I'm at that stage now where I've used Gml for 5-7 years and am pretty good at it. But now I don't know how to get much better and wouldn't yet consider myself a pro. I know making games will make u better, but im looking for learnig NEW stuff. For instance, ive never made a game with custom trigonometry(sine,cosine). I'm jsut wondering where you would go or what would u do to learn more, without having to get ur A$$ off the computer chair. Ty for all info
Ps: I tried that Gml test thing, and got 4/5 stars.

Edit: Don't post telling me about the trig thing, I said I never USED it, I still know how to do it.

For math things like trigonometry, try googling.

The basics of trigonometry is this:

For example, if you have a right triangle, the sine of an angle that isn't the right angle is equal to the opposite leg over the hypotenuse.

The reason this is useful is for moving objects in circles, however this is easily accomplished in GM by using the lengthdir functions (lengthdir_x, lengthdir_y). These do the trigonometry for you.

So you could say

x+=lengthdir_x(10,80);
y+=lengthdir_y(10,80);

This would move the object 10 pixels in the specified direction, in this case that would be 80 degrees.

Take programming classes. Especially college classes dealing with programming theory and data structures.

hes to lazy to leave his chair.

man if you have used GM as long as you say you have, then you should most definately know the basic concepts of trig.
now, because school forces you to get of your lazy rump, then i suggest you start listening in math and sciece and english (for some part). that is how you will leazrn what you want to learn. putting it into programming is basically applying those concepts.

i was giving an example with the trig thing, and I got 104 % in my grade 11 final exam, so shut-up with ur paying attention. I'm planning on getting solmething at university, but considering I'm still in school, I was wondering if n e 1 knew where some good places or good ways to learn more were.

everywhere! there everywhere! all those examples on millions of sites, they teach you a lot! i learned most of my codingfrom parts of millions of examples and games that were created by a huge variety of gm users. if this is not what your looking for, disregard this whole message and i am sorry for even posting.

Well you want to get even better....

What do you consider "something NEW" ?

Why not try another language similar to GM but without all the gadgets?
Then learn to do all the grunge work yourself...like the DirectX SDK or something...
Lot's of stuff in there for C++, VB and so on.

I've always wanted to really get into system programming but GM doesn't really let you do that.

yeah i know C++ and SQL and a few other languages that most peeps dont know about. I'm being more specif about GML. yeah the examples idea was good from that other guy but what im looking for(if u think of examples) would be sites that have the GOOD examples.

I'd say try and come up with a complicated programming challenge that you've never seen before. For instance, a while back I wanted to see if I could make a giant character whose limbs and head would all operate as seperate entities. This proved to be very complicated at the level I was at, and I had lots of fun figuring out how to do it. When I got the character working, it ended up leading to a game with lots of physics and stuff that I hadn't even planned on attempting. I learned a lot of GML I never would have otherwise, and I ended up creating a solid game. Just attempting a new style of game operation or motion can be a great way to learn, as well as lead to new ideas.

I thought about it, and I realized that what I usually do to learn more in GML is to try things that I couldn't do before. Then I keep trying, and changing things that don't work (NOT getting rid of them) so that they do work. That's how I get better.

Using your trigonometry example, if somebody didn't know how to use trigonometry, then they could TRY and see if they can figure it out and keep changing small things until it works.

If you have finished the entire Gamemaker help file, then its up to you to make games examples tutorials etc., but if you havnt then look at some things you havnt studied and study them. At least it works for me

ive actually got a good idea.

make up a game (or a game engine if you suck at spriting) and plot it out. and then design it. i will guarintee that if you complete the engine (and the engine is a complex one) your skills will be much better then they are now.

if you want more of a challenge, turn your engine into a GUI for a development environment for games to be created of that genre.

Ok I'll do that, I'll make a complex engine, once I'm done with my current game: Ambush RPG. Any ideas for genre and things to add to my engine. Maybe I'll put a bunch together, like mark put EVERYTHING together to make GML.

Create games and get experience of course. Make games you don't usually create, and make them complex.

I don't know how long it took me, I really learnt as I went along.
I much prefer to carry on from engines than to start from scratch.

i dont know GML full-stop, but im pretty good at drag and drop cding! a coding tutorial would be good, but it would have to be in .gmd as my pc wont run.gm6!!!!!!!!

In my ears it sounds like you want specific challenges. Well, I will try and give you one;

Try to make a top-down lightning effect, without the use of a sprite, but with the use of draw_lines and such functions. I once gave myself that challenge, and it does indeed require you to use sine and cosine.