Hello everyone. My name is LaJaveyon Saunders, an eighteen year-old guy from the most boring state in the U.S., Kansas. However, I like to go by my PSN gamertag IceFireWarden more than anything. I have always wanted to be a game designer/developer, and now that I’m finally getting a new laptop I’m going to begin working on it during my off hours at trade school. The game that I’m working on is called I AM Warrior®, a Tactical Open-World Survivalistic Roleplaying Game (TOWSRPG) told from the first-person perspective. The game takes place on a world that was once magically and technologically advance but after a war between the gods and their demigod children (aided by the arrogant species that sided with them) the planet was ‘reset’, reverting it and everyone living on it to a primitive state; almost all knowledge of magic was lost and the wondrous technological cities was left in ruins. The player takes on (as well as deeply customize) a young member of a tribe of humans that discovered an alien artifact known as the Kismet, which enhanced their mentality to the point they were expelled from their Island home by the tribe elders and is now forced to live on the mysterious Continent, which is inhabited by other tribes, strange and dangerous creatures, ancient robots, and magical entities. The player takes up residence in one of the ruined cities and as they repair it, they gain the knowledge to craft more advanced armors and weapons that will allow them to explore the Continent much more in-depth. Hydration and Starvation are factors, and the option to tame/domesticate animals and trade (or make war with) tribes will be present.
I know this game sounds extremely difficult to make, but I have been dreaming about making it ever since I was in elementary school. I will be downloading Unreal Engine 4 as soon as my new laptop comes in, and I will be familiarizing myself with C++ (I know the language somewhat, but not expertly) in order to learn how to mold this new world. The problems that I know I’ll face in the future, however, is that at my core I am a writer and it will be extremely hard for me to learn how to do modeling, animation, sound/music creation, and other essential aspects of game creation.
So what I want to ask is does anyone know what modeling, animation, music, and writing programs would be beneficial for a novice like me to begin with so that I can get this game from a simple idea and writing on paper to an actual reality. Tutorials would also be superb to either watch or read in my downtown as well, if anyone has any laying around. Thanks for all replies in advance, and I also apologize in advance if I’m not able to respond to you sooner because my school schedule leaves me busy.
Hi. Rule number one: Keep persisting, so this thread is good practice.
Just watch a load of tutorial vids on YouTube, especially the official Unreal channel. There plenty of others listed in the various forums, so spend some time looking around here.
If you are a student, you might be able to get free versions of the software you will need, but just start with Unreal Engine. You won’t know what else you will need until you get started there. A 3D modelling program is the most common “other requirement”, but just jump in. See how you get on.
Blender and ‘Sketchup make’ are good free programs. If your on a Mac Logic isn’t free but is an amazing audio program. Blender has loads of tutorials but took me a while to get to know. Google Andrew Price or Blender Guru to get his youtube tutorials. Though Blender tutorials have a habit of going out go date as new versions of blender come out. Blendr is good for modelling. You sculpt organically with it in sculpt mode. Sketchup is by far the easiest way to get simple geometric shapes made. It also has the 3D warehouse https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/?hl=en where you can download just about the whole universe for free
I use Sketchup importer https://github.com/martijnberger/pyslapi/releases/tag/0.13to import all the 3D warehouse stuff into blender, but haven’t found a way to export them from blender into Ureal Engine with their textures. But the shapes come in and I add materials to those. I think the texture export is doable I’m just to stupid
You can get free models on lots sites as fbx and obj. the 2 file types supported for import in Unreal engine.
I find all of the programs I use quite challenging. It seems like you press one wrong button by accident and your screwed until you can find out what you’ve done. That’s the minefield that I step onto anyway
My biggest piece of advice is don’t worry about too much about becoming a master of everything. It’s said it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something. There’s only so many fields you can choose.
I am not saying don’t be ambitious. What I am saying is, do you NEED to make your own music when you can get royalty free music that’s almost as good? Do you NEED everything to be an original model when you can get free assets or cheap assets?
Obviously you need to decide what you need to do yourself, my point is just, don’t be afraid to stick with what works fast and now, until you’re at a point where using the better stuff matters. If that makes sense.
Oh, and youtube youtube youtube. Get a second monitor, screen, or tablet if you can and follow lots of tutorials.
I’m in a similar situation, except less ambitious. I am a software developer, so I’m not too worried about the programming side, but the modeling and animation confuses me. And I’m more interested in the learning experience right now than making a perfect game (even though I know there’s lots of great free resources).
Anyway, let me illustrate this with an example. Let’s say I want a tower in my game. Then I guess I can make this work in Blender for example. I think it’s referred to as “static mesh” in UE4 but not entirely sure. So far so good I think.
However, what if I also want the cannon on the top of the tower to be able to rotate and to have some recoil and other nice effects when firing. Where is this done? Do I create the animations somewhere else (also Blender?) or is much of this done in UE4 editor itself? In other words, as I’ve never been involved in any part of creating a game, I’m finding it difficult to visualize how everything hangs together.
I’ve started looking at UE4 tutorials on the official youtube channel (great resource btw), but would love some recommendations for good basic tutorials to get the hang of how modeling and animation fits in to the picture.
Edit: for reference just to make it clear what level I’m on, I’ve only spent one day actually working with the UE4 engine so far. Basically just doing some tutorials (and doing some tests based on what I learned) to get the hang of the editor and especially how blueprints works. I have not installed or used Blender yet and my only experience with 3d modeling was a short stint of 3d studio max as a school project some 10+ years ago (crazy how time flies).
I’m new to unreal my self.
Like your game Idea, would like to play it one day.
if you have a little money the tutorials form are good. http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/
I got some and I’m glade I did. and don’t for get youtube and epic.
Also search around the forum, there are countless individuals starting out and posting similar posts to the OP, a lot of the regulars here have posted at length there too. Very very good advice to be found.
Hey @IceFireWadern I am glad you decided to put in effort and time into learning how to make your own game, at the beginning it’s a learning step like everything else that is new to us in life. The beginning might feel steep and confusing but if you devote a few hours or just an hour a day on learning you will get the hang of things in no time. I started off around the age of 19 myself and motivation kept me going and I was able to create something off my own by just following the awesome tutorials that epic have put out there. UE4’s Tutorial support has leaped so far ahead of the previous UDK tutorials it’s like a real blessing, a good start will be to go on Unreal Engine YouTube channel and follow these (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZlv_N0_O1gaCL2XjKluO7N2Pmmw9pvhE) steps to get you off smoothly and before you know it you will be creating content in UE4 like the pro’s. I hope this helped.
