SoloWingPixy

The first video is at the bottom of the playlist for some reason, but are these the other C++ tutorials you guys are looking for?

Sorry again for yet another late reply. I've passed along everything you've explained to my brother, so I'll just have to see how much of it he digests, so yes, it does help. Something I forgot to mention before, I have a copy of an ebook called "Beginning Blender" that's written for version 2.5, but my current version is 2.75a, so does that mean my book is outdated or can it still serve as a good introduction? Thanks again in advance, ScrotieFlapWack.

Sorry for the late reply, when I'm not here, I'm tinkering with GameMaker:Studio. Since speaking of which... @Ma-shell Aside from the few python Coursera courses I took, GameMaker language is the only kind of code I've ever messed around with in my life. It's described by Yoyogames and GameMaker users as being similar to C, but one big difference I've noticed right away is that GameMaker Language doesn't require you to declare a variable type unless you want to specify whether its global, local, or temporary...which is one aspect about variables I'm not sure I fully understand quite yet, other than local variables are limited to whatever code block they're written to, whereas off the top of my head global variables are something I'm supposed to avoid altogether if possible? @ ScrotieFlapWack My brother heavily prefers traditional hand drawn animation, and all the art he's ever done in his life has been hand made. (I can't draw to save my life T.T) 2D computer stuff sits pretty well with him because he thinks he'd be able to adjust to a drawing tablet. Unfortunately, Disney, or at least the top brass, lately seem to be looking for more reasons to abandon not just hand drawn, but 2D animation altogether! What also doesn't help is that more modern art and animation students think that anything not done entirely through software is archaic. I'm not saying all modern artists/animators hold that opinion, but more of them do now than they did before, and animation schools seems to emphasize 3D animation over 2D now. He doesn't hate 3D art and modelling, because that's what the Disney Imagineers use to design the park attractions, but it's still considerably disheartening for him. As for myself, I've got my preferences, but some games work better in 2D, others in 3D. Time isn't an issue at the moment, so I'm willing to learn. Out of curiosity, does anyone ever use Blender to do 2D animation? Or is that not possible/practical?

And I'm sure this site has a section for textures in the tutorials, then. @ Rick Aside from the tutorials on Lua here, any books/videos/etc for anything advanced you'd recommend? @Ma-shell I think for now I'll take a crack at Lua to at least feel it out, but still I think it would be handy to know some C++ down the line, and the "C style" C++ you mentioned helps make it less intimidating. Any books/tutorials that demonstrate this that you know of?

Okay, then that clears up quite a bit. Heavens. Now in my case, I do have to learn the languages the Leadwerks API requires to make anything remotely resembling a game, obviously, but for character and enemy models, textures, and whatever else, that's what Blender is for.

Okay, I've reread my initial post and see I really should have proofread it better, so apologies everyone. Anyways, while he was doing a project for the art (not animation) class he's currently taking for transfer credits earlier today, he vented about people at his college telling him he has to learn to program if he wants to make it at Disney, and as such this is why I mentioned learning OpenGL in my initial post to help him out. This isn't the first time he's mentioned this. If programming isn't required for the animation he wishes to do, why are people at his school telling him otherwise?

I don't why I didn't notice your post until now but it helps quite a bit actually, thank you for all the advice. I'll let him know as well as look into all of this myself.

After reading yours and ScrotieFlapWack's posts, I'm starting to wonder if I even know myself. I think I need to gather my thoughts for a bit, please pardon me and I'll get back to you ><.

@ Rick Oh no, no, no, me write a animation application? I guess I'm pretty terrible at explaining myself. I know OpenGL is used to build animation applications or game engines (cause isn't that what Leadwerks was built from?) but I also thought you could use OpenGL for modeling and animation like you would say Maya or Blender, the biggest differences being that Maya and Blender you do this with a GUI whereas with OpenGL you need to use the API. I didn't think I'd have to write an animation application.

@ Rick Unless I'm mistaken, his student license for Autodesk Maya is expired so long as he's not actively enrolled in graphics/animation class, which he isn't right now because as he isn't an out of state student, he's assigned pretty crummy registration dates. This has really gotten him down and discouraged lately. I recommended he download Blender to sharpen his skills in the meantime, but he hasn't given it any look thanks in no small part to all the Maya cheerleaders at the colleges and universities. So I figured if I can learn enough OpenGL to do some animation, I can show him that even though it might not be what the industry prefers, it doesn't mean it's useless. And since a lot of indie animators lately seem to use a combination of the two, hopefully I can be of help to him if he's struggling with an assignment or a project he's doing in his spare time. It's always been his dream to be a Disney Animator, and I'd hate for him to start thinking he's never going to make it. Anyways, I hope I gave no offense, considering you seem to be the resident Lua expert. I love S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and all the scripting and AI is done with lua, so that adds all the more weight to your suggestion. @nick.ace I did try a couple of Coursera courses in Python, but I struggled with all of them. It was only when I began reading some online tutorials on C did programming make some more sense to me. For example, in the coursera classes, I don't ever recall any of the professors talk about why the lines of code that end the main function do just that. The online C tutorials? I was able to grasp that the main function was waiting for the program to return false just from the "Hello World!" example. C++ on the other hand? I've heard nothing but horror stories about how obtuse it is, and I've been finding it disheartening that so many online tutorials when it comes to games use it or C# as opposed to C. Nigh all of said tutorials stress "proper C++" and seem to want to backhand anyone who writes a C++ in a C style. I take it you and Rick would advise against trying to learn C and Lua concurrently, then?

@Ma-shell: That's good to hear, thank you for giving me that answer. @Rick and thehankinator: Sorry, I should have clarified that even before I had received the entire Leadwerks software package along with GameMaker:Studio, I was already seriously considering learning C so I could understand Dr. Gerdelan's book anyway. See, my older brother's aiming for an animation degree except he's always preferred hand drawn animation (he's quite a good artist) and schools really only teach animation through the use of Maya and he's only used it for one class so far which last year. I figured if I could get a good grasp of OpenGL, I could potentially offer advice or even help (if its allowed) on future projects. Modding the Leadwerks Engine hadn't even occurred to me. I've done very little programming, so doing something like that is a bit too beyond me right now! Anyways, are you guys are telling me that me learning Lua first would not only get my feet wet with Leadwerks quicker, but also make picking up C easier? Is attempting to learn two languages simultaneously not advised for someone just starting out?

Good day, Around September, a generous relative overheard me grumbling about the state of video games and deciding to surprise me: copies of GameMaker:Studio Pro and the full version of Leadwerks. I was well aware of what GameMaker is (who isn't at this point), but I wasn't as familiar with Leadwerks, and was under the impression it was more akin to something like CopperCube 5 and haven't looked at it closely until recently. Anyways, I recently ordered a book to help me start learning C so I can get a good enough grasp of the language to understand Anton Gerdelan's OpenGL 4 tutorials. Dr. Gerdelan's book teaches OpenGL 4 in C, not C++. While that seems to strike many as odd, he does so cause OpenGL was written in C and so far his book has nothing but positive reviews, some of them from OpenGL learners who found it more helpful than the Superbible. Now, what I'm wondering is, how much different is C++ from C, truly? Dr. Gerdelan's book is my priority, and I think I'm safe and sane to assume GameMaker Language will be simpler to pick up, especially compared to C, but it'd be a colossal waste to not ever use Leadwerks.