@iWin well... yes, but GS are selling a product they made and they are actually selling the possibility to incorporate iads, they arent selling "iads". (im not sure if im explaining myself)
Ok, i dont really need iad that badly that im going to argue for it. I just wanted to take advantage of something apple is offering to All developers but unfortunately i cant but its okay. Its all good.
yeah, im going to be taking advanced lessons this year 4 lessons of 2 hours the basics of programming. 16 lessons of 2 hours to learn objective C. 10 lessons of 2 hours to learn c++. total 2354euros. more or less what i have earnt so far with gs. Im learning all this because i want to learn to program not because im heading away from GS.
and anyway i need iads in GS because i have soooo many applications that would profit loads from iads
There's 28 videos in the series. It takes place over a full college semester and is filmed from the audience so it is like you are there in the class. I believe they filmed every lecture. There's even homework if you want it!
And it is designed for people who have no programming knowledge whatsoever. I think it is really fantastic. You are pretty much getting a free college level computer programming course from one of the best colleges in the world.
And if you make it through that series, there's ones on Objective-C and other languages. And a new one designed specifically for iPhone development is in the works.
TOP FIND fmg :::))) although I have had a headache all day and his enthusiastic voice is not helping. Just what I needed to fill various holes...thanks again...fffcking brilliant...downloading eclispe to play with ickle robot
\PS CS193P (iphone app dev) has been on iTunesU for over a year...but it is tuff going... those Stanford kids are all fricking geniuses!!
Cheers, FMG! That should help heaps, I also picked up a great book on Objective C.
Realistically, how long do you think it would take someone of a reasonable intelligence, who has no prior experience, to be able to code basic 2D games natively?
@polygame: It's an unanswerable question of course, but if you want my honest opinion, I would say 10-15 years. Of intense, driven learning. Sleepless nights, etc. WIth the same amount of excitement as the day you discovered something like GameSalad.
I read it on these forums all the time. People make a game in GameSalad and it doesn't run fast. Or it doesn't sell as well as they hoped. And they get frustrated. And they blame GameSalad. And then they say GameSalad sucks and they are going to go learn a "better" engine like Unity, Corona, iTorque, or Xcode.
All those other engines are fantastic. And also terrible. Just like GameSalad.
If somebody finds GameSalad frustrating, I think they will find frustration at every turn. It's really about your attitude. If however, GameSalad has awoken some creative spark inside you, and now you want to push your skills even further and learn something harder, but more powerful, than I think that is great!
Understand though, that to write a game from scratch, you're basically going to need to create something like GameSalad, or Corona, or Unity. You are going to need Actors, or sprites, and Scenes, and animation, and sound effects, and memory management, and some way to display all this onto the ever-changing array of devices that come out every 6 months.
Once you have that, THEN you can worry about game design, and artwork, and audio, and marketing. It isn't easy!
Thanks, great info! I love GS but I really want to be able to write native stuff in future. And I also want to eventually be able to do 3D. I own a Unity license but I really just want to learn Objective C... and perhaps branch out so I can dev for other platforms... 10-15 years though? I think GS will be my devkit for GAME production for the foreseeable future! Learnt HEAPS making Max... so much I could have and should have done but it's all a learning experience.
But yeah, I want to be able to code... to future-proof and also just so I don't have to "rely" on a devkit. I'll keep at it and also keep trying to learn GS... I wish there were more docs!
Would you recommend learning some math stuff, too? I've seen your demos and it's VERY cool what can be done in GS (though, of course I would like a little more grunt as my optimisation skills are lacking at this point - lol).
To truly future-proof yourself, I feel it's more important to learn programming concepts than a specific language, as the concepts are pretty universal.
Technology seems to change every 5 years or so...
Everything on the Super Nintendo was programmed in Assembly code, which is very low-level. And that wasn't that long ago.
That Stanford course I linked to above is a great starting point. Especially since it is geared toward the non-programmer.
And I don't mean to discourage anybody from learning to program. I totally recommend it. It helps with everything. Learning C++ actually makes you a better GameSalad programmer.
And it really just depends how deep you want to go. Where your interests lie.
For example:
The Unreal Engine 3 is written in C++. Then people took that engine and scripted BioShock on top of it. One of my best friends works for the company that makes BioShock. He is a level designer there. They simply used a scripting language to create the game.
Just like we use the GameSalad scripting language on top of the GameSalad engine. There's also TorqueScript, C# and javascript for Unity, lua for Corona, etc. etc...
It really depends on your preference. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses.
Now, If you are interested in writing engines so you can write your games natively, then more power to you!
Personally, I like focusing on the game design, the artwork, etc.
I don't want to know how the engine is blitting pixels to the screen. Or how it is dealing with frame buffers in the graphics processor. Or the memory stacks.
I just want to use the engine.
And don't get me wrong, I want that engine to work perfectly. I just want somebody else to make it work!
Haha, more good points! I do love the arty side of things (I don't have a very techy brain) but I have for some odd reason, always wanted to learn how to code... maybe I should just stick with GS for the time being... it's tough enough getting my head around that! haha.
@rob2: You are right, but it depends on the person, of course. And I would argue also the type of game you want to create.
Learning how to make breakout or hangman or othello in Xcode is much different than learning how to make Geometry Wars, World of Warcraft, or Super Mario Bros.
Programming is an art form like anything else. It requires hard work, a desire to learn, some talent, etc. And it never ends, you can never truly master it. You can work on it your whole life.
It's like saying how long does it take to learn the guitar? A week? A year? Never? And how long does it take to play the guitar as good as Jimmy Page?
Comments
:P
It cant be that hard. Im trying as much as I can.
and anyway i need iads in GS because i have soooo many applications that would profit loads from iads
all over italy, i will be going to the milan center.
here is a list of ll the courses they do:
http://www.prometheo.it/corsi/standard.htm
Here are the three courses i will be doing:
http://www.prometheo.it/corsi/programmazione/index.html
http://www.prometheo.it/corsi/linguaggio_c/index.html
http://www.prometheo.it/corsi/linguaggio_cpp/index.html
Here are all the centers around italy where they do these courses:
http://www.prometheo.it/sedi/index.html
You live in italy too right?
i will be starting the basics of programming in september.
I have been watching and enjoying an excellent free video series on Introduction to computer programming from Stanford University:
http://freevideolectures.com/Course/2258/Computer-Science-I-Programming-Methodology
I highly recommend it to everybody.
There's 28 videos in the series. It takes place over a full college semester and is filmed from the audience so it is like you are there in the class. I believe they filmed every lecture. There's even homework if you want it!
And it is designed for people who have no programming knowledge whatsoever. I think it is really fantastic. You are pretty much getting a free college level computer programming course from one of the best colleges in the world.
And if you make it through that series, there's ones on Objective-C and other languages. And a new one designed specifically for iPhone development is in the works.
\PS CS193P (iphone app dev) has been on iTunesU for over a year...but it is tuff going... those Stanford kids are all fricking geniuses!!
Realistically, how long do you think it would take someone of a reasonable intelligence, who has no prior experience, to be able to code basic 2D games natively?
I read it on these forums all the time. People make a game in GameSalad and it doesn't run fast. Or it doesn't sell as well as they hoped. And they get frustrated. And they blame GameSalad. And then they say GameSalad sucks and they are going to go learn a "better" engine like Unity, Corona, iTorque, or Xcode.
All those other engines are fantastic. And also terrible.
Just like GameSalad.
If somebody finds GameSalad frustrating, I think they will find frustration at every turn. It's really about your attitude. If however, GameSalad has awoken some creative spark inside you, and now you want to push your skills even further and learn something harder, but more powerful, than I think that is great!
Understand though, that to write a game from scratch, you're basically going to need to create something like GameSalad, or Corona, or Unity. You are going to need Actors, or sprites, and Scenes, and animation, and sound effects, and memory management, and some way to display all this onto the ever-changing array of devices that come out every 6 months.
Once you have that, THEN you can worry about game design, and artwork, and audio, and marketing. It isn't easy!
But yeah, I want to be able to code... to future-proof and also just so I don't have to "rely" on a devkit. I'll keep at it and also keep trying to learn GS... I wish there were more docs!
Would you recommend learning some math stuff, too? I've seen your demos and it's VERY cool what can be done in GS (though, of course I would like a little more grunt as my optimisation skills are lacking at this point - lol).
Technology seems to change every 5 years or so...
Everything on the Super Nintendo was programmed in Assembly code, which is very low-level. And that wasn't that long ago.
That Stanford course I linked to above is a great starting point. Especially since it is geared toward the non-programmer.
And I don't mean to discourage anybody from learning to program. I totally recommend it. It helps with everything. Learning C++ actually makes you a better GameSalad programmer.
And it really just depends how deep you want to go. Where your interests lie.
For example:
The Unreal Engine 3 is written in C++. Then people took that engine and scripted BioShock on top of it. One of my best friends works for the company that makes BioShock. He is a level designer there. They simply used a scripting language to create the game.
Just like we use the GameSalad scripting language on top of the GameSalad engine. There's also TorqueScript, C# and javascript for Unity, lua for Corona, etc. etc...
It really depends on your preference. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses.
Now, If you are interested in writing engines so you can write your games natively, then more power to you!
Personally, I like focusing on the game design, the artwork, etc.
I don't want to know how the engine is blitting pixels to the screen. Or how it is dealing with frame buffers in the graphics processor. Or the memory stacks.
I just want to use the engine.
And don't get me wrong, I want that engine to work perfectly. I just want somebody else to make it work!
Learning how to make breakout or hangman or othello in Xcode is much different than learning how to make Geometry Wars, World of Warcraft, or Super Mario Bros.
Programming is an art form like anything else. It requires hard work, a desire to learn, some talent, etc. And it never ends, you can never truly master it. You can work on it your whole life.
It's like saying how long does it take to learn the guitar? A week? A year? Never?
And how long does it take to play the guitar as good as Jimmy Page?