What is the best book that will teach you Objective C for use in games and XCode without prior coding experience? I've made much longer threads before about learning XCode, Objective C, and the Unity Engine, but that's my only question this time. I want a book that will tell me how to place objects, characters, etc. into a 3D world, then start by telling me how to program something as simple as getting a character to move instead of teaching me how to program a bunch of things that don't help me and leave me confused to how they're related to anything I'm trying to do with my game. I've got a world, story, characters, and gameplay planned out, and some is written in-depth. Now, I just need a great book to teach me how to develop this. I hope by the end of the year I have threads in the Upcoming iPhone Games and Upcoming iPad Games sections with decent teasers.
So, you don't have prior coding experience and you want to just learn coding by making a game? Unless it's the most basic of games, you'll have a hard time with it... If you at least understand the basics (control statements, variables, data structures, classes, etc.), I'd advise you to use Cocos2D (assuming you're thinking about a 2D game). Download it and just play with the many samples. Then start with a really, really simple project.
You have to start at the beginning and learn those things that you believe have nothing to do with your game. There are 2 books by Oreilly that are pretty good, but you won't ever find a book that will explain how to build your game. The 2 books are iPhone Game Development and iPhone 3D Programming. If you have seriously never programmed before both of these books will be frustrating to go through, especially if you run into errors in the books and you have no clue how to fix them.
The Documentation on Apple's website of the language coupled with their sample code is IMO the best resource or has been for me at least... the only iPhone book I've really used has been the iPhone Developers Cookbook, but thats more for your standard UI business/utility applications for OpenGL | ES this book has been a pretty good reference to me, http://www.amazon.com/OpenGL-2-0-Programming-Guide-ebook/dp/B001ANSSXW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1276877776&sr=8-1-spell but I come from a direct3d backround and am not learning things from the ground up per-say
you might want to consider learning how to PROGRAM before learning to devolop games. you cant just start creating games. you have to learn the fundamentals and go from there. take is sow...learning to program takes time. ounce you understand how to PROGRAM then you can take on game creation. remember that. This is just my opinion, but please consider thinking about it.
The game I'm planning to make would be in 3D, however if I could come up with a good idea for a 2D/2.5D puzzle game, I would try selling the puzzle game first and use most of the renvue made from that towards a team for the 3D game (I will need a professional 3D animator at the least). I've never really found a book with information that makes sense for those who have no coding experience. The info is difficult to incorporate into other things, or even to figure out what can be edited from the lines of code that the book gives you. Somebody with no programming knowledge had to have started with a great book here. I'm also consdering using the Unity Engine since it seems like it may be a more convenient way to create a 3D world. The biggest reason I wouldn't use Unity is cost, though that probably wouldn't be a problem for my story-rich 3D game that I have planned once the first part is on the App Store.
Thanks for the link. I found this book, which has received very high ratings: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/cr/0321566157/ref=aw_d_cr_books Does anyone have any experience with this book? I'd like to open this in Barnes and Noble to look through it, hopefully it's available there. I would buy an eBook version, though since I find it easier to read books along with applications if I open them side-by-side (not for copy and pasting).
There are quite a few good books that deal with Objective C programming. In regards to beginner books specifically looking at game design, that I would think would be much harder to find if that type of books exists. The reason I say that, is that creating a game is a complex endeavor. Depending on the game, you are dealing with animated graphics, memory management, databases... the list is quite extensive. I've been programming for a number of years (a hobbiest programmer not a professional) and I just recently made the move into game development. Its not easy, even with all the great tools out there (game engines, online tutorials...). My suggestion, like you are doing, pick up a book, an intro book. Work through the examples even though they will not be games. As a non-programmer there is a lot of fundamental stuff that you are going to need to wrap your head around before you can even think about putting together a simple, decent application (let alone game). In regards to books- I used Sam's Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours as my introduction to iPhone programming. Its very basic. It gives you a nice introduction to basic programming skills in the Objective C. Once you are finished reading that book you won't be ready to create full 3d game but you will have the skills necessary to build some simple applications and more importantly be ready to delve into more difficult programming concepts.
Learning to write games is one of the best ways to learn to program. Just don't expect to produce anything impressive.
Thank you all, seems like It has answered my un-askd question too If there is more... Plz keep em comin'
It seems like opinions on that vary from developer to developer. Earlier in this thread, somebody told me to program general rather than start writing games. I would like to just write games to begin with, no matter how unspectacular they are at first. I'll look into some of the books suggested later. Thanks so far, this has been helpful.
I learnt to program by writing games, as did many of my peers. Back then, of course, it was all a bit easier. There's only so much "game" you can write on a ZX81, after all I think games are very suited to learning, providing you don't try to run before you can walk. Producing a game is much more interesting than the alternatives, and doing something interesting provides you with the motivation to keep going past the hurdles and inevitable frustrations. Plus, from a more programmy point of view, games require the use of practically all of the major programming skills.
Why do you want/need a book about Objective C? If you don't know anything about programming, just knowing Objective C won't help you much, you also need to learn all Open GL stuff. Your best bet is to use Unity engine (because your game is 3D). This way you don't have to deal with Open GL, also all memory management is done by Unity as well. You mentioned Unity cost - I have advice for you. If you have Windows machine, get free version of Unity for Windows and start playing with it and prototyping your game. There is plenty of very good tutorials and even a book about Unity. Once you are comfortable that you have enough experience to make and finish a game, then buy Unity iPhone.
Programming in Objective C 2.0 - Stephen G Kochan This is the book i used to learn Obj-C but it might not be the best book if this is your first language. That along with Head First iPhone Development would be a good starting point.
The book by Kochan seems like a good starting place since he assumes that the reader doesn't have any experience in coding anything. I'll start reading that tomorrow. Hopefully it's easy to read and won't be immediately confusing.
I agree with another poster, if you're going to do a 2D game, then cocos2D is the way to go. It has tons of functionality and the support team and user community are first rate. If you go this route, you might also consider purchasing the Sapus Tongue source code. It is very help for beginners with some programming experience. Finally, two other resources I found useful and interesting are: http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/ http://github.com/lhunath/Gorillas http://www.designerwatts.com/ http://blog.planetonegame.com/ There are tons of other free resources out there. Regards, Rodney P.S. I'm not affiliated with any of the sites/resource mentioned above.
http://www.cocoalab.com/BecomeAnXcoder.pdf might be a good resource. I have gone through it so many times and even though it doesn't cover everything, it is excellent for a free resource and assumes you have absolutely no knowledge of programming. Edit: Beware it is a little bit outdated.
I'm really liking "Programming In Objective-C 2.0" by Kochan. I don't feel lost (yet), and I have a good grasp on what the most important terminology is. To be honest, I feel like there's more to Objective-C than a single book can cover and I'm not confident I'll be able to write a really good app by the end of the book, but we'll see. I am typing out each app myself and I am also doing the exercises at the end of each section without cheating, so I'm putting a good amount of attention into the book. It definitely feels good to progress and start to understand how to code. I just hope it doesn't get too complicated later on because the language makes a decent amount of sense so far. Thanks to everybody in the thread for the help.
