good book

Please be more specific. It depends on what level of C++ knowledge you posess.
I am really good at books, I have and know a lot of them, but be more specific and then surely I can help you!

Quote: "on C++"...

Sounds like you are starting from scratch..

Do you know firstly how to program in c++?, as to create a DOOM clone from scratch would require several hundred good books, a team, some 30,000 coffees - unless of course you are some child prodigy ;)

*Seriously* though I would start with learning the basics of c++ before even contemplating such a feat and maybe years down the line you might be in a position to use the 'DOOM source code' and play around with it to make your own 'modified' version of it aka 'game mods'.

[Edited by - PiCkLeD on April 11, 2005 10:24:37 AM]

Even though their a little old you might want to check out LaMothe's Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus, Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus and it's sequel Tricks of the 3D Game Programming Gurus.

They have the concepts and material needed to make a simple 3D Doom or Wolfenstein clone.

You *will* need to have an understanding of c/c++ to be able to make sense of most of it as well as a handle on trigonometry although you could probably get by without really understanding most of it.

¡¶C++ Primer¡· is a good book

the only knowledge i have of C++ is from Micheal Dawson's Beginning C++ Game Programming...i know it's not much but how hard could it be?

Quote:

Original post by rayce the only knowledge i have of C++ is from Micheal Dawson's Beginning C++ Game Programming...i know it's not much but how hard could it be?

Pretty hard.

Quote:

Original post by Stompy9999 Quote: Original post by rayce the only knowledge i have of C++ is from Micheal Dawson's Beginning C++ Game Programming...i know it's not much but how hard could it be? Pretty hard.

x2. Games like Half Life 2 take a team of very talented professionals 5 years (in the case of Half Life 2 itself) to make?

Don't be discouraged though. There's little reason why, with a good knowledge of C++ and all the major concepts, and a largish team with the same knowledge and graphics etc. that it shouldn't be possible in a few years time.

Quote:

Original post by rayce the only knowledge i have of C++ is from Micheal Dawson's Beginning C++ Game Programming...i know it's not much but how hard could it be?

Pretty hard. I've taken a look at that book, and I don't see any sections on graphics or sound, so that book isn't going to help you much in that direction (unless I was looking at the wrong part). My advice is, don't try to write DOOM or QUAKE for your first game. Write something simple like Tic-Tac-Toe, or PONG, or Breakout, or some other simple arcade game. Then move on to harder 2D games, then onto 3D.

That's all I have to say.

"pure software"? Ouch! You seem to think you could do graphics without using a graphics library, and while it is possible, it definitely doesn't come recommended... your asking the equivalent of writing "hello world" without the standard IO libraries... no printf, no cout...

Why doom anyway? Doom was written using ray-casting, which while still useful for some purposes, isn't the way in which it would be written now (hardware accelerated graphics cards being slightly more common these days...). Using OpenGL a 3D perspective correct texture mapped floor can be drawn using only a handful of function calls, and they aren't hard to understand. The Forum FAQ would be a good place to start I think - worry about which books to buy after you've figured out what you need to learn...

I'd recommend NeHe, SDL and OpenGL, writing a program which draws a spinning triangle in the middle of the screen, and then looking for books . . .

"Programming a Multiplayer FPS in DirectX"

This book is listed on the front page with the game dev news articles for monday.
Sounds like what you are looking for.

As for everyone who is talking about an army of programmers and years and years to make a FPS. I think they are perhaps smoking crack. Using modern technology, it really isn't that bad at all. You could start making the basics of a playable demo level in a couple of weeks. The poster even said that it doesn't need to be the quality of doom. I think this is a relatively straightfoward goal.

he said something about crappy gfx and like doom... It sounds doable for a single person with much spare time AND a good knowledge in C++ and some gfx lib.
rayce: do you already know much about programming or are you just starting?
if you are just starting then aim lower... if not then I still can't help you. I only use online tutorials and the msdn. I bought Tricks of the 3d game programming gurus but never used it much. It's too heavy to read it in the train to my university and if I'm at home then I prefer reading the stuff online and being able to write small examples in the vs.net window and only having to press alt+tab once in a while.

DOOM has no jumping and doom things are only sprites... It's at least better than starting with trying to make DOOM 3...

If your interested in how doom was made..I think the source code for doom is actually available on this site..? You should check out that and see how complicated it really looks.

Edit
I Found It!!
DOOM Source Code! By John Carmack

ArchG

WHAT!? The DOOM source code?! All of it?! I gotta check this out! I never played it, but I gotta see it!

Looks like the Doom source is a tarball. Use gunzip and tar to extract it:

gunzip linuxdoom-1.10.src.tgztar xvf linuxdoom-1.10.src.tar

There's source to more id games here, including Quake 1 and Quake 2.