Hello Unity Community,
My name is Cody and I am new to unity and actually programming and coding completely. I have been into games for a long time and finally realized that I would love to make and design games. I know it’s going to take a lot of hard work, dedication, especially from reading a lot of posts. I am up for the challenge. I’ve been told multiple times I won’t be able to do things, but I don’t care what they think. I have my heart and mind set to it, and it only took 6 years after high school to figure it out. I am enrolling into school in January for Game Design or Programming, whichever school seems to do better. I have been watching a bunch of tutorials on unity to try and get myself familiar with the program, of course I don’t know anything about coding or programming yet, but am completely open to help and criticism. My goal is to start off small, make a small game, and work my way up. I don’t care about the money, I would feel a lot more accomplished to hear someone say " Awesome Game" or " I helped design the game" . I tell a lot of people I would rather make $20,000 a year doing something I love than making $100,000 doing a job I hate. Anyway off to my questions.
#1 Regarding school and I am not sure how this will turn out, but there are not a lot of choices for me around here for Game Design, so I am doing online school. I have a couple choices in mind and wanted the community’s input on it. I am basically stuck on IADT, Westwood, The Art Institute or New Hampshire Online. If anyone could give me some feed back or any other suggestions regarding school that would be great. Also these schools are in my budget so far as me affording it, so please don’t post a school that costs $160,000 (digipen, I would love to go to their school, heard a lot of great things about them, just can’t afford it)
#2 I am not to bad when it comes to drawing, but I have been practicing every day. Trying to take my ideas and put them on paper, but how much in game design requires self art?
#3 I have been looking at a couple of Engines so far, and Unity seems to be the best, but for a complete beginner do you think Unity would be good for me? I looked at Unreal and CryEngine 3 and from what I read, I should not even start using those programs. I saw some pretty impressive work from Unity and it just amazes me how skillful you guys are with this. I honestly can’t wait to start one day.
Once again guys, thanks for any feedback and I appreciate everyone’s input.
Don’t start ‘one day’. Start today. Right now. Download Unity for free and start trying to make things. There are plenty of tutorials to follow along with.
First of all, congratulations on your choice. The game development road is a pretty tough one, but it is truly rewarding.
Here are my answers/commentaries about your questions:
#1 I live in a place where I don’t have many choices when it comes to education towards game development as well. Although the college I chose to join provided me with a starting point and some knowledge, most of what I know I learned by trying to make games myself and researching online. Therefore my opinion is: Education is important, but more important is the desire to learn. If you’re self motivated and really, REALLY, REAAALLLLLY focused you will be able to make it your own.
#2 Although art is required in the creative process of a game, it is quite different than Game Design itself. Game Design is all about planning, documenting and making desicions. It is something that will happen from pre-production till final release and later patching. Try researching GDD (Game Design Document), TDD (Technical Design Document) and other documentation formats to start planning what you’ll do. Also, read books, there is a lot of good material on that subject that you’ll need. Try reading “Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals” and “A theory of fun” to begin. But that doesn’t mean you should stop practicing, drawing is a very useful skill in the industry.
#3 I have some experience with UDK and I feel obligated to tell you: it is not a good tool to start learning. Specially if you’re the programmer. Unity provides a great workflow, a ton of tutorials and fast prototyping. It’s great. I started learning with Game Maker, and apparently these guys (http://video.unity3d.com/video/3856097/unite-11-unity-for-students) seem to agree it is a good idea to try a 2D engine first. That being done, Unity is the best you’ll get.
Some additional comments:
It’s just like @wccrawford said, don’t waste time, start now. Look for some tutorials on basic programming and Unity scripting, watch videos, read articles and explore the forums. There is a lot of material available, if you’re not making a game yet it’s because you don’t really want to. And don’t give up, seeing someone smile playing something you made yourself is one of the best feelings ever. So go for it.
Here are some useful links:
gamasutra.com → Articles and cool stuff
thenewboston.com → Programming tutorials
opengameart.org → Free game art
incompetech.com → Free soundtracks
Good luck and have fun!