Hello ! New to Unity need some opinions and have some questions.

Hi everyone,

I am an indie/hobbist 2D game developper and a professionnal VB.NET, C# web developper. I have heard a lots about Unity (by its popularity) and i was wondering how it would look like from an indie developper perspective which already using the tool.

By that i mean, what can i expect from this tool in a reasonable amount of time (lets define reasonable such as 1 year if you rather competent with the tool yet).

I know Unity now support 2D, however i already have good 2D tools so going to 2D in Unity might be a waste of time and productivity. (But who know i never tried it…) However the 3D side of it appeal to me. I alway though that 3D would be a lots harder to master… so that is why i am here. Just want to know your experience as an indie with the tool.

Some of thoses questions might sound strange but i just try to understand the fesability of a 3D game development project for an indie in Unity like me compared to a 2D project which would use a similar tool (such GameMaker or Construct 2).

1- I am not very good at math. Are math in 3D way harder compared to 2D programming ? It is even required to have very good math skills in order to make 3D games with Unity ?

2- It is possible for an indie programmer that know nothing in modelling, texturing, etc to actually make professional games in Unity ? How theses guys normally proceed ?

3- Knowing my profile (Indie, one guy team, no very good math skills, very competent programmer, can’t model or texturing). What are the difficulties i am going to encounter if i want to start in 3D games development ?

4- Any good tips i should know ?

Thanks a lots!

If you come with no game development background/ another tool, i suggest you take up a small module as a 1 month target. Then use the already available resources to learn unity3d interface and scripting. Do not get into modelling just yet, you can use simple shapes like cubes as the player, or you may pick up something from blendswap.com or archive3d.net. There are some very good models available that can be used as is, just read the licenses that come with individual models and abide by them. However you can’t create a professional game without your own art. It’ll all just be out of place. So buy art, collaborate with someone who can create art for you or learn it yourself.

Read http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/244418-How-to-not-suck-at-game-development
I’m using my thread as a reference for the 4th time in 3 hours

Thanks for your reply. Yeah, i looked at your thread and i agree on everything here without exception. I already have game development background with another tool… in fact i am currently working on a game where the prototype is near its release. I was just looking at Unity to see if there is anything i could do with it for a next project. Offcourse i need to learn the tool first… but hearing about experience from users would definitivly help!

1 - math is no problem. Unity takes care of most of the advanced stuff for you. I’m usually pretty clueless when it comes to any math-related, but so far I haven’t really encountered any problem that was too advanced for me to solve.

2 - modelling and texturing is really an art. I don’t know how you define professional, but if it’s AAA quality you’re going for you’ll need both talent and several years of experience. You can, however, create some pretty cool stuff with an alternative art style; it’s still not going to be easy though. Software is only only a small part of the equation. You’ll probably end up spending much more time on making things look right. It’s actually just like traditional drawing; it really takes years to learn.

3 - besides the inital hassle of getting used to Unity, I think your biggest difficulity will be to make the graphics look good. You’ll also have to watch out for the sudden drops in motivation, but I suppose that you’re used to that since you’ve already worked on another game. Aim small at the beginning and don’t expect anything to look professional in your first couple of projects.

Hope it helps.

  1. No

  2. No

  3. You need art

  4. The Asset Store

  1. Math knowledge is the key to do some very simple things which will be a BIG problem for those who do not know the math well. So learn math. :smile:

  2. Any game visually consists of models and textures. Even 2D-one. So learn also Inkscape, GIMP and Blender (they are free). :smile:

  3. Main difficulty will be that your games going to look really ugly. So learn some art skills. :smile: At least you must be able to creatively rip-off something you’ll find in google. And once you’ll probably find it is no more a big problem to draw or to model something.

  4. Working on games alone means you must became an one-man band. So be ready to deal with it. :smile:

Art seem to be a problem in many scenario offcourse. Even in 2D i had to outsource the graphics and i will probably have to do the same with audio. I wonder how much time it can take to make a model compared to a 2D animated sprite.

Anyway thanks for your tips!