Irrlicht Engine

Hello me and my friends decided we would like to make an rpg game in irrlicht so far we have these members.

programmer(Thats Me),Sound Dev,Architect consept,Weapons Consept,3d Modeler,and testers.

I have a team but me being the programmer must put all these elements together any advice on how to get started would be greatly appreciated.

Goals:
1 playable map
Main Menu
Gui(Spells menu)
3rd person camera
collision
1 equipable item
1 attack

Anyone have any experience?

I could give you one simple advice.

Planning Planning Planning

It's one of the most important part for any project. Take the time to account any difficulty that could occur when you will develop your game. Learn more of the SDK and/or any skill that you will be required to know more about and see what you will have to add/modify to acheive your objectives. Try to give you some estimate on who will work on what and how long it going to take.

Then write this on paper, don't keep this in your head. Most project fail because they where badly planned, and the developper give up because they didnt thinked it could be so long or a part will be so hard. Sometimes making a smaller project to learn is better that trying to make the BIG projet immediately. Good luck.

make an rpg game in irrlicht

Mmm. If you've taken a game to completion before, fair enough. Or if you're really just interested in playing around with a 3d engine without really being committed to completing a game, then likewise.

Otherwise, I'd suggest that you consider the visuals as a relatively small subcomponent of the game. Irricht lets you get visuals on screen very quickly, which is great for convincing you that you're 90% done when you're really just starting out, and possibly even going in the wrong direection.

Consider: the bulk of the work in completing a 3d rpg is the same as completing a 2d rpg, or for that matter a text based adventure. Events and data define your game, not visuals.

So... can you collect requirements for, design, implement and test a robust text based adventure, without using Irrlicht (or any other 3d lib)? I'd suggest that you find out by doing it. Bolting a 3d front end on later will be a relatively simple task, and the bonus is that your original text output will form an ideal debug log for when things go wrong.

I work from the core outward. In the case of an rpg, I think that would be the party type fights. So, I'd get that working pretty good and then add the next thing, etc. Don't feel like you have to follow conventions or be overly realistic. It's the balance and the challenge that matter.

TheCodedOne wrote: Gui(Spells menu)

Well, for this eMgz has made a fairly good GUI bar that should be easy to use
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=25017

christianclavet- My team and I have tasks assinged to each of us, the team has a group meeting every wensday and friday, I started this system because less people give up and it leads to more progress. As for writting Ideas on paper we thought that we could remember everything that was said(WRONG) We will have to start doing that. Thankyou for your advice.

rogerborg-Ive been close to making a game many times and never went all the way, but now that I have a dedicated team we really want this done even if it takes over a year. You also said that Irrlicht tricks you with visuals, In previous opengl apps I've made I always did the logic first becase for me visuals where hardest part(model loading,texture mapping ect..) I have made a 2d rpg but not textbased your advice is very good thankyou for your time.

fireside-Yeah i will try that.

Lonesome Ducky- Thankyou thats exactly what I needed i will be saving that for later, but later try to impliment a pause menu Inventory after logic is done.

YOu're welcome, and if you still need a third person camera I happened to find one: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=19282

And good luck with your project, I really hope you finish it

Not sure what you groups programming/project skills are, but if you want a succesfull project I highly recomend to stop and take the time to learn some software engineering skills. It goes hand in hand with what christianclavet talked about. It isn't so much about creating a program but how to go about creating a program in general. There are a big number of diffrent methodolgoies out there. I would try to find a few and at least skim them. One example is called "extreme programming" there are many others out there though. It is great that your have a team put together, but using a project managment approach helps insures that each person piece fits perfectly into the overall project.

Everyone makes a mistake when they are n00bs its part of learning, enjoy what you have learnt, understand it. Games stretch far beyond code and graphics, the ability to make that other stuff as well as the code and the graphics which is hard is what makes a game. Concepts are all well and good but you need someone who can actually do something with it.

Don't expect commercial level games with irrlicht with your first project lol. Expect to see sydney doing her standing pose.

dejai wrote:Everyone makes a mistake when they are n00bs its part of learning

even professionals do so, it's part of learning further more !!!