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!

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.