So after months of procrastination I have taken the dive and got to know unreal engine pretty well. Let me state that I am a coder, not an artist. I wish I had that artistic flare but laying out code nice and neat is the extent of it for me.
I do want to develop my own game but I guess I am stuck on how to proceed. I know the engine well enough but in terms of level design is where I am falling down. Look at everything if I want to get some items and environments I am probably going to have to fork up some cash for it.
Other than purchasing designs and environments, is there anyway anyone can point me in right direction about getting started?
Pick any game you really like the level design, and start coping the map into a paper. So having a good idea at 2d how a level is, then you can try to recreate it into unreal. Just only with BSP. A reiterate. A lot.
You can find plenty of free packages on the UE4 marketplace now to start with.
Then for more free assets you might want to check the free models on cgtrader and turbosquid shops … and there are plenty of cheap models to buy there too BUT you will then need to put a little effort to import into UE4 … some models might need editing, others might need re-texturing or come with no textures.
To create and modify 3D models there are some free suites available like Blender and its fork Bforartists. A free alternative to the expensive Photoshop is the Krita software package that allows to work with layers almost the same way and it can be very useful for creating or editing textures.
Then there is another free 3D editing suite that is Rocket3F Basic V1 … the free version can’t be customized UI wise and such but all other features are fully working, the paid Pro version is not that expensive if needed.
For 3D meshes PBR painting the cheapest package is ArmorPaint … the free opensource github version should lack some optimizations that the paid version has.
For creating level terrain maps L3DT Pro now is free too and the author gives a free 6 months license on the website.
I do have the artistic ability to make all my own stuff but it is impossible to do anything even slightly ambitious if you have to handle both art and code. I am in the same spot really. I plan to put together something and then look for an artist that wants to work together to make a game from there. It’s either that or pay cash for assets up front.
im an amateur 3d modeller. Do you want to team up? I have an idea for a game, but im happy to work on whatever.
Here is my art link, most stuff is 2d related