Resources for beginners

[Jeff Larsen]

I'm looking at starting to write some games and am curios what kind of resources I should start looking at before diving in. I'm not sure I know enough about the subject to ask intelligent questions, so I was hoping for some pointers to some good resources somewhere.

Some preliminary questions I have. 

What is the best way to make sprited images for my objects? For instance, in the xna platformer example, the indiana jones character. How do I know at what interval to make his legs move, etc. Is there a tool that exists to make figuring that out easier? 

Another question, in Joel's talk about creating Angry Birds, he talked about matrix transforms and how those are all over angry birds. What are some use cases for using matrix math within games, where is that appropriate? 

Thanks,

Jeff

[Philip Rogers]

Hi Jeff,

In sprite games I think things like leg movement intervals are just provided by artists / magic variables. In other words, there's no mapping between the sprite and how far the character actually moves. There are some tools for sprited objects, but for someone just getting started, photoshop or the gimp should work well. I think a good resource for a super simple example of this is the peas physics sample.

Matrix transformations are used heavily in engineering and graphics to transform coordinates. Basically, when you apply the elementary physics equations to 2d objects, you end up using matrices and vectors. They are used heavily in the box2d physics calculations in angry birds, in addition to the graphics in the PlayN layer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_matrix / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotation_matrix

Philip

[Jeff Larsen]

Thanks Philip!

Any recommendations for some good reading material on game development?