I want to make a 3D, futuristic, open world game in Unity by myself. Now I know it sounds quite farfetched, but hear (read?) me out. At least tell me if my plan is somewhat reasonable, and if not, then what I should change about it.
I know Python fairly well, so I will use Boo for my scripting language.
I also know Sketchup, so I plan to make my gameworld (or at least its skeleton) in there. (I know it’s unusual to use Sketchup in gamemaking, but, hey, as far as I know, it works.)
In the summer, I will be taking an Autodesk Maya course. I plan to do my character and car creation, animation, extra touches to my gameworld, and rendering in there.
Aaaaand I will learn Unity, to use as my game engine.
I’m not doing any cutscenes, just text, so the need for voice acting is eliminated, and I will use open-source sound effects and limited music.
Marketing and other things of the such aside, is this possible for one man to do? I do understand that it can take me quite a while (1 - 2 years maybe)
No it’s not, sorry
Do you really think you can do an open world game alone, while companies need 3-5 years for it ?
It’s supergreat that you want to get a full grasp of what’s to be done with game development but 1-2 year is nowhere near how long you as one person would need to create something like this scope. Sorry
Start small ! , other wise you’ll eventually see yourself making no progress and give up . I’d rather spend 2 months making pong and then show it to my friends then take 2 years making something impossible for one man to do !
Yeah, but the big companies also spend extensive time on artwork, cutscenes, licensing and creating music, lifelike graphics, and marketing, while I will not. Also, they usually use more professional tools (no Sketchup for them) which take far more people and resources to fully utilize, and they also usually have proprietary engines and several other copyrighted things, which increase bureaucracy. I won’t have to worry about those things. I do understand that it’s crazy hard work to make a game, though.
Well, do you think that I can eventually get to doing this after I’ve taken the necessary small steps (which I had already assumed I would have to take)?
actually depending on your skills, this is kind of possible, if you actually find this fun, and keep being motivated(knowing that this is not your main idea of income) this is pretty much possible, i’d say if you spend a good ammount of time in about 1 year, you should already have something quite playable.
But you will never compete with the big ones alone.
I would advise to make games that you can actually finish in a short amount of time. Work your way up by doing small games before thinking about moving on to bigger ones.
Yes you can noob101, but depends on how much time you spend in a day…
5 hours a day at the end of the year what will you have?
10 hours a day at the end of the year what will you have?
You get my point… also the methods you use will effect the results. It’s still a bit like asking long is a piece of string… it really depends what you want in this game. Also you can always outsource work as time goes on to speed things up.
I would recommend learning C#, you will find it easy and there’s lots of video tutorials around try www.unitypro.co.uk … it’s my site and I know it looks messed up a bit I just don’t have time to improve it yet.
Also I recommend investing in 3d coat, this software is fantastic for game developers, go check it out on youtube.
oh and ping pong should only take about 2-3 days to make, not months.
If it makes you feel any better I built a 3d game last year with approximately a three - four hour map. It wasn’t open world though, it was structured like fable - levels strung together to form the world. This year I’m working towards open world but I’m not sure if the target device can handle it yet.
The only tidbit I can offer is build in low poly, then mesh smooth and tweak. This way you get your LOD, collision, and final map in one swoop. Success and failure is all in the modelling for big projects - learn to model so that unwrapping is quick and clean - and do it all before mesh smoothing. The biggest time sync is the characters, but you can share animations which helps… If you run into an obstacle you can’t do well or quickly, don’t do it - find something else to do in its place.
a problem with Sketchup is that the mesh is often very unreliable, it can be overly complex and it creates weird triangles making UV’s a bitch. I used it a few years ago no idea if it’s changed since then.
But this project is highly unlikely considering you are still learning the tools. You should start with small projects, it will be much more rewarding and you won’t be confused or overwhelmed with the software.
It is not just quality, you will be competing against entrenched players and fickle fan base. What if someone calls you name-calling and insults on mmorpg.com or you get bad press reviews? Game over…
Start small, learn the trade, learn the mistakes people make, learn the pitfalls and errors. Learn about how to make a great game first. Then, after that, when you reach the very top, consider the highest peak.
It’s the same answer as with any question like this: YES, it’s completely possible, depending on your level of skill and commitment to the project. It’s certainly not the very first thing you should attempt to make if you’re just starting out with game dev/Unity.
Yes, it is viable and you could do it as your first project, I’m not going to stop you. It depends on the quality of the game that you want to achieve, and how much effort you can afford to spend on the project. You are simply not going to make the next TES in five months unless you are from little witch academia, but you can try if you want. If you fail, you’ll learn and next time when you try to attempt it again you’ll only get closer.
The short answer is yes: Don’t listen to other people telling you its not possible, start small because you’ll never complete it. Take their words as advice and do as you will.
I’m all for positive thinking and optimism, but the point to giving advice is to try and help people achieve, not to tell them what they want to hear.
If someone wants to give something a go for the sake of giving it a go I’m all for it and wish them the best of luck. But when someone seeks out people with experience and asks “is this reasonable” we wouldn’t be doing them any favours if we said “yeah man, go for it, good luck, we won’t stop you!”
I’ve seen many projects such as the one described in the OP, and none of them have ever gone anywhere. Not a single one. Also, there are pretty regular threads on this very forum from people who are 2+ years into their giant début game project asking for advice because they’ve run out of steam or their game has grown into an unmaintainable quagmires.
On the other hand, I’ve also seen plenty of people follow the path of starting with small projects and building up. I’ve seen those people release games that went on to become successful, I’ve seen others get jobs in the games industry or related industries, and yet others who’ve never made much money but have done it as a hobby for years and continue to do so because they love it.
With that stark contrast in mind, I will always advise for people to do the latter. It’s not that I don’t want to see them try big games, it’s that doing a bunch of small games first will not only probably end up saving you more time than you spent on them if you get back to your epic dream project, but often what you learn from them fundamentally changes your mind about that project - after all, when you came up with that project you had no experience to base your design on.
Obviously the best thing would be to start off small but if you want to create a massive game then go for it.
The only thing I would say is do not do it on your own. See if you can find a few people using the Collab section of the forums, there are a lot of people like yourself in there looking to build a game of this nature.
I think it is entirely possible. We are 2 developers and we did Block Story which is an open world mineable game.
That said, you have to use your time wisely, and it helps a lot if you can put some money in.
For example, I would recommend you forget maya. Instead, purchase assets from unity asset store and other web sites. It is a lot better to fork off $50-$100 on a robot, than spend 1 week making the robot yourself.
Also, content licensed under Creative Commons is your best friend (just make sure you give credit to the author as the license usually requires).
You can always come back and replace your assets with better ones after you release. Release early and release often is our mantra.
But honestly, the odds are not in your favor. More often than not, people end up with abandonware.
