Personal journaling of game dev journey

Community Off-Topic
,
1

I like to do personal journaling ‘out in the open’, so in case anyone is feeling archaeological in the future (as I’ve been with lowlight, the creator of Arknights, as well as the CEOs of MiHoYo) when I hopefully make a legacy for myself, people can come to these obscure areas and get to know more about me from the start of my journey to build that very same legacy.

I have to use UE5 because it’s a requirement to be comfortable with for my game design course I’ll be doing in college, but I’ve already done 2 years previously in Unity and UE4 after high school while I still wasn’t sure this was the path I wanted to take in life.
It took a couple of years of being lost and losing everything I learned, but I’m back to start from pretty much scratch and finally get my dream job.
(PS, I’ll probably include details of my progress using other programs like blender, not just UE5.)

I enjoy making YT videos, so I’ll probably journal that way too, and livestreaming is also a good way of playing a numbers game of watching the amount of time spent streaming being equal to the amount of time self-studying, so I want that number to go up a lot.
I say this as if I have experience with going through a journey from start to finish to know how I like to attempt it, but honestly I have started and failed so many attempts without a single one succeeding - so, I’m only really experienced with just startings.

Anyways, my dream is to one day work in a gacha game company and write my own compendium for my lifelong franchise.
Although I live and breathe storytelling, it’s often easy to forget that life isn’t just about art. Art is a depiction of real things, so it in itself isn’t real. My ultimate goal is to make something truly real, to turn these dreams into a reality. I know I’m saying a lot for someone who just began, but I want to get my thoughts down now so I don’t feel like I have to explain the same thing again in the future behind why I make certain decisions that may not be ‘reasonable’ but are without a doubt sensible.
This is my personal/alt Epic Games account where I hope to just learn how the engine works and do attempts at mechanics that I’ll later copy over to more serious projects on my main account that includes my main portfolio pieces.
My first major project goal is intended to be vertical slice of the combat system inspired by Wuthering Waves (WuWa), I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I want to go through the entire A-Z at least once on my own before I entire college again.

I want to organise this thread for giving daily updates on whatever it is I did in the day. The larger the list of dot points, the better.

So far, since it was the start of night when I began this OVER 9000th attempt to get a life, today I did:

  • The “Introduction to Unreal Engine” tutorial project
2

Today’s list of actions:

  • installed and played around with the “Project Titan” map, but my laptop couldn’t handle it until I learned how to change the scalability (it can’t do cinematic settings for anything)
  • Started my own first person template project to begin learning how to import assets into a scene to explore an intimate environment inspired by the game MiSide. (I have imported Aether’s character model from genshin so far. I’m aiming to know how to do cel shading)
  • Started a coding tutorial on learning how to use blueprints
3

today’s actions:

  • made a cel shading post processing material following a tutorial (aiming to figure out what else needs to be done so the colours match the colours in Genshin)
  • image
    image1919×1033 273 KB
  • Got back into doing 2D drawing as well
    (more details of actions done for the day tb edited as the day progresses)
4

I’ve decided that my journaling approach won’t have the behaviours of relying on it as a roundabout way for accountability, I’ll just share the reason behind major decisions in the future here as I continue to show up daily through proper content creation on YT (more benefits that way in terms of portfolio, as well as for the other benefits I have mentioned at the start)

5

Wow, it’s inspiring to see someone being so honest and open about their journey. Journaling publicly like this not only helps you reflect, but it also creates a record for the future when people (or even yourself) want to look back and understand how your ideas and skills developed over time. It’s clear you have a strong passion for game design and storytelling, and being so disciplined about UE5, Unity, Blender, and other tools will definitely pay off.

If you’re looking for more online tools and resources to explore while tracking your progress, platforms like Seekee image tools can be really useful. They help you discover different creative and productivity tools that can complement your game design workflow and journaling.

I also like your approach of balancing self-study with livestreaming and making YT videos. The daily updates format is perfect for staying consistent and motivated. Keep documenting everything, even the small victories and experiments they all add up over time. Excited to see your progress on your vertical slice inspired by Wuthering Waves!

1 Like
6

Thank you :folded_hands:
I finally have the new yt channels set up for my personal journaling as a bts for projects as well as the main channel I plan to upload build updates and video projects to.

The video projects I really want to make are stuff like 3D fan animations of characters from gacha games I play. So, having that become one of the ‘selling points’ that builds my brand on the main channel while I still keep my personal journaling separate on the more frequently used second channel (as well as here if I decided to keep using this thread) for the animation skills I’m developing along side my regular game development, should hopefully establish my desired lifestyle and build the portfolio I need to get my dream job.

Balancing YT with college or YT with work I feel like is something to look forward to as a double life, and I love those sort of situations where one craft is considered a break from another.

Sorry if I’m talking to much about myself, I just like to spill my thoughts on what I think I should be trying to aim for the future to be like.
I might share the YT channels after I’ve made my first video project for the main channel while making a bunch of video journal entries on my second/personal channel.

Edit: (I checked through Janet’s profile posts to check my suspicion, but I’m almost certain it’s a bot. At the same time, I hope to not be rude if it is a person who just happens to sound like a bot, but then again I wonder why such a person would waste their time explaining the things that I just said about myself … -_-)

7

I think it’s great to follow how you’re sharing your development. To be honest, it’s common for most people to start over a lot. You seem to have a defined objective now, which is a fantastic beginning.