on account of what a lot have said i just realised that maybe it would be a good idea to play with SDK's first

by grabbing what you can experience from pre-made games such (especially for modelling and design and stuff) you'll get a head start. I remember when i started modelling for fun i played around with the Q3 options given to me, and exporting and learning the basics and getting the hang of it, and after understanding most of the jargon i was very confident when i first picked up 3DSMAX for example, because i knew straight away what most of the stuff meant that i was looking at on the screen

programming through a programming language (any for that matter) has more to it then some people think... for example if you want to actually "see in action" what you've coded... you have to first code the base etc etc, which takes the bulk of the time, in comparison to what you actually wanna see if it works (thus why programming with Java for example, lets me see how it runs through numbers and basic text, without the hassle of compiling and worrying about graphical representations)

so i think that SDK's and stuff that's available out there is an excellent place to start to help you get into programming, scripting and eventually even advanced stuff as AI

Good luck to you guys, hope to see some good stuff in the future

Lari :D

even so, would you really want to make the move (for gaming reasons i mean)

i don't think the weigh up for DX10 (which not alot of games use anyway) is worth it, Vista doesn't offer performance gains (only losses, for real i mean, they will generally run slower) and alot of games haven't been optimized for Vista, so that means for the consumer to get them running properly, lots of tweaking as mentioned

...lol, they even made Halo 2 "Vista Only" ....*cough* good luck to them on that one

Lari

EDIT

So yes they do run, but not worth the effort

What about Supreme Commander??

i haven't tried it myself, but reviews look interesting, can't vouch for story etc...

COH - i did like the campaign, it is based on history so i wouldn't expect any new or thrilling story occurences, although even at the most efficient playing level, it's an RTS with lengthy missions that won't make you bored, on a personal note i did enjoy them, often they provided interesting challenges, compared to the usual, blow this up, kill them, capture this (yes it has those, but in an interesting way lol)

C&C3, the story is good, but im' getting sick of the missions i tell you, i started GDI got up to the aliens, and after a few missions just went nup, too repetitive, and i'm dissappointed with myself, i wanna play NOD but i can't until i finish GDI (not physically can't, the game lets me, but i wont' let myself lol!)

there is a lot of truth in what everyone has said so far

i myseld am doing a double in computer science and science, and AI programming isn't offered until our 3rd year, simply for the fact that they pound us with the truth that all programming is algorithms. Someone before mentioned playing around with scripts, yes that can help a bit of understanding, unfortunately that's far from programming an AI from scratch?

you'll realise the true difficulty in it by trying, simply put, you're a beginner? well, start with simply programming first, for example, set yourself smaller projects which test your algorithmic thinking (because all programming is simply maths (being logic) in code) and make a game such as bejeweled, where you're doing a lot of if this than this kind of stuff

remember AI isn't restricted to a certain programming language, just depends on how it's utilized, and generally it can be translated. So play around a little and see what you like (i have to be proficient with Java for example :P)

don't feel discouraged, but AI is well out of your reach at a beginner level, even i and some friends who are about 10 times ahead of me, are yet to even think about AI and we're already about to start 3rd year at uni. Remember, it depends on the complexity of your AI, scripturing isn't 'true' AI... ... you'll undersand eventually

what do you other guys think? or have i blown it out of the water? :(

Lari