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)
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