A Suite Symphony Playing in the Key of 'Free' - Part One

I'd wager that most code hobbyists, like myself, lack the resources (read 'cash') to blow on expensive tools for their projects.

For that reason, I just thought I'd pass on a number of awesome - and totally free - goodies to help create your project content. Just because they're free does not mean they aren't powerful. Also, this does not necessarily mean that they're lacking in complexity and have no learning curve.

I'll start with a few of my favorite graphics tools.

GRAPHICS & SPRITING TOOLS:

GIMP - Gnu Image Manipulation Program [http://www.gimp.org]

Gimp is truly a powerhouse among 2D photo editors. Boasting most of the editing capabilities of expensive photo editors, like Adobe's popular Photoshop, Gimp is often the top free choice for spriting and other 2D graphics manipulation. There are numerous free plug-ins and brush packs available to extend its capabilities, as well.

Gimp handles all popular file formats like a champ.


Inkscape - Vector Drawing Program [http://inkscape.org]

Inkscape is a fairly simple, yet powerful vector graphics drawing program. With Inkscape, I found it tremendously easy to generate beautiful images for things like graphical buttons and logos. Of course, this is only scratching the surface of Inkscape's capabilities.

There are some really helpful tutorials and demonstrations of Inkscape's capabilities out on YouTube, and I found them to be very instrumental in getting me started.

GraphicsGale - Pixel Art & Animation Maker [http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/]

I only recently discovered this amazing little gem and it has totally altered my approach to pixel art and has dramatically decreased the amount of time it takes me to create sprites, icons, and tile objects for my games!

As a wanna-be game designer, I've found it surprisingly difficult to produce pixel art of any quality, and the more powerful photo-editors tend to only complicate the fine art of pixelcraft by possessing countless functions and menus that are really of little use for such up close and in-your-face artwork.

It really is so simple a seven year old can use it, but in its simplicity it is mighty.

To sweeten the deal even further, it can also be used to generate animations. This is a must-have tool, if you're designing your own 2D game!


Blender - 3D Modeling, Animation, and Game Creator [http://www.blender.org/]

Blender... Wow... Where to even start?? I still can't believe that this magnificent beast of a modeling program is free! Blender is right up there with the top dogs of 3D modeling. Possessing incredible 3D modeling, rendering, and movie production capabilities, countless plug-ins and extensions, scripting capabilities, and even a built-in game design environment, Blender stands in a class of its own.

I could rant and rave about it all day long, but I think I'd best just let the work of the Blender community stand on its own and show you what it can do:




Blender Art Gallery

Sintel

Big Buck Bunny

More Blender Made Movies


Most of these are fairly old. If you Google about a bit you'll find tons of mind-blowing art produced with Blender.

Awesome as it is, one major drawback with any major 3D design suite is the learning curve. Be prepared to invest a great deal of time in conquering this behemoth.

Lucky for us we can stand on the shoulders of the Blender heroes that have come before us and kindly created countless awesome tutorials.

Several Blender masters have produced tutorials that are an invaluable resource to the aspiring designer. Among my favorites are:

• Blender Guru - By Andrew Price (Check out his Nature Academy. I guarantee you'll be dazzled!)
• BlenderCookie - More awesome tutorials on virtually every facet of Blender

Good luck out there! If you know of any other awesome [FREE] graphics tools out there that you'd like to add to the list, then please feel free to share!

Take care, all!

~ Aardaerimus

Visual Basic Game Programming Tutorial - Part 7 - Saving and Loading Map Data

[Watch in 720p High Definition]


The 7th installment of my Visual Basic 2010 GDI+ game programming series.

In this video tutorial we're covering how to read and write comma delimited map data from/to a text file.

GDI+ Game Programming Series - Part 6 - Terrain Collision

[Watch in 720p High Definition]

GDI+ Game Programming Series - Part 5 - Transparent Brushes and Custom Dialog Boxes

[Watch in 720p High Definition]

GDI+ Game Programming Series - Part 4 UPDATE - Improved Key Input and Character Movement

[Watch in 720p High Definition]

GDI+ Game Programming Series - Part 4 - Key Input and Character Movement

[Watch in 720p High Definition]

GDI+ Game Programming Series - Part 3 - Graphics and Tile Mapping

[Watch in 720p High Definition]

GDI+ Game Programming Series - Part 2 - Handling Mouse Input

[Watch in 720p High Definition]

GDI+ Game Programming Series - Part 1 - Building a Game Loop and Frame Counter

[Watch in 720p High Definition]

GDI+ Game Programming Series - Introduction

I've decided that I'll share my progress with GDI+ game programming in Visual Basic. This series teaches the basic principals of game programming. It's still a work in progress, but should kick-start the young VB game programmer and get you on your way to developing simple classic style, 2D RPGs and such.

You'll learn how to use a tile set for tile-mapping, how to create and move a character around the screen, how to track mouse movement and input, how to create semi-transparent menus, and more.

In terms of performance, GDI+ is horribly inefficient, but should still work for creating games like you might see on the old Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis consoles. As long as you don't use too many on-screen objects simultaneously and keep the number of drawn tiles down, it should perform fairly well on most modern machines.

If you want to dabble in 3D, arcade style games, I recommend learning XNA or DirectX programming in C#. These environments will make much better use of your graphics hardware and allow you to produce many more rich environmental effects.

At any rate, I hope this helps get you started and feeds the creative fire that all of us aspiring game programmers have burning inside. Good luck with your project, and feel free to share your progress with all of us! It's always encouraging to both share and see other peoples' success stories.


Aardaerimus

XNA 4 on Visual Basic - Time to fill the void?

Drifting about the game development community, I've discovered that XNA seems to be the "cat's meow", of late.

For some time now, I've been learning how to employ Microsoft's horribly inefficient GDI+ to draw my graphics to the screen. I've gone back and forth with other coders who have constantly insisted that I need to put that old dog down - GDI+, that is - and move up to XNA.

After dedicating so many years to learning what I have, the idea of starting all over really kinda freaks me out. Leave Visual Basic for C#? Learn XNA?! Not so fast-... Before I panic, I hit up Google for advice. "Can I use XNA with VB??" The answer - "Heck yeah, you can, but we don't have any support docs for it, so you're on your own... You're probably an idiot for even entertaining the notion."

Further digging reveals that there are very few pioneers on this front! I found one very well constructed tutorial on the subject - but halfway through the first segment, I found that it was for XNA 3 and nothing worked, as there had been many changes to the framework! GRRRrr!

I got as far as tapping into my graphics device and making a window that closely resembled a "Blue Screen of Death". It wasn't though. It was my very own creation. Of course, then I wanted to add a 2D Texture next, but my new world came crashing down around me. I found myself neck deep in unfamiliar code and the tutorial was of no help. "Content pipeline?? What the heck is it, and how the heck do I use it?! Why can't I draw stuff to this sexy blue window I made?!?!?! WHY?!!?!?" After my break down, I continued to Google to no avail.

That brings me to my point... There is a serious need out there for VB over XNA 4 tutorials. If I dedicate enough energy to this, perhaps I can figure it out enough to produce some useable tutorials for the XNA-starved masses. It'll be the blind leading the blind, but hopefully it would spur some of the big boys to say, "Hey! Your code is CRAP. Try it this way, instead."

Just generating interest and a response might kick-start the fledgling VB/XNA community. Of course, more likely is that I finally gain a novice understanding of XNA 4 and XNA 5 is released, plunging me back into the darkness... Blah. Move or die, right?

Let's do this thing! :-D

Aardaerimus

A muddy start... The Very Basics of Visual Basic Game Design (video)

I'm not sure why this is the most popular of my tutorials, but it is. This was my first submission and it's low quality. Even so, it's fairly thorough in getting you started at game development.

This video is a simple guide to using tile sets to draw a tile map, and to move a character around the screen.

Again, sadly, the video quality is not even close to high definition, though I do narrate through each step, so you shouldn't get lost.

Introduction

Let's keep this simple, for now...

I have this vision of creating a blog that is both entertaining and beneficial to my fellow aspiring coders. Sounds simple enough, right? Well - truth be told, I've tried this before and failed miserably.

Usually, I start out posting with gusto, only to peter out after a short while. So, what makes me think I can do better this time around? Well, to be honest, my confidence has been dramatically improved by the overwhelmingly positive response to my recent game programming tutorials.

They're certainly nothing epic, but the positive feedback and code-hungry viewers have really driven me to continue in my endeavor to teach both myself, and others.

Mainly, I focus upon laying the foundations for game design in the Visual Studio (specifically VB) environment. Visual Basic is not typically pursued as a viable programming language for game production, but I've always maintained that it is highly underrated. In lazy man's terms: It's what I know, so it's what I do. ;-D

I have a deep fondness for the old, retro RPGs. I grew up playing the old Ultima series, as well as those golden classics, such as Dragon Warrior (NES), and Final Fantasy (NES, SNES). With the arrival of superior 3D environments and flashy game play, I feel that games have lost a great deal of the depth of play and richness of dialog that they once possessed. That's not to say that I don't enjoy, immensely, the all out bloodbath of those good ol' FPS games, like Quake and Unreal, or the arse-kickin'ness of games like the Battlefield series.

Still, when I attempt to make my own games, I pretty much always feel inclined to mimic the design of my favorite classic RPGs.

That said, I'm easily distracted... When it comes to programming, I find it difficult to stick with one thing for any extended period of time. that, or I simply learn a new trick or technique that takes me down so many rabbit trails that I forget what my initial intentions were. I also have a terrible tendency to procrastinate. To make things even worse, I have the memory of a goldfish, and I most always fail to take notes. Boy does that get me into trouble... ;-O

So, here we are... Another blog. :-P

If you find the contents helpful, or even fun, PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE leave me a note or something to let me know you were here! It's the feedback that drives me forward and will help to keep this blog from becoming yet another stagnant pond in the backwaters of the internet.