Programming: first steps

I’ve been working in Torquescript, using The Game Programmer’s Guide to Torque by Edward Maurina (which is published by A.K. Peters, the same company that publishes Quests).

Specifically, I’ve been working on setting up a GUI or Graphical User Interface for an inventory system, using some resources and tutorials on the GarageGames site.  The process of scripting such a system is extremely complex, because a game in the Torque Game Engine Advanced is a maze of directories and sub-directories containing thousands of scripts.  Even when working with a pre-existing resource, a programmer has to figure out exactly where to put specific snippets of code in many different files on both the server and client side.  My license of TGEA actually allows me full access to the engine’s source code, which can be modified in C++ and then re-compiled to add functionality to the engine, but this is both a blessing and a curse because their are now hundreds of thousands of lines of C++ code than can be potentially altered and recompiled.

And, despite the complexity of all this (or maybe because of it) I absolutely love the process of programming, which is like solving a vast and intricate jigsaw puzzle.  When I have a working interface, I’ll post screenshots.

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