Ok so a few words about the software architecture course here at Full Sail. This class has some extremely useful information, however, you will only start to see how useful it is once you start getting into designing larger projects. Even now I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface of some of the ideas taught here.
For instance one of the major focuses of the class is to teach design patterns, I'm using those same patterns, where I can, to implement my code for final project. However, it seems that the more intimate knowledge of the design patters I have the simpler it becomes to maintain my code, the patterns have a lot of depth, you can't learn them in one sitting, it takes lots of practice - they might not seem directly applicable to you (in this class) other than using them to finish the labs - but put extra effort and time into understanding and using them!
Do a little side project and force yourself to use the observer pattern, the state pattern, the command pattern, and the Model-View pattern. Just these alone will make the projects you do here at Full Sail that much easier because there is nothing more time consuming than backtracking in your work because of poor design choices. This class will help you to avoid those mistakes, but you have to apply yourself - as always - and use it or lose it!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Is this my blog?
Hello internet people - its been a long time. I'm doing fine I graduate in Febuary next year. Got real busy and kinda fell off the blog wagon, but I want this thing to be complete so I'm not letting go completely just yet.
I see that I left off with Windows 2, which means DirectX is the next class I took along side Software Architecture or SWA.
What to say about DirectX - when I took this several months back Wendy Jones had just started teaching, it was her second month. Wendy has a few DirectX books out there and she knows her stuff for sure.
This was a pretty tough class with her, lots to do and little time to do it in, the main mistakes I kept making in this class were copy and paste mistakes (were copied code compiles fine but creates a bug). This type of mistake is really common, I don't want to say don't do it, just get good at it. In this class you will learn lighting, particles, 3D sound, rendering 3D models and 2D sprites.
Overall the course is just a start into DirectX it will teach how to use Direct3D, Direct Input, and Direct Sound which is just a small part of making a game (but important).
Things that have changed:
Today this course is fully shader driven so you will learn how to implement 3D graphics using what the industry uses - shaders. (Shaders use custom scripting/code that give you near complete control over what gets put on the screen). Another big change is that now you read in 3D models from Maya using a custom exporter that you write a month prior to this class in 3DCC (3d Content and Creation)
I see that I left off with Windows 2, which means DirectX is the next class I took along side Software Architecture or SWA.
What to say about DirectX - when I took this several months back Wendy Jones had just started teaching, it was her second month. Wendy has a few DirectX books out there and she knows her stuff for sure.
This was a pretty tough class with her, lots to do and little time to do it in, the main mistakes I kept making in this class were copy and paste mistakes (were copied code compiles fine but creates a bug). This type of mistake is really common, I don't want to say don't do it, just get good at it. In this class you will learn lighting, particles, 3D sound, rendering 3D models and 2D sprites.
Overall the course is just a start into DirectX it will teach how to use Direct3D, Direct Input, and Direct Sound which is just a small part of making a game (but important).
Things that have changed:
Today this course is fully shader driven so you will learn how to implement 3D graphics using what the industry uses - shaders. (Shaders use custom scripting/code that give you near complete control over what gets put on the screen). Another big change is that now you read in 3D models from Maya using a custom exporter that you write a month prior to this class in 3DCC (3d Content and Creation)
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Windows Programming 2
This class is exclusively in C#, which is cool but by the time you get out and have to propram in C++ you feel a bit rusty.
Chuck teaches this class, you meet him in WP1 for a couple of class. He is a very organized teacher and is pretty easy to follow but he is probably the fastest typer to this point so it can be a challenge to keep up. I downloaded the previous months content so I was able to copy and paste from that when I start to fall behind.
So this class teaches you alot of the .Net framework stuff, it will be used in later months to create tools for your games. C# is a cinch, so it makes since to use it for anything that doesn't need to run super fast. Actually let me say that C# can get really advanced but its easy to figure out, things are intuitive and the intellisense that compiler has is make it easy to see what the language has to offer.
The main objective of the class is to create a tile editor, which is good to know, I actually used this to create my game in The Structure Of Game Design, overall this class was not to challeneging and requires little effort to stay on top of. This class is taken accross from 3D Content and Creation, which is also an easy (but really cool) class. So that makes for a pretty easy month, enjoy it cause I think thats the last time you will see a full 8 hours of sleep, seriously things get tough after this point so be ready!
Chuck teaches this class, you meet him in WP1 for a couple of class. He is a very organized teacher and is pretty easy to follow but he is probably the fastest typer to this point so it can be a challenge to keep up. I downloaded the previous months content so I was able to copy and paste from that when I start to fall behind.
So this class teaches you alot of the .Net framework stuff, it will be used in later months to create tools for your games. C# is a cinch, so it makes since to use it for anything that doesn't need to run super fast. Actually let me say that C# can get really advanced but its easy to figure out, things are intuitive and the intellisense that compiler has is make it easy to see what the language has to offer.
The main objective of the class is to create a tile editor, which is good to know, I actually used this to create my game in The Structure Of Game Design, overall this class was not to challeneging and requires little effort to stay on top of. This class is taken accross from 3D Content and Creation, which is also an easy (but really cool) class. So that makes for a pretty easy month, enjoy it cause I think thats the last time you will see a full 8 hours of sleep, seriously things get tough after this point so be ready!
Windows Programming 1 (Pong)
Ok so windows programming marks the beginning of life outside of the command console, you learn some cool Win32 stuff, actually you learn the basic win32 stuff for most of the class then you learn how to use DLL's, static Libraries, Multi-threading, and some neat tricks like have a command console and window running together. This class was really packed with good stuff, the Multi-Threading, DLL's, and Static libraries are covered again in more depth.
One of the first things we did was create tic-tac-toe, this takes up the first half of the class, the other half is used to your very own version of pong.
I used my little math library to create the ball and paddles in 3D, but I ended up just using them in a 2D fashion. Z-buffering was becoming a problem and win32 does not have a simple fix for this.
Anyhow, this was a good class with some really good knowledge to be had.
I will try to post the game once I get ftp access to my road runner site again, apparently they thought it best to only allow uploading of music and picture files through their main interface.
One of the first things we did was create tic-tac-toe, this takes up the first half of the class, the other half is used to your very own version of pong.
I used my little math library to create the ball and paddles in 3D, but I ended up just using them in a 2D fashion. Z-buffering was becoming a problem and win32 does not have a simple fix for this.
Anyhow, this was a good class with some really good knowledge to be had.
I will try to post the game once I get ftp access to my road runner site again, apparently they thought it best to only allow uploading of music and picture files through their main interface.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
