Hello,
I am currently in the process of starting a game company.I have been involved in games for 4 years now (modding) and have decided I want to take the next step.I do fully understand how hard it is to make games.As well as understand how hard it is to code an engine.I know it deal's with a lot of trig,vectors and so on.Basically stuff I am not versed at.I myself know a little of each area of game making,I know mapping,modeling,coding,music,texturing.But I am only an "expert" with mapping/modeling.
I do however have a team to help me.The problem is that I only have 2 coders to work on an engine.So I am looking for help all over (which brought me here).I take this most seriously and want to make a name for myself in games.I really have no other choice,it's either games or the army for me :(
I have a lot of things set up already,I have modeling programs,a large (quality) texture library,texture programs,uwv programs,a slew of plugins for 3dsmax,compilers and a humble but good team consisting of 2 coders,3 modelers,2 mappers and 2 skinners.Also I have the help of my friend's sound studio and music/effect's expertise.
This is in no way an "amateur" project or a "mod".Although I have learned all I know from modding,I must take the next step towards getting a career in games OR paving my own path as a small company.You can look at this as a garage band or starving artist sort of thing.If your good and you make something the people will enjoy,all you need to do is work hard to get it done.If I form a team and actually get this engine going,then make a game that is fun and can sell (which I WILL),the people on the team all have a place at our "company".Think of it in this sense,if you have heard of the new company reakktor the developers of neocron a mmorpg that at least in my opinion is great,then you know that their company started in much the same way as I am trying to start this.Perhaps it started with a few college friends that were all good coders and made an engine,but nonetheless it started with an ambitious team working on their own engine.Then you have all the examples of the "old-school" teams that are now multimillion dollar company's like epic and id software.All started by "dreamers" who knew there tech well ;)Then there is people that went from mod to retail such as counterstrike,tactical ops,die hard nakatomi plaza and so on.
I am stating these things to get the people who want to work in games thinking.If your just a programmer who does not care about games then fine,but I am looking for people that have a deep interest in games and would like to work in them as a career.If you are one of these people then I urge you to give this some thought.Without your help and the cooperation of the team as a whole we can't get anywhere.So if the whole think fails,it is the fault of people being lazy.I want to avoid such things as that and not have to worry about people quitting like is done on a mod team,this is not a recreation or hobby this is your future.I urge you to give it serious thought before you say "yes".
Until an engine is made and a game is shipped or the engine is licensed,we are nothing more than a group of idealists.But what I am basically asking here is for people with a little experience in C++ coding ( you don't have to be a pro,pro's usually want to be paid up front and are skeptical).You just need to know enough to assist my 2 main coders.Knowledge of vectors and calculus is a plus,and anyone extremely good at math is most welcome.
Anyone interested please respond here,and I will personal message you with my email address.
Of course constructive criticism and questions is also welcome,but I hope at least a few of you would like to get in on the ground level of this project and help it to take off :)
thank you,
Bronzeman
What Library will you be useing? (Directx, OpenGL, Allegro, ...)
To tell you the truth, I've seen this countless times. I've been in such a group 3 times and none of them lasted over 2 weeks. It is extremly difficult to work in an online group. Actualy, I haven't seenany group work.
Maybe you're better of looking for a team member at Gamedev (http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/)
Thanks for the link to gamedev,I'm going to check it out and post there as well.We will be using directx.As for your saying that things such as this have not lasted.Yes you are 100% right,but can you think of the reason's? Probably because of laziness or a lack of coordination.I want team to work together and if work is actually set up properly and completed in the step's that are laid out,it won't fail.A team is only good as it's weakest member.I mean if anyone is remotely interested,I will take the time to go to irc or msn or icq to chat with them and take it from there.
As for leading it,I have no college,and come from a family of little money.So I have only this choice to do what I love in the future.I can't afford to go to college,both money wise and dedication wise,because when not in work I must take care of things in my house :(
So I must focus on learning on my own (as I have been doing all my life) and taking matters into my own hands.
I will not even take on a team of fools who have no dedication,and I myself have 100% dedication to this.The only way it could fail would be lack of skill.
>>As for leading it,I have no college,and come from a family of little money.So I have only this choice to do what I love in the future.I can't afford to go to college,both money wise and dedication wise,because when not in work I must take care of things in my house
Sorry to hear that
>>I will not even take on a team of fools who have no dedication
Please don't. Because what you said is true, they failed because of lack of motivation. But I don't think you can expect everyone to be fully motivated. it will work in the beginning and then a member of your team will find something new he's interested in and your project will become second place to him. I really hope that won't happen to your group
When you get your game finished, let me know ok :thumbsup:
apparently max payne was made by some finnish coders who had never made a game before? good luck and let me know when you get it done (i might have got rid of this damn prehistoric computer by then)
thank's for the support guys,yes I know it will be a pain,but I'm sure if I post on enough forums and basically pimp my project as much as possible I can get at least a small team behind me to work on this.Once we have a few dedicated coders to work on this,the only thing in the way is getting the engine made.Possibly I would lay out the money for the torque engine so we can heavily modify it and it's user interface( like making use of static meshes with per poly collision as ued 3.0 does).But untill I get the help I need, it can go nowhere :(
Games made by amateurs can turn out really cool,just take a look at Project FY (http://www.cfxweb.net/~projectfy/projectfy.php) which is a really cool FPS with a pretty advanced game engine.
I would suggest that you use OpenGL instead of DirectX,that way you can port your game to every OS,and alot of coders like the OpenGL API more.
hell yeah, that game looks cool :)
yeah I don't know why direct x is more popular though,damn microsoft :mad:
That game is made with OpenGL ;)
Most of my programmer-friends prefer OpenGL too,but people usually don't have a choice,MS with their monopoly forces coders to use DirectX.However,you can choose,so I would recommend OpenGL,I don't see why you should not use OpenGL?
BAH, accidentally hit "New Thread" instead of "Reply", sorry folks.
Take a look at GarageGames (http://www.garagegames.com). They sell there engine, which is the full Tribes2 engine, for $99 license. The only drawback is you must use them to sell your game. Please do not dismiss it just because of that. If you are really interested they will work with you on obtaining an actual publisher for your game. Read the forums, heck even ask questions. It really is a great site for an indie game development team.
crunnluadh
Post #2 :D
I have been learning how to make 3D games for awhile now in DirectX, simply because I found a ton of tutorials for it and nothing with a search of OpenGL but I have heard that the OpenGL API is very similar to DirectX's. I have programmed the gameboy advance and am competent at C and C++ and well at OO programming in general. I don't know if I could help much but if you think of anything I could do, I'll do it.
OpenGL is just a graphics library. It "competes" with DirectGraphics, formely known as Direct3D and DirectDraw (even thought Microsoft also participates on the group that manages the new developments of OpenGL)
On the other hand, DirectX is a complete game library. It has several sub-libraries to help you in all aspects of your game, including:
Even if you use Open GL, it will be hard for you to port your game to other platforms, because games are made of much more than graphics. It will help you, of course, but it is still a very hard thing to do. That's why we don't see much games of other OS'es like Linux and Mac.
Of course you can use OpenGL for the graphics and DirectX for the rest. The only problem I see with OpenGL is that sometimes you have to write hardware-specific code for some tasks. You don't have that kind of trouble with DirectX.:)
Good luck!:thumbsup:
I'm just curious... what kind of game do you plan on making? And do you have a storyline, or gameplay aspects that you are trying to acheive?
Thats why you cant compare OpenGL with DirectX,but if you compar OpenGL with just DirectDraw/DirectGraphics/Direct3d it comes out much better.
And its not true that with OpenGL you have to write hardware specific code (where did you get that from?).The thing is that with OpenGL you can use the latest features of the hardware using extensions,while in DirectX you have to wait for the next release.
It is true that games consist of more that grahpics,but graphics are usually the biggest part.And stuff like mouse/keyboard handling, for which you may have used DirectX in Windows,you can easily port to other systems.
I also dont understand where you got the idea from that there arent many games for Mac,as far as I know all major games are ported to Mac (Return to castle wolfenstein,Red Faction etc.).
I know. The comparision between OpenGL and DirectX was done in a previous post I was replying. :eek:
Of course OpenGL is more powerfull, but we are talking about garage games here, and I believe that Direct3D is the way to go. It has a lot more books, tutorials and articles about it.
The hardware-specific code I said is about the extensions. You have to use them if you wan't to get the latest on the hardware. Maybe it's better than waiting for the next DirectX to be released, but take a look at the current situation. DirectX 8 supports almost every latest graphics cards effects. If Direct3D has the interface method, just call it and it will get done, even if your card does not have hardware acceleration for the effect, it will be done by software.
DirectX 8 won't support only "some" effects on ATI Radeon 9000 and later cards (even GF4 Ti4600 is fully supported) But the card came out these days and DirectX 9 is due to be relesead by the end of the year. You don't create a full game in 6 months anyway! I would wait and get the DirectX9 if I was doing something now. For my garage game, I would probably not even use those effects!
Also, graphics are usually the biggest part. The rest can be more than half of the game, and porting half of your game is not easy!! Mouse input is very easy, right. But other things done in DirectX like sound, multiplayer are not. Even you phisics and AI can be hard to port if your game is a little crazy to get the input for these tasks.
And I do believe that even larger game-development teams have a hard time porting games to other platforms. You pointed just 2 games for Mac. Look how many games are going out for consoles and PC! My IGN review subscription sends me nearly 1 e-mail a day, about a review of a new game for the PC or console. It's hard even to keep up with all the latest releases.
A small team would just get crippled by trying to port their game to anything else beyond the PC (even consoles are a pain in the a$$ to port, if you know what I mean). Better start brainstorming for a new game or old 2.0.
The cost constraits forbid you to port to Mac. The time constraints forbid you to port to Linux. The profit of doing this forbids you of porting to both. The first has few users (and even fewer gamers), the second also has few users (and even fewer users willing to pay anything for software).:cool:
Originally posted by Josh Campbell
I have been learning how to make 3D games for awhile now in DirectX, simply because I found a ton of tutorials for it and nothing with a search of OpenGL but I have heard that the OpenGL API is very similar to DirectX's. I have programmed the gameboy advance and am competent at C and C++ and well at OO programming in general. I don't know if I could help much but if you think of anything I could do, I'll do it.
Well if your interested we can talk more. This goes for anybody actually. Just mail me at [email protected] and I will discuss details.
Originally posted by whammy
I'm just curious... what kind of game do you plan on making? And do you have a storyline, or gameplay aspects that you are trying to acheive?
An RPG. Nothing like has been done before,actually I am feeling out a few things. I am organizing a TC for UT2003 and work with someone elce that is pretty far into owning an actual studio.Then there is my own project that I hope to build from my many indever's as of so far.
Sweet! I play UT 2003 quite a bit. I love the graphics. :)
yeah ut2003 is the king now.....until unreal 2 comes out that is.well if your interested on helping out on that just let me know ;)
if i was making a game i would have the common sense (like rareware did in the UK quite a while ago when they made the game Perfect Dark) of asking the gamers for suggestions thoughout the development of the game
well I'm also interested in game programming, but i haven't make any effort until now to take a look in this field. I write now my diploma thesis in germany. It will ends on 11.12.2002. My parents come from turkey and i have learned some Japanese. That's my cultutral background. Please contact me at [email protected] I will help you...
I'm experienced in PASCAL, C, C++, Java, ...
UML, Together, Rational Rose, WinCvs, Oracle,
Internet Development(CSS, JavaScript) and in lot more fields