Game dev tools?

[EvilPlushToy]

Quote from the Camp website:
To assist in your development, students will receive a set of tools that utilize DirectX.


What kind of tools do you mean? We'll get to write our own rendering engine and everything, right?

In reply to comment below:
DirectPlay is for networking, not sound http://campcaen.engin.umich.edu/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
The engine is a bit of a dissapointment. As long as we get the source and can modify and tinker with it, then I guess it's cool.

[simonsj]

matt gilgenbach has been working on a game engine that you would be able to use in order to make your game. Last i checked with him, you can do basic 2D functionality, keyboard input (not sure about mouse, but it is easy enough), and sound with DirectPlay (if you know what that is). I personally have not received a copy of the engine yet, so I cannot go into specifics about it. However, the general idea is that you will make the game using this engine (matt will be teaching you how to use the engine), and I will be showing you how both DirectX and his engine work to do the things you see happening. So, no, you will not be making your own rendering engines, since that takes awhile (trust me, i have done it several times, and am working on a 3D one now) and it is far beyond the scope of the 2 week course, not to mention the lack of time involved. However, I am planning on teaching the students enough that if they want to on their own time, they can go about doing so with a good deal of functionality. Just be sure not to expect to go writing the same caliber of games visually that are being produced by today's top programmers, like Unreal II or Starcraft. Also, I mentioned this in the other thread, and we will only be focusing on 2D gaming, 3D stuff is too advanced for a 2 week summer course with only a basic understanding of programming required.