The Ramblings of a Hazy Mind

The first thing we are going to learn how to do is get Visual C# .NET set up to create and run our engine demos in a manner that lets us keep the engine code separate from the demos themselves so we can be sure that our 3D engine’s file only contain code that is important to the engine itself, and not any of the many hundreds of uses it could eventually have.

The best method of accomplishing this, in my opinion, is to have multiple projects within Visual C# that contain the code for different sections. We could even have multiple projects for the actual game engine itself and have them compiled into different libraries for use later. I will keep the engine all together in one project for this tutorial series, but feel free to separate them how you see fit.

Step 1: Making the projects

Lets start by making two projects in Visual C#. One of these will contain the code or our engine and one will contain the demo code that will use the engine to create small and hopefully interesting apps that we can use to show o what we have created.

Start out by opening up Visual C# (VC# from now on so I don’t have to type so much) and selecting File-New-Project. For the first project we are going to create a Class Library, so click that option and name it whatever you would like to call the engine. I am using Hazy Mind 3D Engine for my name, but anything will work. Click ok, and then depending on how you have your VC# set up it may create a folder and save the solution to start out, or you may have to manually save it now.

Before we save the solution as is though, lets remove the default Class1.cs file that is created. Now, go to File-Save All (or Save Solution As) and a Save Project box will pop up. your porject’s name will appear in the Name: box and in the New Solution Name: box as well. I don’t mind having a soultion with the same name as one of its child projects, so this is how I will leave mine. Browse to the location you would like to save this solution and click save. I also have it create a directory for my solution just to keep things organized.

Now that we have our engine library created, we have to make a project that will use this library and run our demos. We will accomplish this by right-clicking on our solution name in the Soltion Explorer window and choosing Add-New Project… Click Windows Application and name it something appropriate. I will call mine Hazy Mind Demo. Once again (because I like to start from scratch) lets remove the default files that were created in this new project and save the solution.

Now there is only one thing left to do to get this setup ready to run our engine, and that is to choose the correct start up project to use when we are debugging later. To do this, right click on your Windows Application project and choose Set As Startup Project.

That’s it! Once you have this all set up you are ready to follow the rest of the tutorials. Good luck and happy learning.

One thing I have thought about since having started the third iteration of my game engine is about all the other people in the world that are doing the same thing (believe me there are more than you think.) and how useful some of the things I have learned about 3D programming and fitting it all together might come in handy for them, so I decided I am going to write some tutorials (probably a lot of tutorials) about each section of the engine from start to finish. I will put this in a separate section though, so all of you non nerdy folk can avoid it unless you really want to be bored for hours

Yes, that was a shameless plugin of a sweet ass rock song… what’s your point? MY point is that I am once again coding for my game engine, only this time, I’m not on my own (had to finish the shameless plug, if you don’t get it yet.. listen to better music :p)

Anyway, for those of you who don’t know anything about this, I have been working on a 3D engine for a little over a year now (or is it two?, heh) and I recently got a short term (about 3 weeks) programming gig for a company in Denmark doing programming that is very intricately related to the work I have been doing on my engine for quite a while.

Obviously I took the job, and hopefully it will lead to more, but it has also gotten me back into my code and working once again towards my dream of owning a game design firm. Big or small I don’t care. As long as there is a kid somewhere going “Wow, that’s so cool!” at something I created.

It started out at 7:30 AM when I got up to be ready for the 8:00 appointment when one of the guys doing our sprinklers was supposed to be coming over and needed to be let in the house. After 3 hours of waiting he finally showed up… but it was the wrong guy at the wrong house. My brother-in-law called me to ask if he had showed up yet and I told him the little story of the day so far. Another hour later the real guy showed up and went straight to work.

Ten minutes into the work (soldering pipes) the fire alarms went off… and wouldn’t shut off for about 20 minutes. He went out to the garage and shut off the power to the part of the house that was labeled “smoke detect” in the breaker box, which also took out power to my bedroom, causing me to be unable to get any work done for a while.

After he was done with everything and turned the water back on (so I could finally take a shower) he informed me that he was going to lunch and would be back to finish in a bit. I sat down to do some work, and he apparently came back without my knowing becuase all of the sudden there was banging in the basement that scared the crap out of me. He is finishing the job by hanging pipe from one end of the basement to the other and drilling holes through the wall, all of which is very loud and directly beneath me.

Altogether I would say today has sucked. No sleep, No shower, No edible food in the house, No peace and quiet, No work time, and I’m still soooo BORED! Oh well, at least it is Friday.