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Newcomers DBPro Corner / Newbie completely dazed and confused

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Paul Wilson
20
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Joined: 25th Oct 2004
Location: Lower Halstow, Kent
Posted: 29th Oct 2004 01:03
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Hi Everyone,

Sorry if I sound like a complete twit, however, I was wondering if there is anyone out there who wouldn't mind making a few quid giving a 30something newbie some pointers?

I am finding that just reading posts etc is not giving me the conceptual glue that I need to tie everything together. I am willing to pay for someone's time to talk to me and I am sure it won't take too long for me to get it straight in my own mind. I find that one-on-one communication (MSN etc) works a lot better for me and makes it easier for me to learn. Once I have it straight in my mind I am sure I will be able to move forward one my own.

Products I have:
DarkBasic Professional
Cartography Shop
Geoscape3D
3DCanvas Pro
Character Shop


My issue is working out how to use all these tools together, I have worked out how to use them in isolation, just the joining up that has me a little foxed. As I said earlier, I need to understand the glue in my own mind.

If you are interested in making a little bit of dosh, let me know (will pay via PayPal or however). If not, please don't flay me alive, I just want a little help and want to pay someone for their trouble .

Kind Reagrds,
Paul
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Lampton Worm
22
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Joined: 4th Sep 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 29th Oct 2004 02:06
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Hi Paul,

Forgive me, but I think you'll attract the wrong type of people if you offer money for their services

You'll find there is a select 'hardcore' of users here from the early days (and some newbies) that are pretty much always very helpful. I'm sure people won't mind helping you out, be it in here, on email or MSN, for free.

I wouldn't expect anyone here to think themselves so great that accepting money for their advice would be 'ok', except maybe TGC Sorry, couldn't resist...

Anyway, I think we'll need a bit more info on what it is that you're trying to get straight. If you know how to roughly use DBP, you'll know how to load in models, and that CartShop and CharShop general models, player and level, so you should be able to export and load them in.

I guess the same goes for Geo and 3dCanvas, but I'm not experienced in those products.

So, maybe we need a bit more info on what you're trying to achieve - are you trying to visualize the lifecycle of programming a game, or are you having a technical trouble loading a cartography shop map into DBP and displaying it? That type of stuff.

I hope it helps,
Cheers.
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Mentor
22
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Joined: 27th Aug 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 29th Oct 2004 03:32
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basicaly, all those tools allow you to make things (terrain, models etc), that you then save out in a format that DB understands, then you load them into your program, so if you make a troll in 3D Canvas, save it as troll.x, then find the saved model and move that into your project folder, then make a small project that reads

load object "troll.x",1
do
turn object left 1,1
loop

and compile and run it, that just allows you make models and then load em, likewise for catography & co, some may have a DB function that you include into your code, this function is then called with the name of the saved file and will decode the terrain or scene for you, then display it on the screen, thats all there is to using them realy, make something..load it into db, use in game, cheers.

Mentor.

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Paul Wilson
20
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Joined: 25th Oct 2004
Location: Lower Halstow, Kent
Posted: 29th Oct 2004 18:18
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Quote: "So, maybe we need a bit more info on what you're trying to achieve - are you trying to visualize the lifecycle of programming a game, or are you having a technical trouble loading a cartography shop map into DBP and displaying it? That type of stuff.
"


Hi Lampton Worm,

Thank you for your reply, okay I will give you some back ground. I got into using Cartographer to build some illustrations of our village in historical context (I am a part-time historian). I found that Cartographer was the easiest program to use to make buildings (Kudos to whoever wrote it, it is brilliant for a crap artist like me)

Anyway I decided I wanted to tell the story of our village in an interactive way, rather than just static pictures and words, I decided I would write a game and tell it that way (3000 years of history must be interesting to someone out there). So I have been busy collecting easy tools to use to create this virtual world. You know, create the land, create buildings, create objects, create trees etc etc.

Now that I have all these tools, and have created a couple of buildings and I have created the land to sit them on and the trees to go around them, I want to put it all together. In the first instance I would just like to simply have a person walk around the hills and into the church and around a few houses, nothing fancy. Once I get that right (well actually get it working) I will then start adding the challenges and making the game an actual game. (I hope I am making sense here).

I have to admit, that since writing my post yesterday I get and got myself a book, so I will be reading that over the weekend. So maybe I jumped the gun by writing my post.

Well I hope that gives you a little bit more information and possibly a little insight into what I am trying to do. Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

I do have a question actually, I know that DBPro can load DLLs etc, does that mean I can write a database dll in VB and then load it in DBPro so I can same things in an access database? Or can DBPro actually connect to databases itself?

Kind Regards,
Paul
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Paul Wilson
20
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Joined: 25th Oct 2004
Location: Lower Halstow, Kent
Posted: 29th Oct 2004 18:19
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Quote: "basicaly, all those tools allow you to make things (terrain, models etc), that you then save out in a format that DB understands, then you load them into your program, so if you make a troll in 3D Canvas, save it as troll.x, then find the saved model and move that into your project folder, then make a small project that reads
"


Mentor,

Thank you for the advice, since yesterday, things may becoem a little clearer now that I have gone out and got myself a book

Kind regards,
Paul
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Lampton Worm
22
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Joined: 4th Sep 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 30th Oct 2004 00:19
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Hi,

Yes, you could write your own database dll - or I think others have done this, so it might be worth a search on the forum.

The DBP enhancement pack also lets you read data from spreadsheets, so you could possibly use that route -

http://darkbasicpro.thegamecreators.com/?f=enhancementpack

Sounds like you'll end up with a large world, might be worth drawing your buildings in CShop, then use DBP Terrain commands for the ground, just a suggestion.

Another thing to get to grips with is collision, DBP has built in collision commands or you can write your own, but one popular method is Nuclear Glory's collision dll (www.nuclearglory.com) which makes person-to-world collision nice and easy.

Hope it helps,
Cheers.
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Chris K
21
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Joined: 7th Oct 2003
Location: Lake Hylia
Posted: 30th Oct 2004 03:45
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Try the "My First Pong Game" tutorial on this board. It's a good place to start and explains all the basics.

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Ric
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Joined: 11th Jul 2004
Location: object position x
Posted: 30th Oct 2004 04:51 Edited at: 30th Oct 2004 04:56
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Great idea - making a history lesson into a game. You could give it/sell it to you local school to use in history classes - I used to hate history at school, but I think I would have enjoyed it if we got to play computer games!!

p.s. I also use a similar selection of packages - Cshop, 3DCanvas, DBpro, and have found these forums have been a source for everything I've needed to know since I started out a few months ago - beats any training course, book or anything else money can by imho.


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Paul Wilson
20
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Joined: 25th Oct 2004
Location: Lower Halstow, Kent
Posted: 30th Oct 2004 07:52
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Quote: "Sounds like you'll end up with a large world, might be worth drawing your buildings in CShop, then use DBP Terrain commands for the ground, just a suggestion."


I am hoping it wont be too big really, though the landscpae will change over time, still just getting used to playing around with the commends and doing tutorials etc. I am still waiting for my copy of DBPro to arrive so I am playing itht he demo of DarkBasic. I am finding a lot of smaple code doesn't seem to work and I am not sure if that is because I am doing something wrong or it just doesn't work under the version I have (for the time being) Thanks for the suggestions though, most helpful and given me things to look up.

Regards,
Paul
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Paul Wilson
20
Years of Service
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Joined: 25th Oct 2004
Location: Lower Halstow, Kent
Posted: 30th Oct 2004 07:52
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Quote: "Try the "My First Pong Game" tutorial on this board. It's a good place to start and explains all the basics."


Chris,

Thank you for the advice, very helpful.

Regards,
Paul
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Paul Wilson
20
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Joined: 25th Oct 2004
Location: Lower Halstow, Kent
Posted: 30th Oct 2004 07:57
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Quote: "Great idea - making a history lesson into a game. You could give it/sell it to you local school to use in history classes - I used to hate history at school, but I think I would have enjoyed it if we got to play computer games!! "


Ric,

Well if I ever get it off the ground and get it running how I want it, you can downlaod it and play it to yoru hearts content and virtually visit our little village on the coast of Kent.

I do have a question for you though, is there an easy way of me loading in terrain that I have made in Geoscape3D? I have tried to use the example code that came with it but it doesn't seem to work. Maybe it is because I am still only using the demo version of DB (while I wait for my copy of DBPro to arrive). Any hints would be great.

Regards,
Paul
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Chris K
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Joined: 7th Oct 2003
Location: Lake Hylia
Posted: 31st Oct 2004 00:25
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Make sure all the files are in the Project folder. What error do you get?

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Mentor
22
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Joined: 27th Aug 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 31st Oct 2004 02:50
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you should be using the demo version of DB Pro, not DB, that may have been a typo on your part, but be aware that there are two versions of DB, you need the Pro demo not the DB classic demo, you can`t load terrain from geoscape into DB classic afaik, if it is pro you are using then ignore this, (DB classic editor is a black lowres screen with toytown buttons...Pro is a windows based editor)

Mentor.

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