tafeSA is one of those community college deals, with short 1-2 year courses
i wouldn't waste my time...go to a real specialty college where they teach game development & have professors who work or have worked in the field

pick up a fashion magazine (your mom should have some laying around) and draw all the models or hung/laying clothing you see

shading isn't easy, you have to think about your characters form...look into tutorials about shading cubes,spheres & cylinders

those are the basics you will need. after that if you are really interested you can look into shading complex shapes

that is just all wrong, looks like a striped popsicle
first you have to take into account light source & then the form of your figure...just go look at some photos of people & notice where the lighter n darker sections of skin are

the flinstones song has gay in it
"we'll have a gay ol time"

gay didn't become synonymous with homo till the 1920's or something, but back then gay was used for lots of other things

At 6/21/08 10:59 PM, reality-monkey wrote: how far out does the eye come from the face for the skin to overlap?

that's a matter of personal genetics, some people have eyes sunken in, others have them very protruding...take asians for example, generally they have the eyes more into the sockets of the skull thus a heavy crease doesn't form. you have to take into account the shape of the eyeball itself also, it's not a perfect sphere, the cornea forms a hump of sorts...this kind of information would involve studying races & their facial features

a very good book on drawing faces in general is Burne Hogarth's "drawing the human head"
you can usually find the book for free on e-libraries since it's been out of publication for some time

you're just lacking a true understanding of the form. try drawing the whole eyeball first & then draping lids over it, you will get a better sense of the form
you have the same issue with the lips also, the mouth curves on the face & the upper lip overlaps the lower one

look at photos if you wanna practice these things
with practice you'll get there eventually

what you have to ask is: is programming a job or a hobby??
if it's a hobby it's likely you will spend less time socializing...& not just because it's programming, but because it's a hobby. on top of having a job you will also have a hobby, which is very time consuming & something you do alone, unlike sports or gambling or whatever.

i've never seen programming communities or something like that where people get together & discuss programming...there are societies & clubs but it's nothing like, take for example drawing, there are drawing communities in lots of places where artists get together to work on their skills collectively or discuss art topics

so if it's a hobby on top of a job your time will be hard pressed
i draw, program & play guitar in a band. on top of that i go to school & work too...the only time i go out is when i play with the band, all the rest of the free time is spent practicing or resting

hammerhead is like, one of the first free ones that came out
it's pretty crap though, even for it's time

hmmm i see the problem...you have a Dell

a hard compression could work...or turning down the other instruments
i'd have to know what you're working with to give better advice

At 6/16/08 06:07 PM, giantpanda wrote: I don't know if I would call it easy, I mean some games can be quite hard :P

did something fly over your head??

At 6/9/08 02:51 PM, darkspriter wrote: Hi can any one help me? I am a spriter but i want to make game out of them but dont know were to start can anyone help me and i wont beg!

you need first of all a sprite animation toolkit (makes things easier) something like Graphics Gale
& then you need to learn how to program, which i doubt you will so instead just learn how to sprite properly & animate correctly & team up with a programmer

define: cool

At 6/5/08 01:40 PM, nns357 wrote: If you still feel like arguing with me, do it in a PM as this topic has no relevance to the current forum, and you will still have no idea as to what you are talking about, bye!

nice cop-out to not having yourself look like a fool ;)
bye indeed

At 6/3/08 03:34 PM, nns357 wrote: Animation and Gaming are two completely different things, and the above statement was wrong in so many ways. And how would the be pressed towards gaming? Theres no difference in game modeling than there is in animation modeling.

actually, there is a difference between animation & game modeling...shows how much you know, & i couldn't understand anything else of what you were saying

There are many things that Maya and 3ds max do differently. If they were the same, then Autodesk wouldn't be making BOTH Maya and 3ds Max at the same time...

seems you know very little about business administration also...people tend to stick to brands they have used for a long time
you would probably be surprised if you looked at who owned what companies & when they bought them of the many products you use

C++ ain't goin nowhere...other have already tried to de-thrown it, they all have their uses though
C-# is mostly used for RAD (Rapid Application Development)

if you need something simple done fast, use C-#
if you want total control --> C++

At 6/2/08 01:58 PM, nns357 wrote: You guys do know this has NO RELEVANCE to programming at all...

really, what about MEL scripts?? =P
i'm just jerkin yer chain

anyway, the only real differences between Maya & 3DS are their interface & rendering engine
one more geared towards animation & the other towards gaming...you'll be hard-pressed to find something one can do that the other can't though.

it doesn't matter on which you decide to learn though, Blender is free so give that a go...they're all pretty much the same thing

At 6/1/08 05:31 PM, afromike1 wrote: WTF! How do you use engines? im currently programming for a shitty java applet lol. PLEASE show me how the pros make games(3d modelling, engines, and animation).

an engine is just a series of instructions to short-cut development...it would have common things like gravity,movement input,rotation...anything that would apply to the gaming world/environment
we can't show you how the pros make games cause companies keep all this shit secret. but if what you wanna learn is modeling & animation that's easy, go to a 3d school or pick up some books, learn to use 3DSmax or Maya
as for the engines...well that's harder, something like the unreal engine (which is what's being used by many companies) takes years to develop...you have to apply a lot of math & problem solving for something of that caliber. they also usually come with rendering & animation features for 3D stuff
this stuff is not easy, if you think you're gonna come out making games like Gears of War by yourself from the ground up you're wrong...pick one field & stick to it, making games by yourself is better suited for 2D stuff or mini games

now if you want you can move on to big boy stuff, like a vector graphic game
i don't know if you were alive in those days, but way back when game graphics used to be hard coded (asteroids,tail gunner,old star wars)
look into vector games

it's buy no means a necessity, but a good learning experience...some very cool games were made like this, & anything that would apply with pixels applies here also. i think it's a win win situation
or if you want you can just go on ahead with using something like Allegro & then move on to openGL & direct3D
don't be afraid to use tools that make your experience easier on making games. you don't need to know how cheese is made to make a sandwich, or much less make the cheese yourself...staying encouraged is probably the hardest obstacle you will have, seeing results will keep you motivated ;)

other cool stuff to check out
XNA
GBA programming
ogre3D
irrlitch
freeGLUT
flash & java (of course)

At 5/28/08 05:44 PM, RyanPridgeon wrote: I'm starting off getting into more hardcore standalone game programming... can any of you offer me advice in a direction to go?

I'm extremely confident in actionscript and most of the standard C++ syntax and such, and i've started learning how to use the Irrlicht engine... am I wise for doing this?

PLZ advice meeee :D

well most of what you need to know for C++ is classes, pointers, arrays, functions
if you know enough about that you are ready to go straight out. the more you know about C++ the better of course...you can probably do a number guessing game already, try your hand at tic-tac-toe done in C++ alone, then try a text based RPG, ASCII RPG (like the old Rouge games) from there it should be pretty easy...knowing math would help for platform games, you can find many books on game physics. you can jump right into doing graphic games but i wouldn't recommend it, go to gamedev.net & look at the beginner sections
here, i'll point it out for you
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/start_h ere/

this will not be easy, & it will probably take you a year or two...you will have to learn a lot of things

yes i know there are libraries like Allegro & SDL, but those are more like toys if you're looking to get into the business...kinda jumped the gun with the comment, but you know what i mean. openGL & direct3D are the standard, anyone who's serious will be using these. i mostly see hobbyists using other stuff

At 5/27/08 05:05 AM, DougyTheFreshmaker wrote: As mentioned, the title says they use OpenGL. Weird choice, if you ask me, for a 2D game like this.

why would it be weird?? it's the only API that runs on all OS's

why not do both??

if you're really cheap, you can buy individual string packs

ok first of all, video game design has NOTHING to do with programming
if you want to go into design choose a field in literature/writing or art/theatrics

& withing games there's a lot more than just programming & design involved, maybe you want to be an animator, or a GFX artist. i think you should go to wherever it is you plan to study & ask them for a tour, there you should ask the person questions about career paths in the VG field

if you convert an mp3 to a wav it won't sound the same as if it were an original wav, so there's no point in that if you ask me

& an mp3 at 320kb is about 95% close to the sound of an original wav, & only bout 1/5 of the size

my solution is better...1 time voting for everybody, including flash portal
with IP tracking

all problems would be solved, whoever wants to cheat or be an ass then will have to jump through some hoops

both dawn of sorrow & portrait are there

+1 for having tits