PlayStation Development Network

Hey there.
I know this community is not very active, but you're always helpful. But, with a big amount of research, I still didn't found a great tutorial. Some tutorial I see is not fully and correctly explained.
So I have something to ask to the people who know how to make actually a game on this system.
What about a full tutorial of everything, with softwares, TIM images, VAG sound and create a "game example" for all beginners ? With some screenshots, full knowledge, and step by step, I think it would be AWESOME.

So what do you think of the idea ? Let me know !
And sorry for my bad English sometimes XD

There are different ways to make games for the playstation, you can:
-use the PSY-Q SDK
-use the Net Yaroze SDK
-use PSXSDK
-use Assembly

So each of these approaches would need their own tutorials and would require you bring a strong foundational understanding of programming and game development more generally (and there are already tutorials from _Orion, and Wituz, who apparently will be posting more PSY-Q tutorials soon). Also, different types of games require different things. I wouldn't consider myself a particularly strong programmer, but I still managed to get a very comfy automated UNIX-style development setup in Windows 10 happening in just a couple weeks.

If you're using the PSY-Q SDK, it really couldn't be easier. Almost every millimeter of the platform is laid out in crystal-clear detail in the documentation (psyq/DOCS), and there are dozens of examples in the psyq/psx/sample folder that show how to do everything (and really, carefully examining and playing with these samples will teach you much more than a tutorial).

But it looks like from your post history you just need to study up on C programming more generally. And if you've never done game programming in C, the playstation is not the most forgiving choice for a beginner—I'd recommend you try making a basic game in C with SDL before moving on to the playstation.

+1 Lamb_of_senpai comments.
PSX isn't the easiest thing to learn, Net Yaroze subset, is a lot easier, but it's still pretty low level stuff (RAM access etc.).

You're not just learning C and really old and useless libraries , but also a toolchain!
Starting with 2D SDL is good advice, I'd add do it on linux (GCC) or if you love windows too much look at http://tdm-gcc.tdragon.net/about.

You'll get more help, tuts, videos, handholding with SDL and GCC.
But watching videos, tuts etc wont help you when you HAVE TO read manuals, get used to learning things on your own.
And using a GUI (VS, etc) will not help you learn the GCC/PSY-Q toolchain.

It's more important you learn how to learn, then what to learn, if you get what I mean

You don't understand what I mean. I know I need to read the manual, but I'm French and this is an extremely complicated manual. And just for begginer at PSY-Q Dev, I think that it can be good a FULL tutorial with an example game which contain everything to know about TIM image and all things. We defenitely have to try by ourselve yes, but we also need to just start somewhere.

I am from Russia, and i understand this manual (LibRef47.pdf). Plus, i am use a examples from PSY-Q/PSXDEV (you guys are awesome!). Because i am not the programmer, some thinks are not easy for me, but that's enough for creating some stuff for PS1 c:

This is great for you ! But not everyone can start just by examples. As I said, a full game example tutorial fully explained for beginner to see all the basics is better than the "Hello World Tutorial", because this one is just "copy-paste the code and you're done". But this isn't a tutorial, it's just a program. So what I really want to see, for me and all beginners, is a full tutorial of all the thing we can use for PSX development.

You missed it?
It's just one big source of 2D platformer ._.

New Nova wrote: ↑November 6th, 2018, 1:33 am I know this community is not very active, but you're always helpful. But, with a big amount of research, I still didn't found a great tutorial. Some tutorial I see is not fully and correctly explained.
So I have something to ask to the people who know how to make actually a game on this system.
What about a full tutorial of everything, with softwares, TIM images, VAG sound and create a "game example" for all beginners ? With some screenshots, full knowledge, and step by step, I think it would be AWESOME.

here you go http://onorisoft.free.fr/psx/tutorial/tuto.htm

Orion_ I learn some tips (for converting TIM etc) and your tutorial is cool, but this is not what I mean. Your tutorial is not explaining how to make a FULL game, with a step by step example.
It's not that your site is bad, it's just that your site is not actually what I search (but VERY useful, thanks for the hardware tutorial which is great )
But no, it's not this one.
Or we can actually have also a discord server, for everything faster.
But this is not the case

I get you're first language isn't English, but there's not much anybody can do to help.
I know Xavi is in Barcelona, maybe he can 'parla catala' with you? But he uses PSXSDK, which is nice for 2D (opensourced Net Yaroze 2D SDK)

But a FULL tutorial, what you're asking for is very very rare!
It's here, scroll all the way to down Handmade Hero Day 001 and sit back and relax for thousands of hours of video
Is that what you want?

LameGuy64's Marilyn Fan-game Project is probably a good start, not sure how well documented it is to be a 'FULL tutorial' tho? it can't be as bad as https://github.com/Ell/umk3 which is a FULL game but not a tutorial

There's a good list of English books but most of it aren't noob friendly.
I would suggest getting a good SDL programming book and just focusing on it:
https://wiki.libsdl.org/Books

The SDL forums aren't very helpful IMO.
But this is a good place to start: http://lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/index.php

Learning is understanding little parts at a time and then putting them together and repeat for your entire career
I'm not joking!

https://github.com/Ell/umk3

oh thanks.

About tutorials and etc...
I want only one thing: full working PS1 3D engine with source. It's enough for me
But full, cancelled, demo or prototype 3D games will be nice to.

IMO, If you're a noob, it's a waist of time going through Pro code, it's too big and complex, but it's interesting to see how the they did things, back then anyway.
Here's Turok N64 (3D) source code, https://archive.org/details/turok-source.7z

gwald wrote: ↑November 7th, 2018, 11:27 am IMO, If you're a noob, it's a waist of time going through Pro code, it's too big and complex, but it's interesting to see how the they did things, back then anyway.
Here's Turok N64 (3D) source code, https://archive.org/details/turok-source.7z

Thanks again! I love stuff like this.

New Nova wrote: ↑November 7th, 2018, 9:31 am Orion_ I learn some tips (for converting TIM etc) and your tutorial is cool, but this is not what I mean. Your tutorial is not explaining how to make a FULL game, with a step by step example.
It's not that your site is bad, it's just that your site is not actually what I search (but VERY useful, thanks for the hardware tutorial which is great )
But no, it's not this one.
Or we can actually have also a discord server, for everything faster.
But this is not the case

in fact, you want someone to make your game for you ...
Nobody will take you by the hand and explain everything to you, making a game takes a lot of time, learning by yourself, failing, trying again, years of practice, you won't make an RPG in one month with just a tutorial, that doesn't exist.
there is no magic, fs you want to make a game for retro console, you will have to work really hard, it's not like using game maker or unity on a PC ...
it took me years to figure out how TIM image works, how the ps1 VRAM works, etc... it was very confusing at first, and if you don't have a strong knowledge of how the ps1 works, you will never be able to make a real complex game. you have to start with the basics, try to make a PONG at first, you only need to draw rectangles, it's not very appealing I know, but it is necessary to start with a simple project and grow slowly.

NITROYUASH wrote: ↑November 7th, 2018, 11:12 am I want only one thing: full working PS1 3D engine with source. It's enough for me

I made more than 10 games, I'm programming since 20 years and yet I still can't figure out how to make a 3D game on the PS1
I searched for this 3D PS1 engine with source since decades, and never found one.
And trying to make a game from a complex existing one (like turok) it's just impossible, because if you have no knowledge of how the engine works, you won't figure out how to do something with it.
the best I could find is https://github.com/Kannagi/LMP3D
but it's not a full game engine, it's an early 3D engine, so there is lots of work to do.

And trying to make a game from a complex existing one (like turok) it's just impossible, because if you have no knowledge of how the engine works, you won't figure out how to do something with it.

You're right, you just can't make the game copying source code (lol).

But I am not making the game, i just explore some examples and, also, making some experiments with Psy-Q and look how it works. Maybe someday i made my own engine for PS1, but now i just looking how it works, trying to repeat and learning C at the same time. Not because i want to create my game/engine/etc, just curious how it works :)

Orion_ it's not that "I" want you to make a game for me, and I know this is VERY difficult. It's just that it can be cool to make a tutorial.
But yes, I DON'T want to start learning PS1 dev by making a big game, and actually I'm trying to make a pong game, but event that is difficult (I don't know how to make limits, how to make the ball moving by herself etc..) and I know that I'm a beginner. It's just something that I never found, and it will be cool. I mean like starting slowly to make very small games like pong, and step by step, moving to bigger games. But as you say, you spent some YEARS to know how works TIM images etc..
So it can be very cool to have a full tutorial for "beginners" wich can be faster than learning by himself.

New Nova wrote: ↑November 8th, 2018, 10:33 pmI'm trying to make a pong game, but event that is difficult (I don't know how to make limits, how to make the ball moving by herself etc..) and I know that I'm a beginner.

Those things aren't unique to the Playstation at all, you would do that the same way you'd do it making any game (on each loop, you move the ball, and you check if the ball has collided with the edge of the screen. if it has, change its trajectory accordingly). I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with common game design programming patterns here: http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/contents.html

Like Orion_ said, it takes a lot of practice, time and work. Everything you make on the PlayStation needs to be coded from scratch. The SDK has built in functions (each for specific CPU, GPU and SPU routines), but you got to know how to manipulate them in order to get what you what the system to do.

New Nova wrote: ↑November 8th, 2018, 10:33 pm (I don't know how to make limits, how to make the ball moving by herself etc..) and I know that I'm a beginner.

If you don't know how to code a game, don't start with the PS1, start with your computer, using SDL library for example
because, you will need to learn the PS1 hardware, which is complex for someone not knowing a thing about programming.
I started to code for the PS1 when I was a beginner, and I didn't understand a thing, I thought that you could just load an image, and display it fullscreen, I didn't understand the concept of texture page, vram, etc... and I failed at making a ps1 game, I forgot about it and learned more on PC, then I got back to the PS1 some years later, and then I started to understand more about it, because I had programming knowledge, and I could focus more on the PS1 specific part

Actually, I KNOW how to make game (I made a frickin' 2 players Chess), but what I want to learn, is PS1 programming, because it's fun. And I will do it, even if you think it's too hard "for me".
It can take time, but I will be able to create games on the PS1 one day.
Thanks for "all the helps".