the textures fit properly without being warped and scrambled is no fun to me. But some people get a kick out of that and hate modelling.

Harudath

You just said that to confuse me, didn't you. :P

Technical difficulties is a nice way of saying you're f*cked because your PC couldn't take it >.<

RWB

So you've got me into doing research on the subject for an article on game design, but in my research I am finding all the information I can give is already out there.... whodathunkit!?

Check out this article in specific Haru or anyone else wanting an MMO.

http://www.devmaster.net/articles/building-mmorpg/

Harudath

Thanks The more I read the more I realise how hard this is going to be... wish us luck! xD Also, how would I go about learning C++? I have no previous programming experience and I'm willing to spend as little money, if possible none on learning it as I am on a babysitting budget

RWB

Personally I think learning C++ will be your hardest part without any previous programming languages... it's hard for me to tell how to learn it.

But I recall the Visual Studio Express editions having good starter tutorials... and their a whole IDE which is nice, and free to boot..... from Microsoft none the less.

Linkage: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/

Oh yeah, and you can find the XNA Studio in there as well.... it has some nice starter tutorials which can have you building a small game in a day. It's purty nice. Forgot all about it haha.

Harudath

thanks for the information, it is/was invalualble, We're taking C++ courses but so far the first tutorial isn't working -.-
It's complaining about
int Cardgame saying it can't convert int into Cardgame when it's exactly as the tutorial says -.- I'm asking some C++ people but so far it's not made any difference

RWB

Post what you got in the code and web development section.

Harudath

Okay, thanks

Harudath

Erm, you know that XNA thing? Would we be able to make an MMORPG, or at least the graphical part of it or is that the wrong sort of program?

RWB

I personally have only done a few tutorials in XNA... I mean the only thing that limits you on an MMO is the network code, if you can scale down what is sent and received between the client and server you can scale the amount of users in game relative to the server's capable bandwidth. Basically, you're home connection isn't gonna cut it. You also have to take in account the server's processing ability, it of course has to handle many people, in game events, etc., so these all tie together.

Let's say your wanting to support 100 people, and the server is more than powerful enough to handle them internally, but your pipe to that server is limited to maybe 25 people, then all that extra server power is wasted. Or more importantly, your pipe is capable of the 100 people but the server is weak and can only do 25 people... get the point?

sharkydart

i know nothing personally about XNA, but it might make development faster (in the same way order N^2 would be easier than order (N-50)^2 ;P ) and more organized. however, more than likely, if you do create something profitable, Microsoft is going to reach on into the coffer.

i don't suggest skipping any of the suggestions people have mentioned to try and help you guys realize your goal. start from the ground up and you won't end up understanding only one language, or methodology.