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[Xion]

I've tried programming...three or four times before, with, respectively, Visual Basic, C++, and Proce55ing. Each time, I started with the basics, which had terms I didn't understand, and when I looked up the meanings, they were described with more terms I didn't understand, and by the end of the first two days or so of effort, I was left no farther along than I started at, and feeling like a retard to boot, not even being able to comprehend the most basic terms or functions. I'm still mustering up my will for a second go at processing.

...you are lacking so much in coding knowledge that you can't even get your art to interact with anything.  Music and graphics are awesome and all, but it doesn't go far when prototyping.  You can make a program where you move a red box, interacting with blue boxes, with no music, and still have a game.  If you draw and animate 100s of awesome characters, with 40 tracks of top notch music, yet still can't get them to show up in any interactive form, you have no game.

Yes. And it makes me feel so hollow inside.

[Derek]

I have a computer science degree, but I prefer to leave the coding to people with more natural talent.

That said, I think it's pretty easy these days for an artist to make a game without having programming knowledge and I was doing it long before I learned C or Java or what have you.  And programmers have been making games with "programmer art" since the dawn of gaming... but really, if anyone needs help with either end, that's what the forums are for!  I'd love to see more collaborations pop up on the boards.  Or even getting people to help with the polish.

Also, Alec told me he was interested in writing a programming tutorial geared specifically toward non-programmers (it's amazing how many programming tutorials out there just assume you know things, or tell you to fill in the blanks yourself).  So yeah, maybe when Aquaria's done.

[Alec]

when i was 12 id just make myself myst-clones with hypercard on my mac classic.

HyperCard was fuckin awesome.

My dad would bring me and my brother this Powerbook from his school (he's a teacher) and we'd make games together with HyperCard.



You couldn't have any independently moving objects in HC (everything was frame by frame with "cards") - except buttons - so my brother and I made a platform game called "Adventure Agents" by using 1 bit 16x16 icons on moving translucent buttons for animations.

[Pigbuster]

I was somehow gifted with a multitude of artistic abilities.
But even so, I still have a number of shortcomings.

I can write dialogue and plotlines like nobody's business, but I cannot write descriptive narration at all, so there's no way I can write a book or anything.

I can compose music on the piano, but I have a hard time making them into full accompanied arrangements on the computer (Which is why I haven't submitted anything to the theme music thread yet). I'm definitely gonna have to learn this.

And I'm also rather bad at level design. I can make environments fit for exploration, but I can't create puzzles for the life of me.

I was on the "Can't code" train a couple years ago, but I have figured out how to write Actionscript since then. AS is one of the few things I can just sit down and work on for hours on end (Which is quite good when compared to animating, in which I work on something for 5 minutes before giving up).

A vector-based collision engine I have made.
http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/5816/platformthing2op0.swf

Ironically, I'm currently working on giving that code a complete overhaul. That makes this the 5th time I have rewritten a platformer from the ground up.

Also, Alec told me he was interested in writing a programming tutorial geared specifically toward non-programmers (it's amazing how many programming tutorials out there just assume you know things, or tell you to fill in the blanks yourself).  So yeah, maybe when Aquaria's done.

Oh MAN. I can't stand programming tutorials.
There are so many of them around the internet, yet so few of them are any good.

If you make one, I bet it would be excellent, even if it isn't focused on Actionscript.

[ravuya]

You couldn't have any independently moving objects in HC (everything was frame by frame with "cards") - except buttons - so my brother and I made a platform game called "Adventure Agents" by using 1 bit 16x16 icons on moving translucent buttons for animations.

It wasn't until much later that I discovered that HyperCard actually had an OO interface to the whole QuickDraw subsystem, so you could use pens and the regular QuickDraw tools to render inside a HyperCard context. 

Ah, the foibles of youth.

[Alec]

Oo really, which version?

[ravuya]

According to the book I had back then (and never really read), it was v1.2 (the original). I was rolling v2.3 around the time I put my old Mac into mothballs. Even if I had known about this, I never would've been able to really use it... I never could figure out how to keep the cursor keys from changing cards.



68020 for-evah.

[Alec]

Damn...

Gotta find me an ol' Mac with HyperCard and play around in it again. One of these days...

[Xion]

A question somewhat pertinent, I believe:
Would it be easier for a programmer to supervise a team in the making of a game than an artist?

[Chris Whitman]

I think it really depends on the kind of team and the kind of project.

Certainly, a programmer is bound to have a better understanding of the technical limitations and requirements, but he might not necessarily be better at judging the aesthetic direction the project is moving in. Of course, just because you're a programmer doesn't mean you can't necessarily tell which pictures are pretty or ugly, and just because you're an artist doesn't necessarily mean you don't know what a physics solver is.

I don't necessarily think there's a correlation between chosen discipline and ability to manage a particular project, essentially.

[PoV]

it's amazing how many programming tutorials out there just assume you know things, or tell you to fill in the blanks yourself

I feel the same way, but more strongly towards math.  In my opinion, math is taught terribly.  I've thrown around the idea of the "3D Math Pop-Up-Book", or coloring book.  As I see it, math is that easy, once you get past the Greek.

[Alevice]

I don't really think either a programmer or an artist would be more adequate for managment than the other.

Heck, even on software development, most good leaders are people who usually have just the merest notions of programming, but understand clearly the development flow and the needs of the end user.

[Bad Sector]

As I see it, math is that easy, once you get past the Greek.

Then why i still have issues with math?

[PoV]

Spartans in your brain, keeping the answers hostage. 

[Dust]

Thats where i get stuck on code as well, i doon't know good math

[ravuya]

A 3D math colouring book would be awesome.

[sega]

A 3D math colouring book would be awesome.

It'd be pretty cool for some autistic people, who see numbers as colors and patterns.

[Chris Whitman]

I feel the same way, but more strongly towards math.  In my opinion, math is taught terribly.  I've thrown around the idea of the "3D Math Pop-Up-Book", or coloring book.  As I see it, math is that easy, once you get past the Greek.

Sort of. I think it'd be nice to have more teaching aides available for students which included visual examples, particularly for problem classes in second year, once you start to get more heavily into theory and are required to deal with more complicated geometry (the shift from exclusively 2D into 3D and higher dimensions).

I have been doing a bit of math tutoring for high school students, recently, and the way students are taught (or not taught) basic algebra is pretty atrocious. No wonder students at the university level are woefully unprepared to do even elementary calculus. Even in first year, though, when professors don't hammer the rigorous definition of a limit into the students' heads, how do they think they're going to fair for power series, etc.? Rumour has it that the University of Victoria (the local university around these parts) has almost a 50% failure rate for first year calculus.

As a point of curiosity, what sorts of math are giving you guys trouble?

[PoV]

I'd say the issue is most people have is they're taught to memorize obscure forumla, instead of how to practically use it, and where the formula fits in.  Vector math is incredibly visual.  If I had a stronger understanding of how to "think in vectors" whilst in school, Sine/Cosine/Logarithms/Parabolic/Bezier curves would have been a "Oh, you can do that too!  Neat!" issue. 

For example, instead of useful concepts of co-ordinate systems or the hierarchical relationships created by taking the difference between 2 points/vectors, we're fed "Rise over Run" as the vector math foundation.  A stupid formula for the slope of a line.  It tells us nothing of scale, constraint, only that for ever 2 of these we get 1 of these.  In fact, at the time, I barely even know what scale is mathematically speaking.  The significance of 1 is oblivious to me. 

I had to invent vector math myself, to get past the cryptic insignificant absurdity of numerical integration and the hypotenuse of a triangle.

It can't remember the exact timing, but I'm pretty sure I worked on 7 commercial games before I even learned real vector math.  All of them as the Technical Lead (CPU's and code design "I got", 2 games in pure assembly), some of them as the Lead Programmer.

Today I write custom physics and graphics engines.

[Chris Whitman]

For example, instead of useful concepts of co-ordinate systems or the hierarchical relationships created by taking the difference between 2 points/vectors, we're fed "Rise over Run" as the vector math foundation.  A stupid formula for the slope of a line.  It tells us nothing of scale, constraint, only that for ever 2 of these we get 1 of these.  In fact, at the time, I barely even know what scale is mathematically speaking.  The significance of 1 is oblivious to me.

I think it's probably a little difficult to get people started on bases and vector spaces without introducing lines first, and the concept of relative rates of change (as evidenced in the slope of a line) is fairly important, and good preparation for calculus.

Still, I have a huge issue with the emphasis on memorizing formulas. Sure, it gets you through the material, but it basically has no use beyond writing the set exams. You're essentially required to figure out the material on your own in order to gain anything from low level math courses. Not that it's a bad thing if you can do that, but it hurts a lot of students who are just starting out, I think.