Lost in a world with 3D graphics.

[Dorth]

Oh, I am 100% in agreement with you guys in this thread and barely held myself back from writing similar comments when I first saw the thread. I was merely commenting on the unfolding discussion that has blossomed through the mud (get it ;P )

[cm3rt]

Piecing together what everything that everyone said, some news is old and some is new. I understand exactly what everyone is saying and I was merely naturally defensive when I was being mocked.

I am not receiving enough credit, although none of you know me at all..

I know the basics of a game. I know the basics of a MMORPG design and all.

Halifax -- some of what you said about the design and whatnot; is not news. I have already written out a large portion of the games design and who, what, where, when and why -- I want to do with it.

I was planning on making it another text based MMORPG but I got to thinking of expanding my horizon. I thought of making it a fully graphical MMORPG. I have experience in programming online aspects of a game... Basically everything BUT the graphics portion. I hope this helped anyone to understand.

Although the game isn't ready to even have details released... I just want to know where to start with the graphics...

But as for what you were saying with having to use for instance Blender -- this is the kind of thing I need to hear.

Creating meshes && whatnot on Blender is what I basically need to do at first, right?

From there, where can I animate these meshes? What program?

Can one mesh do a series of different things on command with Irrlicht? So that I can have one character do different things without loading different meshes then reloading other meshes?

Can anyone direct me to a tutorial on where I can learn the basics of creating meshes, models, scripting and animating them? And then can someone direct me to a place where I can learn to implement them into a video game using Irrlicht?

Thank you -- everyone -- for the information. Keep it rollin

[hybrid]

blender can also be used for animation. You define animation sequences for a mesh and save them all into one file. Then, you can play sequences from that set in the game. But you can also alter the sequences in the game, as long as you know how the bones and weights have to be adjusted. That's usually the task of the animation tool, but can also be done programatically.
There are tons of books on this topic, I guess you could even graduate on this topic alone, so it's quite a wide field. Maybe start with the blender (video) tutorials, which might give you a first impression what will be up to you.

[cm3rt]

Thank you hybrid.

[vermeer]

I only can speak or art side.

I thought of making it a fully graphical MMORPG.

prob is that that part is extremely huge, too. Only way i can think of in doing with small team doing in free time -counting it does not drop as usual- , is...Doing types of models. Ie, a type of male human(other for all dwarves, orcs, you get th eidea, a model per type) with anims and all, which you just re-texture for making a different character with similar shapes/volumes/anatomy: you can do maybe slightly different for each new character, and some packages allow even different meshes, maily slight mesh modifications, or attached objects,(useful for upgrading armours, adding travel bags, etc ) after has been rigged (setting up bones and weights for propper later animation) and even animated. That is extremely convenient: you animate once for a bunch of characters(ie: one for all male humans , hero type ). this all is art side, no need of code here. You can do if know well 3d/2d. of course, code tricks help a lot later on.

Blender is best free possibility. I prefer to model in wings3d and import into Blender, but I'm rare. Basically I go faster and more flexible workflow by modeling in Wings and animating in blender, but you could get stuck for ever in importing the meshes and formats into blender if have zero experience in 3D. And blender has all needed. For actually making the texture, you certainly will need Photoshop, or the free GIMP, and...specially at start, some 3d painting solution.Even blender can help for adding some painted marks, so that later on is easier to paint a full texture in 2d mode, in Photoshop or whatever.

Learning 3d for games with Blender is achievable if you consider the task of learning blender as a very huge thing, and difficult by itself, with entity as to dedicate many months till you master it, and depending on your experience, maybe years... I handled it quite fast but because I had a lot of 3d experience in comercial and free 3d packages from before.

To mention that statistically very few blender people master all fields really well: character animation, rendering, organic and inorganic modelling...basically 'cause is very complex to handle all in 3d, whatever the package, large learning. But not impossible, hehe, I know is not.

So, if you want to take that big task, go here :
(specially 'getting started video', and others)

http://www.blender.org/education-help/video-tutorials/

In depth doc. A MUST. Absolutely. though latest features are sort of allways in advance to that doc, but that's zero prob.

http://www.blender.org/education-help/manuals-books/

The training DVDs and the books you can purchase at blender.org -you also help so the project- are told to be extremely good. Not needed, though.But will surely put you there much faster...

That and blender is all you need.

You will certainly benefit installing a plugin to export in *.b3d format , which happens to be extremely good for lightmaps and animated characters and object. So, for all.

http://www.gandaldf.com

Learning 3D can be rewarding for you, and is indeed the door for several kind of jobs (architecture related, games, some video type of works like ads, etc, etc)

Blender can be a good way. But only real wayis using the doc well, have the software opened, and go doing tasks with it. If you'd know very deeply some 3d package previously,no need even to read doc, if handled many 3d tools: you can guess many things.
For getting into industry, to get a job, these days though is better learn a tool like Max or Maya. For architecture related, maybe better Max, and many game companies base all in max. Many in Maya.

[lostclimategames]

well i dont think he should be openly mocked because if he is a competent programmer already, learning to do 3d programming, is as simple as merely learning a new library, which anyone who does any kind of programming knows is a common occurance when developing new software, otherwise .net framework, irrlicht, all libraries would have fallen flat on there faces. That being said, i think if he is interested in doing work with new library he's going about it the wrong way. He should be looking for free already made prototype art. When he has a decent sized fairly workable prototype made, make a demo, pitch it to a small publisher to get some funding to hire artists.

just my 2 cents.

[night_hawk]

Wings3D - Best 3D Moddeling app for a programmer in my opinion.
(And yay! I'm not the only one who's using it...)

[dejai]

(This is just a joke, has no real relation to anything, please take it as a joke..)

I won't mock you like my fellow forum members. I agree with them but I won't mock you I will instead lay out the facts.

1. You need a server, not any normal server but a "tower" server and by a tower sever I mean servers that pile up to the roof, with not only inbuilt but external cooling, yes thats right a giant story high heat sink. Because the definition of massive is:
imposing in size or bulk or solidity

Ok maybe a heat sink the size of a buildings a bit to far, but lets just say a lot of computers (Shock value added).

Not only this but these servers would all have to be linked to the internet at such a high speed that they would be able to recieve data from each user within the game every 4 nanoseconds. Yes you heard me. That is at least 2000, 10 000 a month on bandwidth depending how "Massive" the game is.

2. You would have to have one big database, now sure if you want to do it with MySQL, by yourself I suppose you would just have to learn the MySQL language as well and then link it back to your code so it just some how receives data from each user in the game every 4 nanoseconds. (Could you even use MySQL on second thoughts lol)

3. Your fingers would literally have joint problems after writing that "Massive" amount of code. Not to mentioned by doing it a lone you would probably be fat, bald and 10000 years old by the time you finished with bad lower back problems. This can be calculated using a thing called "man hours".

4. If you plan to do all the modeling yourself and all the coding you would then have to do all the animation sequences and if its a "massive" game remind me how many characters would you have.. including all the npcs and enemies.

5. Level editing, Um thats a lot of polys.

Anyway I hope your reconsider, how to build an MMORPG with no planning, documentation, hardware, budget, relative experience, industry background / foundations or contacts.


Well besides all that its rather quite easy, just take a look at the progress I have made on my MMORPGRTSFPSSTEALTHHORRORHACKNSLASHMAZEPLATFORMLGSRSRGSEUTSTDSGAETRVNIMCBCGGSLS
well actually its more of a:
MMORPGRTSFPSSTEALTHHORRORHACKNSLASHMAZEPLATFORMLGSRSRGSEUTSTDSGAETRVNIMCBCGGSLSPRSBSARPRPSATBS but I am not sure if I want to add the turrets to the artillery guns in the 1232 sector of island pain. Because if I don't add that then it wouldn't define as part of the artillery genre... And here is the progress on the grass..

(I actually made this in blender I am so proud, one cheap trick to rule them all, seven cheap tricks to find them).


(I am joking about the game, but the above acronym is the real deal)

Sorry, I was actually going to post something on my adventures with blender for shits and giggles, but that fell through when I saw everyone pitching in, including Mastergod, Halifax, Hybrid, rogerborg, and Dorth the person that advised me on writing 1 second pseudo example that had a little variable saying something like TEST VARIABLE and adviced I use TEST_VARIABLE, and I have ever since. Kudos.

No but seriously, if you are the prodigy of the internet i am truly sorry I hope you get the joke and it doesn't effect my bandwidth.

[dejai]

In other words it will be harder than text based

[Dorth]

Dude, LOL? or... Lulz... http://lulzcorruption.ytmnd.com/
But what's that about the prototype variable thingy? I can't remember for some reason what you're talking about

Also, guys, look forward to a follow-up of this topic in the project or challenge section soon

[cm3rt]

dejai, II know servers, I used to rent servers to run my TBMMORPG. I am completely fluent in MySQL. I can be slightly arrogant that at 18 years old I am fluent in PHP, VB, MySQL, C++, and am familiar with Delphi, Java, and whatever else considering theyre all basically the same syntax.

Now that that's out on the table... No more explaining how a game is written out and what I need to run a game.

I know what to do, I just need to know how to create graphics, implement them inside the game, and script.

But some information from you besides the "not mocking" was helpful, thanks.

Thank you vermeer and lostclimategames.

Advice is being taken and researched.

Anything else?

[rogerborg]

Yes; I have an enormous borg chubby on right now.

Sorry, I didn't mean that "enormous" to come across as arrogant.

[MasterGod]

I'm going to recommend again to make this sticky so new guys who wants to make a MMORPG would read this first.

P.S
rogerborg: You can add this to your "why can't you make a MMORPG" site list .

[dejai]

Well its sort of hard not to come of arrogant, when you read my post and it had no effect at all on you. If you know C++, Java, VB, MySQL, PHP thats all good but it just means 1 thing. You either are not fluent in all the languages or you are but you don't know how to use the language. Syntax is all well and good by semantics is just as important if not more important.

[Dorth]

..., and Dorth the person that advised me on writing 1 second pseudo example that had a little variable saying something like TEST VARIABLE and adviced I use TEST_VARIABLE, and I have ever since. Kudos...

Dejaaaaaaaiiiiiii! Explain ^^