PDA

View Full Version : Planned TBGL guide to 2D programming, what would you like to see?



Michael Hartlef
25-02-2010, 12:03
Hi folks,

one of my next things I want to work on is a guide on how to use the power of TBGL's sprite function set.

I could approach this from different directions but I am also interested in what you would like to read about when it comes to the sprite functions. Would you like to see a tutorial like guide, where I show you how to create a certain game and describe certain technics with TBGL? What could help you to discover the power of this module?

Any suggestions are appreciated.
Michael

Michael Clease
25-02-2010, 12:18
The first thing that spring to mind is a mario type game, lots of different elements required so could be a good subject matter.

Basics

Play level - Draw background and foreground objects, animate objects, scroll level
Character - Draw animated character, collision detection (sprite to ground,objects,baddies)

and more

OR

just a simple sprite to sprite example of collision

Two sprite balls

Some simple rules
One has a fixed position and its collision is its edge
The other you can move left and right but it is attracted to the other ball so as you move left and right it should follow the circumference of the ball.

I will think about more...

kryton9
25-02-2010, 14:03
Mike, I think a nice project is the best way to teach it. I would love to see it incorporated with your other modules like tbem, tbdi and tbai.
If you can make video tutorials, I remember I liked your video when had made one before. I think it is really great to see someone actually writing the code
on video and being able to see them catch and fix mistakes, it really is the best way in my opinion to learn.
Break the videos into nice logical segments. It beats writing instructions and doing screen captures and I think it will be more fun for you to make too.

But I like the idea of a Mario type game.

I watched the tutorials by Casey Jones and then by Jason Busby for Unity and they had a great idea. You first show the code logic using built in primitive shapes.
Then go in later and fill in with actual media. This is a nice workflow as you can make your prototype quickly and get the logic working, then take your time and polish
the game by brining in assets.
This has links for Casey's tutorials(javascript) and of course the 3D buzz ones(c#).
http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?181409-Over-7-hours-of-Unity-Training-Videos-Download-them-now

Hope it gives you some ideas.

Michael Hartlef
25-02-2010, 15:48
Thanks for the input guys. Yes, something along creating a game is also my favorite.

Kent, about the videos... I know that you are a videoholic :D

So far I tend more to written documentation as information in it is easier to find and handle. You can print it, view it on the screen. You can search through it. With something totally visual related, like how to use an application I find videos also very usefull.
For coding... only when it comes to talk about conceptual stuff. Watching someone coding for 30 minutes which I would usually read up within 5 minutes is something I personally don't like. Usually these videos contain only 5% value for me. I experienced this badly just recently when I guy displayed who to use OpenFeint within an Iphone app. Because he was from Wales, his accent was heavy. Then it was about linking 3 frameworks and adding ten lines of code. The video took 30 minutes. It's nice that he took the time to create it but... :) And there was no conceptual stuff. Only explanation how to do it. But its a personal preference. What are the other people think about this?

Petr Schreiber
25-02-2010, 16:20
Regarding the video - I liked the video introduction to OpenCL from ATi,
it gave me clear vision of "how stuff works".

But then, when I coded, I found it very annoying to seek through 5 video files to find the one exact slide with info.

So I would vote for text first, and once we have it, there could be some kind of light weight video introduction to concepts, no writing code in editor.

I also realised that for this quick overview it is not bad to have power point presentation exported in PDF.

And one last thing - once the text is done, it would be nice to publish it as series of articles online, the prepaired ThinBASIC forum rebirth (http://www.thinbasic.com/community/content.php?115-Project-Euler) has some nice resources for it.


Petr

ErosOlmi
25-02-2010, 17:18
And one last thing - once the text is done, it would be nice to publish it as series of articles online, the prepaired ThinBASIC forum rebirth (http://www.thinbasic.com/community/content.php?115-Project-Euler) has some nice resources for it.


Now that vBulletin 402 is out since few days, I will try again next week to port SMF to vBulletin.
As soon as one migration process will be nice we can switch.
vBulletin Community offer a lot of nice features for aggregating and collecting/organizing articles and user blogs.

Michael Hartlef
25-02-2010, 17:31
Eros, what are the plans for the last test website you had put up. Will this become obsolete once we switch to VBulletin?

ErosOlmi
25-02-2010, 17:50
The problem using a Joomla web site and another software for forum is that users are not integrated so it is very hard to create a real user community experience.
In Joomla there are some integration module that let synchronize web site users with forum users but quite all the times that modules become obsolete very quickly (because web software and forum software evolve but module not) leaving admins alone.

When I saw the direction that vBulletin has taken developing their community web site around a well known forum software I jumped immediately.
I think that we will be able to really get a lot with vBulletin CMS because it is a web publishing site (articles, rating, comments) plus a great forum plus a blog system all together (plus a lot of unofficial modules). And I assure that the experience of having just one integrated system for all those facilities is the right thing.

As you can see I0've already ported SMF to vBulletin CMS and, apart attachments, it was a success.
vBulletin is working really hard to improve, fix and create a great CMS
So, I'm still experimenting it and updating in order to see if they fix attachments porting. I've also open some tickets about that (I'm a registered payed customer in vBulletin)

kryton9
26-02-2010, 03:27
@Mike you are doing the hard work, so of course do what makes you happiest. I hope you take Petr's suggestion however and make a few videos too :)

@Eros, I didn't know vbulletin was also now a CMS platform. It will be interesting to see how it all comes out. It must be scary trying to migrate from one to the other without losing stuff. Good luck!

ErosOlmi
26-02-2010, 06:44
@Eros, I didn't know vbulletin was also now a CMS platform. It will be interesting to see how it all comes out. It must be scary trying to migrate from one to the other without losing stuff. Good luck!

First few attempts to migrate (done some time ago) where a nice success: http://www.thinbasic.com/community/content.php

kryton9
26-02-2010, 08:36
Thanks for the link, looks really nice-- really, really nice! Congrats and Thanks!!