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Newcomers DBPro Corner / new darkbasic pro first person shooter tutorial!

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pirate
18
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Joined: 18th Apr 2006
Location: u.s.a
Posted: 25th Feb 2008 00:28 Edited at: 4th Mar 2008 01:07
i have made a new first person shooter tutorial, complete with media.this tutorial will be an ongoing community project at my site. this tutorial is designed for beginner to intermediate programmers. all you have to do is visit my web site at [/href][href][/href][href][/href]http://www.jandscreations.com and the information is at the top of the home page. to participate in the community project you will need to join the jandscreations forums and go to the dbpro fps tutorial forum. just click on the forums button on my home page and then register.
i hope you enjoy and learn from this tutorial even though it is very basic programming. all feedback is welcome...

the community project will be great because you can post code in the forum and put down what line number to place the code and others can add the code to their programs. i am courious to see how the game turns out and what all we as a group can add to it..
thanks, pirate

thanks, pirate
Paul08
16
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Joined: 20th Feb 2008
Location: Oxford, UK
Posted: 25th Feb 2008 00:36 Edited at: 26th Feb 2008 21:18
Sorry i just thought all of the code on your site can be found in the codebase?
most of them even say "downloaded from the game creators.com" ??
TDK
Retired Moderator
22
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Joined: 19th Nov 2002
Location: UK
Posted: 25th Feb 2008 20:15
I tried to read it, but come on... it shouts at you all the way through.

Writing the whole thing in capital letters and the weird colour scheme and layout makes it so hard to read I had no choice but to give up after a couple of paragraphs.

TDK_Man

pirate
18
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Joined: 18th Apr 2006
Location: u.s.a
Posted: 25th Feb 2008 20:40 Edited at: 25th Feb 2008 21:17
i'm sorry you don't like the colors, if you have microsoft word you can easily change it to however you would like it to look. i wasn't trying to offend you. i was just trying something a little different. i used the caps to seperate text from code. this is the way i made the tutorial. i have no trouble at all reading it. as for paul08, i have no idea what you are talking about. the only thing i get from it is that you do not like it. maybe this tutorial is not for you. this was made to help people. you will find no smart a** remarks in it.

thanks, pirate
PresFox
19
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Joined: 28th Aug 2005
Location:
Posted: 25th Feb 2008 22:00 Edited at: 25th Feb 2008 22:00
sorry, but your doing some pretty weird stuff in that tutorial...

Does the code compile?

Microsoft isnt evil, they just make really crappy operating systems -- Linus torvalds
pirate
18
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Joined: 18th Apr 2006
Location: u.s.a
Posted: 25th Feb 2008 22:10 Edited at: 25th Feb 2008 23:34
Quote: "I tried to read it, but come on... it shouts at you all the way through.
Writing the whole thing in capital letters and the weird colour scheme and layout makes it so hard to read I had no choice but to give up after a couple of paragraphs.

TDK_Man"


i have changed the color scheme of the tutorial. i did this because of the respect i have for TDK. i have TDK listed in the credits in the read me file that comes with the tutorial. the all caps will have to stay for a while because of the time involved in changing it. if you have already downloaded the full tutorial and you don't like the colors, you can just download the "view in word" on my site and replace the file in the tutorial. hopefully this will be satisfactory for you the read the tutorial. a lot can be added and changed, but this is the whole idea of the community project.


Quote: "sorry, but your doing some pretty weird stuff in that tutorial..."



the code compiles fine. some of my programming comes from way back. like qbasic and others even older. some of it was learned by studying code in the code snippits and codebase. what do you find wierd?

thanks, pirate
TDK
Retired Moderator
22
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Joined: 19th Nov 2002
Location: UK
Posted: 26th Feb 2008 03:29
Sorry, but I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to tutorials. I like others to try and achieve as high a standard as possible when making them - like I try to.

When reading a tutorial, I don't think you should be able to find spelling mistakes. Yours is a Word document which has a spell checker, so there should be no excuses.

A tutorial should be easily readable by everyone. Older readers (like me) will find all capital letters very hard to read as it reduces the white space - as well as being interpreted as shouting on the internet:



Presentation is a vital part of a tutorial. Unfortunately your lines of code and capital descriptions seem to merge into a tangled mess.

And, as your readers are learning, you shouldn't teach them bad programming habits. Code snippets need to be presented properly with correct indentation so they are as readable as possible.

DB is a procedural programming language. Therefore the last thing you should be doing is telling newcomers to use Goto. What's wrong with doing it properly using only procedures and functions?

Anyone who doesn't know how to do that shouldn't really be writing 'tutorials'...

Also, when you can you should make clear the difference between integer and float variables. Although DB is quite easy going and allows you to say things like:

Scale Object 1,38000,15000,500000

..in a tutorial you should go by the book. If the help files say a parameter is a float then you should use a float:

Scale Object 1,38000.0,15000.0,500000.0

Likewise with variables:

slidex#=0

should be

slidex#=0.0

Yes I know it's not important and it does work when you assign an integer value to a float variable, but as it's a tutorial, you should do it the way the documentation says.

Your code also needs to make sense and it's not good to put something that raises questions for the reader! What does this do?...

for mapsize=-1000 to 1400
next mapsize


that this doesn't:

mapsize=1400

With Set Camera To Follow, you say that for the Smooth and Collision parameters you "always just use 1". Why?

Surely this is what your reader is going to ask right?

So, my comments are constructive criticism intended only in helping you improve what you have done already. I'm not saying it's crap - far from it - just that you should tidy it up a bit so it's as good as it could be.

TDK_Man

pirate
18
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Joined: 18th Apr 2006
Location: u.s.a
Posted: 26th Feb 2008 04:03 Edited at: 4th Mar 2008 01:09
i appreciate your comments...sorry you dont like it..

thanks, pirate
TDK
Retired Moderator
22
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Joined: 19th Nov 2002
Location: UK
Posted: 26th Feb 2008 10:27
Quote: "sorry you dont like it.."


I can assure you that it's nothing to do with me liking it or not.

It's entirely to do with whether it's 100% correct or not - which in a tutorial is the most important thing. You simply can't give out duff info in them.

If it's only on your own web site, then you are within your rights to leave it as it is. I only gave constructive criticism on it because you were pointing users of this forum to it. Unfortunately it's difficult to do that without making it sound like you are trashing someone else's hard work.

But, even in it's current state I'm sure it would be useful to many people.

Quote: "put a lot of work into it."


You don't have to tell me how hard it is!

I have written over 30 tutorials - some of which are 4 or 5 times bigger than yours so I can appreciate the work involved. That's why I think it's important to do it properly.

It's easy to miss something minor with a big tutorial and if someone spots something in one of mine that I let slip through, I simply go and fix it as soon as I can and thank them for pointing it out.

Quote: "will probably remove it soon"


Don't do that. Like I said, it's quite good compared to a lot I've seen - and, as it's on your web site no-one has the right to tell you what you can and can't have on there.

It only needs a bit of work to get it up to scratch. Even in it's current state I'm sure it would be useful to many people.

TDK_Man

jason p sage
17
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Joined: 10th Jun 2007
Location: Ellington, CT USA
Posted: 26th Feb 2008 14:48
Yeah! Clean it up and repost it! It just makes your tutorial more pleasant to grab cup of coffee and read for hours!

pirate
18
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Joined: 18th Apr 2006
Location: u.s.a
Posted: 26th Feb 2008 21:03
i will work on it and repost it sometime soon...this is the first tutorial i have made besides just giving advice and code snippits...maybe i'll get better or just put the effort into modeling...later

thanks, pirate
Paul08
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Joined: 20th Feb 2008
Location: Oxford, UK
Posted: 26th Feb 2008 21:25
pirate, i think theres a format option in word, where you can select a block (or all) of your text and then chnage the case?

try selecting the text: format > change case > then pick a case ?

hth
Paul
TDK
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22
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Location: UK
Posted: 27th Feb 2008 00:25
pirate
18
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Joined: 18th Apr 2006
Location: u.s.a
Posted: 27th Feb 2008 10:18
thanks for the help....i will try to get it fixed a little better and put in an outline..i also have noticed some flaws in my code that i diddn't notice before...i appreciate the help...

thanks, pirate
jason p sage
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Location: Ellington, CT USA
Posted: 27th Feb 2008 13:06
Good because trust this: TDK was not trying to stop you from making tutorials - Hardly - he was just trying to get you to consider raising the bar.

Tutorials benefit alot of people in search of "HOW" and tutorials also make you better as a coder because of how much you go through your own code and think about it!

Keep up the fine work.

pirate
18
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Joined: 18th Apr 2006
Location: u.s.a
Posted: 27th Feb 2008 20:31
thanks jason p sage,
i have to work all week, but this weekend if my wife doesn't keep me too busy i will try to get the tutorial going again. my plans are to make several tutorials each adding to the first tutorial...like a series...but i want to follow tdk's guidelines because i have learned a great deal from him over the years and respect his opinion..i am getting older and would like to share a little knowledge i have accumulated over the years..

thanks, pirate
jason p sage
17
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Joined: 10th Jun 2007
Location: Ellington, CT USA
Posted: 27th Feb 2008 21:10
May I make a suggestion if you do the "Volume 1, Volume 2 thing - in the TOP Post - the MAIN One you start a tutorial thread width - make all the volumes show up there - now various versions dispersed thorugh the thread. This way a person stumbling onto your tutorial thread can see all the volumes you have done in a glance and then read the thread more closely after they gave it a whirl.

I totally understnad the work + wife + (i have kids) + stuff.....

The WHOLE WORLD DOESN'T WANT US TO CODE! Its a BATTLE! LOL

Why do peoples computers get broken into all the time? Everyone leaves the keys lying around!

pirate
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Joined: 18th Apr 2006
Location: u.s.a
Posted: 28th Feb 2008 10:56 Edited at: 4th Mar 2008 01:06
the revised edition is ready...pirate.

thanks, pirate
pirate
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Joined: 18th Apr 2006
Location: u.s.a
Posted: 14th Mar 2008 11:03
Quote: "Sorry i just thought all of the code on your site can be found in the codebase?
most of them even say "downloaded from the game creators.com" ??"


paul08,
thanks for the tip on the change case...also a lot of the code on my site is from the game creators site and i left the "downloaded from the game creators" on there just so you would know....i personally have enough code to fill up a house..this code will eventually be placed on the site...i work 10 hours a day and have the wife and kids thing going on too...i pay for the site every month and add as much as i can...i have contests there and also pay the prizes out of my pocket...why do you think i would do this?...i do this for one reason and one reason only...to help others....on my site i support a lot more programs than just dbpro...i just like dbpro...i hope this clears things up for you and you can understand the importance of sharing knowledge and going out of your way to help others....pirate

thanks, pirate

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