Tutorials wanted :)

slinks · May 05, 2009

Yeah, sorry I haven't been dropping by much, I'm still trying to get internet sorted at my place. Don't know what everyone else is waiting for though. It would be such a shame if this place just ground to a halt.

We need to have some kind of event, something to get people back in. Competitions seem to have become too much of a regular fair, we need something similar, but different. Something really innovative.

I suggest a brain-storming topic.

Hotshot · May 05, 2009

I think this forum is going through hard time at the moment as it abit like football league where you go up and down! I am sure it will go back up again over time.

Keep going and Keep posting

Clyde · May 05, 2009

Community Projects / Community Tutorials. might be a nice thing I just thought up whilst waiting for the plumber.

And these source codes can be used for people to get an idea of a/ what the effect is and the obvious b/ how it can be made.

benny! · May 05, 2009

Might be worth a try. I post some mega-mini tutorials for Actionscript
on my blog. I am happy to cross post them here, too. Although they
are not really demoscene related.

Shockwave · May 05, 2009

Thanks guys.

Benny, the boundaries do cross over into other genres sometimes here so anything you think is related will help.

The forum lives or dies by the amount of posts it gets though, pure and simple, the more that everyone who is here posts, the more beneficial it is to the whole community, any forum needs posts to survive, as we are a niche community anyway it needs to be remembered that without new posts, the forum will definately grind to a halt.

It is nice that people do care and some effort is being made, it is appreciated.

benny! · May 07, 2009

Just spend some time to look through my kind of tutorials I could pack
to send to you. What comes to my mind though is - do you already know
how to put them online ? I mean in which way ? Do you plan to code a
separate forum section for them ?

Personally I think it might be cool if ppl who read the tutorial are somehow
able respond to them, like: rating, comment, ask questions, add own
experiences etc.. So, maybe a tutorial could be an interesting start of
a discussion

In addition, we might think (if the tutorial section is growing) to tag or cate-
gorize the tutorials. So something like, general coding, some language specific,
sound, graphics specific.

Just thinking ... I see what I can collect and send you.

slinks · May 07, 2009

I don't know what your views are, but I think that perhaps broadening the forum to include a few sections for old-school style games might also be worth thinking about. I mean, we already have more than a few discussions for them anyway, and for me it's not really a different "scene" anyway; I've always considered homebrew gaming and demoscening to be part of the same idea. Even from a historical point of view, cracktros (one of the main beginings for the scene) were by their nature packaged with game roms, and most people (myself included) stumble onto the scene through homebrew.

So, if we want to get more people in the door, and more people interested in the scene, the gaming side would be the way to do it.

I think a 'text game comp' would be an excellent way of kick-starting it. Text routines are how we all started, whether it was with a "hello world" routine or something more juvenile ("You see a man, do you kick him in the balls? y/n") and as our recent postings in Hanger 18 showed, we all still remember them. I remember the yabasic forums hosting one a few years ago, and I think it went down rather well.

It's also the most inclusive contest I can think of, it can be done in any language, and by even the most novice of coders: you could teach somebody how to do it in a matter of hours. There'd be no boundries on technical knowledge or experience, just imagination. And when you think about it, that's what coding should be all about.

Anyway, I've ranted on enough. Thoughts?

zawran · May 07, 2009

QuotePersonally I think it might be cool if ppl who read the tutorial are somehow able respond to them

I think this would be a good idea, because it would provide the author with feedback for improvements on the tutorial itself, and enable the author a chance to repond to questions within the right context.

Shockwave · May 07, 2009

The tutorials are going to be added to the portal as zip files which means that they can be in any format that the author wants and contain all the needed files to be able to use them.

This will make it possible to use html, pdf, plain text, whatever you like.

I will add some fields for people to post comments about the tutorials into the portal, this is not going to happen until I have a few tutorials and it will take a little time for me to program the exra section to the site.

This will be really cool when it's done, the forum does so definately need more posts though, tutorials won't save it on thier own.

About increasing the spectrum of the forum to cover some games topics, I think we do this already, if you have any opinions on them please post them, the main focus here has always been demoscene and visual effects and will remain to be so but that doesn't stop you discussing other stuff that interests you

benny! · May 08, 2009

@Zawran:
Exactely. I think so, too. Personally I would appreciate any feedback on
my tutorials. Nobody is perfect - so I think every author of little tutorials
can make mistake or post something which might can be improved. Thats
actually the main reason why I write small tutorials on my blog. On the
one hand, I write them for myself just as an exercise to summarize a
certain topic - and on the other hand I hope on some constructive feed-
back to improve certain things.

@slinks:
Personally I am totally open to have more game-related topics here. Although
I know that we had discussions before and I can fully undertstand if the
majority here wants this place to be a democode forum in the first place.
I really like the ppl here and since I spend more time producing games in
the last years than producing demos, I of course would appreciate it.
But do not get me wrong - I like the fact that this place is in first place a
democode related forum. I like it because ppl come here with the same
interest/background.

@Shocky:
Basically I like the idea of being very open with formats in which you accept
tutorials. On the other hand I would somehow think it would be cool have the
possibility to read the tutorials online. If tutorials are supplied as HTML or
PDF - are there any tools around which convert those formats into BB code ?

Just thinking ...

zawran · May 09, 2009

Its been quite a while since I wrote any kind of tutorials, but I wouldn't mind giving it a go, but I just haven't got any good ideas about where to start. What kind of tutorials are people looking for? What would be good subjects for tutorials? Perhaps we could have a thread where people request tutorials and in the first post a list gets changed as more ideas comes in. Then people can pick from the list and make a tutorial of the subject in a programming language of their choice?

Shockwave · May 09, 2009

Quote@Shocky:
Basically I like the idea of being very open with formats in which you accept
tutorials. On the other hand I would somehow think it would be cool have the
possibility to read the tutorials online. If tutorials are supplied as HTML or
PDF - are there any tools around which convert those formats into BB code ?

I am pretty much decided on the choice of zip archives to contain the tutorials purely because any author can choose what format that they write the tutorial in, they can include exe's, C++ projects, gfx, dlls, they could even make a nice web page and include it in the zip.

As tempting as it is to make them all online I am certain that zips will be the best way to cater for everyone and cast our net as wide as possible, I am not saying you have made a bad suggestion Benny, I just want to cater for the lowest possible denominator and zip or rar allows virtually any format. It has the added plus of being easy to administer as well. I am undecide about whether to allow commenting and voting directly in the showcase or instead to link to a topic in the forums. What do you guys think?

Quote from: zawran on May 09, 2009
Its been quite a while since I wrote any kind of tutorials, but I wouldn't mind giving it a go, but I just haven't got any good ideas about where to start. What kind of tutorials are people looking for? What would be good subjects for tutorials? Perhaps we could have a thread where people request tutorials and in the first post a list gets changed as more ideas comes in. Then people can pick from the list and make a tutorial of the subject in a programming language of their choice?

A good subject for a tutorial would be anything you care about or maybe something that you had to work quite intensley on to understand it and you want to share what you learned with everyone.
If anything came to mind when you read that then I guess that's the one to go for!

As for a topic for tutorial requests, thats a good idea too. We can do that.

zawran · May 09, 2009

I am thinking that a link to a forum thread about the tutorial would be ok.

benny! · May 10, 2009

@Shockwave:
Ok, fair enough. I would definately go with a permanent link to a forum
post for each tutorial. This way we directly give ppl the chance and
motivate hopefully to post comments, questions and stuff to the certain
tutorial.

I will try to find some time to convert my mini tutorials into another format
(maybe PDF) and send them to you.

@zawran:
About tutorial suggestions. I second what Shocky says. Personally I write
down some notes (which will end up in a tutorial) if I have a personal interest
in a certain technique or topic. I think it is good for your own motivation if
you write tutorials about topics you personally are interested in.

But this is of course just my point of you.

Shockwave · May 10, 2009

QuoteI will try to find some time to convert my mini tutorials into another format
(maybe PDF) and send them to you.

There is no need to convert to any format

Just to put all the needed files into one zip file.

Clyde · May 12, 2009

I think for the first batch of tutorials, you should concentrate LOTS on stuff for beginners.
Including the things that come natural from experience, ie the simplist of things ( variables, program loops, what a sub / Function is, whats a demo any way?, blah blah blah )

Shockwave · May 12, 2009

Well, notepad++ is ready and waiting, mysql is running on my machine, I am ready to start coding them into the portal, I'm just waiting for them to start being sent over

Clyde · May 30, 2009

Write, I'll have a little fun and simple tutorial for FreeBASIC very soon. Tomorrow lunch time infact ( fingers cross x ).

Im having to redo it as it got wiped when I had my PC trouble couple of weeks back. And by all means if you need or want to add anything to it please feel free to do so.

Im really looking forward to seeing and learning more from the tutorials section.

Shockwave · May 31, 2009

I have had one so far from Benny and that's all so please do send it over when it is ready mate.

Shockwave · June 13, 2009

There is now a tutorials forum, Stormbringer will be guiding you through every aspect of retro-demo coding to allow you to learn how to code all the classic demo effects, and hopefully make your own remakes and other demos as a result!