A few A's to help me start

[baic17]

Hello everyone, I am someone who has low experience in programming and know
nothing about game development. But I had iron will
to learn it, so I tried to gather some info on that. It seemed just too complicated at
the moment. In fact, I could gather some friends to start working but noone was THAT
enthusiastic to put some money in it. So i quit. And then, few days ago, i stopped at your
website as my jaw fell off. You did some hard work just to help the community. It takes
a special kind of person who wouldn't love or just admire these people who had put so much effort in a project which is apsolutely free for public. I'm just glad you guys are not
alone out there. Thank you.
And so, I decided to start my hard work, no matter how hard it will be, to satisfy my undying
wish to learn. So I'll start with some fundamental questions, which may be funny but I
want to be sure I understand everything.

Q1: What exactly is an engine? I know that when i push a button engine says which action it's relayed to but, what is it exactly?
Q2: Why, when I start Blender, it says that application failed to because MSVCR71.dll was not found but then starts. I think It has something to do with Python since it first appers when compiling with it. It appers again just after "OK" but this time it's because "'import site'" failed. -?
Q3: Am I supposed to import characters in the engine? If yes, how can i remove them from there?
Q4: When I unpack blender2crystal all files are just - files. Even readme is not .txt. So what should I do with it?
Q5: How do I make a character move in game? I don't understand linking code and models. So if someone will explain..

That's all for now, thank you.

[Shaitan]

Q1: What exactly is an engine? I know that when i push a button engine says which action it's relayed to but, what is it exactly?

A1: An engine is another name for the part of a game that generally has (and displays) the game to the player. It usually contains a graphics engine (to display things), a interface/control engine (to handle input from the player, like key presses, mouse movements, etc), and many other things, like game physics, etc. It all depends on what the particular Engine offers to it's overall functionality and features. Crystal Space is a Gaming engine (though it can be used for many other things other than just games) which has plugins, or modules that add functionality to the core part of the system. [Sorry, trying to keep this short and simple isn't the easiest thing to do].

Q2: Why, when I start Blender, it says that application failed to because MSVCR71.dll was not found but then starts. I think It has something to do with Python since it first appers when compiling with it. It appers again just after "OK" but this time it's because "'import site'" failed. -?

A2: I am not exactly sure what could be causing this problem, sorry.

Q3: Am I supposed to import characters in the engine? If yes, how can i remove them from there?

A3: Generally you need to program, or script what you want the engine to do. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want your game (or whatever) to be. Generally to get anything to display in Crystal Space you need to import your characters, the world they're in, and pretty much everything else thats needed. Usually this importing is done from your program (or script) and you would also need to write the code for removing, or deleting them, and other things from the engine (or your game).

Q4: When I unpack blender2crystal all files are just - files. Even readme is not .txt. So what should I do with it?

A4: Firstly, what you can do is click on the readme file, press F2 on your keyboard, and type in 'readme.txt' and press enter. This will make the readme file a .txt file. From there you may want to do a similar thing for the 'install' file, (to make it 'install.txt') as it the instructions on how to install the blender2crystal files into blender.

Q5: How do I make a character move in game? I don't understand linking code and models. So if someone will explain..

A5: If the character is the player then you will need to code that into your program / game, so that, for example, the up arrow moves you forward, the down arrow moves you backwards, and the left and right arrows turn you left and right respectively. If you take a look at the documentation it has some of the examples on the basic setup for simple player movement.
Now, if you are meaning getting other characters to move with-in the game/program, then you need to also code that into the game. There is an addition that is available for using with Crystal Space called Cal3d, it can allow you to manipulate, and animate characters within Crystal Space. It allows skeleton (and joint) movement information to be used, and animated within the engine.


So, as you can see, there is a lot that you need to learn to do to get things working as you want. I myself am still trying to learn Crystal Space so I can use it for a personal project, and by looking over my answers I supplied above, you can see that it can be quite an undertaking to get something that you want. But that is all part of the fun of this, it challenges you (and me).

With some of my answers, I could have gone into more detail, but it could well have lasted pages. But I just hope that what I have provided will help you out in some way. If you still want me to try and help further, just post them here, and I'll see what I can do.

Best of luck,

Shaitan.

[baic17]

Thank you very much for your time, it helped a lot.

I decided that I'll first get into 3D modeling, so I got Blender but docs seem to be a bit out of date.
so Q1: Where in Blender is the "SubSurf" button?

and Q2: How can I access all articles? I see only the top and most recent ones.

thanks

[darek]

A1: you can add it in modifier stack f9 -> find Modifiers tab -> Add Modifier -> Subsurf
this is good e-book to read http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
A2: I dont know which articles, Just deep into CS site, read
1) documentation (in cs package)
2) community site http://community.crystalspace3d.org
3) wiki http://www.crystalspace3d.org/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php
4) dig in this forum

[Shaitan]

I was just going to post the same information that darek posted, but he beat me to it, aah well... hehe.

Regards,
Shaitan.

[baic17]

This http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro book book looks pretty good but I can't download it by torrent nor HTML. Would anyone be that kind to mail it to me?         baic17@net.hr

Thanks

[Shaitan]

As far as I'm aware, that Wiki book is only available online in its current format. The only way to get a copy of it would be to save all the pages manually.

Regards,
Shaitan.

[baic17]

from : http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro:
"If you are unfamiliar with torrents, the PDF version is mirrored for HTTP download here."
When it's loaded you just have to save it to the HDD(little disc on the upper left side, above the main window).

but I can't download it.. :/

[Shaitan]

Okay, sorry, I must have skipped that part where it says its available... silly me. The torrent they list is dead, and the PDF seems to load okay for me (some 209 pages of it). I have emailed it to you at the address you posted above.

Regards,
Shaitan.

[baic17]

thank you very much!

please if you, or someone else knows Python explain this to me:
---questionmarks are spaces(when I paste it), I don't know why

Code:

## This program runs a test of knowledge

true = 1
false = 0

# First get the test questions
# Later this will be modified to use file io.
def get_questions():
? ? # notice how the data is stored as a list of lists
? ? return [["What color is the daytime sky on a clear day?","blue"],\
? ? ? ? ? ? ["What is the answer to life, the universe and everything?","42"],\
? ? ? ? ? ? ["What is a three letter word for mouse trap?","cat"]]

# This will test a single question
# it takes a single question in
# it returns true if the user typed the correct answer, otherwise false
def check_question(question_and_answer):
? ? #extract the question and the answer from the list
? ? question = question_and_answer[0]
? ? answer = question_and_answer[1]
? ? # give the question to the user
? ? given_answer = raw_input(question)
? ? # compare the user's answer to the testers answer
? ? if answer == given_answer:
? ? ? ? print "Correct"
? ? ? ? return true
? ? else:
? ? ? ? print "Incorrect, correct was:",answer
? ? ? ? return false

# This will run through all the questions
def run_test(questions):
? ? if len(questions) == 0:
? ? ? ? print "No questions were given."
? ? ? ? # the return exits the function
? ? ? ? return
? ? index = 0
? ? right = 0
? ? while index < len(questions):
? ? ? ? #Check the question
? ? ? ? if check_question(questions[index]):
? ? ? ? ? ? right = right + 1
? ? ? ? #go to the next question
? ? ? ? index = index + 1
? ? #notice the order of the computation, first multiply, then divide
? ? print "You got ",right*100/len(questions),"% right out of",len(questions)

#now lets run the questions
run_test(get_questions())

What is list of lists? How does it work? I don't understand it cause this is just an example in a tutorial that doesn't mention it at all.
And what is second function used for?
Where do we use those global variables from the beggining?
What means this:

Code:

def check_question(question_and_answer):
? ? #extract the question and the answer from the list
? ? question = question_and_answer[0]
? ? answer = question_and_answer[1]

?? i learned only that "[" and "]" are used with lists. I can't see lists there or any connection of "question_and_answer[0]" with "check_question(question_and_answer)"

Please help..

[darek]

http://docs.python.org/tut/tut.html

[baic17]

Can you explain this to me:

Code:

>>> a=1
>>> if a:
print "What??"


What??

How does this "if" statment work if there's no condition?

[Shaitan]

Code:

>>> a=1
>>> if a:
print "What??"


What??

How does this "if" statment work if there's no condition?

Basically what it does is print "What??" because a=1, and the if statement checks to see if the value of 'a' is non zero or not by default without a condition statement. If you were to replace a=1 with a=0 you wouldn't get anything printed.

That if statement is equivalent to:
     if a==1:
but it is shorthand. The same thing is able to be done with most other modern programming languages as well.

Hope this helps,
Shaitan.

[baic17]

thank you, helped a lot (to understand of course)
one more Q related to Python:
How can I make an .exe? I know that in C i have to link my prog to all the libs that are needed but here(in tutorial) is described just how make it with unix (how to make .exe script). Sorry if I got something wrong.