We all have these ideas running through our head when starting a new unity project. What should I start with? Some people make their terrain and worry about how it looks first. Some people set up a main functioning game that you can play then work with the graphics. Some people just place squares and other shapes until they like how it looks and begin to replace them with other objects.
I have a question for the Unity forums. Where do you start of with any new project? Why? And what do you thinks best to start off with?I only want you to answer the first of these three questions ,but it would be nice to hear the whole thing.
Start with level design first, that will take a fair few months… Learn to do the basic coding for changing levels, getting a character moving, saving all your stuff when you load a new scene. Take it from there…
That sounds like a pretty good start process. Some level designs will not take so long if you are aiming for less quality or working with a much smaller game.
I start with one of my many notepads and a pen, and brainstorm for a day. Or just lay on the sofa for an hour or two and just think my way through. Every project starts with a concept before anything else, and ive had a very long think about that concept before i start making shapes in max, or browsing through the asset store for anything that shouts some instant synergy with the concept and makes my mind go ping
As i dont work for commercial considerations my unity things are what i call my art now, after a long time of my art being 3d stills and photography and general mixed media digital arts, its pretty hard to get anyone looking though sadly, ive suggested unity player support to the owner of deviantart, which is my main internet drinking hole but no luck so far, bit of a pity. The point is though that im not very interested in making games that cater to a market, i make something based around some didactic or consequential idea, so its all written down and thought out
After that the structure of how to create something becomes straightforward, as you know what youre making and the priority of each element to be added, the main trick there is maintaining motivation, so id say in the process of actually using unity i’d say behind actual priority, what i’m working on is something that excites me at that time, so i dont get bored and just dump the project. One thing i love about unity is that it lets you do this so effortlessly, you dont always, or often, have to do anything in any order. If you want you can just knock out art and place it around in the scene view for some period of time to visualise without having to code anything. Nothing often relies on actual finished work, your code and art can be prototypical and placeholder for large stretches of the project, its all very freeform and sometimes almost seems part of the basis of its workflow to keep options that will excite and motivate you in view, even though you naturally have to accept there are inevitably painfully tedious stretches of time on the project that are going to be spent doing absolutely mindless things. Or other painful periods when coding where your hitting your head against the wall for weeks nonstop
For two reasons. First I want to know if my game idea is truly any good (because lots of stuff sounds good on paper/in your head but actually isn’t) and I can start iterating before committing to something big I might change/scrap later (you know, like levels). And secondly I want to know if I’m even capable of pulling it off and what are the possible challenges/pitfalls of the project.
Although music is something I add to a new project immediately. Something placeholder. It’s a super effective way to nail an atmosphere/style without almost any effort.
A Yoska said, start with the core. Do the functions of the game first. No reason to spend months creating textures, maps, models, terrains, etc just to later find out your give up or the project is to hard. Just use placeholders.
Yeah I have level designs drawn out on paper with detail to the extent that I have the exact unity based measurements I’m going to be using for each wall and such.
A) Are you creating your own models / Sprites etc? It can take months just to learn how to use tools like Max / Maya / Blender / Flash to even do the basics. Or are you buying asset’s? Then it doesn’t matter as much and will take far less time, but for that you need money.
B) Reason I say start with level design is because you really need to find out the consequence of coding and graphical performance issues which can plague later development, are there going to be any physics issues? What do you want the camera to do? What exactly can the character do? What limitations will you hit? All the basic questions that picture concept’s don’t really answer. IF you have already built a game before, then you can start off working on core mechanics because you already know how everything is most likely going to be strung together.
It’s trial and error when you first start and you learn from that, if you don’t know how raycasting works properly or resource instantiate how exactly do you build core functionality? If you build a small level, find out what you want to achieve then you can always work around it…
What I do:
1.) Think of concept
2.) Quickly build a prototype with no graphics / optimizations
3.) Is it fun? (fun?) ? (continue):(go to step one);
4.) Brainstorm and add ideas
5.) Keep prototyping those ideas and see if they work
6.) Once you get a general idea of what it will be, start actual production by getting a team together or whatever you do lol
