Starting Up - Advice Would Be Great
by David · in General Discussion · 10/25/2007 (12:49 pm) · 1 replies
Hey,
My name is David and I recently just graduated from the IADT of Toronto in Computer Animation,
not that it is really relevant but just to show I'm not completely new to the 3d thing. Despite that
I have been looking and thinking about programming using the Torque engine for sometime now,
the problem is, that I have no experience programming.
For the last 5 years+ i've been focused on animation, modelling, texturing, etc, etc every part
of the industry except this one gray area. I'm mainly an artist at the head therefore number crunching
becomes something I wanted to leave till last, well here I am.
I would ideally like advice on how I should begin, for instance, with my skills so far, could torque
be quicker to learn as a more drag and drop models and so forth, or I should I do extensive work
in learning to program before I make a purchase ? Any advice, suggestions of even history of how
you got started would be appreciated!
Thank you very much!
My name is David and I recently just graduated from the IADT of Toronto in Computer Animation,
not that it is really relevant but just to show I'm not completely new to the 3d thing. Despite that
I have been looking and thinking about programming using the Torque engine for sometime now,
the problem is, that I have no experience programming.
For the last 5 years+ i've been focused on animation, modelling, texturing, etc, etc every part
of the industry except this one gray area. I'm mainly an artist at the head therefore number crunching
becomes something I wanted to leave till last, well here I am.
I would ideally like advice on how I should begin, for instance, with my skills so far, could torque
be quicker to learn as a more drag and drop models and so forth, or I should I do extensive work
in learning to program before I make a purchase ? Any advice, suggestions of even history of how
you got started would be appreciated!
Thank you very much!
Torque 3D Owner Donald "Yadot" Harris
Marveloper
There are plenty of ways to build your skills as far as coding goes. Jumping right into a game maybe really difficult just because there is so much to making a game. TGE and TGB have a scripting language that is basically a more simple way of writing code. Although if you have never wrote a line of code will still take some learning.
But however the GG community is really active and there are many people who will jump in to answer a question or two if you get stuck. There is also a bunch of tutorials that you can get for free along with books as well to teach everything that you would need to know. Heck we even have our own school now.
Check out these resources:
http://www.torqueschool.com/ - The new school
http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/&needLogin=1 - This is our Torque Wiki which is now open to all
http://www.garagegames.com/products/87/ -The TGE book
We also have an IRC room but I can't find the info on it. I am sure someone will chime in.
Also another thing you need to make a choice on which engine you want to work with. I would suggest TGB since it has that Drag and Drop appeal along with the new behaviors added in now. But the tool is limited to 2d games.
Basically we pretty much have everything you need even if you are new to programming. Have fun!