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IndieDevAge: Help fill gaps? (lots o' links)

N

Noogy

Member
wondermega said:
sorry to clutter your thread, but a question really quick - is a devkit needed for live arcade development?
Click to expand...
Yes. But not if you are simply targeting Indie Games.
 
P

prodystopian

Member
ElectricThunder said:
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..
Click to expand...


Did you ever find anything like this? I started this thread asking about that but didn't get much feedback. I'm going to start playing with Torque and Unity so I'll come back with some impressions, but I'd love to hear more from others that have used either or both.
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Not yet at least and wow at my first thread link on GAF! Hang in there on your Mac thread...seems there's been a bit of zeroing in done post wise as I think much of what is in here is also relevant to it.

A few more random smatterings of things though:

IG MAKER An RPG Maker like Engine thing aiming at other venues

Visual related somehow:

Imagicon some image changing/conversion features
Sketchpad online painting/drawing thing
The Animator's Survival Kit Maybe one day I could afford the DVD Set or somesuch.

Misc:

Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory
Learn How to Video Edit
Seventh Sanctum "Stuff" generator
The Game Prodigy Articles McBlogs

Visual C# .NET beginner tutorial...whose homesite seems to have a smattering of other relevant looking tutorials and such: Home and Learn
Mono Crossplatform open source C# enabler project thing and a Monotouch aimed at the iDevices likewise.

My apologies for not updating the thread more frequently as I've been sucked into beta and was aiming to hold off until I had a bit of variety to post.

Still always looking to hear back on any of my random questions...still lacking/stumped on most standing ones. : (
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Bit more of an assortment this go around, I really do need to get around to that Tablet soon---will likely make a specific topic for it in this context though.

Python:

A Beginner's Python Tutorial
Stackless
Google's Python Class

Java:

Groovy

Music/Sound:

The Tutorial "Master List" tranceaddict forums
We Are The Music Makers Forums

Engines:

OSARE: Open Source Action Roleplaying Engine

Graphics:

Harmony
Luminous: Procedural Image Creation Software
Tutorial: Hard Surface Texture Painting
Joe's Blog: An intro to modern OpenGL Ongoing and supposedly QUITE good/current.
Tiled Map Editor
POV-Ray - The Persistence of Vision Raytracer
Sprite Manager 2 Bit of Middleware for Unity3D---apparently the folks at ArcEn (AI War folks) will have use of it for their upcoming puzzler Tidalis
WebGL
Ogmo Editor Adobe AIR 2D visual level editor
Aviary Seemingly robust assortment of web-based tools.

Very Misc stuff:

LLVM
clang
Kieron Gillen: How to Use and Abuse the Gaming Press and how the Gaming Press wants to Use and Abuse you.
IndieCade: International Festivals of Independent Games
Indie Game News
Dive Into HTML5
Dev.Mag
Game Dev - NAG Online
Moosader
LusikkaMage's Moosader Games channel

Hopefully some stuff that'll be helpful to people going forward in this batch...

Edit: Soon as in today, as it is Tuesday. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=392727
 
M

Minamu

Member
I figure this is the best place to ask. Does anyone know any sites with game design document examples or something similar? I have an idea I need to put on paper as an entry exam for a school but I don't really know where to start :lol I suppose mimicing an "official" document, if such a thing exists, would help? Also, I need to write a gameplay analysis of another title as well. I've never done that. Any advice there?

Should've started this a long time ago. Not much time left...
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Sorry Minamu...can't think of anything like that in the stuff I've found for here so far. : (

Here's a bunch of other crazy stuff, mainly for the Art/Graphical folks. How I didn't already have much of the following is baffling to me as much of this stuff sounds great----think there's even a few designed for the Tablet topic to mention there as well! :D

Misc:

Croquet
Pharo
Khan Academy
Indie Game Development: 16 Do's/Dont's by Edmund McMillen

Graphics:

Pixelation: Way of the Pixel
So You Want To Be A Pixel Artist?
Krita
create
Fontmatrix
GEGL
Hugin
OpenClipArt
Open Font Library
Oyranos
RAWstudio
sK1 Project
MyPaint
Scribus
Libre Graphics Meeting 2010

Some of these on the art front surely must be handy to folk lurking around here---definitely let us know in here should one or more really strike a cord.
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Another assortment of stuff, some new...some realized versions of prior pokings:

Graphics:

Fantasy Art School lessons
How to Draw Fantasy stuff
FARP: Art Tutorials and Technique Resources
Diane Wright Drawing Tutorials
sTile Tile editor aimed at "Seamless"
Two-Kings DirectX Graphics tutorials
MakeHuman 3D Humanoid character modeling software, free/open
Pixie via Nattyware Color picker/IDer
Ryzom Asset Repository
Sculptris 1.0 essentially
GrafX2 Powerful bitmap paint program with features centered around Pixel doings

Misc:

UPS device Should get one of these as a precaution at some point...
humyo Another online backup/share place
PC World's 52 Incredibly Useful Sites
EMC Private Cloud wranglings
SharePoint2010 Collaboration platform
Subversion Open source version control system
Creative Lab Grabbag assortment of advice and musings by a niche Indie dev
SmartSVN Graphical client for Subversion. Free and not-free version available
VisualStudio2010 All the crazy expensive, but probably useful stuff
MicrosoftExpress stuff For those poor like me and/or not needing the crazy expensive stuff---one hopes...
FogBugz Issue tracking and project planning
Filevo It pretty much hopes to topple Rapidshare and the like
How to Sell your game PDF Advice from the Amaranth games indie outfit

Engines:

Wintermute 2D/2.5D point n' click adventure creation and running engine
Digital Content Creation Tools for Ogre and otherwise in general

Music/Sound:

Public Domain Sounds
OpenGameArt's Audio section
freegamedev.net's Audio section
Fl Studio's Signature Bundle has come WAY down in price by my recollection---$300 now which amounts to $536(!) saved via their reckoning.

More stuff as I come across it, and likewise as other NeoGAF folks chime in!
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Time for an update, as there's been some rather nifty stuff I either missed before or has evolved to be even niftier still:

Flash:

PixelBlitz Game framework for Actionscript3
minerva AIR Shared Object Editor

Scripting:

Web Lua Screw with Lua online

Graphics:

FOSS gallery FOSS Art stuff
Tilemaster tile set editor and drawing tool undergoing rapid development
Quality Gimp tutorials
Flame Badass looking painting program whose full version is 9.90 euro--whatever that is in USD. There's also a Liquid one that's more primitive and other assorted oddities on this guy's site. Seriously leaning towards buying the full version--just LOOK at the freaking dragon!
Dundjinni Slick-as-hell looking fantasy map creation program

Sound:

atduskgreg / bloopsaphone Make chiptunes via Ruby or C
Applications using JACK Tons of different audio things briefly mentioned on here that probably do just about damn near everything between them.
Kyma X Good....GOD this is one crazily high end looking application suite/BOX that costs a ton of money. I do believe this is the most insane Music/Sound related thing I've come across since I started this topic. I would guess there are some NeoGAF folk out there who use this crazy thing---I think we'd all benefit from hearing how that goes! :lol
Common Music Music composition environment using Scheme and SAL
REAKTOR 5 Completely modular, real-time sound synthesis, sampling and effects software---looks pretty comprehensive!
Cycling 74 - Tools for Media Suite of various things centered around Max 5, an interactive graphical programming environ for media in general
Boodler Open-source soundscape tool
impromptu Freaky OSX programming environ tied to Scheme with a focus on doing it live and/or interaction---media in general.
I wonder if there will ever be a Windows version?
WolframTones Utterly insane/cutting edge music/sound generator based of mining programs at the core...I think.... Probably a big/strange future for this indeed!
Manuel Marino's blog thing Interviews, random rants/thoughts to the side, and a $5 PDF guide to getting to grips with audio in general
GERSIC free audio plugin database with tons to it

Engines:

Nebula Device Open-Source 3D game engine that seems to be dead...maybe...perhaps out of date?
Open Dynamics Engine Simulates rigid body dynamics as an open source physics engine
Newton Another Physics engine
TADS Text adventure development system for interactive fiction
BYOND Strange online multiplayer centric engine/game creation system
Box2D Yet more physics
Bullet Wouldbe King of Physics manifesting?

Misc:

Tales from the Ebony Fortress Assorted free libraries
Kickstarter One of those "alternative funding model" dealies
CollabNet Application management
Activate Learn to make games/aimed at younger crowd
Smart.fm Learning aid/tool in general
Building Browsergames Tutorials and such
Higher Computing For Everyone This is likely rather potent as it is the enhanced, ongoing collection of the Carlh programming subreddit's lessons which are widely acclaimed.
Greenshot Powerful seeming screenshot tool
Hackerspaces Something of communal hubs where people arrange to work on stuff/network it seems
IndieDB The Indie centric offshoot of ModDB
IF URLS Weekly digest of the goings-on in the Interactive Fiction scene
OpenTK Library that, via sorcery, wraps all the other "Open" suspects (GL, CL, AL) together to wreak havoc on us all!
List of freely available programming books
Pidgin Apparently supposed to be a really good universal chat client
Perl 6 Apparently it will become a useful entity within the next month or so at long last. I gather it is at least as terrifying/powerful in theory as Haskell?
A Reading List for the Self-Taught Computer Scientist

As to my latest doings, I think I've managed by first 1-2 contracts for some 2d game art assets! :D I'm going to have to marathon like a madman as well as keep up with it for the next several months....

I am also contemplating seeing if I can help out on Dudebro, though I guess on the Q/A end only as I don't have any of the more technical things up to snuff. Somehow, I missed the topic in a big way for a good while at the start so may well have missed the party. I'll probably PM somebody this week about it though as it seems worth a shot and a good thing to be a part of a large team on for a change. :lol

Useful stuff folks?
 
F

Fersis

It is illegal to Tag Fish in Tag Fishing Sanctuaries by law 38.36 of the GAF Wildlife Act
Hey man, so have you been working or coding something?
Lots of stuff here. Thanks for the links.
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Fersis said:
Hey man, so have you been working or coding something?
Lots of stuff here. Thanks for the links.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm involved in one thing that should likely have me come to grips with VisualBasic 2010 Express as my first actual foray into "coding"...but that's on hold for the next little while right as we were about to get into that part as the lead dev got sucked into some other sideline project stuff that should ultimately benefit the project.

So, given my options seemed to be to stare at VB2010 Express and try to understand it somewhat via the in-app help files and the like...OR...work at these sudden art things I got called up on----I reckoned that there is a bit more benefit towards diving headfirst into the art pool in the short/long term.

ESPECIALLY, given that I'm still quite unemployed(Jan 09 and counting...) and watching my savings dwindle.

Granted, even when things do start up again, the art will continue to be a force given that the Project on hold is actually something of a full-scope Game Development Apprenticeship in nature. 2D Art doings learned for one thing should carry right back over and aid the next.

There's also a few Indie RPG's I should be helping out with improving English localization of(Russian this time) somewhere within this summer (Please don't kill me Grammar-GAF, they know full well I'm no proper English major!)

Thanks for asking Fersis and you and all others are quite welcome on the links which I hope to be of help to all the others out there fighting through this in their own ways.
 
F

Fersis

It is illegal to Tag Fish in Tag Fishing Sanctuaries by law 38.36 of the GAF Wildlife Act
ElectricThunder said:
Well, I'm involved in one thing that should likely have me come to grips with VisualBasic 2010 Express as my first actual foray into "coding"...but that's on hold for the next little while right as we were about to get into that part as the lead dev got sucked into some other sideline project stuff that should ultimately benefit the project.

So, given my options seemed to be to stare at VB2010 Express and try to understand it somewhat via the in-app help files and the like...OR...work at these sudden art things I got called up on----I reckoned that there is a bit more benefit towards diving headfirst into the art pool in the short/long term.

ESPECIALLY, given that I'm still quite unemployed(Jan 09 and counting...) and watching my savings dwindle.

Granted, even when things do start up again, the art will continue to be a force given that the Project on hold is actually something of a full-scope Game Development Apprenticeship in nature. 2D Art doings learned for one thing should carry right back over and aid the next.

There's also a few Indie RPG's I should be helping out with improving English localization of(Russian this time) somewhere within this summer (Please don't kill me Grammar-GAF, they know full well I'm no proper English major!)

Thanks for asking Fersis and you and all others are quite welcome on the links which I hope to be of help to all the others out there fighting through this in their own ways.
Click to expand...
Good to know that youre pushing your way trough. ^__^
Ive been coding games for 3 - 4 years now.. so if you wanna ask somethin' you know where to find me.
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Fersis said:
Good to know that youre pushing your way trough. ^__^
Ive been coding games for 3 - 4 years now.. so if you wanna ask somethin' you know where to find me.
Click to expand...

Will do as I surely appreciate it. Thanks!

I also forgot a crazy-awesome thing in the Graphics section until just now---check out the new last entry. :lol
 
wolfmat

wolfmat

Confirmed Asshole
I appreciate the links, but your hyperbole is misplaced in my opinion. For example, the comments about Kyma X and Bullet are weird.


Thanks for collecting!
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
wmat said:
I appreciate the links, but your hyperbole is misplaced in my opinion. For example, the comments about Kyma X and Bullet are weird.


Thanks for collecting!
Click to expand...

Sorry, but those were pretty well my actual thoughts! Kyma X costs a staggering amount of money and seems to be a very sophisticated/complicated thing the likes of which is astounding to me...and this Bullet thing seems to be involved in a great many big/mainstream projects that flood the homepage, saw an AMD game dev related article that saw fit to mention it, and so on.

Perhaps my reactions will become more even and tempered over time as I actually become less...hmm...utterly ignorant as to the various area in general---but here in the present things really jump out at me leave me awestruck.

Kid in a candy store maybe despite pushing towards being 26 now? :lol
 
B

BadSanta

Member
Hey ElectricThunder,

do you know some good softwares for animated gifs? (Free or not, but with good amount of features if not)
 
L

Liquid Helium

Member
BomberMouse said:
It's good but it's C++, I believe there are superior langs with libs for game design and many of them have multiplatform support.
Click to expand...
c++ and SDL are cross-platform, there are even ports for the PSP, iPhone and wii.


Also, great thread, I'm trying to learn XNA at the moment to make an xbox live indie game hopefully, your links, I'm sure, will come in handy.
 
B

BomberMouse

Member
Liquid Helium said:
c++ and SDL are cross-platform, there are even ports for the PSP, iPhone and wii.
Click to expand...

Which is my point, the mayor advantage of SDL is it's cross-platform support but the language (C++) adds another layer of unnecessary clutter to an indie developper.
 
K

Kruhex

Member
There still isn't in my opinion a good 3D math book I've seen that explains things easily and insanely in detail.

I've read through "3D Math Primer" and although it started strong, often the author went into a topic and didn't explain it well at all (he started doing this in chapter 6 I believe but I forgot the topic).

The other one, "Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications" seemed to throw a ton of equations FIRST and then kind of expects you to tag along.

There is a series on Youtube of a guy teaching a ton of linear algebra and some calc which was very well worded, concise and still wrapped up to including formulas once you've understood the concepts. A 3D programming book should be more akin to what that guy did and apply it to scenarios which occur when you are developing a game.
 
K

Kruhex

Member
Also, in terms of 2D art/pixel art, what do you guys use/how did you guys learn the intricacies of it? Are there any books or in-depth tutorials out there or did you just learn over time?
 
L

Liquid Helium

Member
BomberMouse said:
Which is my point, the mayor advantage of SDL is it's cross-platform support but the language (C++) adds another layer of unnecessary clutter to an indie developper.
Click to expand...
Oh sorry, I misread your post. Yeah C++ can be complicated, I wouldn't recommend anyone who was no programming experience jumping straight into it, personally I would recommended python and pygame for newbie programmers.
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
BadSanta said:
Hey ElectricThunder,

do you know some good softwares for animated gifs? (Free or not, but with good amount of features if not)
Click to expand...


Hmm...check through the various things in the Graphics section that are programs as I think some have that functionality, like GraphicsGale can work in .GIF format and has some layering stuff. Otherwise how about this:

Easy GIF Animator 5 It seems pretty robust, especially upon the latest updates to this 5th generation of it and as a specialized tool I would imagine it to be pretty swell. It also apparently is 50% off for a sale that expires on June 30th, so if nothing else in my program links really grabs ya for effect I suspect it'd be worth taking a chance on with that sale in effect.

Here's some Art stuff...mainly along tutorial lines for 2D/pixel stuff. I do have another in this assortment that would probably be handy, but, it would be NSFW as it is to do with the realistic Anatomy of the Human Figure---Sketchy/Artistic/Medical style Nudes and the like and I'd sooner not get banned as NeoGAF is my lifeblood in many respects. :lol

Graphics:

Pixel Nascimpact Tutorial bits in French/English
Photoshop/Pixelart Tutorials
NeoTA's* Antialiasing Tutorial
drububu's pixel art tutorial
Mark's Pixel Art Tutorial
PSG Art Tutorial
another Tutorial
FARP Fantasy Art Resources/Tutorials
itchy animation tutorials Big one on Light use and some other assorted ones
Animated Cartoon Factory Animation School Tutorials, examples, lessons, etc
 
wolfmat

wolfmat

Confirmed Asshole
I just use Gimp for GIFs. Has some drawbacks with ordering layers after the fact though. And you have to write stuff like the replace marker and specific timings yourself. But it's alright!
 
P

prodystopian

Member
I remember this thread!

Since it started, I have given some serious time to Torque Game Builder (TGB) and Unity3d. I had a bad experience with TGB because of the network I am on (not entirely GarageGames' fault, though they couldn't track down the problem), but I can objectively say I prefer the documentation and community for Unity3d more. UnityAnswers, the wiki, and the forums combine to give a great deal of information. I don't think I've done a single search yet and failed to come up with something among those three.

There are also a great deal of tutorials out there for Unity. Sorry if this sounds like a Unity plug; I'm just very happy with the Indie version.
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Few more things in the visual realm.

Graphics:

Shadows with OpenGL tutorial
Graphics Depot of Allegro Lots of royalty free graphics
SpriteLib GPL Also a resource item under a good license
Lost Garden: More free game graphics 2D Zelda-ish stylings
Moosader's Open Art THIS looks to be particularly handy providing it has staying power. Free art/music as it happens from the admin, with great terms, and open to submissions from others providing they are cool with said terms.

I'm finally about recovered now from a system fail last week, so my own art adventure should begin next week if things don't go crazy on me again. Wish me luck, as once I get it decently underway it'll be time to check what's out there otherwise, maybe try to help with Dudebro, etc.
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Just a few assorted things this time around:

Python/Engine:

Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine

Engine:

Alithia Experimental 3D engine that isn't quite open-source, but is stalking/fork friendly.

Graphics:

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 6 Seems to be a FAR more affordable semi-alternative to Adobe Illustrator and Corel's offerings in regard to Vector concerns and whatnot---I guess something of a middleground with Inkscape at the other end of the spectrum...
Gist of Vector Graphics
Gist of Raster Graphics

Sound:

MAGIX Music Maker 16 (Premium) Music creation software seemingly comparable to the other assorted ones

Misc:

Gist of Literate Programming
GameCareerGuide Pretty much as stated, various explanations and information with an aim towards getting wouldbe people situated and figured, various topics discussed, and so forth

As always, I hope some of this is helpful to somebody! :D I've started to pick up a bit on the Art front doings via GraphicsGale to start...gist of Layers/Masking...though somehow find myself oddly captivated in curiosity/eventual personal stylistic musings in regards to this while Raster versus Vector graphical situation.
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Several art programs of somewhat varying specialties this time around, and a bit more tutorial stuff.

Graphics:

Bluefaqs Assorted tutorials, articles, musings, resource links, etc
Alchemy Unusual, as this is an art tool aiming to specialize in prototyping, brainstorming, and general chaos to foster inspiration. For one example, you can yell at your PC and the program will leverage an effect on your works accordingly. From all the art programs in this and other updates, I do believe this is the only one of its kind---last update was earlier this year and I hope the dev stays lively.
Digital Art Tutorials One of those nice times where one of the more obvious web addresses turns out to be exactly what one might suspect and have a hankering for.
Filter Forge Allows one to create custom filters and access to a great many likely quality creations. Photoshop plugin/standalone for Win/Mac
PostworkShop Allows for adding of all manner of effects, use of/mixing/creating filters, and "styles" Seems spiffy, good prices aside from the free version, Win/Mac
Derek Yu's The Pixel Tutorial The known fellow of TIGSource and elsewhere drops some knowledge/methods.
Fotografix The work of a likely mad genius, this is an INSANELY lightweight and not resource hungry image editor and painting/design program. I mean, this thing is under 1MB in size by a fair margin yet seems to be up there with Photoshop and company at some common tasks while being updated at a good clip. Really amazing example of non-bloated functionality.
Gist of Pixel Art
ImageMagick Eclectic, but damn powerful seeming, bitmap oriented free program. It generally performs image related tasks via a command line interface, very multiplatform---even the guts of the thing support a variety of programming languages so you can work closer to what you might already know. Can deal with over 100 file formats in terms of import, export, and whatever else.
GraphicsMagick Apparently the fated bloodrival of ImageMagick---aiming to dwarf it from every vantage point.
Seashore Opensource image editor for MacOSX built around Cocoa
Fotoxx Free and open source LINUX program for image/photo editing and collection management.
CinePaint A rather high end art program that aims to contend at the Hollywood level while being free and various kinds of open source. It seems to have stalled out as of sometime last year though----none certain on when it will hopefully pick back up again.
Pinta Something of a clone of Paint.NET that aims to be a simplified alternative to GIMP and run on most everything. Free and seemingly in lively development.
XPaint Image editing/paint tool that is free and apparently for most operating systems that aren't Windows. Seems to have a fairly long history, gaps aside, in the grand scheme of things.
Mistraal Tileset Tutorial
Pixel Joint Community focused on pixel art doings, enjoyments, and projects
LunaPic Free, online photo/image editor/creator.
Hornil Stylepix Somehow this thing caught my attention, though I can't quite put my finger on why exactly. It is a free graphics editing and creation program that is lightweight enough(2MB) to have a portable capability for thumbdrives, laptops, and the like. It has a fairly slick look to it, supports many languages, and is Windows only with an eye kept on virtual machine compatibility. The company has been around developing and releasing this thing since mid-2009 out of Korea with the latest version coming out rather recently. However, the site seems to not quite be done yet, or is at least in transition, as they have some sort of Pro version apparently in the works but with no clues as to price and whatnot.

At this point, though I admit to naively thinking this some months before, I think I've pretty well stumbled upon just about all of the robust'ish 2D art programs out there in fairly recent if not active development---one's with English language support at least. Within all of these, surely there can be found the right programs for the right tasks with some overlap for everybody following this thread---making all the link scrounging well worth it in my mind.

I'm still very much undecided and uninformed as to my stance on the graphical situation I mention in my last post, with that shiny new Xara release(uncanny timing for me as I almost always seem to first find major programs well after their last big overhaul release) and upcoming next Inkscape oddly appealing to me as potential jumping-in points.

From here I study more, in the form of reading through many/all of the free Raster art programs' helpfiles/manuals/examples and whatnot, then hopefully I can blast out my first accomplishment with some awareness of the tools in Raster-land at my disposal within the next few days and start to get a bead on my hopeful game art contract opportunities. :D
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
...Right "few weeks" is the new "few days". :lol

15 pages of notes later though, and I think I've got enough floating around to jump in. So, here's a few more things that I've stumbled across in this last little while before I, hopefully, bury myself rather nicely.

Graphics:

Context Free Art Free crossplatform program that can generate images from written instructions within a matter of seconds. In other words, this is a crazy thing that could be quite novel.
Nathive A would-be growing contender versus the likes of Adobe/Corel/GIMP doings. GNOME/Python enriched and aiming to make things as simple as possible while still keeping power in mind. Currently in beta.
iScribble Online art collaboration/doings platform
pixlr Another online image editor and stuff doer.
Sumo Paint Another robust looking online image editor and doer with an even more robust, yet cheap, Pro version that can also be used locally offline. Looks spiffy and dev on it seems relatively active.
Splashup Yet another online image editing and doing platform
ArtGrounds Sketcher Another online art collaboration/doings platform.
Worth1000 Large assortment of galleries and tutorials across a variety of subjects and area of application.

Python:

Non-Programmer's Tutorial for Python 2.6

Ruby:

Try Ruby A new and I think updated site for an introductory crack-taking.

Java:

BlueJ A special integrated/interactive java environ designed to help people come to grips with learning Java in the first place. Apparently had a gigantic update after being around for several years now in recentish times, so might well be rather handy.

Misc:

SLIME Freaky LISP thing that seems to be angling for something of a realtime-interactive environ for coding things up and working along with the results in tandem step by step, likely in conjunction with other things.
Try Haskell Similar deal to the above Try Ruby, but for Haskell.
Game Developers Stack Exchange Ask questions, answer questions, best of all aspects rise to the top via proper user voting, earn odd reward dealies for keeping things lively/helpful---really a great looking thing that should come to have a wide variety of useful topics as it grows. Probably already several there RIGHT NOW that I need to get around to checking on at some point.

As always, here's hoping one or more things are useful for somebody rolling on along and feel free to post on whatever you've come across!
 
D

Ducarmel

Member
ctrl + f Akihabara

For those that want to make games using html5 meaning all you need is a browser to play. It recently got updated to use audio so I am interested in it.

Akihabara

The Akihabara which you can download here is my personal dream too. It is a set of libraries, tools and presets to create pixelated indie-style 8/16-bit era games in Javascript that runs in your browser without any Flash plugin, making use of a small small small subset of the HTML5 features, that are actually available on many modern browsers.

http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara/
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Suffering from bad times/maybe some sort of weird burnout these past weeks. While I freak out and try to dial back to the basics again, here's an assortment of things I've come across meanwhile.

Graphics:

Drawspace Lots of tutorials
VGMaps Study the layouts of the past trailblazers
ConceptArt.org Version 3.0 Lots of everything
GameArtisans Ditto the above
Polycount Likewise to the prior two!
Plastic Animation Paper Pro 4.0 for free
Psdtuts+ Photoshop tutorials, possibly some NSFW mixed within the large variety as there too much here to where I've not combed the entire lot of it. Will remove if mods discover too much amiss by chance!
ASCIIPaint Free/indev art program with the Dropbox link in the OP as it does not yet have an official site. The example screens pretty well showcase the intent of it thus far.
Structure Synth Unusual 3D structure generator, seemingly in stasis since roughly mid-2009 but after making a 1.0 release.
CGHUB Social site focused on the digital arts across the lot of it, again possibly some NSFW stuff, professional/cutting edge-slanted.
Eat 3D Tutorials and discussion, with DVD packed lessons on this and that.
3dmotive Game industry-centric training on the latest/most central of stuff
The Gnomon Workshop Another super-training/lesson site on the lot of it.
Digital-Tutors Same kind of thing as the above.
MAXON Cinema 4D Another all-around 3D art package that costs some substantial cash, but doesn't strike me as out of line with others that cost along roughly similar lines.

Sound:

Ambisonic Deals with surround-sound
looplabs Free online music mixing software
Rebirth Museum A certain Synth tool apparently packing some history, info and free downloads available.
Audiotool Create and share music in browser
incompetech Royalty Free Music
Free Orchestral Soundfonts
ARDOUR Digital audio workstation for OSX/Linux, nearing beta for Ardour3, the next seemingly super-version. Looks rather robust even in just Ardour2.
NEO Sounds Royalty Free Stock Music
BEAST/BSE Music composition and synth software for Linux and such
MusE Sequencer Aiming to be a total multitrack virtual studio for Linux, already being substantial looking.
PSYCLE Free and opensource music creation studio with a tracker interface.

Engine:

Koonsolo RPG Editor One guy's ongoing effort to wrangle an easy to use online RPG game editor with the source code available and whatnot---pretty much along the lines of other game dev simplification things. Still indev, but could turn out useful.
Mirage Source Free Visual Basic based multiplayer gaming engine with a bit of a varied taxonomy.
Ethanon Ethanon is a free 2D game engine focused on the recent video cards for hardware acceleration and shader effects. Big on 2D sprites and using AngelScript---screenshots and progress onsite make this seem to be particularly interesting and "getting there".
Visual3D All-inclusive XNA powered engine that goes from Indie centric on up to Enterprise-level in terms of price and the lot of it.
ShiVa3D A rather direct, if underdog seeming, rival of Unity3D---with their next release slated for soon versus Unity already recently managing their big move to Version 3.

Java:

Greenfoot Educational framework and IDE meant for novices.

C++:

Cinder Free cross-platform library aimed at the lot of creative endeavors. Dev seems active, features growing and already substantial, etc
wxDev-C++ Widget-oriented IDE fork of a long dead somewhat similar thing that kept afoot all these years.
Ultimate++ Cross-platform rapid application development framework focused on programmers productivity. Dev seems pretty active.

Misc:

Lisp Games Wiki
Psychochild's blog on Indie Funding
OpenHatch Place to seek out or entreat others to work on open source software.
OSDev Wiki All about learning about/trying to make an operating system.
Bunch of Windows Keyboard Shortcuts
Some lesser known Win 7 kb shortcuts
Rosetta Code Aims to present as many solutions to as many tasks within as many different languages as possible so as to help people get exposed to and see the gist of the many out there.
dafont Various fonts available, from free to otherwise.
codepad Online compiler/interpreter that helps with collaboration by allowing for short URL linking to what you are working with in a variety of languages.
FreeMind Free mind-mapping software
KeepNote Note-taking software
FOSS Factory Focuses on collaboration and generally quickening the pace of advancement for such projects.
Google Code University Growing collection of lessons on different subjects geared for novices.
Mozilla Labs Gaming Their initiative to foster games for the hopeful era of browser games to come.
Sloperama Game Design FAQs
Derek Yu's Advice on Finishing a Game
How to write a simple OS in Assembly
MenuetOS Seemingly the top "other OS" clawing forward while not being based any other OS, UNIX, etc. Tis available free.
Logic Programming
Geometry, Surfaces, Curves, Polyhedra Guides and info on these terrifying Maths...

I think that's about the shake of it, hopefully not wasting time on repeats if Ctrl f has failed me. Here's hoping at least something of the lot is handy to somebody on here! :lol
 
B

BreakyBoy

o_O @_@ O_o
I just want to keep up the tide of thanks for this. I've jumped in and out of the indie development scene for well on a decade now, and I know it's inevitable that I'll jump back in again. Having an easy place to just dig in to resources like this will be amazing when that time comes.

Thank you so much.
 
B

BomberMouse

Member
Great list as usual, I've been eyeing Panda3D lately, looks good but I feel there little to no control when dealing with direct control over the rendering (ie, no easy access to write my own triangle meshes, etc.)
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
I remain thankful to all that are keen on this and hope to get use of it presently and down the line---especially do remember to post your eventual projects here on NeoGAF, perhaps for their respective premiers. :D
 
E

ElectricThunder

Member
Wow....a bit over a year since this topic was started now---here's hoping the tide of useful things continues onward into 2011 well and true. I'm still getting kicked around by life, but have continued to keep my eyes open for a few more useful seeming bits to close out 2010 with. Still do need my spark back and some mojo boosting though. :\

I did buy my first art program the other day to commit to though, one of a smaller Indie stripe of which I suppose to likely wind up a foundational/"trademark" force behind most, if not all, the tools I eventually come to make use of and visibly promote via hopefully making enjoyable and meaty games down the line and not being shy about tipping my hat in their direction. Just about settled, perhaps, on a first coding platform/engine/language along similar "unorthodox"(Don't worry, I haven't entirely lost my mind and went on some Quixotic quest to resurrect ColorForth or something...) lines...Audio wise probably just not a Mega-one though as it kinda has circumstances by the very nature of the beast. :lol

Onward~

Graphics:

3D-Coat VOXELS~...and other relevant meaty art/texture considerations---on sale for a discount until Dec 31 and has a better revised "student" license allowing for more than just proper "students" to qualify.
SVG-edit Online vector graphics editor that already has a broad range of features and big aims still for the next release to come.
Anim8or Free 3D animation software that MIGHT be dead, but if not then it has had a new release slow brewing for a couple years now and a forum with expectant folk to it.
PaintToolSAI Yet another bit of paid painting software out of Japan, with the quirk of having an English fan community chugging along with additional improvements, Win 7 support, etc alongside.
Lightworks Ridiculously powerful looking freshly semi-open source editor for A/V purposes on up to film-level doings.
Synfig Vector-based open-source 2D animation software package in lively dev and powerful enough to have the likes of a full length animated movie being sought after via it.
Lithosphere GPU driven terrain generator for making and exporting textures and heightmaps---big on shaders and realtime modification. Strong'ish modern rig needed thus far...
Acid Fonts Source for fonts free and otherwise alongside other comparable sites
Flame Painter Now has a proper website coinciding with their 1.2 and newly MacOS capable release and a price break on it lasting until Dec 24 when the base price shall go up.

Sound:

A1 Free Sound Effects Exactly what it sounds like, though there is some payment that needs to be wrangled for any commercial endeavors.
Sound Library Gigantic amount of free sounds and such with an aim for high quality and to be a solid resource for a great many passerby. The gentleman behind it striking me as the dedicated and talented sort.

Engine:

Spring Powerful, multi-platform, Open Source, and RTS-intended that has been moving on up and along for a fair number of years now and still aiming high.
NeoAxis Yet another all-purpose modern 3D graphics engine with the usual types of licenses across the board. Has ties with OGRE.
TURBU RPG-builder Engine that is indev and essentially looking to surpass the RPGMaker stuff wholesale.
FreeSpace Source Code Project The long stewing Engine from the FreeSpace series that has seen much work after being released to the modding community. Next version looks to be prime to greatly boost performance and diminish bottlenecks and hardcoded bits.
EVALDRAW "A complete programming environment with built-in compiler, text editor, and functions to allow for quick prototyping. With Evaldraw, you can make graphs in any dimension (1D, 2D, 3D), animations, custom musical instruments, voxel models, and general purpose applications." Win32 and needs DirectX. Auto-recompiles on each keystroke and generates no temp files.
LOVE 2D Lua powered, free, cross plat, open source engine framework has a new website and the last major release kicked things forward by a good margin.
NetGore Free, open-source cross-platform online RPG engine written in C# and SFML. 2D, non-twitch based, and only a few hundred players at once being the current and likely caveats outright. The dev looks to be pretty active.
Crafty Lightweight, modular JavaScript game engine to easily produce high quality games. Rather fresh face but already seems to be well underway and starting with a decent level of functionality---Elevator Action remake onsite as an example for instance.
IOFORMS Cross-platform and free(GPLv3) visual authoring/development tool for games and interactive media. Somewhat influenced by MIT Scratch and Squeak Morphic, yet built around/on a pre-existing 2D game engine with Common Lisp guts. First beta coming in about a month and the roadmap looks to hit all the logical targets while chasing more exotic and ambitious prey like motion control support.

C++:

Proton SDK Component based C++ framework based on the notion of writing once and running on nigh everything. 2D or 3D in conjunction with Irrlicht and intended for non-beginners of the C++ School of Hard Knocks.

Python:

Learn Python The Hard Way Intended to help beginners along and likely to drive all others insane---supposed to be rather effective if a bit eccentric.

Ruby:

Shoes Cross-plat toolkit for Ruby learning and graphical apps writing.
Hackety Hack A tool to become familiar with the gist of programming, Ruby magic weaved throughout.
Rails for Zombies An interactive Ruby on Rails tutorial designed for beginners. With Zombies. Yeah.

Misc:

OpenGL Video Tutorial
Mixergy Social entrepreneur discussions
Haiku A new/free/open-source desktop OS aiming to resurrect and modernize BeOS. Different beast than the Linux scene.
Wink Tutorial and Presentation Creation software
MikeOS x86 OS written in Assembly as a learning tool to show how OSes work.
LibreOffice Productivity suite forking away from OpenOffice.
Ars Technica News and discussion on a variety of relevant fronts
OpenCV Library of programming functions
BeagleBoard cheap'ish, fanless, single board computer with some decently growing heft in terms of power/functionality in absolute terms.
Desura New digital distro service recently out of beta after much tinkering. Synced with IndieDB/ModDB
Modern Perl Meant to be a comprehensive guide to getting the most out of Perl 5
The Crinkler executable file compressor for Windows, demo scene originated.
LoseThos An OS written by a quite likely insane/genius individual over the last 7ish years.
Tenacious C An upcoming C IDE
CDEPack Packages up Linux programs so they can run on other computers without config or installing.
OpenBSD Another free, multi-plat OS.
Show Me The Games! Indie showcase hub site by the notorious cliffski.
Pascal Gamer Magazine Free e-zine that has reached Issue #3 on dev issues, game design, tools, etc within the community.
colorForth Modern'ish redesign of Forth that actually appears to be somewhat alive and at it., crazy thing apparently being able to run without an OS even.
coderchrome Shares syntax highlighting themes
InteLib Library of C++ classes which lets you do Lisp programming within your C++ program without ill effects.
rust Experimental new language that Mozilla Labs has taken some interest in helping along to functionality---not there quite yet.
Processing.js Web oriented Doppleganger to Processing.
PandaBoard Similar to the BeagleBoard project above, but mobile oriented and perhaps meatier in some respects.
Code Dojo Misc relevant topics blog by the Proton SDK dev, whom also is apparently the guy behind Dink Smallwood (HD).
Pascal Game Development Nigh all the relevant happenings thereof.
gamedev subreddit
Clay New language designed for generic programming...decently far along with a full functioning compiler but still in tech preview country.
8-Bit Funding Game dev oriented take on Kickstarter for fund raising and such.
NClass Free tool to create UML class diagrams

Cheers everybody.
 
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