Alright
I haven’t updated the site for a loooong time, I know. The book (3D Graphics with XNA Game Studio 4.0) took a long time to write which, combined with school, made life very hectic. But, it’s summer time now so I will hopefully have more time. I am working over the summer though, and traveling quite a bit so I can’t guarantee anything. I’m building a new site that will make things easier on my end (WordPress is terrible as far as writing posts with lots of images and code is concerned). I’m also thinking about a calendar which will list approximate release dates for various articles and tutorials. Obviously it would depend on my available time, but having deadlines would help me with updating the site consistently. I hope to get a lot of that done over the next few days/weeks. I’ll update when there’s something to show you. I, personally, think the design is super awesome.
Secondly, I wanted to bring up something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. I hate sites that nickel and dime people, but Adsense doesn’t make me any money whatsoever, and I do have to pay my hosting bills. Additionally, I’d like to make some money off of the site if I’m going to be putting a lot of time into it. So, I’ve been considering adding a section for “Premium” members, or whatever it’d be called. In that section would be exclusive tutorials covering more advanced topics, or more interesting topics. I’m also trying to come up with some other things to give to premium people. I’m not saying I’m definitely going to do this, but this does take a lot of time so some compensation would be nice. I would only charge like $5-$15 for access, and it would be a one time charge, not a subscription. I know when I was learning DirectX, I paid $30 or something for access to some premium tutorials at directxtutorial.com and I, at least, thought it was well worth it.
So the point of this post, other than to let you know what’s up, is to get an idea of:
a) If people would be willing/interested to pay for a “premium” area
b) What people think is a reasonable price
c) What kind of things you’d like to see in a premium area beyond extra articles/tutorials.
d) What you’d like to see on the new site, both feature-wise and content-wise.
Let me know in the comments, and I’ll keep you posted on what’s going on with the site.
I would say anywhere from $15 – $30 is more than reasonable for a premium membership to this website. As for what’s in the premium area, I don’t really know, but I’m a willing subscriber!
For the new website, my suggestion is a better forum because the current one is hard to navigate. I would use phpBB since it’s easy to set up and manage.
I can’t really say whether or not I’d pay for a premium area or not. It really depends on the number and quality of articles I’d gain access to. That said, a one time entry fee is very generous and it would only take a couple good articles that I wanted to read for me to pay.
As far as new content, premium or not, I’d like to see you finish your game engine 2.0 series and then start on another editor. There really aren’t any other good tutorials focusing on the engine as a whole.
I think as long as you still provide content in the “regular” section, then I’d be OK with it. I would actually prefer a donate button, as I’m more inclined to donate after reading a good article, or series of tutorials, than I would be to pay upfront. Paying upfront, you never know the quality of the material, or if it will even continue to be updated.
Also, make sure you know what you’re getting into. I imagine it could turn into an ugly situation if you start charging for “premium” content, and then stop updating a tutorial series halfway through, for example. A donation link would likely eliminate that headache.
Just my thoughts, but based on the tutorials I’ve already read, I’d be more than willing to donate!
As far as membership goes, I would be happy paying $10-20 for the quality of tutorials that you create here. But in saying that, if there was a fee, it would be more incentive to have a guarantee that it would be updated at certain intervals as we are paying for something.
Another great idea for people who may be reluctant to pay would be to have a sort of preview of the articles that are only available in the members section, maybe an overview.
Great tutorials for the Engine 2.0, keep them coming as there are no complete engine tutorials anywhere else especially for scripting support.
a) YES, I’m interested to pay for a “premium” area
b) 10-20$ is VERY reasonable price
c) Some guidelines about editor development and source code generation/scripting
d) User submitted examples/projects/tutorials
a) Yes it is a goof idea but there must be way how to do it from Europe (concretely form Czeh Republic) Recently I have some troubles with sending money to may paypall account. (I definatelly haven’t bank number in USA
)
b) 10-20$ is good price but I think that should be some kind of “discount?” for users that write tutorials for others
c) everything interesting
d) everything interesting
sorry for my bad english especially if you have troubles with understanding
you should offer to people who have purchased your book access to the premium area. And in the premium area you should have downloads/links for the models you use in your book so we dont have to design all those ourselves. (most of us programmers arent the artistic type).
I think that’s a reasonable price. I’ll pay for it.
I am interested in to be able to get lessons from you about deferred rendering with multiple light (+ shadow),
four months ago I have bought your book, but I am not happy about the “prelightingrenderer”, because it does not implement the spotlight and directionallight, and there is only one shadow. so in my opinion is less dynamic.
As long as you would stick to a published schedule for releases/updates I would pay a yearly subscription fee of $30. Your tutorials are great.
Tutorials on 2D/3D editors would be nice to see
I would pay around 10-15$
for premium, if have that money.
And I would like to see you continuing the Engine 2.0 Series.
Maybe give tutorials like a week earlier to people who bought Premium.
My question is:
one time charge for ?
a. one post (or chapter or part or …)
b. one full topic
c. one full series (like game engine tutorial series)
d. for all
e. others
I really like your engine tut series
And one more thing
Please finished game engine tutorials 2.0 . I am waiting for it. Please!
a) I don’t think the premium area is unreasonable
b) Personally I would pay up to $20, but would rather see it in the range of 10-15
c) Like someone said previously giving the tutorials early. Maybe a rundown on alternative solutions not implemented in the tutorial in question (pros and cons n stuff).
d) Don’t really know what I’m more of a let’s get surprised person. Sorry
When are we going to see some updates?
Think you should make your “premium tuts” free to people who bought your book.
I think it is ok to charge up to 30 – 50$ for a premium section.
(It is a one time fee – there are sites where you pay 50$ year to get the tutorials … ).
I also think that people who purchased your book (I did not, I borrow it from a friend from time to time and find it quite useful) should have free access, as well as people that write tutorials and share code.
Best regards,
Rajin
May I ask if your book contains the Innovation engine? Will I be able to complete the engine with the book and the code on this site?
On the topic, I’d say 15-30$ is a reasonable price for premium tutorials.
It doesn’t contain the innovation engine, it contains a collection of code that isn’t really an “engine” but a series of examples.
The “innovation engine” is sort of a loose term because it’s been released as several unfinished versions here, the idea being that its really more of a framework to make building games easier and not so much an engine. I would like to continue work on it shortly.
And have you made any further progress on the engine? Could I download the current state of the Engine, so I can learn from the code, instead of waiting for the tutorials? I’d be eternally grateful!
Mr. I/Y — I believe that Sean is writing the engine code as he does the tutorials and therefore does not have any more code than what is already available on these forums via the Engine 2.0 tutorial (See: http://www.innovativegames.net/blog/blog/2009/10/18/innovation-engine-roadmap-2009-2010/).
If you are really that interested then you will have followed the tutorial or at least read through it all…therefore you have all the code that you need. In the mean time you can take the code from the last tutorial in the ‘Engine 2.0′ tutorial and then experiment with it, try write some of your own code, expand and improve…then let us know what you did and why.
Sean — Looking forward to your return, ‘Engine 2.0′ as been great since the start and am looking forward to seeing the scripting engine, 3D+Physics and the particle systems go in. I’ve always wanted to be a games developer but found that I am much better at being a professional web developer…I just do games development with CSharp Xna in my spare time as a hobby and am loving the amount of stuff that you’ve tough me through these forums.
Dear Sean, I have read all the tutorials and I’m loving it.
However I’m worried about the lack of updates for a while, so I would like to know if the project is still alive or if it has been discontinued?
Thanks.
@Pedro The project is still alive, Sean is just taking a break since he had a lot of pressure on him for a long time between these tutorials and the book. I too am anxiously awaiting the new tutorials to come out. I’m usually checking this website 2-3 times per day hoping for the new tutorials. lol
@pedro + any one else who posts without reading these forums…
Everything you need to know about what and where this project is going at this very moment is here within these forums…if you have been reading the tutorials and enjoying them then why do you not know what is going on. The previous posts to this was one states that his 3d xna 4.0 book is now finished and up for pre order et cetera…before that some tutorials for the engine 2.0…it is all there….
>>>> READ BEFORE POSTING DUPLICATES OVER AND OVER !!!
Of course I have read all of the tutorials and I have coded them again and again and again, improving upon them, but I lack the skills to finish it. I have troubles understanding the big picture (plus I’m using OpenTK, not XNA).
you site is very interesting i am wondring if i am related 2 any of use lot as i am a bellinger.
Great site. Found it the other day because of a friend who emailed me about a certain mayor. Keep up the good work.
I recently bought the book from Amazon, and I find it very well. But when I go to download the code from http://www.packtpub.com/. The link they send me in e-mail is completely unresponsive, and takes me to their home page.
Is there any way I can get a copy of the source code for the book, they (packt) are not responsive to any of my emails.