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I'm looking for some simple, starting-from-absolutely-no-coding-knowledge tutorials or other free means of teaching related to learning C++ coding.

Can anyone hook me up?

Well, I don't really use it a great deal, but I've read a book or two on it. I'm sure there are many books that would work, but I first read "Beginning C++ Through Game Programming, Second Edition." It was written pretty well, and I picked it up at the local bookstore. I chose it because I had a decent understanding of programming basics through writing LUA and also BASIC (a great way to learn the basics(I know, I'm punny), by the way) and needed to not be bored to death with review material. While it does ramble on occasionally about game programming and doesn't teach with the information it gives about it, it's a solid way to start.

Mini-Review over, in short: I'm sure there's a better book out there if you looked hard, but it is relatively easy to understand and won't necessarily bore you to death. Also, It's not a thick, intimidating book.

Good Luck

http://msdn.com

http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/

that can get you started.

to really get into programming, you nave to be good at math. If you want to learn Visual Baisc .NET, i can help with that.

Semicolons.

My C++ teacher in high school sucked, so I can't really help you find any good learning materials (because I, myself, don't know very much), but if there's anything I learned, its that you need to pay attention to your semicolons. One missing semicolon will screw up your entire program and it can be a bugger to find the one you are missing.

not in visual studio..

I managed to find a 12 chapter e-book from Microsoft after some careful navigation through Visual Studio.

Problem solved.
And semi-colons are beginning to show themselves as a pain in the butt.

501st_commander wrote:to really get into programming, you nave to be good at math.

How good?
I've seen basic stuff like division, multiplication, and less than/greater than statements.
It doesn't get much more complicated than that, right?

Depends on what you want to do. Basic programmig is Algebra 1 & 2, Triginomitry i dont think thats spelled right for data somethingoranother, and game programming........ Calculus 1 & 2

Geometry comes in that somewhere for image editing i belive.


I may go to Triginomitry and maybe Calculus 1. Programming it self isnt that mathamatical (untill you get in to game building), but you need the basic know-how-to-solve-a-problem mind set to program well. To get a job you must know a ton of math.

The word Calculus itself is intimidating...*shudder*

There may be a dim future ahead if the game design career I've been planning for so many years requires Calculus.


Thanks for your contribution, 501st_commander & everybody else.

501st_commander wrote:Depends on what you want to do. Basic programmig is Algebra 1 & 2, Triginomitry i dont think thats spelled right for data somethingoranother, and game programming........ Calculus 1 & 2

Geometry comes in that somewhere for image editing i belive.


I may go to Triginomitry and maybe Calculus 1. Programming it self isnt that mathamatical (untill you get in to game building), but you need the basic know-how-to-solve-a-problem mind set to program well. To get a job you must know a ton of math.

I'd like to point out here that while math is a much-needed thing, it's not everything. With today's extensive tools available for use, it's not all necessary. Certainly, if you're building an engine from the ground up, then yes, high-level maths are hugely important. But with so much of gaming tech up and ready to go, it all really depends on what direction you take it. A lot of the high-level work I've seen done in, say, the unreal engine, is calculation of, vectors and 3D orientation. While it is quite a handful from the outside, it can be done. Wikipedia equations anyone?

Just my thoughts.

Master_Ben wrote:

501st_commander wrote:Depends on what you want to do. Basic programmig is Algebra 1 & 2, Triginomitry i dont think thats spelled right for data somethingoranother, and game programming........ Calculus 1 & 2

Geometry comes in that somewhere for image editing i belive.


I may go to Triginomitry and maybe Calculus 1. Programming it self isnt that mathamatical (untill you get in to game building), but you need the basic know-how-to-solve-a-problem mind set to program well. To get a job you must know a ton of math.

I'd like to point out here that while math is a much-needed thing, it's not everything. With today's extensive tools available for use, it's not all necessary. Certainly, if you're building an engine from the ground up, then yes, high-level maths are hugely important. But with so much of gaming tech up and ready to go, it all really depends on what direction you take it. A lot of the high-level work I've seen done in, say, the unreal engine, is calculation of, vectors and 3D orientation. While it is quite a handful from the outside, it can be done. Wikipedia equations anyone?

Just my thoughts.

I was going by build-it-your-self requirements, which I like to do. Pre-made game engine's are good start, but customizing it exactally how you want isnt that easy then. Plus they can cost a bucket load.

Heh. To do anything above simplistic programs you will need Calculus. Just saying plug in the "equation from Wikipedia" doesn't work as you have to understand the math behind it to be bl to translate it into C or C++ code, or whichever language you are using. Then you also have to understand the code structure for that language an how to integrate math functions into it.

Math in C/C++ is easy up until you reach Trig/Analyt or Calculus. Once you hit Taylor or Mclaurian Expansion series or Root solving, it gets allot more difficult. Plus all of this is only learning the fundamentals for coding in C/C++, oh and learning arrays is so much fun .

Those kind of fundamentals are important to learn if you want to program for games. Once you have advanced knowledge of the code itself and how to use it, you then have to learn the needed APIs for 3D game engine programing, be it DirectX API calls or OpenGL.

tl;dr version:

If you're serious about becoming a game programmer, you will take high level math up until Calculus 3 usually. The more you know, the more valuable you are to a company, more so in a industry with high turnover like game production.

VF501 wrote:If you're serious about becoming a game programmer, you will take high level math up until Calculus 3 usually.

How hard is Calculus?
Given my current history of passing every math class since 7th grade with a C, and having a C in Geometry 1 now, would Calculus be over my head? I hear it's really only for the people who are really good at math...

Calculus is just another math course. It takes a bit of time, but once you get the hang of it, its fine. Just some more stuff you have to get down. Quite honestly, once you make it past Calc II, its a downhill jog. Calc III is mainly different techniques for all the stuff you learned in Calc I.

I disagree about the downhill job. It's more of an uphill sprint in all honesty after Calc III. If you're doing proof heavy mathematics at the level of abstract algebra, it is far from being simply "more stuff to get down". For programming in general, you'll need at the minimum, all 3 levels of calc, discrete mathematics, linear algebra, diff eq, and the list goes on if you decide to work on anything math heavy. At a certain level of math though, you'll see how beautiful it is and begin to think about problems differently. I think more correctly, if you are going into game programming, you will take up to at least Ordinary Differential Equations at MINIMUM. When you reach the standards of today, you'll probably need to go a bit farther than ODE.

Read Numerical Recipes in C at some point, you'll see exactly what I mean.

For learning C++ as a language, you won't need to touch calculus at all. For modeling a financial system using monte carlo method integration, you'll need up past harmonic analysis most likely. As you begin to look at more and more complex programs, you'll need to have a growing understanding of the mathematics of what you're trying to do.

swbf_lase wrote:I disagree about the downhill job. It's more of an uphill sprint in all honesty after Calc III. If you're doing proof heavy mathematics at the level of abstract algebra, it is far from being simply "more stuff to get down". For programming in general, you'll need at the minimum, all 3 levels of calc, discrete mathematics, linear algebra, diff eq, and the list goes on if you decide to work on anything math heavy. At a certain level of math though, you'll see how beautiful it is and begin to think about problems differently. I think more correctly, if you are going into game programming, you will take up to at least Ordinary Differential Equations at MINIMUM. When you reach the standards of today, you'll probably need to go a bit farther than ODE.

Read Numerical Recipes in C at some point, you'll see exactly what I mean.

For learning C++ as a language, you won't need to touch calculus at all. For modeling a financial system using monte carlo method integration, you'll need up past harmonic analysis most likely. As you begin to look at more and more complex programs, you'll need to have a growing understanding of the mathematics of what you're trying to do.

wat u did thar

it discouraged me.



Well, thanks for your extra input.
So are you a game designer or something?

swbf_lase wrote:I disagree about the downhill job. It's more of an uphill sprint in all honesty after Calc III.

Considering the question was

redgroupclan wrote:How hard is Calculus?

I merely stated that out of the three Calculus courses, Calc II is the hardest. I wasn't talking about the higher level math courses, which probably are harder than Calc III.

But as for the mathematics you listed, we covered Differential Equations in Calc II.

And as for discrete mathematics... Integers (covered in the last part of Calc I and then continued in Calc II) and graphs (covered in pretty much every math course past algebra I) are discrete mathematics. The only thing I can think of that isn't covered in Calculus that falls under discrete mathematics are proofs (which are more time consuming than difficult) and some mathematical theories (which is again, just more memorization).

And linear algebra... y=x. y=2x. y=x^2. If you're in high school, you know this already.


Bottom line: while it is true that the more you know, the greater chance you have at succeeding in the industry, AFAIK, companies don't look at which courses you took, and if you take up to Calc III, all you need is one or two more math credits to get a minor in math. And that looks good on a resume'. Like Master_Ben said, unless you're building an engine completely from scratch (which you'll have a team for, anyway), you can pretty much learn whatever else you might need on the job, so long as you have the required Calculus down.

Will all game designers have to help create an engine sometime in their career?

Or is that job left to a few select designers who specialize in coding?

Programming is growing as computer software/OS/other stuff get more demand, so you most likely can get a job.


But honstly, i dont like C++ at all. It has sloppy syntax (to me) and very confusing. I would rather go with C# to start of with. They are about the same, but C++ has a toooooon more crap to worry about (Includes, basicallyhasenoGUItostartofwithandifyouaddoneithastorefraseallthecode), as C# can be understood sooner.

501st_commander wrote:Programming is growing as computer software/OS/other stuff get more demand, so you most likely can get a job.


But honstly, i dont like C++ at all. It has sloppy syntax (to me) and very confusing. I would rather go with C# to start of with. They are about the same, but C++ has a toooooon more crap to worry about (Includes, basicallyhasenoGUItostartofwithandifyouaddoneithastorefraseallthecode), as C# can be understood sooner.

Keep in mind that there's also low wage competition from overseas, so you have to take that into a bit of consideration. Coders are a dime a dozen, anyone can learn to code. Not everyone can code great. C# has includes, they're just called libraries and references.

Twilight_Warrior wrote:

swbf_lase wrote:I disagree about the downhill job. It's more of an uphill sprint in all honesty after Calc III.

Considering the question was

redgroupclan wrote:How hard is Calculus?

I merely stated that out of the three Calculus courses, Calc II is the hardest. I wasn't talking about the higher level math courses, which probably are harder than Calc III.

But as for the mathematics you listed, we covered Differential Equations in Calc II.

And as for discrete mathematics... Integers (covered in the last part of Calc I and then continued in Calc II) and graphs (covered in pretty much every math course past algebra I) are discrete mathematics. The only thing I can think of that isn't covered in Calculus that falls under discrete mathematics are proofs (which are more time consuming than difficult) and some mathematical theories (which is again, just more memorization).

And linear algebra... y=x. y=2x. y=x^2. If you're in high school, you know this already.


Bottom line: while it is true that the more you know, the greater chance you have at succeeding in the industry, AFAIK, companies don't look at which courses you took, and if you take up to Calc III, all you need is one or two more math credits to get a minor in math. And that looks good on a resume'. Like Master_Ben said, unless you're building an engine completely from scratch (which you'll have a team for, anyway), you can pretty much learn whatever else you might need on the job, so long as you have the required Calculus down.

Linear algebra is not y=x,y=2x, y=X^2. Linear algebra is vectors, matrices, determinants, eigenvalues, basic euclidean n-space, and other various topics. This falls way out of the range of high school algebra, except for basic matrices.

The type of differential equations you learn in calc 2 or calc 3 is the most simple of differential equations. Ordinary and Partial differential equations both constitute their own courses respectively, as you need these for many applications in CS. As far as discrete mathematics, calculus isn't even like discrete. Discrete focuses on non-continuous structures, where as calculus focuses on continuous. Graph theory, combinatorics, game theory, decision theory, number theory, etc etc etc, are not covered in calculus on a discrete basis.

So in layman's terms, what type of problems do CS majors, in the real world, solve?
I am on that track right now, but could still switch to a Chemistry major or something with similar prerequisites.

@Redgroupclan] I would say that you might want to think about something else if you don't think you are fit for math. If you really want it you can always work your hardest, but if you still find yourself having trouble then you might find something else you are good at. IE. If you can get an A by next semester in your Geometry class then keep working at it, but if you work hard every night and still get a C, then find something else for your major.