What was your ladder of progress in demo coding?

[bleenko]

Any replies are appreciated

PS: By "ladder of progress" I mean
Like maybe first using tutorials, then coding effects for a while, then doing gfx work, and so on

[Clyde]

I began life as a Basic user ( still am hope to progress to C, once I get a new PC), and what I did was have a look at example code that usually comes with the language of choice, plus look at source code posted onto websites. Just to get the feel for what does what, often you will find that variables and arrays are defined differently.

Setting up a graphics window, and finding out what Screen Flipping also helped.

Then a big thing that helps with just about any special effect, is how to deal with manipulating colours, eg loading your images / textures and storing the r,g,b results.

I will add I am a slow learner on some aspects, took me a while before I was brave enough to enter stuff into Blitz's IDE. As it was quite daunting looking through some examples; and I created alot of my very own bugs.

Unfortuneatly today, there aren't as many code help forums around, which was a big plus in helping me. I know this sounds a bit daft, not all tutorials are helpfull, and can miss out vital information, especially for some one learning the ropes.

Rest assured though this place is cool.

[Hotshot]

Hey Clyde

I began life as a Basic user ( still am hope to progress to C, once I get a new PC), and what I did was have a look at example code that usually comes with the language of choice, plus look at source code posted onto websites. Just to get the feel for what does what, often you will find that variables and arrays are defined differently.

The Tutorial might be good for you even thought it is C++ Allergo( game library)

http://www.youtube.com/lusikkamage

[Clyde]

Ta Hotsnot will take a look; its going to be a long while till I get one, could be next year. Im waiting for a period where technology cant be bettered; as I dont wont to fork out money on a new one, to find next month theres something totally new around.

Back to your question:

O yes, and the most important things.

Ask plenty of questions, and if the answers arent what you looking for or dont understand, ask again and again. If they are nice people like us lot, then they wont mind sharing their knowledge.

But the big thing is dont expect instant results, and be patient and dont throw your monitor out the window if something isnt quite there Unless you are a lucky one who can pick things up pretty quickly.

As someone once said, if at first you dont succeed, try, try, and try again.
You'll learn from your mistakes too.

Hope this is of some help too you mate, I better stop as at the moment I could go on forever.

Cheers and all the very best with your coding adventures,
Clyde.

[bleenko]

Clyde - Thanks for the information, I will incorporate it
Hotshot - I had no idea such a thing was on youtube, I'm glad you posted publicly in response to Clyde

[benny!]

Well, it all began with a pixel. When I started demo coding I started
to code generally. So, I had no experience before. First I tried some
very standard stuff in BASIC reading a printed out manual on the
Schneider CPC.

Moving to the Amiga I found tutorials on various BBS Systems. There
I joined a group and had also the possibility to ask people. My first
aim was to set up the language of my choice and to draw a single
pixel. If I was able to control the position and color of that pixel, I
knew that I could do nearly everything with it ;-)

After getting the basics I often looked at working small code snippets
and tried to understand how they worked and modified them. Since
then the learning progress gets faster and faster.

Finally I studied computer sciences which gave me some additional
knowledge about general software architecture and development.

[Jim]

Code: [Select]

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Then some books and magazines full of type in programs.

Then 3 years Software Engineering degree.

Then 10yrs in the computer game industry.

Then I discovered coding graphics demos for fun!

Jim

[ninogenio]

lol

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for me too then i went on to a yabasic forum where i learned loads from alot of the guys that are here. then joined here and learned even more. now im back to the speccy lol iv done a complete 360.

[Shockwave]

Commodore Vic 20 basic for me I guess, although you couldn't call what I did coding. I just altered some of the text in the free games that came with it.

Then onto the Spectrum, like Jim I enjoyed the type in listings in magazines, learned Z80 by reading a column written by a guy called David macandles whoi wrote for Your Sinclair, I had a crappy assembler that had to be loaded by tape.

Gave up for a while
Tinkered with the C64
Gave up again
Went to college, did a computer course and learned turbo pascal, cobol and quickbasic.
Got an Amiga
Started drawing with Dpaint, and started a crappy group called Hanississ 5 with some friends, I wasnt coding at the time, we did release a few small intros. Back then I spent most of my time drawing stuff and I got quite good at it but eventually I picked up the coding bug again, I used Amos which was fun but totally useless, so I started learning 68000, got about as far as being able to use the copper, play music, draw hardware sprites and do simple blitting but that was about all I managed.

I never really got seriously into it until I got a sony ps2 and started experimenting with Yabasic, discovered the yabasic.co.uk website, got really into programming and since then I've learned about a dozen languages to varying levels of proficiency.

I have to say that most of what I have learned has come in two ways.

Firstly tinkering with existing stuff I have found to understand how it worked.

Secondly, by necessity. For example, when I first found the yabasic forum I never even knew how to upload a picture to the internet, as time has gone on I needed to learn html, and now I am to the point where I wrote this website and portal using php, css, xhtml and mysql, just through internet tutorials (easy to pick up new languages once you have a good grounding).

My advice to you would be to pick a language you want to learn, get it all installed properly (ask for help here if you get stuck), and then learn about variables, loops, conditions (if then etc), and try and get a dot on the screen.

Then make it move, and then go from there

Good luck and enjoy the wonderful journey you have just started.

[Hotshot]

interesting Story from all the people on memory of when they were little.

As someone once said, if at first you dont succeed, try, try, and try again.
You'll learn from your mistakes too.

That is very true. 

When I had Amiga 500 plus when I sold C64. when Amos came out in 1992 and I had no boardband or network to ask for help...so I code myself Football Group Table where you have 8 Group of 4 teams like world cup drawn in arrays and there was error and i had to fixed it for myself then it was good joy to see it working and I even got amos program list of my code in the disk I have kept. 

I could Converted into Amos for Amiga Emulator to see the code that I have made and yes it is quite messy! LOL


bleenko?  Pick a langauge that you enjoy the most and keep going(yes it is hard to keep going) but you will get there in end 

[hellfire]

started a crappy group called Hanississ 5

Must have been in the 80s. Back then groupnames required to have some number included - in the 90s it shifted to "design" or "art"

[zawran]

Back in 1982, I got a C64 as a present from my grandmother. I did not get anything else, so I only had the manual and the computer. So I started working my way though the book. Later on, I managed to get hold of a book about assembly, so I dug into that and made a bunch of intros and a few games. Later I got an Amiga when that came out, and had both a 500 and a 1200 model. I did a bunch of intros and some small games in assembly. Then around 1992 I kinda lost interest in programming and for a while I had various PC computers, but it wasn't until around 2000, that I got back into programming, this time around using BlitzPlus and Blitz3D. I dabbled a bit with FreeBasic, but it just wasn't for me. When BlitzMax came I quickly switched to that and haven't used anything else since. I used to be a lot more productive than I am these days, but I also had more time to kill back then. But I try and get a little bit done every now and then because I still enjoy it a lot.

[Shockwave]

started a crappy group called Hanississ 5

Must have been in the 80s. Back then groupnames required to have some number included - in the 90s it shifted to "design" or "art"

1989 ftw!

And just to embarass myself.... Hanissis 5 intro (amiga)

[Hotshot]

Nothing to be embrassed as you come long way from there to somethings impossible demo you have done 

"YOUR brain is Sharper than Computer!" - that is your star sign and I couldnt agree more as When you did Demo of AMiga last november as I couldnt believe how many hours you spend on last detail to make it same amiga demo!!! 

[Hotshot]

Hey Clyde and everyone

here another Good Tutorial
http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Special:Allpages

[bleenko]

This is for all the posters 
It's fun and inspiring reading all this nostalgia and retellings

[spitfire]

I was into drawing comics but when I saw a java applet with the water drop effect I decided to give it up for coding.  Wasnt until I found denthors tutorials that I got into demo coding myself. But since I dropped out of school my math has always let me down when I tried to do something original (didnt even know basic principles). This year im finally in university studying tons of math & physics and I really feel like its opening up possibilities for me, just in terms of what I can actually code (except for the fact that I dont have time to do any coding because of it ). I am yet to make a real demo! (I've made tons in my mind )