Shooter

how would i go about making a shooting game. like your a stick and you walk around shooting the other stick

That's a very general question. What do you want to know?

Can you program 3d graphics? Do you know how to do collision testing?

You need to know this and much more for writing a shooter.

what i want is this stick man i have to shoot in whatever direction he is facing, and if he hits the target the target disappears. and are there any free 3D programming programs

Do you want it to look like Doom?

Can the stick man walk or just turn?

either, doom would be nice, but thats to comp, so stick

So you want the man to walk in 2D. Like Super Mario Bros on the old Nintendo 8bit? Or do I not follow you at all….

Or a shooting range? Fixed position, you just turn around and soot at some things that pop up.

OK you should first write your program by hand, then on computer. What the general idea (for a 2d game) would be is:

Main loop (perhaps controlled by timer or something)
Move enemie's (x,y) positions/directions (using simple/hard AI)
Check for input. If there is some, move the character's (x,y) position / direction pointing.
Check for 'shot'. If the player shoots, check for all enemies in line of player direction. If there is an enemy, make them disappear (like change their (x,y) to 0,0 and "beep" or something.)

Draw all the characters (in whatever way you want, but do it using all the (x,y) of the player and the enemies.

End of Main loop

Once you've done this, write Subs for each part (so your code doesn't get messy) and call the subs from the main loop.

The hardest part is drawing onto the screen to get it looking as you want it.

Quote:

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Originally posted by NoteMe
So you want the man to walk in 2D. Like Super Mario Bros on the old Nintendo 8bit? Or do I not follow you at all….

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bingo. by the way do u know any programs i can use to make 8bit pics for my game?

Nope, not 8-bits. Not that in to drawing with computers. But why do you want to make 8-bit pictures. Why not 16 or 32-bits or what ever. And if you want to make that kind of game with VB, you probably should start learning DX right away. Start with DX7, because it has DD. If you want to make that kind of game in DX8, you would have to use the D3D. And that’s maybe not where to start.:)

Actually, I suggest trying DirectX8 first... see how far you get before it totally confuses you.. then go to DX7. You'll see how easy it is, and you'll be thankful :)

lol, Sas.

Good idea, sure is motivating. I started with DX6 and DDraw, now in DX8 I don't get around to doing something...

use opengl :) gl for president!!! :D

Seeing as you seem to be real new to programming you could try useing a program like DarkBasic

Dark Basic is a 3D game programing language, but also dose 2D too, the syntax is very simerla to VB in alot of ways, but it has alot of built in commands to make game programming for fun and easy to use.

For example to get a 3D terrain and a 3D sphere on the terrain useing VB would requier a fair amount of codeing.

In Dark Basic the commands would be

Make Matrix 1,1000,1000,25,25
Make Object Sheare 1,10

first line makes a flat 3D terrain 1000X1000 and divided into 25x25 squares

second line makes a 3D sphear 10 units in size

You have all your ushall IF, Then, GoTo, Return, Funtions commands etc as well, but get a load more commands bundled in too. that makes the whole lengthy process of just setting up a game areana much more quicker.

It actually uses Direct X

You can get a free downlaoded trial copy at

WWW.DarkBasic.com

Also if you want to draw graphics on your PC there are plenty of drawing packages out there on the internet, in fact i saw Paint Shop Pro 5 full version slapped onto the cover of a PC magazine the other day, do some web searches plenty of free stuff out there.

If you want to do 3D modeling the best software package out there for the novice is Milkshape 3D, you can get a free 30 trial download and after that its only a few quid to buy.

Cant remeber web adress for that just do a web searhc for Milkshape 3D

Is OpenGL suportet for VB? I didn't know that if thats true. But isn't OpenGL just for graphics. DX is all you need to make a game. Sound, multiplayer .....

For 3D programming, D3D is usually more state-of-the-art than OpenGL (we'll see what OpenGL 2.0 brings), since it even acts as a definition what cards must be able to do (talk about market power of MS).

For 2D programming, OpenGL is just as good as DirectDraw. But on windows DirectDraw is faster because the windows implementation of OpenGL internally uses DirectDraw (check the dependencies of the OpenGL dll, it depends on ddraw.dll)

If your game should be cross-platform (very advanced topic) go OpenGL, DirectX is windows-bound. Use OpenAL or a comparable library to replace DirectSound. Replace DirectPlay with pure sockets. Don't know what to replace DirectInput with, maybe direct hardware.

If you want to stay with windows, DX is usually the better choice.

Of course, if you program in VB, cross-platform isn't much of a topic.

considering im a newbie....whats directX

Basically a lot of functions that let you do anything from transform a matrix to play an mp3 file.

DirectX is a COM (Component Object Model) library that was built with C++. The DirectX SDK is a library of routines that maximize the performance of 2-D and 3-D games, with full support of hardware-accelerated graphics and sound. Sounds fun doesn't it.

So if you are new to game programming, pick up a few samples and start away. But if you are new to programming, you probably should try to make a "Hello World" program first, or something like that, before starting with game programming....

o **** this u guys may as well be speeking japenese LOL

it's a code thingy that lets you draw pretty pictures and make noises!

fast pictures..(high frame rates)...for your convenient...

Ok, here's a little bit of open source i made last night. It's nothing flash, but it's the basics (you have you, opponents (enem) and you can move up/dn/lf/rt + strafe left/right.
You can shoot a bullet every so often (so can your enemies, but not with any good AI) , and it can hit enemies, then the die and respawn. (note: the collision detection is VERY bad, but i'm improving it tomorrow)

It would not take much coding to make it better, like throw in some 3d directX to change the circle people and their weapons to boxes :p

But for now, just a simple example of what you can do.

Sorry, it's not commented, BUT it is rather straight forward. There are many subs (like walkup, walkdown etc) which are self-explainatory, the only hard bit is the main loop, which i basically described earlier.

Enjoy (I know the game is quite sad, but it's only a learning tool.)

That game was actually kind of fun. Never thought of a game that way before. But it runs a kind of fast, don’t you think. But I do love the idea.

I WANNA CREATE OLD GAME GRAPHICS, LIKE SONIC AND MARIO! WWAAAA

hint hint......

I didn't yet finish it :rolleyes: but maybe you get the idea..

http://fox.acky.net/vb/english/codin...ial/index.html

When using DX, set the resolution to 320x240, will support the old look :D

Yes, i must admit, i used a TIMER!!!
:D :cool: :) :( :o :eek: :mad:
Sorry Fox, but i didn't yet know how to use GetTickCount (but now i do, so thanks)

If you really want to make old-looking graphics, just make your own emulator-type thing, where you have an array (dimensions of whatever the 8-bit things were), and in this store the values of your 8-bit graphics.
Then all you have to do is make your own subs, stuff like loading a pic into the array, moving all the pics to the right, etc.
Then, just draw all the 'pixels' (actually bigger than 1 pixel each) onto the screen, and TADA!

where can i download this directX thingy mabobber that will let me make oldskool game gr@phics

please dont say www.directx.com or im gonna feel more stupid then i already do lol

it cant be www.directX.com cuz i need a username and passwd to enter that site....

edit: SORRY FOR NOT USING EDIT! fergot

www.microsoft.com/directx ;)

...your smart....TOO SMART! GET HIM

is there any special thing i download? like directx draw or what

3nyone?

REPOSTED IN RIGHT FORUM

Download the DirectX SDK. Thats what you need...