Beginner’s

Hiya Trebor,

You mentioned VB first when listing your languages, so I’ll assume you are pretty familiar with BASIC.

If so, and you want to get to grips with 3D game development, check out http://www.darkbasic.com which allows you to quickly prototype simple ( and not so simple if you spend enough time ) 3D games. They also have quite a good community, which will help keep you ( and any colleagues you have ) motivated by sharing knowledge, giving feedback on the latest version of your game etc. The site also contains a number of examples of games ( with source code )

Here’s the direct download…
http://www.darkbasic.com/download.php

You can get it for free if you don’t want to create a standalone version ( something you may not require for a few months ) and then it’s relatively cheap ( the price of an XBox game or two ) to purchase a version that lets you do this.

When you get to grips with some of the higher level elements of making a game ( moving characters around in 3D space, exporting 3D world from art packages, creating and implementing AI and gameplay, playing music and sound effects, high scores, the list goes on… ), you can then start looking at utilising these skills but using C++ instead, which is key if you want to develop games for consoles later on.

Hope this helps…
Mal

Other excellent sites to go to are

Brilliant forums if you have a specific programming question.
More Directx/OpenGl than VB tho.
http://www.gamedev.net
http://www.flipcode.com

For OpenGl tutorials
http://nehe.gamedev.net/

general information.
http://www.gamasutra.com

All have free memberships and dont spam your email account.

Good Luck :)

some more newbie resources:

Want 3ds max or gmax?:
http://www.discreet.com/

CGTalk- for those art gurus:
http://www.cgtalk.com/

Game2k- Game File Sites:
http://masters-shawn.tripod.com/gamelinks/filegames.htm

Artist Field Guide to Starting in the Game Industry:
http://www.revelation-interactive.c…de_starting.pdf

GameSpy PC- great MOD & community links, great game info:
http://www.gamespy.com/pc/

GDSE- Game Developer’s Search Engine:
http://www.gdse.com/servlet/gdse.main

Game Creators- Home of DarkBasic:
http://www.thegamecreators.com/

The Official Blitz Website- for Blitzbasic, Blitz3D, & BlitzPlus
http://www.blitzbasic.com/

Makegames- nice and useful beginners site:
http://www.makegames.com/

Gamedev.net’s Start Here page:
http://gamedev.net/reference/start_here/

RPG-dev- for us RPG geeks:
http://www.rpg-dev.net/

Flipcode- Daily Game Development News and Resources:
http://www.flipcode.com

GarageGames- Torque Game Engine SDK:
http://www.garagegames.com/pg/browse.php

Turbo- for those Borland fans, offers GVSDK and PowerDraw:
http://turbo.gamedev.net/default.asp

CFXweb- demo and game development:
http://www.cfxweb.net/index.php

I wouold also particularly recommend the IGDA’s Guide to Breaking in to the Games Industry:

http://www.igda.org/breakingin/

I’d recommend that all of these links be put in a sticky thread, if possible. This is all very good stuff, you guys hit everything I could think of off hand.

The Torque engine in particular, by Garage Games, is great for starting off. You can get all the source code for $100 US, and then you have a fully functioning 3D engine to deconstruct at your leisure.

I’m currently using Ogre3D, (Object-Orientated Graphics Rendering Engine). This is a engine is free and is pretty good. Only been looking at it since Friday but it doesn’t seem over complicated. If you want a go, you can find it at http://www.ogre3d.org/

damian

I am keeping an eye on these resources and hopefully will soon be able to persuade someone to organise them for me and move them into the resources section proper or :( have time myself to do it…

Aphra.

These are some of the websites I like, from an artists point of view…..

Some nice reference here:
http://www.fineart.sk

Excellent resource for 3d artists:
http://www.3dtotal.com

Blueprints of everything:
http://www.suurland.com

The CG shaders repository:
http://www.cgshaders.org/shaders/

Utility to help choose a 6 colour palette:
http://www.colormatch.dk/

Image Based Lighting info and HDRI examples:
http://www.debevec.org/Probes/
http://www.hdrimaps.com/

3rd party renderers:
http://www.splutterfish.com
http://www.vrayrender.com
http://www.finalrender.com

Free and commercial plugins for 3D Studio Max:
http://www.maxplugins.de
http://www.3dmaxer.dk/plugins.asp?r=5

3D modelling theory:
http://coldfusion.art.msstate.edu/camenisch/thehumanhead/modelingtheory.html

3D Studio Max related info:
http://www.maxunderground.com
http://www.maxforums.org

360 degree panoramas:
http://www.incompetech.com/gallimaufry/pictures/360.html

The amazing art of Feng Zhu:
http://www.artbyfeng.com/

The times of buses to Dublin from Derry (!):
http://www.translink.co.uk/present/GLE_274_O.asp

A comprehensive collection of Maxscript resources:
http://www.scriptspot.com

3d related news:
http://www.cgchannel.com
http://www.cgchat.com
http://www.cgnetworks.com

Image Synthesis Group of TCD:
http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/

This guy is the GURU:
http://www.neilblevins.com

Blur Studios Website:
http://www.blur.com/blurbeta

Movie news:
http://www.killermovies.net

pixar website:
http://www.pixar.com

Torc website (Had to squeeze it in!!):
http://www.torcinteractive.com

I am keeping an eye on these resources and hopefully will soon be able to persuade someone to organise them for me and move them into the resources section proper or :( have time myself to do it…

Aphra. [/quote:8c4ffed1fb]
Yeah, perhaps they could be organised into different sections; Art and Graphics, Programming, Design and General. Or something like that.

If you want Aphra, I can have a stab at that?

:)

I think it would be a good idea to set up a database resources for this stuff and not just a HTML page