[baronvongogo]

hello all,

I plan to make an rpg game over a year long period, and Id like to no how long it would take to learn c++ iv used darkbasic to make a game and used visual basic to make applications.

Would anyone surgest making it in a basic program or should i do it in c++ as i would like it to look like final fantasy 7 were its simple bitmap backgrounds with 3d models any advice would be appriciated.

I also dont no 3ds max yet but if i aim for low poly models would it take me long to learn?

I so far have a team of 3 programmers 2 writters and 1 graphic artist.

[Iron_Cross]

http://www.tech-forums.net/showthrea...threadid=50109

Don't expect anything like Diablo. But it can be done.
I'd either look into using, "Isometric Tiling System (ITS)" or 2D. Anything else will be too complicated. Good luck.

[jinexile]

If you plan on doing this game withing athis year and you have no working knowledge of C++ or 3DSM then you're hooped. Learning C++ and 3DSM to the level you need to start programming games is going to take you at LEAST a year.

It took about 100 coders, artists and designers years to make FFVII.

If you want to make a 2d game its within the realm of possibility... I suggest checking out www.relishgames.com, Haaf's Game Engine will make the job easier... but you won't get anywhere near the quailty of FFVII

[baronvongogo]

thankyou for your replies, and i think i might go for a 2d isometric game, and for an rpg if the designs are good should still be decent. Not sure if i`ll use c++ or a bASIC program yet if i end up getting one finished i shall put it on the net for everyone to laugh at

I would prefere to program a game than use an already made editor like rpgmaker i find programming to be more useful.

i might try and find people who i can hire to do the graphics and some programming free of charge, which might be difficult .

[jinexile]

The HGE I mentioned above, isn't a scripting langauge, it acutally requires you to do programming, it's just an engine that does a lot of the complex stuff for your.... there is not shame in using it as such.

Oh and if you were planning to do a 3d game http://www.conitec.net/a4info.htm is a great cheap engine.

[TheHeadFL]

Learn C++ and build your own 3d engine using OpenGL like I did. It sounds complicated, but if you're decent with math (knowledge of geometry required to calculate different things) it can be done. It took me about 4 months in school every morning hacking away at stuff.

The first models I made in my game I designed totally on graphing paper and plotted the vertices manually. Its tedious, but its also simple and pretty foolproof.

I started with a legal pad and a pencil. I decided that a good C++ type engine should use good object oriented programming principles, so I decided to create a class hierarchy.

CVertex - My vertex primitive class
CTriangle - My triangle primitive class, contains 3 instances of CVertex
CSquare - Ease-of-use class, abstracts the use of two triangles as a square.
CObject - Class that I created to abstract X number of Triangles.

Then with the above, I could go further. I abstracted my "space ships" (my game was a 3d space shooter like asteroids in 3d) into a CSpaceship class, derived from CObject class. I also derived all the projectiles (lasers, etc) from CObject as CLaser, etc.

Then, I defined member functions for CObject that when given the definition of any other CObject, it would calculate its own bounding box, and determine if it collides with the other object. Useful for determining ship-to-ship, ship-to-laser, whatever-type collisions.

Then I defined a system whereby every CObject had the ability to 'explode'. It would cause the polygons to all fly away from the center point at some rate, with some spin, to make it look like an explosion. The 'explode' function also took care of creating a few hundred sprites to give the illusion of sparks or fire.

Then I worked on my own little mini-API for user input. I then defined the way that the player can interact with the game. Since I was already using discrete objects, it was pretty easy. Player1 had control over the first CSpaceship class. Pressing left or right would call CSpaceship.rollLeft() or CSpacheship.rollRight() type commands.

The computer controlled ships were controlled by another class that was constantly fed the coordinates of the players ship, and those classes were independently commanded to maneuver (using the same functions that the player would use) to aim at and hit the player.

And anyway thats kinda how I wrote a very basic engine using C++ and OpenGL.

[baronvongogo]

thanks! that was very insightful im doing a computer games course and havnt covered c or c++ yet. And i dont no how open GL and direct x are used in conjunction with c++ is it you call functions built into them? or do you program using GL or direct x commands?

And what software did you use when doing c++?

[TheHeadFL]

I used (at the time) Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0. You can see my game source code at http://www.theheadfl.com/about/game/index.html

OpenGL is kind of easier for beginners (I think). OpenGL is just commands called from within C++.

[baronvongogo]

hey nice game if not bloody hard lol i cant say my maths is up to scratch i only just passed my uni 2d maths module. So i`ll stick to 2d for this project.

I have dev c++ is there a huge difference in software programs? from visual c++,dev c++ and borland c++?

[calamita]

hi this is ali nice game one day i wish i can do stuff like that(check out my thread please under programming)i need help thanks