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Jesse Coyle
37 posts
Deviation to 3D and the hardship it brings
I've asked questions here before and found answers to them in the day that followed, but let's see what happens this time...

I wanted to go towards more true 3D than with the 2.5D / 3D / 2D approach Casey was, So I tried to watch all the 3D concept episodes after the 25th episode (or which ever he started to talk about game architecture). I posted a question a week or so ago about rendering triangles, I rendered the triangles, transferred it to 3D coordinates, then using the more prosaic way Casey brought forward than the linear algebra projection matrix that opengl does I transferred the 3D coordinates to 2D screen space coordinates. I can now render a cube, woopdeedoo.

Problem I'm having is having the mind set to tackle a lot of this 3D stuff at this low of a level, from what I know the reason Casey does this is to put information out there to bring light to the information that is the esoteric minuscule information that's on the internet. Things like rotation of things with Casey's projection method, and to a further extent (although probably will be answered later in an episode) things like ragdoll-ish physics (although that will probably be a more readily available information than most of the other stuff).

On a deeper level, I'm thinking if I should really even take on 3D. I've been programming since April 21, 2012. I started with Forth (that didn't go anywhere), I basically only knew on the fly math, like "5 5 * . ->". Didn't really start til Sept 13, 2012 when I did Lua, and Early 2013 join Löve2D (high level stuff bois 'n gurls) and spent time in their forums. Later that year I started to help out people on the forums with 2D game concepts and some rather easy questions and help, though I still to this day haven't completed a self-driven game or project.

Wow... that was an essay and a half...
Casey Muratori
801 posts / 1 project
Casey Muratori is a programmer at Molly Rocket on the game 1935 and is the host of the educational programming series Handmade Hero.
Deviation to 3D and the hardship it brings
Personally, I don't think anyone should make a 3D game before they have made a good 2D game. Pretty much all the code besides the rendering is the same, so you kind of need to be able to do all the stuff in a 2D game anyway (asset loading, game logic, user input, debugging, optimization, whatever), so it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me to do a full 3D game until you've mastered all that, especially since 2D indie games seem to be more popular than 3D indie games these days ;)

One you know how to build 2D games very well, then it is a very straightforward path to building a 3D one - you just have to get more serious about the math and learn a bunch of GPU nonsense, and then spend a ton of time tearing your hair out dealing with the export vagaries of some assy content generation package like 3D Studio MAX.

- Casey
Jesse Coyle
37 posts
Deviation to 3D and the hardship it brings
Alright, I can jump aboard that. Especially coming from someone who's been in the industry and has been doing it for a career. (Although I think Minecraft, a 3D game, takes the cake for most popular indie game... But you're right 2D indie as a whole is more popular 3D indie)

I'll put 3D on ice for a long while then. Get comfortable with low level game things as I am with High level 2D with Löve.

Thanks, Casey!