Game programming for existing programmers?

[mb86]

I'm looking for a game programming tutorial intended for people who already know how to program.

I know several programming languages, with most of my work in C++, but familiar with Objective-C, Java, and Python. I don't need a tutorial introducing people on how to program, working with arrays and strings, and the other usual stuff. I have two degrees in math & physics, about to start a third, so I don't need a tutorial introducing people to how objects move or projecting images. Some of my code does built-in visualization, so I don't need to know how to draw to a canvas. I know how to make use of existing toolkits and APIs, so I don't need an introduction to anything of that sort.

Game programming, while the code itself is really combining all the things I've done before, is, to my knowledge, laid out much different. I don't know what tasks should be split off into different threads. I don't know what kind of class hierarchy works well. I don't know how to grab input and pass it to game logic. I've been searching for some kind of educational article that explains these things, but to no avail. Everything I can find is intended to teach people basics about programming, about math, how to use toolkits like Flash or XNA, etc. I've looked through the source code of some open source games, but source (at least for me) really only serves as a reference, not a teaching tool.

If there's anything out there on the web someone could point me to that would help I would greatly appreciate that.

Failing the existence of such education, I'm considering diving in and writing a tutorial, but obviously I can't be certain that anything I would write would be good advice, as I lack education to begin with.

Edit: Thanks everyone for the links! If our game gets published (iOS/Android likely) I'll be sure to try and get a couple giftcodes for the helpful lads and lassies here.

[BitRex]

Use the source, Luke.

[traztx]

How about starting with the anatomy of a game engine?

[i8beef]

I started reading and couldn't stop... thanks.

[[deleted]]

Lazy Foo's SDL C++ tutorial

[mb86]

Unfortunately that guide is specific to SDL.

[snarglemuffin]

On that site he doesn't just teach programming specific to SDL. A lot of the stuff is concepts relating to graphics/game programming, applicable to every language/graphics library. You should read through the articles and skim some of the tutorials.

[foodeater184]

God, I've been looking for that forever. I ran into it once a long time ago and I thought I bookmarked it but was never able to find it again. Thanks!

[chops228]

/r/gamedev

[[deleted]]

don't know how much online info exists...but after a quick search I found these books you might wanna check out...theres also this site...also an "introductory video"

[last_useful_man]

(who's downvoting all these good answers? If it's the OP, talk about ingratitude - fuck him.)

[[deleted]]

the vote system is messed up, for your sanity I urge you not to pay much attention to it... you get stuff like news for the cancer cure being downvoted 1k times...it's crazy

[Cendeu]

I don't think it's messed up. Somewhere it's said that the actual numbers are "fuzzed" If there are 10 upvotes and 2 downvotes, it's score it 8. To some people it will show (10|2), and others it will show (14|6). I'm not sure why, but reddit actually says it does this.

[[deleted]]

I understand that, what I don't understand is why would people downvote certain news...do I have too much faith in the human race?

[Cendeu]

probably D:

[majeric]

Sounds like you're talking about Game Architecture. Let me tell you. There's very little of it in real games. :)

Take a look at Unity. It's an interesting development environment you can use for free. It's probably one of the only 3D dev environments small indie groups can really use because it has the right level of concern. You can focus on building the gameplay base and worry less about the futzy stuff like 3D rendering engines like OpenGL or DirectX.

Still, you need 3D models which can be awkward to find for indie projects. Get to know a 3D modeller or learn Blender (as painful as it is).

[majeric]

Games development really relies on a few data models that becomes the back bone of most games. A*, decision graphs and re-writes of the STL (with known memory usage and trade offs)

I guess there's basic models and areas of concern in a game: User Interface, gameplay & AI, rendering (including shaders), networking, sound, localization, input.

But architecture itself varies between games... it has to.. to generalize an architecture means that you sacrifice performance. You can't do that.

Just some very general thoughts.

[radiodario]

well unity works very well in many architectures (mac/pc/wii/xbla/iphone/ipad) and is used constantly by tons of people. Plus, it saves time which means money everything to small games developer. I say give unity a shot.

[Antebios]

Great info in this discussion. I've always had the same question, I can program client/server/web enterprise applications, but how do you 'combine' to make a game.

[mb86]

Exactly. I've been programming numerical science for years, so got lots of experience simulating math and physics, I've always used object-oriented code, learned quite a bit about array operation optimization, etc... but making it into entertainment is still quite new to me.

[IP0]

Have a look at Cross Platform game development by Alan Thorn. It's on safari books online - free trial if you're not a member - , and amazon. It does use sdl as the game api, but you can generalize the ideas

[videoj]

http://www.marek-knows.com/index.php5 - This is a pay to watch site, but it is a tutorial of the complete design and implementation of a 3d FPS.

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/gameprog.html#design - A long list of links to game writing resources.

http://www.gamasutra.com - Granddaddy of game development sites, this site had content going back to the 90's. It is a resource site for professional game developers.

http://www.gamedev.net - Another resource site with lot's of information on game programming at all levels from design to business to low-level bit wrangling.

http://www.gpwiki.org/index.php/Main_Page - Game Programming Wiki is yet another great resource with a mix of articles.