how did u learn Torque X 2D

#1 I started with the tutorials and got John K.'s TX Book. Once I felt kinda-sorta comfortable I set some goals for a game and just jumped in. There is definitely a lot of trial and error going about things this way, but I've found I learn best when I set some goals for myself and just dive into something new.

John's TX Book, the TX API reference and this forum have been immensely useful. I've also purchased a few books on XNA and AI for games that have come in handy.

#2 That's a good question.
Sean, which XNA books you found most usefull? Also, did you know C# before starting using it? was the TX Book primer for C# sufficient? I've just ordered that book.

#3

Quote:which XNA books you found most usefull?

The two I have are Learning XNA 3.0 by Aaron Reed and Beginning XNA 2.0 Game Programming, From Novice to Professional by Alexandre Labao, Bruno Evangelista and Jose Antonio Leal de Farias. I believe the second has a new edition for XNA 3. I've found Learning XNA 3.0 to be more useful as I think the author (according to the foreword he's a teacher) does a better job of introducing concepts and explaining how to think about things rather than just telling you how to do things.

I bought the XNA books because I wanted some resources on network and local multiplayer. They've all been good in that they've given me a greater understanding of how XNA works. Definitely worth the money.

Quote:Also, did you know C# before starting using it?

I'd done some ASP.NET work with C# prior to getting into XNA but I was (and still am) far from a C# expert. Most of my programming experience is with php and Actionscript, both of which share a 'C-style' syntax with C#, so it was easy enough for me to start reading C# code; understanding well took awhile but not too long.

I think if you have a decent grasp of OOP you'll pick up C# quite easily as, I think, it's a really elegant language. And MSDN is an excellent resource, especially if you've become accustomed to having to dig through Adobe's crappy Actionscript documentation.

Quote:was the TX Book primer for C# sufficient?

I didn't really look at the primer too closely, but I seem to recall it being pretty good, particularly at highlighting things in C# that are important in TX. That said, it's a 20 page primer, if you have zero experience with C# you may want to consider picking up a C# book.

#4 Thanks for the recomendations. I've been using TGB for a 1.5 years now and very familiar with torque script.
However, no knowledge of C# so I I'll take your advice on the C# book as well as XNA books.
are you using mostly behaviors or classes in your games?

#5 What do you mean by "behaviors".

With TX you mostly use components, which are actually classes that inherit from TorqueComponent.

#6 yes, I meant components. behaviors are the closest thing that TGB has to components. a chunck of code that you can attach to any object.

#7 Incidentally, "trial and error" is by far the least effective approach to learning a technical skill. If you're simply poking at stuff at random, even when what you do happens to work, you're left without a clue about why it worked.

An organized, methodical approach that's based on the scientific method works far better, IMHO.

#8 I'm sorry, but it's all trial and error.
Even if you read something somewhere, and you think you know what's going on, you still need to experiment with the implimentation until it works the way you want it.

I've read all the documentation, done the tutorials, learned a fair bit of c#, got the tx book, read the forums, etc.
In the end I'm constantly doing the trial and error thing. Especially with TXB and it's various collision parameters.

I'd say, contrary to even what GG would suggest, tx game development is 95% programming. Programming in one way is beautiful, but it's also a troubleshooting, trial and error, time consuming monster.
If you love to spend days on your cpu troubleshooting code, you'll do well here. :)