Where do I start?

kevipapo1 · Post by **kevipapo1** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:50 pm

I have no clue how to program in irrlicht, so I need some help. I'm using Mac OS X.

Thanks

JP · Post by JP » Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:59 pm

Thought about looking at the examples provided with the SDK?

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 3:46 pm

What is it that you need help with?

kevipapo1 · Post by **kevipapo1** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:08 pm

Sorry if I'm wasting anyone's time.

Yes, I've checked out the examples that came w/ it. They're nice, which is why I want to use the irrlicht engine.

I'm trying to make an RPG. A gameplay similar to that of GTA III. I need to know how to create 2D images, 3D landscapes...Do you understand what I'm trying to get at?

Thanks

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:28 pm

But this is no arts school. You have to create such things with graphics tools, 3d modellers, etc. You will only get a render engine with Irrlicht, both game handling and gfx ressources have to be created by you. Even if you use techniques such as the heightmaps for terrain you'll have to design the heightmaps.

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:46 pm

kevipapo1 wrote:I'm trying to make an RPG. A gameplay similar to that of GTA III.

How far have you got so far?

kevipapo1 · Post by **kevipapo1** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 10:51 pm

Well, I'm giving ideas now. Some friends of mine are programming the thing. I want to be able to help out and use whatever I need to use to edit the game to our content.

Must I use IrrEdit to do this? What is IrrEdit anyway?

FriendlyWarlord · Post by **FriendlyWarlord** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 12:03 am

Are you trying to "program in irrlicht", or create models, or textures, or something completely different? If you're not sure, there's no way anyone here can answer your question

rogerborg wrote:
kevipapo1 wrote:I'm trying to make an RPG. A gameplay similar to that of GTA III.
How far have you got so far?

This is a very important question, you'll need to answer that too. I can tell there are a few here waiting to give advice =p

kevipapo1 · Post by **kevipapo1** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 4:39 am

FriendlyWarlord wrote:Are you trying to "program in irrlicht", or create models, or textures, or something completely different?

Minus the "something completely different", that's about it.

FriendlyWarlord wrote:I can tell there are a few here waiting to give advice =p

How odd. Most people usually give me the "ur a n00b whu dusn't surch" stuff. Thanks a lot

I just noticed that IrrEdit is only for Windows. Darn! Too bad...

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:53 am

kevipapo1 wrote:Some friends of mine are programming the thing.

Presumably they'll be able to answer your technical questions, or at least give you a grounding in what you need to know in order to ask questions that will result in constructive answers.

We actually like answering questions round here, but to get the most out of us, you'll have to learn the art of asking them.

pippy · Post by **pippy** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:23 am

Start with an example and build on it.

The code might not be so clean to a beginner, but understanding it will give a real foot in the door.

one thing I didn't like about the Irrlicht examples is that none of them show how to make classes in c++. If you are to make a large game it's essential.

JP · Post by JP » Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:32 am

Well they're not C++ examples are they? They're just examples of how to use Irrlicht in C++ but not how to program properly in C++. They're good because they're a single source file which makes them easier to understand for newbies i think as it's not a load of different source files.

If you don't know how to make classes in C++ then you shouldn't really be jumping in as deep as a graphics engine until you've learnt the basics of the language!

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:22 am

pippy wrote:one thing I didn't like about the Irrlicht examples is that none of them show how to make classes in c++.

examples/03.CustomSceneNode/main.cpp class CSampleSceneNode

examples/04.Movement/main.cpp class MyEventReceiver

examples/05.UserInterface/main.cpp class MyEventReceiver

I'd go on, but I think I've made my point.

kevipapo1 · Post by **kevipapo1** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:38 pm

Do I need to use IrrEdit to create a game for irrlicht (graphics wise)? If so, then I'll need a Windows computer. Too bad I'm still using a PPC Mac computer instead of an Intel. I have Virtual PC, but that wouldn't work very well. Sigh...

Am I stuck?

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:50 pm

You don't need to use it. It's aimed mostly at creating FPS or RPG style environments, which may not match your goals anyway.

However, you will need content creation tools of some sort, regardless of the engine that you're using. Creating game content isn't just a matter of loading a bunch of hard-coded models; you need to group them into scenes, and include things like particle emitters and environmental data as well.

Frankly, I don't know what game content creation tools, if any, are available on Linux. If you go with a solution other than Irrlicht then you may end up having to write your own content tools anyway, even if it starts out as simple hand edited text files (or lua or GameMonkey scripts) that are parsed at runtime in order to load models, create emitters and set up the environment.

What you won't get away with other than for the simplest games or demos is simply hard-coding your game scenes and environments into the code.