Pixelation
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: sam-uk on November 04, 2007, 01:17:33 pm
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As an amateur pixel artist / game developer I'm looking for an ideal language to learn or prehaps a great software package. I'm unaware of the options available to me when it comes to being able to interact with my sprites. I've grown tired of just staring at what I've drawn/animated and I'd really like to make something out of them. Where should I begin?
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Game Maker is a good and simple start that uses it's own language based on C++.
It's free, but for 15 euros - 20 dollars you get 3d possibilities and particle effects etc.
www.yoyogames.com
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Thankyou, i'll take a look into it, but i'd also like to hear what you guys use. I've heard many good things about multimedia fusion 2.
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You should check out C# and XNA games studio. C# is not that hard to learn, I am teaching myself the language right now without any snags or hangups. Remember to learn C# fully before you transfer to XNA games studio. It will be a little more work than Game Maker, but it will pay off a lot more in the long run. Game Maker has its fair share of disadvantages. Plus, it's also free for the full package.
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Does Gamemaker still do that odd thing where everything is its own object, and has no tiling support?
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Yes, there are objects in gm. Dunno what you mean by "where everything is its own object".
You can use tiles in gm so there is tiling support.
If you want to create games really fast without any great programming knowledge, gamemaker is a good choice.
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Two important questions for any programming language/software you choose:
Does it allow you to have fully pixelated graphics?
Does it have support for palette swapping?
gamemaker is a bit of hassle to get pixelated graphics working correctly. Normally it has filtering/interpolation(er, I forget the name), but you can get around this by using a view and setting the port of your view to 2-3x your view area. Or you can use a surface(say 320x240) and draw it 2x, 3x, etc. on the screen. I currently believe surfaces are the better option as viewports are friggin weird. They slightly offset the screen to the top-left. So when you get to the end of a room on either hte right or bottom, a pixel of your background will show up.
gamemaker's sprite rotation and sprite scaling is screwed up with view ports too. Their axis gets messed up so as you rotate a sprite 360 degrees, the x,y origin will move around. I forget now, but I think I was able to fix this when i switched to using surfaces.
Gamemaker has colour blending but cannot do palette swapping without some trickery. To palette swap you need to use the binary file functions to change the palette information in the GIF file that has your sprite/BG resources. This could be a problem if you want to keep your grfx in a format that prevents ppl from taking them easily
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Thankyou, i'll take a look into it, but i'd also like to hear what you guys use. I've heard many good things about multimedia fusion 2.
It IS what I use.
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I am using CoolBasic. It is very easy and good for game making.
Homesites: www.coolbasic.com
Manual language is finnish but you can ask help on CB's forum. Other choise is C++ but it is bit hard for begingger. If you're using C++ I suggest to download SLD library. Also SLD texts, SLD net.
and sorry for my bad english skill.
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gamemaker's programming language is based on javascript; no?
that or C++. either way, if you start with game maker and get used to it, its a lot easier to learn than either C++ or Javascript, and you can transition into which ever one it is more similar to(i cant really remember >>) so while gamemaker has its flaws, its a good beginner program and helps if you want to move up...
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gamemaker's programming language is based on javascript; no?
that or C++. either way, if you start with game maker and get used to it, its a lot easier to learn than either C++ or Javascript, and you can transition into which ever one it is more similar to(i cant really remember >>) so while gamemaker has its flaws, its a good beginner program and helps if you want to move up...
But with game maker you can't do what you want... Example you can't make your own map engine. If you are begingger i suggest to start straight with programming language. BASIC type of languages are best for begingers but if you want more things to do use C++
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For a beginner in programming you shouldn't start out with game programming, you should study the basics of a programming language, depending on what you pick the learning curve will be longer or harder, for example if you pick C++ the learning curve will most likely be initially hard, but useful. On the other hand if you would choose a simpler language like VB or Delphi, you might end up using it's functions more than learning the actual way of programming, if you've got the patience I'd always suggest C++, it's what I started out with and even though I now choose C# and/or Java over it, I value what I learned from it.
For a beginner game programmer (a programmer that just hasn't been into game programming yet) I'd suggest a variant of the same thing, if you have patience for it, start out hard with C++, learn how to do things ground up so that you later can value the simplified ways of doing it, and knowing what's behind it. Then perhaps move on to using a framework such as Allegro, or even XNA with C#, as they both pack alot of functions that make a programmers life alot easier.
That's my two cents.
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http://www.python.org
An approachable, powerful, and sensible language. You can install the pygame module once you've got a grasp of ordinary programming and game programming feels approachable.
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Depends on for what are u doing the game.
If U wanna quick game, and try out the system u had in mind game maker is great for start.
Python as language is a very good choice because its easy to learn, and after a while u can do ur tests there.
Do not want to repeat what people already sad about C# & C++.
I prefer Java and use Slick2D library which is quite handy.
So it all depends how much effort do you wanna put in creating the game and how fast do u want it done.
But the learning of the programming language is always here. No easy way around it :hehe: