So whatever happened to the whole PGDCE thing?

[SilverWarior]

They should target OpenGL 3.0+ style contexts, firstly focusing on 2D (but very briefly) then bringing in 3D. Any tutorials on old immediate mode GL are just teaching bad practices - GL3 is *easier* - there's just less information around for learners.

I think that making tutorials about specific graphic API is a bad choice. Why?
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the purpose of graphic API to provide a uniform way of using graphic hardware regardless of which programming language is used for the application/game development? Or in order words if you want to create same graphic scene in let us say Object Pascal, C++, C#, .NET, Python or JAVA you would in the end always end up calling same graphical API functions. Right?
If I'm right then it would be possible to go and learn about specific graphic API even by checking tutorials that are written for other programming languages. Sure it would be hared but still possible.
Also graphic API's keep changing. So we could start teaching OpenGL 4.5 but what if by the time our members get to master it OpenGL 4.5 is no longer the dominant graphic API? Excellent first impressions about Vulkan are definitely opening this possibility. That could mean that we invested a lot of time writing tutorials for something that is no longer useful for game developers at that time.

I think we should more focus on making tutorials about various game mechanics like:

• managing game states
• working/managing with in-game entities
• path finding algorithms
• AI
• procedural assets creation
• physics
• and so on

The main advantage of these topics is that they will stay relevant in 10 or 20 years as much as they are today. Also none of them depends on certain existing libraries or API-s. So no fear that you will have to relearn them because certain library or API became obsolete.

Also why should we bother people with learning about graphic basics when there are several quite capable graphical libraries out there which make the whole process about working with graphics a lot easier?

To be honest I'm pretty disappointed with game industry (especially big AAA companies) because they are spending too much focus on graphics and not enough on gameplay and game mechanics.
You see a great looking game with poor gameplay will still be a poor game. But a poorly looking game with great gameplay will still a great game.

[Akira13]

So we could start teaching OpenGL 4.5 but what if by the time our members get to master it OpenGL 4.5 is no longer the dominant graphic API? Excellent first impressions about Vulkan are definitely opening this possibility. That could mean that we invested a lot of time writing tutorials for something that is no longer useful for game developers at that time.

I believe Khronos has explicitly stated that they have no plans to move away from OpenGL, and it's also unlikely that the basic structure of the OpenGL API is going to change much more going forwards... everything after version 3.0 is just an "add-on", essentially. Vulkan is also not even really meant to be a replacement for OpenGL... it's pretty much specifically oriented towards seasoned industry professionals (we're talking 10+ years of experience) who need extremely high levels of performance 100% of the time (as it is much lower-level than OpenGL with more optimization potential, but also a significantly higher learning curve.) It's far more likely to gain traction in the film industry than it is the gaming industry, in my opinion.

[phibermon]

I think that making tutorials about specific graphic API is a bad choice. Why?
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the purpose of graphic API to provide a uniform way of using graphic hardware regardless of which programming language is used for the application/game development? Or in order words if you want to create same graphic scene in let us say Object Pascal, C++, C#, .NET, Python or JAVA you would in the end always end up calling same graphical API functions. Right?

Hey man I agree with you but where do you draw the line? do write all our examples in pseudo code because we can't garuntee the future of pascal? do we not talk about games because people can learn general programming elsewhere and apply those principals to game development?

Yeah somebody can go learn OpenGL anywhere - they can also go learn programming anywhere. Is not teaching them Object Pascal because they can learn general programming and apply the principals to Object Pascal - exactly the same as not teaching them GL because they can go and learn general GL and then figure out on their own how to apply it to Pascal?

Also why should we bother people with learning about graphic basics when there are several quite capable graphical libraries out there which make the whole process about working with graphics a lot easier?

You literally just dismissed OpenGL because it might not be relevent in 10 years and then you suggest they invest the entire future of their project on an even smaller and less supported graphics library?

Why bother teaching game programming or indeed programming at all because they'll be irrelevant when we have holodecks and the computer interprets our requirements?

In fact why do anything whatsoever because the universe is going to end rendering everything ultimately pointless?

You have to start somewhere - you have to make some assumptions - believe me - there's *plenty* of 3D specifics that your highly generic categories will not cover, there's entire designs that are specific to 3D hardware - compute hardware.

Like it or not hardware accelerated 3D is a massive part of gaming and has been for nearly 2 decades and there's far more complexity, far more to learn in the 3D realm (NOT just graphics) than in a thousand collections of generic 'timeless' catch all principals.

Definitely what you say is a good idea, I'm all for general principals and good coding practices - give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day but give him the means to catch his own fish and he'll eat for a whole lifetime.

Totally agree - but by the same token teaching him to fish isn't going to let him build a spaceship.

A game with great gameplay running in software at 2fps is a game with bad gameplay

[SilverWarior]

@phibermon
I'm afraid you misunderstood me. I'm not saying we should abolish using any modern graphics. Heck most game ideas that I have revolve around 3D graphics (even have one or two VR ideas).
What I was trying to say is why teaching people of how to initialize OpenGL rendering pipeline, why teaching them how to store textures in video memory, how to apply transformations onto 3D models, applying lighting and shaders, and so on low level if there are already available graphics engines that can do all this for them.
If we go and start teaching this do we also expect that each one of them will be using this knowledge to create his own graphical engine. I guess I don't have to be telling you on how much work is required in order to make your own graphical engine as you already have experience in this area.

Any way if you decide to start writing articles about using of OpenGL 3+ is won't say you shouldn't . In fact your rich experience in graphics and game engine creation is probably making you perfect candidates fur this topic. And it is quite high possibility that I will read through them.

I just think that it would be more beneficial for PGD as community if we focus more on the topics mentioned in my previous post. Why? Because you can find a graphical engine that potentially allows you to create a game without any knowledge of OpenGL or any other graphic API for that matter.
But you won't find a library that would allow you to make a game without knowing at least some of the topics that I mentioned in my previous post. At leas in the past 7 or 8 years since I focused my learning on game development I have never found one.

[laggyluk]

@phibermon
What I was trying to say is why teaching people of how to initialize OpenGL rendering pipeline, why teaching them how to store textures in video memory, how to apply transformations onto 3D models, applying lighting and shaders, and so on low level if there are already available graphics engines that can do all this for them.
If we go and start teaching this do we also expect that each one of them will be using this knowledge to create his own graphical engine.

Yeah but when someone looks for OpenGL tutorials and all he/she can find are for c++/c# then why would even bother with doing it in pascal?

Dev forums are dying thanks to stackoverflow and this one is no different.

Pascal is obscure choice for making games considering lack of learning resources/user base and imo this can only change if some big company picks it up for their next big publicly accessible game engine. But then, why would anybody do that same reasons considered?

[Rickmeister]

Yeah but when someone looks for OpenGL tutorials and all he/she can find are for c++/c# then why would even bother with doing it in pascal?

Dev forums are dying thanks to stackoverflow and this one is no different.

Pascal is obscure choice for making games considering lack of learning resources/user base and imo this can only change if some big company picks it up for their next big publicly accessible game engine. But then, why would anybody do that same reasons considered?

A quick way to get more 'meat' on this site would be to ask the people over at DelphiGL for permission to translate some of their GL tutorials and move them here?? Or link to them? I don't speak german, and google translate is just awful Not much use to do the good old 'divide and conquer' dance, and they seem to be quite active, at least by the looks of their forums. It would be much easier if you all spoke Swedish, it's way more easy to understand...

[dazappa]

I haven't been here in forever. For me it is all about language and tool popularity. First, where do we go to find news in the first place that we can post on this site? The only other thing really is working on custom projects and posting about them.

I stopped using Pascal for games probably 5 years ago. The tools are weak. The libraries are unmaintained. It just feels like Pascal as a language for game development has faded out of existence. I still like Pascal, and I still use it with Lazarus to create some desktop software. Without any decent momentum behind a project though I find it hard to work with. I would rather make games than engines. At this point, I am more interested in 3d games than 2d games. That's not easy to do with Pascal, especially if you want all these cool new features like PBR and VR (if you guys haven't tried a Vive, you should they're so much fun).

Quick edit: We have amazing tools available as free to use now. Unity 3d and Unreal Engine 4 are stellar. Has anyone tried to make a comparable game in Pascal and compared how long it can take? These large game engines are dominating the game dev scene for a reason. I got tired of dealing with issues, missing features, and lackluster tools.

Anyway. I through you a couple of dollars for hosting Athena. It's not much but hopefully others can chip in as well.

FYI there is a small Linux game jam happening. No prizes or incentive to "win" just for fun. Might be worth entering if anyone uses Lazarus: https://itch.io/jam/linux-jam-2017

[phibermon]

@SilverWarrior - Yes I do see what you mean but Pascal engines currently available as good as many of them are still don't come close to the ease of use and rapid development capable with some of large and free engines that are available in other languages - you're totally right - it's game development, not graphics engine development but due to what's available? if a game developer working in Pascal right now wanted to produce even half of what unreal engine 4 is capable of - they need to write it themselves.

which leads onto :

Quick edit: We have amazing tools available as free to use now. Unity 3d and Unreal Engine 4 are stellar. Has anyone tried to make a comparable game in Pascal and compared how long it can take? These large game engines are dominating the game dev scene for a reason. I got tired of dealing with issues, missing features, and lackluster tools.

A view probably shared by many - certainly anybody looking to choose between Pascal and another language. Many of us have been working hard for a number of years on better and more capable engines but compared to the dozens/hundreds of developers that contribute to something like Ogre3D, unity etc - progress is slow.

Things are changing though and there's some very capable engines out there. There's certainly a lot more capability than people seem to be making use of