Learning game development at an early age?

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hey all.

I’m 15 and in high school. I’m having a pretty difficult time trying to find out ways to learn everything I need to know for game development. I’ll start by saying that I am indeed very serious about game development, despite my age, and I want to make a career of it later on, and I plan on having my first game released in the next year or so.

I have a few small problems though:

  1. I’m having to use a lot more marketplace assets than I’d like.
  2. As far as programming goes, the game is not coming along all that well. Visually, it’s coming along well, though.

I have no talent in 3D modeling or any sort of 3D art, really. I’ve talked to a lot of people who do it professionally, and most of them have years and years of experience and took college classes for it, etc. Being that I’m still in high school, I’m not able to take any sort of classes (that I know of) for game development, programming, 3D art, animation, etc. and I believe it’s putting me at a huge disadvantage. How should I go about learning all of this? I started programming roughly 1-2 years ago and started animation/3D art/everything else soon after, so I suppose I’m still fairly new to all of this. For the past year, I’ve been watching loads of tutorials on pretty much everything I can find. Not even limited to what will be useful for my current project… I’m just watching tutorials on literally anything I can find in order to increase my knowledge of the engine and game development in general. I’m aware that learning isn’t a quick process and it could (and probably will) take years to get up to speed, and I’m totally okay with that. I’m just looking for a place to start.

So, to sum all that up: I don’t know much about animation or 3D modeling. I cannot do UV mapping, texturing, rigging, etc. Everything I made looks extremely bad. My overall goal is to be able to model, UV unwrap, texture, and rig (if applicable): modular assets for house interiors/exteriors (including furniture, props, etc.), vehicles, bipedal characters, animals, etc. I want to learn how to animate well, I want to learn how to design levels for games and make them look good. I want to learn how to program AI, make nice GUIs, and, in the end, program a fully-functional, scripted game. I have no idea where to start or how to learn all of this. YouTube tutorials haven’t been enough for the past year or two, and I’m too young (15 in high school) to take college classes. I do have money, so if there are some online courses available for my age and for what I’m looking for (even if they’re automated or recorded, in-depth tutorials), it’s definitely an option.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

EDIT: Sorry if this was poorly written. Literally just woke up and have barely slept for the past few days, so my brain has the functionality of a potato right now haha.

EDIT 2: Also meant to mention: I generally have 6+ hours a day, everyday (and even more on weekends) available to spend on Unreal, modeling, tutorials, etc. Time is not a huge issue.

EDIT 3: Dang, I left a lot of stuff out. My bad! I also meant to mention that all of my projects I work on alone. I have no real interest in hiring someone else to do 3D art or animation for me, and I’d like to limit the usage of assets from the UE4 marketplace or other online marketplaces. I’d much rather just learn to make everything on my own.

EDIT 4: I also struggle with getting the correct scale/proportions on the few things that I do model for my games. I normally have no idea how to model something without watching a tutorial, either. I have the basics of Blender (the modeling/animation program of my choice) down just fine. I know all of the controls, the tools, and the workflow. Once it comes to actually modeling something though, I feel entirely lost and have no idea how to apply what I’ve learned to what I’m trying to make. I believe it’s a lack of artistic talent, but I’m not sure. If it is, how should I improve on that?

EDIT 5: When I mentioned taking an online course, just to clarify: I would prefer in-depth, high-quality training videos rather than an actual class.

EDIT 6: Lots of edits… Well, here’s an example of one of the more recent models I’ve made. Most of my models look much worse than this, though this one isn’t all that good either.

2

Keep practicing, keep doing what you are doing.
It takes time to get good at things like this.

I started development around 2010, and have one game commercially released and about 5 others… just… there. lol.

3

Figure out what you really want to do–you don’t have enough time to be good at everything, if you want to focus on 3D you can learn a little bit of the programming/Blueprints side but there’s so much you would need to learn if you wanted to be good at everything it’s just not practical. What I recommend is find what position you enjoy most and then figure out projects that require that skill for the most part.

4

My best advice is to keep practicing, watch a lot of Youtube tutorials and try out the things you learned. I am 16, just a year older than you. I started learning 3d modeling and programming (C#) 4 years ago, it took me a full year to make something that looks good (ish) but through years I got better at it. The same thing with programming, first language I learned was C# and when I started using UE 4 I used Blueprints and after some time I started to feel comfortable with C++ and I am now using C++ for almost everything, just keep practicing and Google is your best friend :rolleyes:
Also focus on one thing, you need to decide which one you want to learn first, programming or 3d modeling. Knowledge will come with time, also I just now realized that I sound like I am 40 :smiley:

Good luck and if you want you can find some of the things that I am working on in my signature :rolleyes:

5

I’m 21 and started using unreal when this account was created, so a year or so.

All I can really say is that I’m very envious of you due to your age (5 year head start and all), also, things might seem overwhelming, and yes, it is, but trust me, the more you expose yourself to these topics the easier things get. Don’t jump in head first, decide what area of game development you wish to specialise in and use the other topics to complement your main “hat”.

I’m a programmer, and plan on sticking to that, but being a indie developer I need to also familiarise myself with various application as opposed to mastering them.

Trust me, you could delete this post right now and a year or two down the line all of your questions will naturally answer themselves :smiley:

6

Time is on your side. The only advice is to stick with it. You may ‘suck’ now at certain things but the more you do it the better you will get. There is no substitute for game making experience. Courses can be good to give you a leg up in certain skills but experience is the key thing. Game making courses are generally still not that highly regarded in the industry if you want to get a job (though there are some better ones out there now). Having a portfolio that demonstrates your work is far more important. Try and get work experience in the industry - you will have to work for free to begin with, most likely. It’s not just about the experience you will gain from the work its also about making contacts. The games industry is pretty small and who you know goes a long way.

7

Time is at your side. Pick the things you enjoy the most, specialize in that and broaden your skill set as your work requires. I wanted the same thing as you at your age, but there where barely any resources at time as the internet was still immature. In the end I began at age 28, with absolute 0 skills and it showed. But practice makes perfect. In the end I landed it as my full-time job. So you are in a perfect spot.

The thing that helped me the most is setting up a project that you really like to work on, determine the requirements and study up on those. Then study up on more when needed as the project progresses.
With each new project your skills improve and the bar you set will raise, just as your knowledge. Don’t just randomly follow tutorials for the sake of soaking up knowledge, that will most likely burn you out at some point.

8

Also, don’t alarmed if you keep coming back to the same tutorials, it only gets easier to understand, and the only way to really learn is to expose yourself to problems, this also includes random questions and answers people are posting on the forum and answer hub daily, you can learn things in the most strangest of places…

I feel like a wise old man :3

9

Most people don’t do art AND programming. I’ve done art for a long time but the programming always sticks it to me, fortunately Blueprints make it soooo much easier :smiley:

If I was you I would concentrate more on making a profile game then a ‘finished’ game.

Look at the game jams. One programmer with very simple art (2d sprites) can make a very fun game that shows off their programming skills. You can show this game to people in the know and they will see you can handle the programming side. A studio probably wouldn’t hire you to do programming and art, so you don’t have to worry about that. A game with terrible programming and excellent art is fun for as long as it takes to look around. A game with great programming and terrible art is fun as long as it takes to complete it.

Programmers make a lot more money, so they wouldn’t want you to waste your time making art assets anyway.

Keep at it, you have a few years before you even need to worry about impressing studios.

11

This is not necessarily true. I have seen great games that were horrible from a programming point of view, but I also see plenty of tremendously well engineered games that completely sucked. And of course the opposite.
It really depends on how good of an game idea/design you can come up with that plays to the strengths of your skills. Some programmers/artists have this, most of them just don’t.