Progress report
I just wanted to post an update on where I am with the tutorials. You will know that the last tutorial covered the Tilemap class. I’m currently working on Tutorial 7 which will cover the Particle Emitter class. I’ve got a couple of small features I want to add to the class and I should be posting the tutorial by the end of the weekend. The next tutorial will then be on Sound. Sound is really the last area I need to cover from a core framework point of view and I’m then planning to move onto the game mechanics.
I have been making structural changes to separate out the Init, Update Scene and Render Scene code from the EAGLView code. EAGLView is just concerned with the game loop and the OpenGL context switching, the game logic updates and game rendering are taking place in a separate class to keep things tidy. This is something I will most likely cover soon so people are all at the same point I am.
I’m also working on how to control the entities within the game itself i.e. how do you spawn new baddies and how best to get them all rendered i.e. individual calls to render them vs Rendering as much as possible in fewer OpenGL API calls. This is also including how to use something like the tile map to configure where baddies should appear, what they should be etc so that the tile map is acting almost as the level designer. The game I’m working on is a top down 2D shooter so the tile map idea should work OK and tiled gives me a nice editor to use :o)
There have been some good discussions on how to render lots of entities to the screen in the comments section with a number of different ideas being discussed. This has been really useful and helped form some ideas in my head.
You will also see we have a poll set up asking if a forum would be useful. I think it would so that we have a place to discuss the tutorials, code and other topics in a format which makes the discussions easier to follow, so vote now and let us know if you agree or not.
Right, that’s about it. I just wanted to let you know that a lot of work is going on in the background and the content of the blog will continue to grow.
Remember that we are very happy to have your suggestions on what you would like to see for both iPhone game development and web development and we will do out best to include them in our list of current tutorials.
Mike
6 Comments
John on May 15th, 2009
LOL! Tough call :D I do see your point though, maybe its one for later down the line. We are thinking of opening up the blog to other Authors, so maybe once we do that it would be cool to have them help moderate the forum.
Will see what others think ;)
mike on May 15th, 2009
@RoberRM, that is a valid point and something John and I have talked about. For me, the most important part of this site is its content. It was created to share our experiences in both iPhone Development and Web Development. If anything started to detract from that it would be stopped as the site would have failed.
We are getting a real following now and it would be a shame to spoil that by having too much going on that we do not have time to manage. Getting the code written and the tutorials recorded is time consuming but its the core of the blog, so that will certainly continue and as John said, we are going to see what the outcome of the Poll is and plan how and when we introduce something like that.
Thanks for the feedback. Its open and honest feedback such as that which will help keep our blog on track :o)
Mike
RoberRM on May 15th, 2009
I’m just being selfish here: as Mike said, tutorials are time consuming tasks, if you add anything else to that I don’t know if you’ll get to make them with the same enthusiasm you do now. And I do prefer tutorials to a forum (there are plenty of forums around, just this page with such great tutorials). Hence, I think I’ll vote no to a forum, for now. ;)
@John: as for other authors moderating the forum, the way I see it, it will add too much to their workload (which some of them won’t like a bit) and, still, you’ll need to moderate too. Just think: how do you cope with your work and this site as it is? A forum will multiply your work by two (on the other hand, it will also enrich your experience by two because dialog will be more fluid and you’ll get more ideas).
That was exactly what happened here in Spain with a mac related news site: they added a forum and now it’s not a news site anymore (they add one news every week or so).
Again, being selfish, I wouldn’t want that for this site.
But, of course, it’s your decision and I will respect it. ;)
Xithis on May 15th, 2009
My first post, I stumbled upon this blog while researching OpenGL iPhone support, (Thanks Google!)
I’m finding these tutorials a great help, because I’m jumping in from an ActionScript background. I’m not deep enough in my game yet to even know what types of questions to ask yet for future tutorials, still wrapping my head around the initial development.
Hopefully soon enough I can add to this discussion.
mike on May 15th, 2009
Hi Xithis, glad to have you following along. I’m glad you are finding the tutorials useful and feel free to ask questions as and when necessary :o)
Mike
RoberRM on May 15th, 2009
Hello Mike!
I just don’t know what to vote here: on one hand it would be great to have a place to put comments and all that stuff, but on the other hand I’ve seen too many great places being ruined just because they added too many things, up to a point it was impossible to manage them and then they had to close. So, I’ll have to say my vote depends on your next reply: are you sure you’ll be able to manage also a forum (where people can get out of hand really easily and you’ll have to moderate)?
Long story short:
(Are you going to be able) ? yes : no; :D