The Mana World Forums

Im going to learn how to program next year and im trying to get a headstart so that i actually know what im doing when i get to class. I have good math skills, and im a quick learner. Also does anyone know any free programs that can be used for programming? I would like to learn c++ and/or Java so if anyone knows any good sites just post them. Im also trying to learn to pixel, which im not learning at school and I cant find any good sites that explain how to pixel so if anyone knows any just post them. If anyone has any good tips that they would like to share then taht would help a lot.

Pixel art is basically painting with the least amount of colors necessary (usually 3-10) all of the normal elements of art still apply. There are a few techniques like dithering (but most people including myself make a mess of things when we attempt to use them)

In summation good drawing and painting skills are still a must

If you're not using Windows, you likely already have a C/C++ compiler installed, and you can use a text editor, or and IDE from the repositories/whatever. For Windows, Code::Blocks is good and free for C/C++. As for Java, the compiler is free for all. There are plenty of free IDEs.

Thanks for the responses. I pixeled 3 tiles my first attempt (not for tmw) and could someone comment about them and say how i could make them better, because i dont know if they look right...

hm they look a bit to "regular"... once you make larger area with those, it will look like carpets.... no offence

water tile: Look at real water. It is not just blue. It moves and it has dark and light shades. http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/KPO ... exture.jpg

desert tile: Well sand is not a yellow area with red dots it is kind of very light brown with a few darker brown and black dots.... sand... http://www.free-background-wallpaper.co ... s/Sand.jpg

grass tile: grass is made of small lines. very small. in different shades of green http://www.hausgarten.net/blog/wp-conte ... 2008_1.jpg

hope that helps a bit

Depending on stylistical chioces of a project, those tiles might work for a GameBoy game.

I've seen more horrible stuff in actually published games.

Coolkid 782 wrote:I would like to learn c++ and/or Java so if anyone knows any good sites just post them.

Free C/C++ IDE for Windows: http://www.codeblocks.org/
Free Java IDE: http://www.eclipse.org/

I don't have much experience with Java, but with C and C++. I would recommend you to work through a tutorial first (sorry, but the time I learned C++ is too far ago to still recommend one, so I can only point you to Google). Afterwards these sites will be very useful for you (but only after you completed a tutorial):
http://www.cppreference.com/wiki/
http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/

I cant find any good sites that explain how to pixel so if anyone knows any just post them.

Here is a very good pixel art tutorial: http://www.petesqbsite.com/sections/tut ... s/tsugumo/ When you read, understood and practiced everything here you will be good enough for TMW.

some of the IDEs are Eclipse, ActiveState Komodo, NetBeans, Microsoft Visual Studio, WinDev, Geany , Xcode, CodeBlocks etc.

Eclipse is free & one of the bests. Many programming languages can be handled around but especially java.
Netbeans is also good for java.
Geany is light weight. I heard some using it esp. for perl

for C++ you can try CodeBlocks, eclipse, VS etc.


& for pixel art, what you mainly need is an artistic mind & some technical knowledge around color, frames etc.