Examples & Tutorials

Below is a collection of examples and tutorials I have created. Drop me a line if you want to know how I’ve achieved a certain effect in any of my work and I’ll see what I can do!

Game Maker Examples

3D Animated Water

A simple example of creating water with a seamless animation in 3D by using layers of textured floors.  The view can be moved around the scene with the W, A, S, and D keys.

Download example (84 Kb)

3D Animated Water 2

This is another way to create a convincing water effect, this time using an animated water texture created with Photoshop.  This example also employs a technique for using skyboxes created by Yourself, with a sky texture generated by Terragen.  The camera view will automatically move.

Download example (3.68 Mb)

3D Camera

A basic 3D scene with an interactive camera.  The camera and ball objects utilize a goal-oriented system to smooth movement, and can be moved around the scene with the arrow keys and numeric pad arrows respectively.

Download example (7 Kb)

3D Day / Night Cycle

This example shows how to use dynamic light, fog, and sounds to create a convincing day / night cycle in 3D.  The mouse can be used to move the cameras view around the scene.

Download example (1.07 Mb)

3D Grass / Cylindrical World

A simple example of how to create a layered grass effect which repeats infinitely in all directions on a cylindrical world.  The grass texture was created in Photoshop.  Use the arrow keys to move the view around the scene.

Download example (472 Kb)

3D Model Import / Simple UV Map

This is an extended example / tutorial to show how to import 3D models into Game Maker (using Mosaic Light by Zoltan Percsich), and how to set up UV mapping.  The arrow keys move the camera around the scene.  Press the space bar to load models.

Read the tutorial or download example (276 Kb)

3D Night Sky

An example of how to create a simple star-filled night sky by using a point list model.  Move the view around with the W, A, S, and D keys, and use the mouse to adjust the viewing angle.

Download example (279 Kb)

3D Rain

Inspired by Gears of War, this example shows one possible way for setting up a rain effect using textured walls and floor.  This effect is intense, and may not run well on slower machines.  You can move the camera around the scene with the W, A, S, and D keys, and look around with the mouse.

Download example (2.5 Mb)

3D Stencil / Outline Effect

The former title of this example, “3D Cel Shading,” wasn’t exactly right – though the shading on the shapes looks like cel shading, the example was actually created to showcase a technique for outlining 3D shapes.  Two models are used, the first and smaller for coloring, and the second and larger as the outline, with normals reversed.

Download example (32 Kb)

Path & Textured Vertex / “Outta Space”

This was a simple demo I made that was originally supposed to be a screensaver, but I never got it to that point.  It’s a good example of how to draw a textured polygon with vertexes, oriented to a path.  The visuals were inspired by the Outta Space wallpapers by Philipp Antoni.

Download example (418 Kb)

Particles: Realistic Fire Effect

An extended example / tutorial on how to creative a realistic fire effect using Game Maker’s built-in particle system and some home-made sprites.  Toasty!

Read the tutorial or download example (128 Kb)

Game Maker Open Source / Abandoned Projects

3D First Person Shooter

A simple FPS game that was started and never finished.  The engine features walking / running, jumping, and shooting, as well as graphics effects like weapon bob and a skybox.  Terrain has been implemented, and collisions for the player and projectiles work, but are not entirely finished.  Some simple sound effects are also included.  Use the W, A, S, and D keys to move around, space to jump, shift to run, the mouse to look around, and left click to fire.

Download editable (379 Kb)

Fractal Explorer

This is a small program that can render the Mandelbrot fractal.  Clicking and dragging with the mouse allows you to “explore” the different regions of the fractal, and the mouse wheel can be used to zoom in and out.  Each time the view is changed, the program will render a preview.  A press of the space bar will render a high-resolution version of the current view (saved to “c:\fractal.bmp”).  The code can be modified to adjust the the precision of the rendering, as well as the colors used, the fractal formula, or anything else.

Download editable (2 Kb)