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[ElectricThunder]

Right, I'm set on embarking on a remainder of life's work venture in game development. Aim is to either enter into the industry to affect positive change and improvement where I can or go the one-man home business/corp route or some amalgam of the two outside of some other "something" hurling monkey wrenches about. Using the time honored power of "unemployment time", I shall learn what I need to know across the spectrum as expediently as possible---sampling the lot of it to see if any in particular strike a chord as I've no experience or bias. Formal college education, for various reasons, isn't really an option at this time and the foreseeable future.

Here's what I've compiled from months of looking around and bookmarking. If there are things I have nothing servicable on, like Linux, or ones where I'm missing some nifty bit(s), like potentially much of what follows this---do chime in so I can better educate myself. I would also imagine this topic to be helpful to any other people considering going this road. Some links might quite not be in the right section though, sorry if so. Want to keep OP updated'ish.

Let's go!

Music/Sound: MilkyTracker Famitracker Audacity AnvilStudio FLStudio musagi MODPlugCentral Obiwannabe JeskolaBuzz Buze KVR KOREplayer/NativeInstruments sf2midi HammerSound homemusician Soundbytes SoundsOnline SONiVOX MI Precisionsound MusicLab MadTracker HighC SuperCollider ChucK audiogang Freesound Mixcraft Renoise PSYCLE as3sfxr REASON/Propellerhead Hobnox SharewareMusicMachine NDS Composer Flash Kit SoundFX Media Convert Soundtrack Producer

Scripting: Lua BASH Squirrel JavaScript tutorial LuaJIT

BASIC: FreeBASIC PureBasic

Ruby: Ruby on Rails Rubygame Gosu Ruby Humble Little Ruby Book Whys Poignant Guide to Ruby Ruby: Pragmatic Programmer's Guide TorqueBox Aptana

C#XNA: XNA Creators Club Programmer's Heaven C# School Book XNA Community Forum FlatRedBall Riemers XNA Tutorial XNA Development XNA Game Studio 3.1 Beginner's Guide 2d Nick Gravelyn Tutorials

Flash/Flex/Actionscript: Adobe FlashDevelop Flash Game Dev with Flex and ActionScript 8bitrocket Where to start with AS3, Flashdevelop, and Flixel

Java: Eclipse LWJGL Stanford Java Intro scriptaculous jQuery Slick2D PulpCore jMonkeyEngine aima-java Eclipse and Java Video Tutorials PMD JOGL Java Class 1UPenn Java Class 2UPenn serf-engine IntelliJ IDEA DrJava Object-oriented Programming in Java textbook Java

Python: Python pygame wxPython py2exe Dive Into Python pyglet cocos2d Pycap Jython IronPython Psyco NumPy Django How to think like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python 2nd Ed Dive Into Python 3 aima-python PythonTurtle Richard Gruet's Python Page Semi-Official Python FAQ Zone Python IAQ Essential Python Reading List Swaroop C H Python Notes Python Idioms and Efficiency Code like a Pythonista Python for Lisp Programmers Invent with Python Natural Language Processing with Python Eric IDE Easy AI with Python Python Debugging Techniques Python Notes Useless Python

Engines: GPWiki Game Engines Blitz OGRE Irrlicht Game Maker Torque2D/3D Construct HAAF's Multimedia Fusion Unity3D SWI-Prolog DarkBasicPro Farseer GameStudio 3D RAD Truevision3D Popcap Framework Scratch runrev Novashell SFML Love2D GeoControl Adventure Game Studio Isotope pymunk Inform OpenGL Redbook Panda3D C4 Engine Esenthel Sandbox UDK

C++: Eclipse CDT C++ Reference Cprogramming Bloodshed Code::Blocks Cplusplus Stanford C++ Intro1 Stanford C++ Intro2 Visual Studio 2008 Express jnrdev IndieLib IndieZen Lazy Foo's C++ SDL C++ FAQ Lite Standard Template Library Generic Programming Techniques Boost Boost C++ Libraries Windows API GTK+ Qt wxWidgets ClanLib SDK C++ in Action: Industrial Strength Programming C: A Reference Manual 5th Ed Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days 2nd Ed C++ Primer Plus 5th Ed StVincent: Software Design Using C++ Data Structures and Algorithms with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in C++ C++ Tutorial n00b spoonfeed Guidelines for writing good C++ sourcecode POCO C++ Libraries

Graphics: .theprodukkt Blender Wings 3d GIMP virtualdub Terragen easy Particle 3 Absolutecross 3Dlinks Free metal/wood/stone textures Mayang's Free Texture Library Image*After CG Textures Albatross3D CrystalSpace3D MilkShape 3D NaturalMotion paint.net Camstudio pro motion Project Dogwaffle Genetica Graphic Design Tutorials OpenGL Direct3D Corel hlsl shaders Inkscape mtPaint Mappy Campaign Cartographer 3/ProFantasy GraphicsGale Tile Studio ArtRage Google SketchUp Pixia/Phierha GIMPusers AC3D COLLADA Neil Blevens CG Education loq ariou GLSL Geometry Shader CSE 169 Computer Animation CG Society CreativeCrash AnimationMentor Keith Lango tutorials Spline Doctors Stile Blender 3D: Noob to Pro Using Subsurf for Head Modeling Designing Arcade Computer Game Graphics PixelSnap lynda Blender Underground Video Tutorials Graphics Programming Black Book gmax/Turbosquid DAZ 3D CG Cookie trueSpace GIMP normalmap plugin Good Textures V-Ray Renderosity YafaRay frecle ColladaBlender OpenGameArt LightUp MapCore

Misc: FreeScienceOnline Free Video Lectures FreeGameDev GameDev.net tigsource gamedevmap How to Develop a Gaming Career w3schools MajorGeeks MinGW DevMaster.net How to make a videogame with no experience MITOpenCourseware NeHe Stanford courses MaxDesign W3C Matthew James Taylor blog HTML Goodies Learn to Program: Chris Pine CakePHP YUI Library OpenOffice XAMPP Prism Lifehacker Elite Freeware Allegro Free Pascal Project JEDI Little Red Book Coding4Fun SDL GameFAQS GD&P Newbies Essential Math for Games Programmers Stack Overflow Programmer's Heaven ProgrammingTutorials CodeGuru Real World Haskell Learn You a Haskell for Great Good Pure Data HSP FunctionX UNSWelearning's Channel Coding Horror 3D Game Programming all in one Finney Silverlight Allegro Brain Workshop Cobra/Cobra3D pastebin Clojure Dropbox Amazon S3 FreeTrack Lazarus Game Industry Map Hourences' Community Site Assembla Betawatcher Alice.org Haskell/Wikibooks Haskell for C Programmers Haskell GameTutorials.com Flipcode AI GameDev Black Art of 3D Game Programming Mantis Bug tracker Ubuntu Livestream The Escapist Pygments Moose The Larceny Project PLT Scheme fontcapture FontForge OpenCOBOL SHMUP-DEV Game Programming Patterns ACM Portal Hubfolio The Craft of Programming Reynolds Semantics with Applications A Computer Science Tapestry 2nd Ed Concrete Abstractions: Intro to Comp Sci Using Scheme Foundations of Computer Science Aho/Ullman Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation Krishnamurthi

 

[ElectricThunder]

More incoming...ran out of room!

Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction Computational Modeling and Complexity Science Downey Handbook of Applied Cryptography Practical mod_perl Object Oriented Reengineering Patterns Matters Computational Higher-Order Perl A Field Guide to Genetic Programming Programming from the Ground Up Intro to Scheme and its Implementation Intro to Information Retrieval Intro to Machine Learning NLP in Lisp How to Use Scheme Scheme/4th Ed Scheme Programming Language Parsing Techniques 2nd ed Teach Yourself Scheme in Fixnum Days Gaussian Processes for Machine Learning Green Tea Press How to Design Programs Practical Common Lisp On Lisp Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs book Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs video iCampus On-Line Tutor FreeCodeMomma FreeComputerBooks 3D Buzz GPU Gems 3 Demoscene pouet Pragmatic Programmer: Journeyman to Master/pragprog Thinking Forth Jing OpenZA Tectonic glc MPlayer WizBang InfoQ Processing Simply Scheme Solidfiles Mogware freshmeat Orbital Cows OpenGL SuperBible PlayClaw thenewboston's video tutorials channel PureGDK thefreecountry NSIS HelpMaker indievision The Kameleon Project zfate Go Programming Language cdecl gamdel Chromium OS CleanGL Clean

There, been putting together this post for pretty well the past day or so straight. :lol

Yeah...said char limit would probably nix that notion wouldn't it? Here's one that was in the wrong section!

The C Book

 

[ZealousD]

Holy jesus fuck christ on a stick!

You weren't kidding about having a lot of links!

 

[Teknopathetic]

Conventional wisdom says if you're willing to put that much effort into it, you'll eventually land somewhere, haha.

As far as music software goes, you're missing stuff like Fast tracker, Ableton, Reaper, Podium, Skale, Sonar, Cubase, Orion, Kristal Engine, Mulab, Macaw, and a metric fuckton of free plugins http://www.kvraudio.com.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Programming/C++ books that I have found useful.

Programming Pearls
Code Complete
Effective C++
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
Even More Effective C++

 

[Fersis]

This is what im using in my little hobby project :
Notepad ++
VC++ 2008 Express
SDL
Paint .NET

 

[Chris R]

I'd post my Objective C / iPhone dev links but I'm on my PC right now There is a class on iTunesU from Stanford on iPhone development and it is very good (going through it right now as a matter of fact).

 

[Kiriku]

You're missing Adobe Audition for sound editing.

 

[Slavik81]

I <3 this thread. I was just about to post something requesting good places to look for information on OpenGL, and the modern graphics pipeline.

 

[ElectricThunder]

Conventional wisdom says if you're willing to put that much effort into it, you'll eventually land somewhere, haha.

As far as music software goes, you're missing stuff like Fast tracker, Ableton, Reaper, Podium, Skale, Sonar, Cubase, Orion, Kristal Engine, Mulab, Macaw, and a metric fuckton of free plugins http://www.kvraudio.com.

Would conventional wisdom also hold that the fact I did this one link at a time lacking any fancy tricks other than checking my bookmark subfolders one by one cancel out that industrious spirit? :lol

Woo hoo for missing Audio bits and book and such mentions! Mulab page brings up the domain being for sale though...?

Many parts of this were culled from little mini threads on both the Gaming and OT of GAF, but I don't recall any quite this...sprawling...else I'd surely have been better off to at least necro-bump it to beg than throwing the time at this. I'd really like to see more GAF folk aided in the grand scheme, collaborations...with all the various characters around here I can't help but think great things are possible with empowerment. This is the best community I've ran into gaming wise...and given my usual failure OPs from not understanding all these fancy things like pictures and avatars...I kinda feel it worthy to try and give back for all I've picked up on here lurking before joining and in the active discussons.

I'm due for a modern PC in the next couple weeks that a friend shall assemble, so that'll hopefully get me current/able to actually run stuff like Blender and GiMP that I can't on this old one. General plan is to learn by portfolio building/helping out with other projects to varying increasing scopes to encounter lots of idfferent things/make contacts before trying to muck about with creating my own stuf...as my own notions are pretty---unorthodox...so much that I think if I can't successfully learn by doing/helping then there's little chance of pulling them off.

Edit: For example, the next little slate of currently known possibilities I have to help/learn and will be starting from scratch on are:

1. SFML to help with a game that's a ways off but if I can pick some up in time...
2. Orchestral music for 2 projects, one being the same as #1
3. Taking a crack at learning a Scripting bit prior to programming, as I once heard was a good plan, in the form of Squirrel to help along another project make it to the next public release and such.

I've no tutorials or such for any of the 3 in any detail as can be seen above...just things that I think might offer the raw capabilities. Help zeroing in?

 

[Teknopathetic]

http://www.mutools.com/

Wrong mulab link.

 

[gabe90]

This is all great stuff, but wouldn't you think that another approach might be to attend game related events in your area and network with people in the industry? Might be a good way to learn about the industry, get an internship etc. If you're not getting paid as is and would be willing to work for free you may be able to get a foot in the door that way and get hands on experience.

Just a thought.

 

[Kiriku]

You could also add sound engines, like FMOD (which is free).

 

[MidgarBlowedUp]

For graphics there is also GimpPad, PhotoFiltre, and the now unsupported OpenCanvas 1.1

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

I love this thread. I really do.

 

[ElectricThunder]

This is all great stuff, but wouldn't you think that another approach might be to attend game related events in your area and network with people in the industry? Might be a good way to learn about the industry, get an internship etc. If you're not getting paid as is and would be willing to work for free you may be able to get a foot in the door that way and get hands on experience.

Just a thought.

Well, the full details would be OT by far, but I've circumstances.

-No real activity I know of in non-Metro ATL/non Savannah/you get the idea in the state of GA
-I'm somewhat a disabled person. Nothing so fancy as to garner anything, but my driving days are effectively over. Obviously, should serious things come instead of/alongside industry work proper, I'd have to consider moving if truly necessary/possible.

I've yet to earn any real pay from what projects I have helped with, as most all have been freeware/indie in nature where it comes down the the wonderful feeling/sight of my name in the staff credits, a contact made that'll hopefully let me help again, and the experience of understanding things a bit better from the bottom up. As to expediency, well, that ties into the magic of "unemployment time", thusly wanting to acquire some new skills to better myself and my lot in life for mt own sake and that of family. If I can't pick things up proper when things get fully situated hardware/software wise at 50-70+ hours a week of being interested and having plans for the subjects at hand then I'm pretty well worried.

In terms of paid software, I could use some recommendations. After the PC build, I should have some hundreds of dollars left over from the last of my savings for such. Obviously, of free ones will work well enough for a given task then that's where I want to be...but for aspects which, I'd imagine, the free ones put one ahead on cost but not on actual time spent and usability---I'd certainly want to invest to better odds of timely success.

Edit: Getting what I think is a bad link for PhotoFiltre? Or at least an unhappy one.

 

[Minamu]

Bookmarked. Not really my cup of tea when it comes to game design but could definitely be useful later on. Kinda hard to get a good look on where each link goes though.

 

[ElectricThunder]

Bookmarked. Not really my cup of tea when it comes to game design but could definitely be useful later on. Kinda hard to get a good look on where each link goes though.

Sorry about that. I did the best I could think to, but I'm just not so great at OPs. Perhaps a skillful mod can somehow take pity and clean it up somewhat down the line if it is found worthy. I'd really hope this to be a usable and long lasting a topic as possible.

 

[lordfroakie]

This thread REALLY needs to be sticky for up and coming indie devs.

 

[bistromathics]

i'm also unemployed and planned to learn some more game dev skills while enjoying my severance.

so far its just been sf4

 

[Twig]

Bookmarking cos man good resource.

 

[wolfmat]

Casey's Gilbert-Johnson-Keerthi-algorithm implementation video: http://mollyrocket.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=245
Casey's IMGUI concept video: http://mollyrocket.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=134

 

[Blizzard]

Bookmarked in my "Development" folder. Best of luck, sir. I'm working on a simple C++ game in my spare time, and I might come back here if I'm hunting for tools or something!

 

[JasoNsider]

Thanks for this post. Great resources here.

 

[Minamu]

so far its just been sf4

You don't say?

Heh, my first avatar quote xD

 

[ElectricThunder]

VirtualBox So, if I understand correctly, this thing would let me simulate a few other operating system environs without having to mess around with creating partitions and such? Awesome if so as Linux stuff seems likely to matter in the long run.

Also came across these, seemingly Java related:

Ext JS 3.0 The Dojo Toolkit

Still hoping for leads on:

1. Free music program(Or if not possible, the cheaper/better ones) that'll allow me to hash out "orchestral style" wranglings. A "desert" theme in particular is available/sought after.
2. Some/lots/any tutorials for Squirrel that start from "nothing" and in the end wind up at "something".
3. Likewise, any other good materials on SFML other than the homepage for it

 

[ElectricThunder]

2 more sites I'd not come across prior, hopefully useful depending?

Apache Software Foundation DocBook

Also, is there a quick list/comparison out there, up to date, that does the old compare/contrast on language/library/engine/etc in terms of the various entities designed to be especially very much cross-platform? I'd especially like to zero in on the ones that don't have fees associated with commercial distro versus freeware being free, as much as makes sense anyways, as that would strike me as the best kind of foundation to start from out of nothing for the sake of a wide purchasing audience after seeing many different indie entities struggle with trying to come about to terms with Linux/Mac/whatever versions after the fact..

 

[ElectricThunder]

Havok Is now apparently offering some generally free tools and more substantial across the lot of it via some manner of new "Indie" license---details of which apparently still forthcoming.

 

[toneroni]

Great post. Tons of good resources here!

 

[Rorschach]

Nice thread.

http://www.mutools.com/

Wrong mulab link.

Is the edit button too close to the quote button for you to use it?

 

[Why would you do that?]

Have I ever subscribed to a thread before? I don't know. But now I have!

That's an impressive ton of links.

 

[gregor7777]

VirtualBox So, if I understand correctly, this thing would let me simulate a few other operating system environs without having to mess around with creating partitions and such? Awesome if so as Linux stuff seems likely to matter in the long run.

Exactly. It creates a ~10GB file (customizable size) that it uses as a virtual hard drive of sorts. It installs the guest OS on to that file as it would a normal OS install. You tell it what resources it will take up (RAM and whatnot), and it will boot up in a window through your host OS.

So basically, after install, you launch Virtual Box and select the OS you want to run, and it boots it up in a window.

I run Fedora at work, but I like to keep an install of XP around for native apps. I give it 10GB HDD and 512MB RAM and it works great.

VirtualBox has a fairly simple interface, and is surprisingly easy to use. There are other options like VMWare out there, but I mostly use VB.

 

[Monroeski]

I'll be getting a lot of mileage out of this thread.

 

[BadSanta]

DX Studio is an awesome Game Engine.

 

[ElectricThunder]

DX Studio is an awesome Game Engine.

That does look pretty substantial...that and the somewhat sub-$1000 USD price for it full and proper should put it in play versus Torque3D, Unity, and so on.

Only sad thing I saw about VirtualBox is not yet supporting Mac stuff seemingly.

I really do appreciate all the help thus far and hope people continue answering my noob questions and offering up nifty links to things I missed.

 

[gregor7777]

Only sad thing I saw about VirtualBox is not yet supporting Mac stuff seemingly.

Last I looked (~3 months ago), the only way to load Mac OSX through a virtual machine (and even then, only VMWare IIRC) was illegally with a special hacked copy of OSX.

 

[ElectricThunder]

Last I looked (~3 months ago), the only way to load Mac OSX through a virtual machine (and even then, only VMWare IIRC) was illegally with a special hacked copy of OSX.

Is it some kinda legal issues or just technical hurdles where even the old Mac OS's haven't yet gained support?

Otherwise, here's perhaps the most useful of subreddits on Reddit for this topic, outside of Programming in general I mean:

Carlhprogramming

 

[ElectricThunder]

Panorama3d This appears to rig up some sky box functionality with AdventureGameStudio...stuff along with it link wise probably makes more sense than any way I'd bumble explaining it.

 

[John]

Thank you so very much.

 

[gregor7777]

Is it some kinda legal issues or just technical hurdles where even the old Mac OS's haven't yet gained support?

Both, sort of.

Apple mandates that their OS be run on only Mac hardware. If this is in any way enforceable I have no idea. This does however stop the companies who make the virtual machine software from adding it to their list of compatible guest operating systems.

On top of that, I believe they have put into certain checks into the OS install that makes it impossible to install in a virtual machine.

It does work under certain conditions however. There are hacked images floating around (illegal) and then there is the whole OSX86 project.

I ended up installing a legit copy to a separate partition on my Lenovo T61 using various methods found on OSx86 sites. It was a massive PITA and it doesn't run particularly well.

 

[ElectricThunder]

Both, sort of.

Apple mandates that their OS be run on only Mac hardware. If this is in any way enforceable I have no idea. This does however stop the companies who make the virtual machine software from adding it to their list of compatible guest operating systems.

On top of that, I believe they have put into certain checks into the OS install that makes it impossible to install in a virtual machine.

It does work under certain conditions however. There are hacked images floating around (illegal) and then there is the whole OSX86 project.

I ended up installing a legit copy to a separate partition on my Lenovo T61 using various methods found on OSx86 sites. It was a massive PITA and it doesn't run particularly well.

Well, maybe one day. I'd reckon me being years off from the kind of reverse engineering skills needed for the project I have in mind that needs a Mac's OS to get to the game to do stuff.

Also, just recently came across this link that seems like it could be quite helpful with bridge making/jumping Indie to, perhaps, otherwise:

Indie Developer Consulting

Also also, I just now found a correct link or so to the Photofiltre program mentioned earlier with a bad link:

Photofiltre 1 Another gisty one

Thusly, here's another grab all site to peruse for software it would seem:

softonic

 

[ElectricThunder]

It would appear Kongregate now has a platform integration thingie out that allows for community-feature infusion for broswer based games.

Konduit Platform

Also, IronPython has a new site now: IronPython

 

[ElectricThunder]

Here we have what wll probably shape up to be a free badass sculpting tool, full and proper release figured for 2010 but an early build now with functionality/back up what you do issues.

Sculptris

Here's another question, taking a different angle since my prior ones are not availing themselves: If you played Dark Spire, you know the music is awesome. Especially, there's some manner of odd/awesome operatic/vocalizing going on interweaved into the music itself. What is this effect/thing called? What software is capable of a similar task?

 

[ElectricThunder]

OpenCL

So, what's the general short/medium/long term gut reactions in terms of this OpenCL thing versus, I'd suppose, though they mention various integrations at a later point in time, OpenGL?

 

[Fersis]

Ok, this is what im looking for:

A Piano /Keyboard application that let me record what i play...
For Free :lol

 

[ElectricThunder]

flixel Overall helpful set of Flash related items that aims to greatly speed and simplify development.

I got nothing in the way of helpful bits for Fersis...everything seems to cost some degree of money. Sorry man

 

[wolfmat]

Ok, this is what im looking for:

A Piano /Keyboard application that let me record what i play...
For Free :lol

LMMS is a free midi-capable music studio. Also supports some VST instruments, which should be up your alley. Also has software keyboards, and you can always use some free soft MIDI app for PC keyboard input if you have no MIDI hardware. Win/Linux
http://lmms.sourceforge.net/
Dox are also available.

It does way more than just piano / keyboard stuff. If you've ever played with a sequencer-centered application though, I'm sure you'll figure it out in no time.

It's pretty CPU-heavy, but that shouldn't be a concern nowadays with multicore and whatnot.

You can record your stuff directly from midi into the sequencer so that it plays back on a VST (or some of the custom soft synths they're shipping with). You then render to WAV and encode to a compressed format with Audacity or whatever else floats your boat.

 

[ElectricThunder]

Here's another nifty looking Flash helper, somewhat like Flixel from last time around: FlashPunk

 

[SovanJedi]

You've got TileStudio already, which is what I was going to recommend as it is what I use for animation... so really, all I can say is good luck sir! If nothing else you can point to this thread on your CV and rightfully claim you've done your bloody homework alright.

 

[wondermega]

sorry to clutter your thread, but a question really quick - is a devkit needed for live arcade development?