hi im 17 and with dreams that I can make anything on the computer that i desire.
I wanna make a 3rd person game with mediocre-high quality graphics.
problem is i don't know where to start. I tried starting out with unreal engine 4's blueprint. but I didn't understand anything when I was trying to code myself. probably because i don't understand programming concepts. I don't have any experience with modelling, textures, animations etc. but that can be achieved in the long run.
what programming language should I start out with? I'm very willing to make a 2D game because I know something 3D would probably be too complex. not with those rpg makers please. what programming language should I start off with? which would be easy and the best to make decent quality games? a java based engine? a c# based engine?
thanks :)
Where should I start off? (programming)?
- Posted:
- 3+ months ago by poop421
- Topics:
- computer, game, person, java, graphic, games, computers, programming, computer language, game engine
Responses (2)
Haha, just like me 10+ years ago. And look at me now, making my own games. Listen if you want a shortcut I never was offered then, learn it at your school. Even if they don't teach so complex programming or modelling. The key is to be patient, I managed to make my own 2D game 8 years ago. And I was so happy. But where you should start is up to you, you can make simple click games with HTML & CSS, these are mainly for making and designing websites, you can learn them in less than a month if you give it a go 100%. But making a rpg game at this age is impossible if you have no experience with programming or modelling at all... however for the modeling part try out Blender, it's a free software that allows you to make 3D objects. A very good and unique engine.
This is what we in the programming community sometimes call a "religious question." Basically, everyone has an answer and everyone feels very strongly about their particular opinion.
CODING:
Any language will teach you to code, but if you are looking to get into game design, I have three suggestions: C++, C#, Python.
Many engines are scripted with C# or C++. C# is the easier language to learn in the short term, but C++ gives you... for better or worse... more control.
If you want to play around with a game engine, you have a lot of choices, but your two most powerful (and affordable) options are the Unreal engine and the Unity engine. Unreal is scripted in C++ while Unity scripting is primarily done in C#.
I recommend you avoid Java when coding for games. It's not a bad language, but major games written in it tend to be pretty sluggish and laggy.
ANIMATION
When it comes to animation, you basically have a choice between text, 2d and 3d. You can make a functional game with any of the three styles. Each has its own challenges.
You can start making text based games as soon as you have learned your first programming language. No extra libraries required! There are some very good games entirely in text, but don't go thinking it's any easier to produce such a game. Look up Old Infocom games, as well as Nethack and Dwarf Fortress for some examples.
If you want to get into 2d animation, I recommend you find a good image editing tool, Photoshop, Gimp, something like that. There are also graphical editing tools specifically for old pixel/sprite based graphics, which are a little easier to learn. I'm currently playing around with Graphics Gale and Tile Studio, both freely available programs, to see if I can do anything with them.
Good 2D art is far from easy to produce, and you are going to need to put some effort in if you want to learn to draw good sprites.
For 3D animation, there are many tools but the only one I know anything about is blender. Blender is free, so no issues there. You can design things either by hand in blender, or you can procedurally generate objects via python scripting.
There are quite a few tutorials for just about everything I've mentioned here on the net. These aren't the only tools available, nor are they necessarily the best. These are just the ones I have experience with.