A
Alessio
Guest
That's another question, indeed, that i wanted to ask: why are video-tutorials so popular indeed? Everyone recommends them. But someone may prefer them, even written tutorials can be bad.
Have you tried the tutorials that come packaged with GM? They're very good, I think.As a newb myself, i find scripting very confusing, and although i agree with OP, i simply cannot understand coding, enough to do something from scratch. 99% of youtube tutorials arent exactly tutorials, as those tutors dont explain but just type, forcing us newbs just to copy learning nothing in process. As a family man with a full time job i cant just drop everything to enroll in a coding course or something similar. here in Australia, we dont have too many choices when it comes to night courses.
They got popular not because they taught adequately, but because:That's another question, indeed, that i wanted to ask: why are video-tutorials so popular indeed? Everyone recommends them. But someone may prefer them, even written tutorials can be bad.
I'm not sure my experience is the same. One prototypical topic is "Please help me to X, I tried but it didn't work" with no other information. My response to that is, "What have you tried?", and I feel like in a surprising number of cases, the poster has gone on to give a reasonable description of their efforts (but maybe I'm just suffering from perspective). It's not that they hadn't tried, it's just that they didn't know how to ask questions, which has been pretty frequently mentioned in this topic.From my experience on the forum you can generally tell when a user really doesn't know where/how to start and when a user is just being lazy or demanding. Just use common sense?
I think another factor is that video tutorials are relatively easy to make.They got popular not because they taught adequately, but because:
I have followed "heartbeast" tutorials on youtube and i have no problem understanding what he is doing, i can follow quite easily, however i just cant do anything on my own from scratch, without following a video. Thats most likely because i dont have basic knowledge of scripting. I have started looking at index list on main page.Have you tried the tutorials that come packaged with GM? They're very good, I think.
That's the main problem with many video tutorials. They don't teach nothing. They just tell what is it that your see on screen and you, you follow. Then it works. Then your learned nothing, back to square one.I have followed "heartbeast" tutorials on youtube and i have no problem understanding what he is doing, i can follow quite easily, however i just cant do anything on my own from scratch, without following a video. Thats most likely because i dont have basic knowledge of scripting. I have started looking at index list on main page.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned in this topic is that it's not only the people asking questions who are young or inexperienced - pretty frequently the people answering questions are similar.
$:^ }Can people answering the questions do a better job? [snip]
- If the old-hats can [snip]
- Don't forget that some new-to-intermediate-hats will wind up saying "here's the entire answer yaay!!" because they saw the question as a challenge, and they worked it out (perhaps for the first time just then), and they're glad and totally want to help someone else with what they found to be a big deal not long ago (or currently!) themselves ("advanced to them").
So you haven't done any of the built-in tutorials, right? The youtube tutorials are tempting, because they're like "make an RPG in FIVE EASY STEPS!!!!", but they're not a the best place to start if you don't even know GML yet. Go through the tutorials that come with GameMaker, and skim through the manual. You're trying to build a puzzle without even knowing what pieces you have to work with. Doing the text tutorials and reading the manual is a pain in the ass, but I promise you it's time well spent. Things that are confusing and hard to you now are going to make you think "how was this ever difficult for me?!" after you know the basics. =)I have followed "heartbeast" tutorials on youtube and i have no problem understanding what he is doing, i can follow quite easily, however i just cant do anything on my own from scratch, without following a video. Thats most likely because i dont have basic knowledge of scripting. I have started looking at index list on main page.
As a long time old fart talking about how the 'new 'fads are destroying society, started to agree with the well intentioned OP of this thread, but also, the wiser old fart also noted that the previous generations fads became mainstream (web pages with structured info, new fangled garbage, who needs that, me 25 years ago [citation needed but sadly, just another unreferenced pub grumble])Tutorials on basic programming and GM theory are sorely needed, but the current video-mongering fad is a major obstacle to realizing their potential.
I think perhaps you've been watching some bad videos, there are some excellent youtubers out there 'Jamie King', 'makinggameswithben' are good examples for C++, 'BornCG' for blender, i also have 2 subscriptions to what appear to be very helpful gamemaker channels 'Making Games 101' and 'Let's Learn Gamaker'That's the main problem with many video tutorials. They don't teach nothing. They just tell what is it that your see on screen and you, you follow. Then it works. Then your learned nothing, back to square one.
It's like watching someone writing a sentence in a language you don't know. After you done following, try to compose a sentence now? You need to first know the basics, how to structure the language and then get some vocabulary.
Learning a programming language is just like learning a language. There's not that many ways for doing it.
I tried this - searching "inventory" in the manual, and I look at the results. With my experience(and I'm sure someone with the same experience will do the same thing), I see all the ds_* results and go "WTF are those, and what do they have to do with an inventory?" Your reply is probably "Read them all and you'll see", but if they all have to work together to make an inventory system work, then someone with my experience is not going to find out what they need by doing that search and reading them all because unless they have further experience, then piecing that puzzle together is probably over their head and if they REALLY want the puzzle solved, they will need further help and explanation.I say this with all sincerity, with no disrespect, to Jabbers and to anyone else who has (or will) repeat this kind of misinformation. You're wrong.
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Like Alessio has said(or at least tried to explain), teaching a man to fish isn't as simple as handing a man a pole and then expecting him to know how to catch fish after you give him the tool to do so. You have to explain to that man how the pole works, and how to properly use it to catch a fish, and what techniques to use while he's doing it. You can't just say "here, use this.", hand the man a pole, and expect him to know what to do with it.Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
You need to think about the "food" you put on the "spoon". Give a snippet with no comments, and expect someone to know how to use it, and you'll instead have a very confused person when they try to use it and it doesn't work. When they come back saying so, don't be surprised. If you are expecting someone to learn from what you gave them, then use comments - show that person what your code does, how each part of it works to solve the problem, and where in the event it needs to go to work(Create, Step, etc). If your comments are well written, then they can then successfully take your code, modify it to their needs, put it where it needs to go, and make it work. But not showing how the parts equal the result is bad practice on the part of the community as a whole, and it's more often than not what I get from a lot of people here. Everyone kept giving me things and expecting me to know what to do with it.Give a man with no experience a piece of code, and you'll only confuse him. But if you give that same man a piece of code, and explain it too, then you'll end up with a learned man with a better understanding.
That's what the Manual is for --- so that you can draw "what about X that makes it do Y" conclusions for yourself.I myself have very little programming knowledge, and i know a few basic fundamentals. But when I had questions here, I was told to go through the tutorials, and they would help me. So I did, but I struggle even with those because the tutorials are so badly written - they are like someone said before(can't recall who) "Paint-by-number pictures" where you just follow along and do exactly what it says to produce the intended game. I learned nothing from them because some of them give Drag and Drop methods, or Code snippets for every little part - but there's no explanation for any of it, like "why does doing it this way work?" "What is it about X thing that makes it do Y effect?"
A few people also gave me code snippets to try to help me. But because it was all without comments or explanation, their "help" was to no avail because I didn't understand it. It's like trying to give someone who doesn't know how to read or speak Russian a book written in Russian, and expecting them to read it out loud to you. You can't do that and expect a positive result.
Now it's your turn to contextualize. Given the definition, in the tutorial's context it just means whether there is a block immediately underneath the player (since moving it down 1 = immediately below). Problem solved.The Manual entry for place_meeting() said:When you use this you are effectively asking GameMaker: Studio to move the instance to the new position, check for a collision, move back and tell you if a collision was found or not.
Considering the number of jackwagons that seem to think reading the bloody manual is a panacea; Yes, perhaps we do. If for no other reason so that the sanctimonious posters understand they are actually wrong!Do we really need a "How to use the Manual" guide around here? I'm just seeing way too many examples of it being used wrong on this topic and countless other ones on the Q&A boards.
If you see that many examples of misuse, then maybe so? Maybe if the community(and even the software) was making it clear that the Manual is only a reference guide for terms, and not the answer to everything, then you wouldn't see so many examples of misuse.Do we really need a "How to use the Manual" guide around here? I'm just seeing way too many examples of it being used wrong on this topic and countless other ones on the Q&A boards.
And no, it's not. You'd think so, but to a beginner who can't learn from a manual, that is not the answer. The answer is write a better tutorial, and comment your code so that those that read it can understand it for what it does in that particular instance. The Manual is way too general and will give you multiple definitions on how the terms are used, much like a dictionary, as you said. a single word can have multiple meanings, but which one is being used is not clear, and should be in the context of it's usage. When it's not, then that's where the confusion arises and the comments are a HUGE help. Because the comment would explain what the code is specifically doing in that instance. And the Manual cannot do that.That's what the Manual is for --- so that you can draw "what about X that makes it do Y" conclusions for yourself.
tbh, while i haven't really looked at what is different, or what is added per version; the best advice would probably plug along with the books until you do get to something that doesn't work then ask specifically. I'm pretty sure the more helpful members of the community would point out the way to do whatever is needed in the current version.From a beginner's perspective, this ride through here(since GM5) has truly sucked and has been nothing but dream-crushing because I can't find anyone who can properly teach, and I can't get further from being just a beginner, because I fail to learn anything from anyone. After a while, I even went so far as to buy BOTH of the official Game Maker Books - "The Game Maker's Apprentice"(uses GM7), and "The Game Maker's Companion"(uses GM8/8.1) - but I can't use what's in those books here in GM:Studio because I've been told some of the functions are now obsolete and no longer work - so I can't even use/modify the code within them to help me. $80.00 down the drain now.
sleep() has been removed because it blocks the application and renders it unresponsive. This is a behaviour that mobile platforms, browsers and recent desktop platforms (even Windows) now handle by prompting the user to close it. The alternative is using an alarm to delay an action without blocking.Well here's an example then that I've not been able to find a replacement for:
In the first book, "The Game Maker's Apprentice", which, btw, has Mark Overmars(Creator of Game Maker) and Jacob Habgood as authors - Chapter 3 is about a game called "Galactic Mail", and it uses the "Sleep" action, which makes the game pause for an amount of milliseconds before continuing, and I've not been able to find a documented replacement for it. That's only one example that I've found myself and know offhand, but I wouldn't doubt it if there was more than just that one. The only explanation that I have gotten from anyone - that still really didn't explain anything - is that "Sleep" was mainly a Windows function, and since GM:Studio is multi-platform, the function is now obsolete. It won't even work for a Windows build of a program, and I've gotten no answer as to what to use in it's place.
And thank you for the kind words. Seriously, you may have just been unlucky, and I also admit that the tone in this topic sometimes suggests that we are an elitist bunch, but in my opinion, this really is one of the nicest and most helpful forums on the internet. Okay, I'm biased... but if you just look through the Programming forum for example, you'll be hard pushed to find a single topic that doesn't have a reply. And you'll have an even harder time finding a topic that has a rude or unhelpful reply.FrostyCat & Nocturne, thank you. I didn't want to turn this into a Help thread, but I figured I would mention my trouble since the topic came up - and your answers were very helpful. So maybe I've just been unlucky in all that previous time, running into all of the jerks... I hope that what I just received from you both is what I continue to get from the entire community.