Game Development Community

Platformer Tutorial Intrest

by Glenn Prince · in Torque Game Builder · 09/03/2006 (2:39 pm) · 66 replies

I have been playing around with platformers in TGB for a little while now and was thinking about getting together all the stuff I have "learned". There seems to be a fair few people after basic platformer tutorials (I am not much of a programmer) and I was thinking of doing a tutorial up as a VTM (Video Tutorial) because what I usually write doesn't equal what I usually do ! I'd have to clean up some art and stuff if I did do it but would people want to use it ? Also I have a bit of an accent (Australian) so I'm not sure if that would put people off ? I am working on some art stuff this next week but if a few people post an intrest in this thread I may as well look at compiling something together.

Topic list initially would probably be:

VTM 1 -- Setup
- Starting a new porject
- Copying in your resources
- Loading the static tiles
- Creating a basic map
- Adding level physic's and collisions
- Setting up a player's animations

VTM 2 -- Player movement
- Creating the player object
- Setting up the controller
- Moving the player around
- Testing for collisions
- Updating a players animation

VTM 3 -- Enemies
- Loading the enemy graphics
- Creating a basic enemy AI
- Updating the enemy animations
- Testing for collisions
- Killing the player and the enemy

These three things I am fairly comfortable with and could do fairly quickly. The main reason I am posting this is I am a little nervous about posting / writing something that people will not find helpfull. I guess I'll do up the first part and see if people like it ? Any suggestions to the above and future ones would be much appreciated. Also any downsides / deterents to doing as a VTM ?
#41
09/14/2006 (3:15 pm)
I haven't made any "formal" contact with them yet, but that being said I didn't want to contact / enquire until I moved past the "beta" stage, which basicly means up to VTM4 which deals with enemies etc. I really need to review the process after VTM4, clean up a lot of the stuff and then go to GG about it. I'm also not sure about the legality of putting these Video's up for anyone to use (eg not password protected somehow for TGB users only) otherwise I would just look at a permanent hosting solution myself.

But that is still a fair way in the future. Send me a PM / E-mail and I'll try and split the file into small RAR files or something and e-mail them to you in the mean time if you want a look.
#42
09/14/2006 (3:58 pm)
@Glenn, higginsd@zoulcreations.com if you wouldn't mind.

I could probably provide a temporary hosting solution as well -- I'd have to discuss it with my business partner, but I can space available (not sure about bandwidth).

I could even write a verification script, that requires the REFERRER to be a specific GG page, such as this thread (as it's in the private forums, only TGB users can see it). This is by no means a 'real' security check, but would limit people from providing the link to others (they could by-pass if they really knew what they were doing though)
#43
09/14/2006 (4:16 pm)
There going be any scripts with the VTM. The reason I am ask I cannot get the sound working.
#44
09/14/2006 (6:19 pm)
When you have something you'd like us to review, feel free to email me Glenn!

I'd be very interested in seeing how your work may dovetail with some stuff I have in development.
#45
09/14/2006 (10:13 pm)
@David - Expect to see some e-mails come in soon. I'll try and split them up to be approx 4mb tar files.

@Michael - I'm going to try another program to "re-encode" the video file with something more standard. Might mean the file size blows out a bit but oh well. The second VTM will include a start and finish project snapshot that you can dump directly into TGB. I didn't do it for the first VTM as it was all point and click.

@Stephen - I will e-mail when I have much more done, no point in doing it at the moment. I would be very interested in working with GG, my focus at the minute is on this tutorial set currently. Learning a fair bit while I plan / test / record these tutorials AND I do want to contribute back to the community. However if the tutorials match up a bit with the items you have in development I would love to hear more. Regardless, I will contact you with some items when they are much more formalized.
#46
09/14/2006 (11:57 pm)
@Glenn: Understood, but I'd like to see what your general direction is now, and possibly discuss our future direction to make sure we aren't duplicating and/or obseleting each other.

Not ready to open up anything to public discussion, but working on some tech for future training needs!
#47
09/15/2006 (2:04 am)
Composing an e-mail with the direction I'm planning / heading for your perusal
#48
09/18/2006 (2:13 pm)
@Glenn, I emailed you at the address in your profile about the previously mentioned hosting -- if that account is no good, please email me at higginsd@zoulcreations.com -- the account is setup and ready for your use ...
#49
09/19/2006 (9:31 pm)
Just thought a few people mind find this interesting, www.garagegames.com/blogs/70647/11287
#50
01/10/2007 (7:00 am)
What happened with the rest of the tutorials?
Is the project benn put to sleep or is it canned?

Cheers!
Andr
#51
01/11/2007 (12:48 pm)
Yes, I'm still interested as well.
#52
01/24/2007 (4:31 pm)
I've downloaded/installed ogg vorbis codecs/filters on 3 different machines now and I still can't hear the audio.
It looks great though...
Incredibly frustrating!

Anyone have any ideas?

If you encode in a different format I'll donate $
#53
02/15/2007 (5:05 pm)
Im having problems getting audio from the video. any other format of this video out ?
#54
02/15/2007 (5:06 pm)
Im having problems getting audio from the video. any other format of this video out ?
#55
02/15/2007 (5:07 pm)
AzraelK,

i have tried and tried the miniplatformer tutorial you have done. and i keep getting suck on the jumping part. the player will just fall down and the collision blocks dont do anything.

any help would be great..


thanks
#56
02/16/2007 (1:25 pm)
@Emanouel: Hmmm... look over your code carefully. I just recently went through the minitutorial to test some artwork and the tutorial worked just fine.
#57
02/17/2007 (9:14 am)
@Emanouel: Did you get your audio working?
#58
03/11/2007 (3:47 pm)
After a very hard battle I've got the audio working using wmp11


the audio stream is vo3+
also known as vorbis-acm or ogg-acm

there are different versions by date of these codecs floating around but this one finally did the trick:

http://rapidshare.com/files/6649436/ogg-acm.zip.html


I've tried a lot off other filter/codec packages and all other sorts of codec software utility bs
and this one finally did the trick
#59
06/25/2007 (5:03 am)
Dan

were you able to solve all the collision problems in TGB ?

I think these tutorials will really help.
#60
06/25/2007 (7:15 am)
Actually I've been modding the AdventureKit, I haven't worked thru the platformer... I was waiting for more tutorials, but I don't think anymore tutorials are comming out... just the one