should i start with 3d modeling the charchter or start on mechanics and movment

Development Getting Started & Setup
,
1

should i start with 3d modeling the charchter or start on mechanics and movment

2

Hey @Tobydmay112! Welcome to the forums!

There’s more than one way to make a game, for sure. However, I think most would agree that it’s better to get your metrics in order and your mechanics into the game first and foremost. You can have a game without a fancy 3D modeled character- you can’t have one without mechanics. :slight_smile:

Hope this helps!

2 Likes
3

This is how i started doing my character based game:

  • i got motion matching project: “Game animation sample”, From it i migrated yellow manequin over to empty project all together with animations. Not whole project, because i want to learn how to use motion matching. Then i learned it from tutorials.
  • Then i got to tutorials about runtime retargetting for unreal 5
  • then i got ue5 character that was modular, and made runtime retargetting for it to yellow manequin (UEFN skeleton)

So now i have working setup that uses motion matching and i can retarget any biped character to it.

Next:

  • i got my character that i want to use for development. It was kind of modular but not way i like.
  • so i added mutable plugin, watched documentation for it (great docs made by epic). After some troubles (its experimental, so has some quirks) i made my character really modular.

And now:

  • i am polishing animation blueprint,
  • adding state tree to manage AI
  • and looking into smart objects for AI

So TL/DR:

  • get any modular character from FAB
  • set up animation bluepritn
  • use mutable plugin to make character modular way you like it
  • work on motion, like speed of walk, run, jumps etc
  • then develop testing level that is small and just blocked out. Improve level only when you out of ideas what to code next.
  • always force self from your comfort zone, ie. do things that you have no idea about instead things that you know everything about.
4

I agree here, whatever works best for you just go for it, however one could have the most incredible models/animations/materials but without solid mechanics and functionality the game won’t be all that fun to play. I spent the first 3-4 months on my project solely on c++ code,BP and widget creation, now as I slowly work on visual assets it’s pretty easy to tweak, perfect and replicate mechanics to seamless just drop them into position and have them work as intend with little to no troubleshooting. Best of luck friend :slight_smile: