Frequently Asked Questions

[StuartMorgan]

That's in-game with wireframe mode enabled.

The quads are rendered as two triangles or triangle strips, I don't actually use GL_QUADS in OpenGL. Although that was never any slower in my experience. I would think the graphics drivers convert them to triangles.

[Wrymn]

Stuart if I may ask a few question about your background

Where have you learned to work with C++ / OpenGL ? Have you attended some school of computer science, got some core knowledge and then learned the rest yourself? Or learned everything by yourself?
Also If I may ask, what is your real life job? Does it also including some C++ skills or do you have job in game industry?

- Also for people, who would like to get into building their games from scratch, without any other existing engines, what is your advice on learning all that? Supposing ofc they have basic or intermediate knowledge of OOP and C++ already ofc.
- Or for people (sadly as myself ) that have worked only with engines like Unity in the past and want to try more advanced stuff.

[StuartMorgan]

Stuart if I may ask a few question about your background

Where have you learned to work with C++ / OpenGL ? Have you attended some school of computer science, got some core knowledge and then learned the rest yourself? Or learned everything by yourself?
Also If I may ask, what is your real life job? Does it also including some C++ skills or do you have job in game industry?

- Also for people, who would like to get into building their games from scratch, without any other existing engines, what is your advice on learning all that? Supposing ofc they have basic or intermediate knowledge of OOP and C++ already ofc.
- Or for people (sadly as myself ) that have worked only with engines like Unity in the past and want to try more advanced stuff.

I learned everything by myself. Have been doing gamedev as a hobby for about 10 years, particularly like doing engine design.
Galaxial is the first serious game I have started to develop.

I've never done anything programming or gamedev related as a job. Not going to say much else about my private life, sorry!

The usual advice given to these sort of questions by other developers, is to "make games not engines" because making an engine can take you forever.
I did the complete opposite because I love making engines so much, although at that point I didn't really have any intentions of using it for a particular game.

Personally I find games made with there own engine are often a lot more unique and efficient.

If you are going to do a long/ambitious game project solo, one thing I would say is to expect and be able to handle long periods of solitude.

[Wrymn]

Stuart if I may ask a few question about your background

Where have you learned to work with C++ / OpenGL ? Have you attended some school of computer science, got some core knowledge and then learned the rest yourself? Or learned everything by yourself?
Also If I may ask, what is your real life job? Does it also including some C++ skills or do you have job in game industry?

- Also for people, who would like to get into building their games from scratch, without any other existing engines, what is your advice on learning all that? Supposing ofc they have basic or intermediate knowledge of OOP and C++ already ofc.
- Or for people (sadly as myself ) that have worked only with engines like Unity in the past and want to try more advanced stuff.

I learned everything by myself. Have been doing gamedev as a hobby for about 10 years, particularly like doing engine design.
Galaxial is the first serious game I have started to develop.

I've never done anything programming or gamedev related as a job. Not going to say much else about my private life, sorry!

The usual advice given to these sort of questions by other developers, is to "make games not engines" because making an engine can take you forever.
I did the complete opposite because I love making engines so much, although at that point I didn't really have any intentions of using it for a particular game.

Personally I find games made with there own engine are often a lot more unique and efficient.

If you are going to do a long/ambitious game project solo, one thing I would say is to expect and be able to handle long periods of solitude.

Hehe thanks! Yes i know engines are made "automatically" as the game is built, but yes, even I am drawn to galaxial by the fact that it wasn`t built in any preexisting engine, but was made by one guy (You xD), and for single purpose and this is the real reason it can handle tens of thousands active objects in real time.

Also, when you started, did you start by building games from scratch with C++ and learn that way, or sometimes even used other existing engines to create "just" games

Also, which other languages did you try?

[StuartMorgan]

Also, when you started, did you start by building games from scratch with C++ and learn that way, or sometimes even used other existing engines to create "just" games

Also, which other languages did you try?

I haven't used many other languages apart from C/C++. I used many engines when I started C++ (if it had source code), but usually just to see how they work and to learn from them.

[Bippwatt]

I'm somewhat curious. You've said that it probably won't release until late this year and that you might have a pre-order beta available shortly before release.

But I'd be interested to know who you have playtesting. You've said it's just you working on it, but I wasn't sure if you included playtesters in that. For myself, the thing I'd be worried about (since you've said you use it on an older machine) is that a machine that's too new might be too powerful for it and it'll become unplayable on more modern machines. (I've had this happen with a few older games, like the original Half Life and some of the older Unreal Tournament games.)

So I was just curious who you might have playtesting and with what machines or if you had planned to open up a playtest before release to maybe the members of the forum to catch any bugs or problems with various machine specs.

Thanks!

[Catamus]

Honestly Bippwatt I doubt this game would have problems. The issues with those games is really the compatibility with new OS and 64-bit Half-Life was around back when 32-bit OS were very popular. I have experience the "this game is too old it can't even run on my computer" before meself. I'm citing Space Empires V (Which ran on Windows 8 rather than Windows 7 ironically.) Unless Stuart Morgan's Comp/OS is more than 8 years old I doubt anything like this will even be a problem.

[StuartMorgan]

For myself, the thing I'd be worried about (since you've said you use it on an older machine) is that a machine that's too new might be too powerful for it and it'll become unplayable on more modern machines. (I've had this happen with a few older games, like the original Half Life and some of the older Unreal Tournament games.)

No it wont become unplayable on more modern/powerful machines. The simulation and rendering framerates are completely decoupled, so you wont see ships or any other gameplay logic moving any faster or slower depending on the speed of the computer.

There shouldn't be any problems running it on 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows.

Will certainly be playtesting the game with a greater number of testers in the build up to release, to catch any other bugs and problems.

[Wrymn]

Hi Stuart,

wanted to ask, you mentioned somewhere that your GUI (Buttons, widgets) are procedurally rendered. How did you mean that?
Does that mean you didn`t created the UI components in graphics program? Very interested in this process.

Thanks!

[StuartMorgan]

Hi Stuart,
wanted to ask, you mentioned somewhere that your GUI (Buttons, widgets) are procedurally rendered. How did you mean that?
Does that mean you didn`t created the UI components in graphics program? Very interested in this process.
Thanks!

Not sure where I said that... the GUI components are created in a graphics program.

For example a window or button is created as separate segments (top-left, top, top-right, left, middle, right, bottom-left, bottom, bottom-right) and pieced together at run-time, so they can be rendered at any size.

[sambo]

can somebody tell me on how you start a game?