After going through another couple of videos in MrDeathJockey's video tutorial series "Intermediate Java Game" or whatever it was called specifically, I've decided I'm not going to follow that one anymore. The further I get in the worse it gets, and it may just be that there were only a few items he skipped over and that my solutions were contributing to these new problems due to trying to implement something slightly differently than he did, but either way this is my second attempt going through his series and I'm just done trying to fix something that is being taught to me quite THIS much. I browsed a few other lesson collections on YouTube and found a few that should teach me some promising things, but unfortunately I do feel once more like options can be limited. Many of them teach the same things, and while I'm all for learning different techniques it seems that, as with most of YouTube anymore, it's also jam-packed with people all ripping each others' ideas off so it may take me some time to settle on one for sure. I feel like a few more weeks at this rate though and I will be ready to expand beyond the 32x32 pixel world. I mean, my first "Hello World" in almost a decade was less than a month ago (though I will grant that getting this far is the easy part, it's what follows that becomes difficult, or else there would probably be a lot more high quality tutorials on YouTube by now.)
The great thing is that I get opportunities from time to time during my workday to research the Oracle website's tutorials to further learn about concepts that the video makers describe, so I can pretty much triple my study time that way. I feel like this is, for me, the greatest learning method. I get to see things put into action while I'm at home, hear the explanation as to why and more or less what's going on, then during my smoke breaks at work get more detailed stuff on how these various packages and such work. Before when I just tried to read things that way, there were some things that just didn't make sense without some direct context as to what it can be used for. I highly recommend this to any who get little bits of spare time during the day but don't have the time or the opportunity to sit through entire tutorial videos. Watch the videos during your biggest opportunities for free time, implement what the videos say and try to understand as best you can, but make note of what you need clarification on. Combining the application of a method to its actual explanations on Oracle increased my understanding of it by a significant amount.
Where do I want to go most with all of this? Next I want to start using my knowledge to play around with Unity once my understanding of Java is better. Of course I could just dive into tutorials on programming stuff in Unity but I really wanted to go back and start from a more basic level. I've played around a bit with application development (very simple ones, but at least one that I found quite useful), now with 32 bit 2D games and more on that to come for a while longer, all because I want to go into playing with things on Unity with as much understanding of Java as I could get before I kinda ran out of other tutorials to watch. I will of course still have a tremendous amount to learn, but really anybody could say that, and at some point you have to focus on what you actually want to use this knowledge for, so that's why. I'm not so great with 3D modeling (or, like, at all) and maybe I'll start trying to dabble a bit in it but honestly for me it's all about the programming. I can always find resources to practice with online, and when I feel ready to make something for my own sake I know there are plenty of people out there who love 3D modeling and would just love to talk to a programmer about bringing their art to life. That, however, is a long way from now so for the time being, back to my practicing. The bittersweet side to that is I'm probably going to have a lot more time for this than I do now very soon, and the opportunity to go to school to even further increase my abilities. My time in the military will not last forever longer, and that is the bitter side to the bittersweet chance at learning as much as can. The sweet side is the school benefits, of course.
Now, I know I said before my ultimate goal as a programmer was to work on programming devices that bring automation into more and more aspects of everybody's lives, and yet all of this so far is about making simple video games. Honestly, a big part of that is because I'm a freakin' nerd and also love video games, but also while the actual syntax is going to be different, the logic will still be pretty helpful. It's all about taking specific input, knowing what to do with it, and making things happen. Apply some new syntax to it and I'll be able to pick it up.
The great thing is that I get opportunities from time to time during my workday to research the Oracle website's tutorials to further learn about concepts that the video makers describe, so I can pretty much triple my study time that way. I feel like this is, for me, the greatest learning method. I get to see things put into action while I'm at home, hear the explanation as to why and more or less what's going on, then during my smoke breaks at work get more detailed stuff on how these various packages and such work. Before when I just tried to read things that way, there were some things that just didn't make sense without some direct context as to what it can be used for. I highly recommend this to any who get little bits of spare time during the day but don't have the time or the opportunity to sit through entire tutorial videos. Watch the videos during your biggest opportunities for free time, implement what the videos say and try to understand as best you can, but make note of what you need clarification on. Combining the application of a method to its actual explanations on Oracle increased my understanding of it by a significant amount.
Where do I want to go most with all of this? Next I want to start using my knowledge to play around with Unity once my understanding of Java is better. Of course I could just dive into tutorials on programming stuff in Unity but I really wanted to go back and start from a more basic level. I've played around a bit with application development (very simple ones, but at least one that I found quite useful), now with 32 bit 2D games and more on that to come for a while longer, all because I want to go into playing with things on Unity with as much understanding of Java as I could get before I kinda ran out of other tutorials to watch. I will of course still have a tremendous amount to learn, but really anybody could say that, and at some point you have to focus on what you actually want to use this knowledge for, so that's why. I'm not so great with 3D modeling (or, like, at all) and maybe I'll start trying to dabble a bit in it but honestly for me it's all about the programming. I can always find resources to practice with online, and when I feel ready to make something for my own sake I know there are plenty of people out there who love 3D modeling and would just love to talk to a programmer about bringing their art to life. That, however, is a long way from now so for the time being, back to my practicing. The bittersweet side to that is I'm probably going to have a lot more time for this than I do now very soon, and the opportunity to go to school to even further increase my abilities. My time in the military will not last forever longer, and that is the bitter side to the bittersweet chance at learning as much as can. The sweet side is the school benefits, of course.
Now, I know I said before my ultimate goal as a programmer was to work on programming devices that bring automation into more and more aspects of everybody's lives, and yet all of this so far is about making simple video games. Honestly, a big part of that is because I'm a freakin' nerd and also love video games, but also while the actual syntax is going to be different, the logic will still be pretty helpful. It's all about taking specific input, knowing what to do with it, and making things happen. Apply some new syntax to it and I'll be able to pick it up.
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