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>Now second thing is I did ask others and it seems this is not what programmers are using.
RPGMaker is geared towards people who can't program. It's for making a specific kind of game.
If you want to make games and learn to program I suggest trying Unity (which is free).
Now go and hit your 2 friends over the head with a $120 shovel. They deserve it. You can get it for $30 on Steam right now. It's on sale.
Unity. It is a robust game development platform with a strong base of support. People are constantly adding new features and tutorials on how to use it are abundant and easy to find. The fact that this kind of tool is available, free of charge, with fantastic support seriously amazes me.
Here is a thought.
It has never, in the entire history of the universe, as far as anyone has been able to determine, been easier to make a game by yourself than it is right now.
Here's what you do.
Step 1: Go download Unity.
Step 2: Go find a tutorial. Here's are two that I found with 5 minutes of googling, but there are seriously TONS out there.
Step 3: Work through the tutorial. Or if you don't like it, find another one and try that.
Congrats, you have made a game! Now, the fun part.
Step 4: Change something about the game you made. Pick some small change and try to figure out how to do it. Change the color of the background. See if you can make the player move at double or half speed. Tweak something.
Step 5: Keep doing that.
Step 6: Games!
No, the current process for developing games is changing. Better game development tools plus re-use of assets (like the http://unity3d.com/unity/asset-store/ ) means you don't need 300 developers to make a game. Kickstarter and related methods allow participative funding. People enjoy a game more if they feel like part of the development process. Boxed game on a shelf does not have that participation aspect. Mod kits and leader boards for custom levels do.
I make money from free-to-download games. I think I can speak to this topic from experience.
> this personal edition allows free users to access all features of the engine for free.
*Except the ability to have your own splash screen. Not joking.
Edit: For the downvoters: http://unity3d.com/get-unity
I would say the Splash screen IS part of the engine, just like the rest of the GUI, but hey, what do I know.
I've used Unity3D every day for the past 14 months, I'm now making a 2D game to be released on iOS, Android, Facebook, etc. It's pretty awesome, just because it allows us to do that, in my humble opinion. Full disclosure, I work at GogiiGames, a company of about 35 people on the east coast of Canada.
2D is accomplished fairly easily. We use SpriteManager2 and EZGUI, but you can also roll your own 2D starting with just a 2 triangle plane mesh and some image atlasing. Set camera to Orthographic, and off you go! SM2 and EZGUI have their own quirks and issues, but it was faster than trying to do that ourselves!
If you want to make something quick and dirty in Unity, you'll probably want to stick to 3D, or spend the money on the 2D plugins. Prime31 plugins are also almost a necessity, depending on what you want to do. Any plugins can be replicated on your own, it's just a lot of work for something you could pay $20-100 to have it done for you.
For anyone just starting, I found the videos at unity3dstudent.com to be great at the beginning. Googling your problems will almost always lead to something in the unity script reference or unityanswers.com. Both sites are good bookmarks, I still hit that script reference every couple days to look something up. http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/ScriptReference/index.html
And yes, it's expensive. $4500 per license if you want full iOS and Android Pro. It's also perhaps the most advanced and up-to-date game dev suite that exists right now. Again, just my opinion! I'm not shilling for them, I WISH they would give us some free licenses, we need more but don't have the budget for them yet!
Here you have my recommendations:
-To earn money as 3D artist you can sell your 3D and 2D models here: http://unity3d.com/unity/asset-store/ It is a market for artistis to sell graphical assets to game developers
-To learn you could get a Standford certificate for free by passing online courses: http://www.hci-class.org/ http://www.cs101-class.org/
-To encouradge you: think that if you were living outside north-western Europe you would be dying of famine so you are not that bad :)
If you need a domain just let me know it and send me an e-mail address to contact you ( I can donate two or three years for charity )
Merry Christmas and hope you really get a better life which I am sure is what you deserve.
It's worth noting that Hearthstone is coded in Unity. I'm guessing that has something to do with it.
I'm starting to believe that they really don't know how to add things like more than 9 deck slots, at least not without redesigning the whole thing.
I think free GameMaker Studio standard edition is awesome. I have downloaded it and I'd recommend others do the same.
That being said, the free edition of Unity is quite competitive with the standard edition of GMS in terms of functionality, but more importantly in terms of target platforms Unity is miles ahead (you can target iOS, Android, Windows Phone, OS X, Linux, et al) all in the free edition.
To target Android on GMS it is a $200 upgrade. Which is perfectly fine, that is their business model and they should be paid for their work. But right now Unity is just somehow able to offer that same product for free, which is quite compelling if you don't expect to be able to charge for whatever you produce.
Definitely all in on Microsoft. Can't see anyone in a better position to do it. Lets check the list...
- MS acquires SyntaxTree, makers of the UnityVS plugin.
- Exclusive offers and contests from MS for Unity devs
- Xbox One as a dev kit...
- Killed XNA framework, along with massively successful Indie Games initiative. Need something to replace it with.
Just seems highly likely...
But at what cost? It completely shifts development focus. They now make more money from getting people addicted to buying vanity-items than from actually designing good gameplay. And that's easy. It's ridiculously easy to set up a system like that to get people hooked. Look at Cow Clicker.
It's just the bottom of the barrel of game design. It's the equivalent of designing a slot machine (it's not that absurd, Unity must make a small fortune from selling gambling licenses for rumored 6-figure prices). The microtransaction business model is so restrictive, you have to bend your game's main motivation around it.
I can accept that they do it for the money. I mean, duh. But they have to accept that people slowly realize that this added income comes at the price of making games worse.
The Xamarin folks are building a business around Mono selling tools to application developers that target mobile devices like iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android. Those do not seem very niche to me.
They are not the only ones doing so either. Unity uses Mono in the same way but for games. Some of the best selling games in the App Store and Market are Unity based.
I personally really like ASP.NET MVC. It is my favourite platform for building web apps.
I also really like Linux. It is my favourite server platform.
Mono let's me use both of them at the same time.
My current employer loves Macs. All our departmental level server stuff is Mac. Just today I wrote a utility that interfaces with the SOAP interface of SugarCRM. I can use the same (compiled) utility on both my OS X and Linux machines (because of Mono).
Recently I wrote an iPhone app using MonoTouch. I lifted the database code and the XML processing code directly from a web app I had written months before. I will be doing Android and Windows Phone versions at some point and am looking forward to reusing the exact same code all over again.
Mono is the only platform I have encountered that allows me to move from console utilities, to desktop apps, to web pages, to mobile devices using the same skills and much of the same code everywhere.
Isn't code re-use supposed to be a goal? It is certainly a time saver, I can tell you that.
For me, the advantages of Mono are many.
Yup, those two facts definitely lead me to believe that MS would be a lead-runner in acquiring Unity. Not to mention their recent Unity-based promotions, offers, and contests for Windows devs
It sure did: https://web.archive.org/web/20141202204103/http://unity3d.com/unity/faq#
Does buying Unity 5.0 entitle me to all 5.x releases?
Yes, you will receive for free the updates in the Unity 5.x release cycle.
Differences between Pro and Personal edition are here.
Looks like it's :
- Royalty free for devs with revenue upto $100k/year
- Deploy on all platforms with a splash screen
- Engine features are same as Pro
Check out clause 5 of the Unity 5 free edition's EULA
>Furthermore, if you are a Legal Entity, Unity or its authorized representatives may upon reasonable prior notice access and inspect your facilities and computer systems to review and verify your compliance with this Agreement.
Even free things can have hidden costs!
I'm a programmer, and I found it hard to understand why someone would use assembly instead of C or C++ in the 90s. So I did some further research.
It turns out that Chris Sawyer had been writing games in assembly for 14 years before he worked on RollerCoaster Tycoon, and he re-used a lot of the code from Transport Tycoon, which he had developed earlier. Back in the 80s, it was very common to write games in assembly, since compilers were nowhere near as advanced as they are today. Hand-written assembly would be much faster than code written in higher-level languages such as C++. So while it's impressive that he wrote most of the game in assembly, it might have even taken him longer to write it in C or some other unfamiliar language, since he had 14 years of experience to draw on. And keep in mind that this is pretty much "par for the course", back when you really needed to squeeze every last drop of performance out of computers. Almost every popular game you played in the 80s and 90s required some crazy hacks to overcome the hardware limitations. I've read about the development of Pokemon, Doom, Super Mario Kart, and Crash Bandicoot, and all of these games pushed the limits of what they were running on.
Today, compilers such as GCC and LLVM can perform a huge number of optimizations, and now we have crazy toolkits like the Unity game engine that make game development so much easier. But there's still plenty of times where assembly is the right tool for the job, such as embedded software, device firmware, etc.
Not really. Nothing that project spark did transfers to real life game development, it was just a neat sandbox for enthusiast. If you are really interested in game development, try doing Code Academy, checking out Unity or Unreal tutorials.
Nope you'll be fine doing that. The only thing you should do along the way is make sure that you're programming your game in such a way that it'll run on your target platforms later, so that you don't run into errors when you finally upgrade to Pro or Unity iPhone and try to, say, output to iOS.
Putting #pragma strict at the top of your scripts will cover almost all of your bases. Dynamic typing is disabled for platforms like iOS, but enabled for platforms like PC, web, etc. So you might be in for a shock if you suddenly upgrade to Unity iPhone and see a bunch of errors popup when before the upgrade it would run bug-free.
I had a similar shock myself...in Unity 3.4 "#pragma strict" is enabled by default in Unity iPhone. When I made the upgrade, Zombox had over 2500 new error messages pop up that I had never seen before. It all had to do with dynamic typing though, and was very straight-forward to fix. But still, to save yourself some headache enable that by default and you'll be fine.
Also you can have Unity detect which platform the game is currently running on, so you can have some features enabled for some platforms and not for others.
For example, Zombox is targeted for both iOS and Unity's webplayer. Obviously the iOS version needs touch screen controls while the web version needs keyboard and mouse input. You can place special if-statements in your code to help you detect which platform you're on and customize your input controls (or anything else) to be specific to whatever platform you want. I implemented this myself so I can test Zombox on my PC while also being able to run it on my iPhone without having to re-customize all the controls.
tl;dr, you'll be fine.
Maybe you've heard of a couple of these titles then - http://unity3d.com/gallery/game-list/
A number of the iPhone titles have spent time in the top ten. Other than the criteria that you've heard of it before...does that suffice?
Not a Unity advocate myself but according to http://unity3d.com/unity/roadmap OpenGL 4 is finally schedules to be release in Unity 5.3 which appears to be currently in beta and set for release next month.
> Fuck that, I've got stories I want to put into games
Ah!! Then you most certainly don't want to build your own game engine. What you want to do is download Unity and start working on a tutorial!
Ninja edit: and subscribe to /r/unity
I have to be blunt here because it comes up every time there's one of these posts.
You are unlikely to find a single person that would rather work on your unrealized concepts over their own. Any programmer on this forum has dozens of ideas floating in their head that they haven't worked on due to time or difficulty constraints. If you can't offer a compelling reason to make them want to work on your ideas, then they won't.
You mention a few things which personally threw up concern with me:
1) Not a coder
2) You aren't a coder but you say that Cryengine 3 or UDK will be 'sufficient'. Why? It seems like you're just throwing out engines that famous games use.
3) You say that you can design models/maps, not create them. This could just be nitpicking though, so I apologize if I misinterpreted.
With that said, it does seem like an interesting idea. Depending on your dedication to the idea, you could go about implementing it on your own. A popular engine in these here parts is Unity, which would be free for your purposes.
I also think that this would work well as an interactive fiction, which is very easy to make for a non-programmer. I had a lot of fun writing one in Inform, which was very easy to use and made expressing my ideas natural.
It boils down to time. Many of us have little time from having either school or jobs, and we'd prefer to work on our own unpaid projects. I wish you luck though, and hope you find a way to realize your idea.
EDIT: Something I forgot to mention was modding, mostly because I don't know what game you could mod this into easily on your own. But if you find a base game that looks like it would hold your ideas and that you can learn how to mod, then go for it.
- Download Unity
- Do literally all of these tutorials.
- Make some small games (Pac-Man, Pong, Breakout, Mario, Maze Runner, Tetris, Asteroids, etc.)
- Rewrite your post, and have someone proofread it for you.
Then you might just be able to convince someone to join you.
- Alternatively, download blender and begin making models. You don't need to be a programmer to get help, but you need to be able to do something more than "have a...Vision," because your vision is just an idea. And the people who have the skills to make that idea a reality have little reason to do the hard work of making your idea real while you sit around waiting for Kickstarter to decide your idea is worth money.
Good luck!
You make a very good general point, but there's really no issue here.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Unity+Player+plugin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_\(game_engine\)
Literally 30 seconds of investigation seems sufficient. 10 seconds to install. No browser restart.
edit: I accidentally the grammar.
Same Material and same meshes results in less draw state changes, so it is faster than drawing them in arbitrary order, but is not the same as proper instancing.
GPU instancing has been missing in Unity for years now, but lucky for you it appeared on their roadmap last December and seems to be on track as well.
http://unity3d.com/unity/roadmap Should be part of 5.4, that is release on March 16th.
I don't know if Unity will support them, but there is a variety of tricks to even draw multiple different meshes or LOD levels at the same time using GPU instancing techniques.
Not specifically, but never underestimate gambling. For example, Unity has its own licenses just for gambling software which has an insane markup and could very well make up a huge part of their profits. They, of course, don't like to talk about it in public because something cute like Never Alone sounds better.
Much of mobile F2P gaming is basically just gambling with a cuter face and no promises of real-world monetary rewards, but the principle is the same.
You can only run .unity3d files in a web browser equipped with the Unity Web Player-- they don't function as stand-alone executables. If that doesn't work, you can still play Space Paranoids here!
Enjoy, and remember: it's all in the wrist. ;)
This website is an example: http://areaaperta.com/nicescroll/
Of course, that advertises a javascript library which adds smooth scrolling to a website, but it gives you an idea of what we're dealing with. I've seen similar things out in the wild a lot.
This is a particularly horrid example of "smooth" scrolling out in the wild: http://pervolo.com/en/
And then, of course, we have the website for version 5 of Unity3d, http://unity3d.com/5, which also fucks a lot with scrolling. That doesn't try to make scrolling smooth like the others I linked to, and thus is maybe not a great example of what OP is talking about, but it's in the same area, and I'd argue that too is detrimental to the website's usability.
All engine featutes are included now in the free edition:
http://unity3d.com/unity/personal-edition
This includes the profiler, occlusion culling, render textures, post effecta etc. I'm kind of excited! :D
You can get it straight from Unity if you want. Sorry, I'm just a hobbyist and I don't know how to make this from scratch so I had to use an existing engine - and that requires a plugin.
That's understandable, I wish I had more knowledge of Flash or I would have made it in that, but it's made with Unity3D, a popular game engine which unfortunately requires the additional plugin for web stuff.
Why not develop the game using Unity?
You can use C# for all your coding and a lot of what you'll learn in Unity can be used elsewhere.
It's also very flexible. For instance I'm currently using Lidgren (C#) network library to create the network infrastructure for my current game. Using Lidgren allows me to create a dedicated/console server using .NET.
Still it does depend on what type of game you're actually planning to create, if it's an FPS maybe UDK would be best. Unity can be used to create an FPS (see Interstellar Marines) but there's more work involved (Unity comes with a basic FPS control script, but not the full works).
> I don't think its actually strictly legal
Then go read the Asset Store EULA, because you are thinking incorrectly. Here is the relevant bit, from section 2.2 of "End User's Rights and Obligations":
>Licensor grants to the END-USER a non-exclusive, worldwide, and perpetual license to the Asset to integrate Assets only as incorporated and embedded components of electronic games and interactive media and distribute such electronic game and interactive media. END-USER may otherwise not reproduce, distribute, sublicense, rent, lease or lend the Assets.
This is very clear-cut and asset flip games are legal. It's a shitty practice, but legal.
Umm no actually Hearthstone was made in Unity. The game also won awards at the Unity Awards 2014.
I think you need to do some better research before posting.
The OP never distinguished between 3D or 2D games. If you are suggesting that perhaps only 3D games made in Unity have that "Unity feel" then you can contribute that to the thread and not say my comment is wrong.
C# C# C# all the way.
Unityscript can KINDA be simpler to learn up front, and if I remember correctly the debug errors are easier to comprehend, but you'll be doing yourself a favor by learning and sticking with C#, both inside Unity and in the outside world.
As for books, I've yet to go beyond 1/4 to 1/3 of ANY programming book. Pick up any ye ol' generic "Learn C# in X amount of days/hours", and just learn those core initial basics used throughout most all popular programming languages: Variables, loops, functions, arrays, etc.
Once you have the basics down, you can pop on to Unity's tutorial page here to see how your new found knowledge translates into Unity.
I found this guys tutorials to be super helpful at the start. I must have watched them 10 times each before it clicked in my brain
I also referenced the examples in the help files about every 5 minutes until I started to build a code base of my own.
From there I really enjoyed watching the Unite videos and London user group videos on Unitys website
C# is a great language to develop iOS games with Unity, and soon it will be used to develop games for the Playstation. For some very specific scenarios C# runs great outside of Windows. (It is also used for XBox game development, but I don't know if that qualifies as outside of Windows)
http://unity3d.com/gallery/game-list/#ios
http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/15/playstation-suite-sdk-beta-coming-in-november-offering-games-in
> http://unity3d.com/book-of-the-dead > > Unity’s Demo Team, creators of “Adam” (2016) and “The Blacksmith” (2015), are excited to announce Book of the Dead, a first-person interactive story showcasing the capabilities of Unity 2018 for powering high-end visuals for game productions. > > The trailer is representative of the actual gameplay experience. > > Unity’s Demo productions drive advanced use of the Unity engine through autonomous creative projects. The team consists of experienced game professionals led by Creative Director Veselin Efremov, who writes and directs the demos and is responsible for their final look. > > More from Unity's Demo team: http://unity3d.com/unity/demos
> More about Unity: http://unity3d.com
Adam executable download (size: 3 GB; Windows DX11 only)
It is expected to run 30 fps v-synced @ 1440p on a GeForce GTX 980 and Intel Core i7.
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/11/01/adam-demo-executable-and-assets-released/ <- source.
Incredibly this is able to be run, in real time. And Oats Studios have released the assets for this, and you can pop 'em in Unity3D and fiddle around to your hearts desire.
You're looking at the wrong license
You have to look at the license for the Asset store
http://unity3d.com/legal/as_provider
>Provider agrees that, pursuant to the EULA, it will grant to the Customer who acquires an Asset submitted by the Provider, a non-exclusive, worldwide, license in any medium now known or hereinafter invented to: (a) reproduce, post, modify, promote, license, sell, publicly perform, publicly display, digitally perform, or transmit the Asset for promotional and commercial purposes; (b) use any trademarks, service marks or trade names incorporated in the Asset; and (c) use the name and likeness of any individuals represented in the Asset.
If you put an asset on the store you grant users who buy it rights to use and distribute that asset in a commercial product
Aka no matter how you feel about asset flips they are not illegal not a violation of Unitys nor the SSA
Whoever was selling the asset can be as "mad" as they want but not reading the license agreement they signed with Unity doesn't make them right.
Like with any engine, you should really step back and take the time to learn all the nuances of the engine. Previous experience is great, but you should approach each engine as a newbie, at least initially.
That being said, Unity is made in a way to help get a lot of the "basics" out of the way. Some of the stuff you mentioned is done inherently within Unity itself, with no need to create special classes or systems.
I'd HIGHLY recommend going over the 2D tutorials, notably the 2D "walk trough" here.
If you want to start learning I just saw that they have these tutorials for Unity where they teach you how to program from scratch:
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/scripting
So if you have no experience at all that is probably a good place to start. I haven't done then so I don't know how good they are but the two tutorials I have done were extremely detailed and easy to follow so these will probably be the same.
I think its certainly worth adding both the announcement of Unity 5 as well as Source 2 and Steam Link to the post as its some of the biggest updates to the biggest game engines around.
You can get a refund if you qualify for the personal edition.
Check the FAQ it has all the information and a link to a form to apply for refund.
Edit: The deadline to apply for a refund is May 1, 2015.
Is there any tutorials that take you from a completely blank project to a finished (crappy/simple) game?
Alot of the tutorials I find for Unreal focus on one specific part of the engine or game development. Ya, that is useful when I want to learn about X. But before I get that much detail I want a feel for how to go from nothing to something and lightly touches on everything.
Like this tutorial for Unity: http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/projects/space-shooter. You build something really basic but along the way you get a simple overview of setting up a scene, cameras, user interaction, basic code, UI, sound, etc.
IMHO it's because they are using shitty Unity for their development. It's a fine as a rapid development point-and-click tool for small indie game developers. But it's HORRIBLE for actually maintaining code long term - something we've all suffered for in the HS community.
Take the "minions randomly changing order" bug for example. It took them almost a year and multiple patches to fix that. If the game was coded in C++ or similar they'd fixed that shit in 30 minutes.
The best thing you can do is start learning a programming language and start trying to make something. Really.
You don't need to be an amazing programmer, or artist, but the best way to convey your ideas is to show them. If you can whip up at least a prototype, it will take you miles further than just sharing an idea.
Start small, don't jump into your big master plan of a game. Make a copy of something simple like asteroids (a very common clone) once that is functional, add your own twist. Grow from there.
The general sentiment you'll get is that everyone has ideas. Actually bringing them to life is the hard part.
Unity is a fantastic and free engine to look into, it uses C# (C sharp) and a version of Javascript (not Java, thats different). Its got a great community here on reddit as well as a multitude of other sites, with a lot of documentation. Its generally more for 3D, but can definitely do 2D as well.
For more basic stuff, HTML5 may be worth looking into, though I've not personally delved into that so I don't have any resources in mind.
Really, it doesn't matter what platform you start out on, the core principles are universal. As I said above, the important thing is to pick something, and learn it well enough to create a prototype. Thats how you start.
You can learn how to create a very very basic game in 1 hour, yes. When learning to create games you need patience, don't expect yourself to create superb games within a week.
Tutorials is how I learned everything from extensive programming to basic modelling. I used the Unity official tutorial website, which is a great source for learning. I did have good programming skills though, but the Unity system makes it so that you don't have to master any programming skills, just learn the basics.
Here are some per-topic tutorials:
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules
and here are some great Demo projects, where you can create a game from A-Z (well, without the modelling) with the use of well organized tutorials. The stealth project has great video tutorials, which I personally used.
https://unity3d.com/gallery/demos/demo-projects
Well have fun! I really love love love making games/programs, and I hope you will have that same sensation!
Ciao!
EDIT: I personally thought C# was the better language but never used js in unity, I see others recommend C# over js and so do I
> My motive, nay, fantasy, is to eventually get ahold of powerful gaming engines and make successors (or spiritual successors) to dead yet beloved franchises, like Ace Combat or Star Wars Episode I Racer.
> Yet, Reddit seems quite cynical about the industry, and at a glance, it can be very easy to sympathize with the view.
You probably shouldn't weigh too heavily on 'reddit's opinion since most people here have never worked in the game industry.
> So that brings up another question: Why don't more AAA devs/publishers use Kickstarter to test the waters?
Because Kickstarter takes a 8-10% commission of whatever you raise. That's millions of dollars when we're talking about modern AAA games--not to mention that profit margins are slim enough as it is. And now you have to deal with higher expectations because people already bought the game. And this is assuming you can even get enough people to spend the $20 million+ required for a modern AAA game.
Take a look at Unity. It uses C#. The desktop version is free. The paid for version allows you to deploy on the Web, iOS, Android, PS3, XBox 360, and Wii.
http://unity3d.com/gallery/made-with-unity/game-list
Also, [/r/gamedev](/r/gamedev)
You are correct, license information is here for anyone that wants to take a closer look.
A quick comparison with Unity, the free version of Unity is available for use until $100,000 is earned, then an upgrade to Unity Pro for $1500. Important to mention that Unity Pro includes features that the free version does not.
This might not be what you want to hear, but I would recommend learning a different language for game development. Java doesn't really have the game dev frameworks that a lot of other languages have. That is unless you're looking to develop for Android. In the end, the learning a new language isn't going to be the hard part about making a game.
Think about what types of platforms you want to release games on and choose the language that fits. Personally, I would recommend C# or Python because they give you a lot of options.
Unity allows you to code in C# and Boo (a Python derivative) and you can publish to PC, Mac, iOS, Android (in beta), and web versions.
C# also lets you use XNA, the Microsoft game dev framework for publishing to PC, Xbox, or Windows 7 Phone.
Pygame is supposed to be a good platform for Python, although I haven't used it myself.
I've only used Unity3D for a couple simple VR apps. It uses C# (I'd prefer Java but the syntax and concepts are similar enough).
Give this demo a try to get a feel for using Unity3D.
ROLL-A-BALL TUTORIAL
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/projects/roll-ball-tutorial
I've been keeping notes as I go and learn new things. This is what I followed to get going in VR with Unity3D.
Environment setup (for Gear VR)
Install Unity3D
Windows 10 extra step (as of Sept 4, 2015) http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/888003/getting-unity-to-work-on-windows-10.html
Install Android SDK
Don’t need to install Oculus SDK
Signature file:
A Signature file is needed to run your app. This is used to prevent you from distributing your app to the public.
Create signature file: The signature file requires your device ID to be created. You can determine your device ID with an app in the Play store or by running “adb devices” from the android SDK platform-tools. Once created, copy the signature file to your project in this folder location: ProjectFolder\Assets\Plugins\Android\assets . You can reuse the signature file for every app for development purposes, no need to create a new one each time.
10 tips for Gear VR development https://www.campfireunion.com/blog/post/25/10-things-you-need-know-developing-gear-vr
Project setup For Gear VR
Open Project Settings | Player | click the Android icon | Other Settings set the build target to android for VR, check the Virtual Reality Supported checkbox
set you Bundle Identifier in the Player settings to “com.<your company>.<your project>”
Add the signature file to the project (see steps above)
common build error, “no device found”, make sure your screen is unlocked.
This article is a good source: http://unity3d.com/showcase/case-stories/cities-skylines
"Despite the fact that Colossal Order’s Cities: Skylines was brought to Unity 5 at a relatively late stage of development, the team is hooked on the new features the new release brings with it. “We’re excited about the new features in Unity 5, which help us to bring something new to the game—even after the release,” says programmer Damien Morello."
Perhaps they've changed the text, but the EULA specifically states an exception for third party content:
" For the avoidance of doubt: (a) ... , and (b) any user of the Software may use content licensed from third parties regardless of the version of the Software that was used to develop such third party content."
source: http://unity3d.com/legal/eula
I think unless stated assets go by the default AS licensing terms: http://unity3d.com/legal/as_terms
Which says unless your employees are using the assets on computers you owned at a site owned by you, you're violating the EULA. Unless they're editor extensions then they can only be used by you on only one machine.
Like the other guy says it still depends on the asset, and it's a pretty unenforceable thing anyways. It's a bit archaic to me, as long as you purchased the asset and your team members are only using it on a project managed by you I don't see anything morally wrong with that.
I recommend Unity as well. Sounds like he's going with 2D games (not 3D) for now? Here's a basic Pong tutorial one of my friends made: http://www.awesomeincu.com/tutorials/unity-pong/ I went through it last week, and it was pretty easy to follow. Covered things like Sprites, basic code, etc. Some good entry-level project tutorials on the Unity site as well, such as Roll-A-Ball
Hi!
You can do games in any languages, you just gotta start somewhere :) If you're not too comfortable with the language or tools yet or programming in general it's probably best to start with a project that's not overly ambitious - maybe a pong clone, then extend it to Breakout, or Tetris or something like that? Your first game might not be great, but don't let that get you down - just continue, it'll get better with every single project.
For this project, we're using C# and the Unity game engine, so I'd say you made an excellent choice :) Definitely give Unity a look, its available for free and C#/Unity is fairly beginner friendly compared to other alternatives. You can make both 2D and 3D games with it, everything from small mobile phone games to ambitious PC or console games. Theres a huge community and also good tutorials that should get you started: Unity tutorials.
Games are confusing at first! There's so much from many different areas of programming that goes into them. You'll figure it out step by step :)
http://unity3d.com/gallery/made-with-unity/game-list
A list of released (?) games made in Unity. Not many heavy-hitters, but as you can see there's a lot stuff that's been made. Good games I've played: Rochard, Escape Plan, Cthulhu saves the world, Max & the Magic Marker, Splice and Oscura.
A notable game currently being made in Unity is Among the sleep:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWDQN_X5b-M
^I ^know ^the ^guys ^working ^on ^that ^game ^</brag>
There's a lot of potentially cool stuff to note about these news. The one which will probably have the biggest impact is that it will be a lot easier for smaller developers to make games for the system. It's a breeze to get stuff running in Unity, and while it's not nearly as strong an engine as for example Unreal 3, it's a lot cheaper to license.
Also, if I understand the article correctly, Nintendo can give developers the license to make games in Unity which can help them broker a lot of cool deals with, say, indie-developers. This combined with the fact that Nintendo appearantly will help the Unity guys with optimizing the engine for Wii U makes this a cool and unexpected move by Nintendo :)
Writing your own engine... well... yes, writing your own engine is certainly a good way to understand how everything really works. I'd recommend it as an exercise to someone who wants to build a simple 2d game or something like that.
But starting your first ever game project by implementing a Blender file format parser, and trying to get the output to look like OP's screenshots? That's going to be a HUGE and very boring job.
Mortrid: If you're interested in using the Blender game engine, just learn C++. It's not that different from Java.
But my personal recommendation would be to use the Unity engine - which can load Blender files, and you can program it in C#. (Which is even more like Java.)
Zombox is made in Unity.
It's difficult to give a generalized list of tips and quirks, but here are a few:
It's better to create a recyclable object pool than to continually Instantiate/Destroy
String operations are slow
Always cache your components
Use FixedUpdate over Update
Learn and use coroutines
You can create platform specific code by implementing these
Buying Pro is worth it for the profiler alone (when you first install Unity, make use of the free 30 day trial of pro features to get the hang of them)
Dynamic batching is your friend, but meshes will only dynamically batch if they share the same material, are uniformly scaled, and are not skinned meshes
Use Generic Lists (List.<T>) over built-in arrays
Start with the ones from the official site. http://unity3d.com/support/resources/tutorials/
After you've gone through the tutorial and done it line by line, play with them. Create new games from scratch that are just about the same. Don't just go through the tutorial and claim you know it. Actually build your own from scratch. (Feel free to use their models, just don't line-by-line the tutorial.) If you have to do this step 10 times before you can do it without the tutorial, do it. It won't hurt you, and you'll be miles ahead of all the people who skipped the basics.
After you understand them, look for specific tutorials or examples for the things you want to do, but can't. Follow them, then reimplement them on your own.
Keep doing that until you can build the games you want.
Question 3: I would recommend both. If you have the time... Question 4: Unity3D has VR tutorials: http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/virtual-reality There is also this: http://learn.vrdev.school/courses/vive-developer-mini but you'll have to sign up first.
Good luck.
Check out Unity's tutorials or the different Unity subreddits (/r/Unity3D, /r/unity_tutorials, /r/Unity2D, /r/gamedevtutorials, etc.). They'll have a bunch of tutorial related material posted there where you can start learning.
Unity with the Adventure Creator asset will be more than sufficient.
Right off their website:
> Adventure Creator is a fully-featured Unity extension that takes the headache out of developing your own adventure games. Its flexible design allows for traditional 2D point-and-clicks classics like Monkey Island, cinematic epics like The Walking Dead, 2.5D keyboard-controlled games like Grim Fandango and even physics-based tablet games like The Room. Adventure Creator works with both Unity Free and Unity Pro, and caters to newcomers and veterans alike.
After upgrading I had to delete my C:\ProgramData\Unity folder to reactivate the license. That's it.
As documented here under >I’m getting the error “Operating System identification seems to have changed”?
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/editor
Follow tutorials 1-7, then...
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/scripting
Follow tutorials 1-13.
From that point on, you can follow any of the other tutorials listed around the site, notably the 2D section.
In regards to your code: your sprite is probably moving well beyond the view port of both the camera and scene view. Try something like 0.1f first (always start with low values first)
No, I don't think so. Its free for personal or commercial use, but paying gives you access to paid features.
Also. Games created with the free version of unity...
>"may not be licensed by a commercial entity with annual gross revenues (based on fiscal year) in excess of US$100,000, or by an educational, non-profit or government entity with an annual budget of over US$100,000."
Source: http://unity3d.com/unity/faq
I'm voting this down because it doesn't seem very constructive.
It feels like you have a very short attention span and when things don't immediately work out you start a blame game.
To just address a few points:
Unity's unit-to-pixel ratio is customizable. Typing "unity unit scale" in google yields about 10000 results which explain how to modify it.
You can use absolutely any editor you want to write scripts, even notepad, although I recommend Visual Studio. You can even change which editor opens automatically when you double click a script file in the editor preferences.
There is a pretty solid beginner tutorial available for Unity2D right here: http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/2d/2d-overview
This is not to say Unity is perfect, it's not. But you should at least be making decisions based on the right information.
> One addition to the unity pricing is if you want to use the asset server (their version control) you have to pay an extra $500.
Unity functions very well using git, if you change the unity scenes to be text format, and use a reasonable.gitignore file.
> Also if you for example only want to develop for iOS you still have to pay the base price of $1500 plus the iOS Pro which is another $1500.
True, but you can still publish to iOS using Unity free.
> Also, one unity license is good for two computers.
Not really. From the FAQ:
> How many machines can I install my copy of Unity on?
Every paid commercial Unity license allows a single person to use Unity on two machines.
(emphasis not mine). This means you need a license per user, not per computer.
My theory is that it's related to a bug in the Unity engine, and they have to wait until Unity releases a new version before it will be fixed. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of these persistent bugs are outside their control.
Unity Would be excellent for this; extremely simple scene set up (just drag & drop your model into the scene view), and the scripting is very simple, and very easy to learn.
Good luck!
You're mixing quaternions with euler angles. http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/ScriptReference/Transform-eulerAngles.html
Try this (untested code): if(transform.eulerAngles.z >= 75) { transform.eulerAngles = Vector3(transform.eulerAngles.x, transform.eulerAngles.y, 75); }
For resetting rotation on release:
if(Input.GetButtonUp("Left")) { transform.rotation = Quaternion.identity; }
Event driven approach is great, that github is overkill, if you want to learn more check.
important note. when you register an event you must unregister it.
http://unity3d.com/es/learn/tutorials/topics/scripting/events?playlist=17117
Let's start by saying that Unity and Playmaker can accomplish A LOT. Hearthstone was built using both
On the other hand, you can do any type of game in 2D in Unity, you can check out their showcase here for 2D games.
From personal experience (I won't link to my WIP game or blog as that might be taken as self promotion but it is easy to find them through my profile), Unity 2D is capable of doing anything. I have tried Unity + Playmaker and I was able to accomplish much.
While now I am using C# with Unity, previously the same amount of progress was made in Unity + Playmaker and the results were the same.
Most assets on the store already come with support for Playmaker as it is the most commonly used FSM visual scripter for Unity. The support for Playmaker is wonderful as I have had a ton of questions before and the forums are active. People tend to try and answer questions and Jean Fabre (one of the people directly working on Playmaker) is very active on the forums.
That said, since you mentioned you have intermediate experience with Java, C# shouldn't be hard to pick up since mostly they are really similar (from my limited exposure to Java is what I felt).
Game Maker is capable of making 2D games, so as Unity. Unity is cheaper and more powerful than Game Maker (but at the end of the day, Game Maker specializes in 2D while Unity is more powerful due to supporting many things more than Game Maker natively such as 3D). It doesn't matter which you use as long as you can use it and feel comfortable with it. Both have solid track records of great games made with them.
Hope that helps.
I'm a big fan of Unity, and find it very nice. Seeing as you've never programmed before they have EXCELLENT videos going over all the basics and intermediate. I'm just finishing my computer science degree and with what is in the videos linked below is most of what is covered in a first/second year course
Start with C#. For me making a game in UnityScript was really painful.
Also don't start with anything big. I'd recommend finishing every project in this tutorial section before making your own game - it really, really helps - http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials
No, its not worth it for unity. The tutorials for unity are old and outdated. They focus a lot more on blender and other art stuffs.
The unity3d.com tutorials are really good. http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials
These are even better for learning. http://unity3d.com/learn/live-training
It'll be possible to reenable NPAPI with a flag until September, for whatever that's worth.
Unity 5 is out, and contains support for building to Javascript that doesn't require plugins, so maybe TNT will buy Unity 5 and release a new Chrome-compatible build?
> For Unity 5 Personal Edition > > May not be licensed or used by a commercial entity with annual gross revenues (based on prior fiscal year) in excess of US$100,000, or by an educational, academic, non-profit or government entity with a total annual budget for the entire entity (based on prior fiscal year) in excess of US$100,000.
If your indie team makes a game and you make over $100K, does that not qualify you as "a commercial entity with annual gross revenues in excess of US$100000"?
Unity actually did a live training session on this that I think is better that using PlayerPerf. Especially if you trying to keep players from cheating at you game. http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/live-training-archive/persistence-data-saving-loading
Something I'm yet to see anyone mention... Unity 5 Personal brings all the features of the engine... except customizable splash screens?
Source: http://unity3d.com/get-unity
I mean, yes you get all the features of the Pro engine, but in the end of the day you launch your product and the first 30 secs the person sees is the Unity default loading screen.
~~Once the site starts working again, I'll try to find out!~~
From what I can tell, the links for the Mobile Pro plugins have not been updated, so a license comparison cannot be made. BUT... Honestly it looks like the limitations are the same ones for PC Pro: Splash page, skin, cloud, etc.
All ENGINE specific features, regardless of build target, are open to all Free users.
The pro features I use most are post process effects like Bloom, Vignetting, Motion Blur etc. I also use Render Textures in multiple different ways.
There isn't a big difference between Basic and Pro but the differences are just enough that it's very hard to make a nice looking game in Basic.
Post process effects alone can make a significant difference. Then there is stuff like NavMesh, Occlusion culling, and deferred rendering.
You can compare the differences here: http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses
The release notes for Unity 5 beta 9 here list
> Asset Store: The asset store window is now much faster, more responsive, and looks better.
and I did notice a significant decrease in page load times in the Unity 5 beta, as well as a few small UI and behavior tweaks that make it a little more user friendly. Still not perfect though.
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/ui/ui-canvas
"The default canvas type has a checkbox called "Pixel Perfect", this option will..."
I swear. Every time Unity releases any update I nerdgasm.
Unreal Engine 4 - $19/month + 5% of revenue
Unity 4 (and later 5) - Free version, pro version available
Godot - Free, open source, licensed by MIT
EDIT: changed backed by MIT to licensed by MIT, suppose I should read all the words and not just a few D:
If you're wanting to write applications for IOS (iPad, iPhone), you might want to look into some alternatives.
- PhoneGap: http://phonegap.com/
- Unity3d: http://unity3d.com/
I'm sure there are more. But those two will let you build applications in a nicer environment than Xcode. That said, you will still need Xcode since both PhoneGap and Unity3d use Xcode to compile and deploy to IOS. The good news is you wouldn't be building the applications in Xcode. :)
depends on what you want to do. I love the unity videos they put up. helped me learn a lot about the program before I even tried to do anything. http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules
Check out editor, graphics and physics for a good starting understanding of it. I already know how to program and i already knew my way around Blender which has some similar properties so i don't know hard it is for others. Once you know what the program is about you can watch the scripting videos and learn programming with it. I think its a good way to learn how to program but some don't.
If you're working directly in OpenGL or similar, potentially. But using a modern engine line Unity or Unreal, they've done most of that work for you. It largely boils down to just understanding moving things in 3D space: X, Y, Z and rotation. (In Unity, rotations can be confusing - but there are helper functions)
I started my first foray into 3D game development (having done some 2D before that) about a year ago with Unity. Even if you don't plan on using Unity, check out this 9 minute tutorial on Vector Maths. Until you have a specific need to do something harder, which will require more research, it's the hardest kind of thing you're likely to run into.
I'm not sure what the experiment is about, but the fact that you copied the basics from a Unity3D demo game, complete with the voice clips and enemy mechanics doesn't create many opportunities for interesting gameplay.
More life does not automatically make a harder enemy.
Building layouts should be more varied, this includes random signposts.
If you wanted the building to look more realistic, why were the "hallways" so bland and boring compared to the rooms themselves? Why couldn't any of the doors open, or at least have doors opening in the route you HAD to take, so to make the place seem more realistic?
Speaking of realism, why were only a few of the environmental elements able to be interacted with? There are several bags and bottles that I wanted to be able to step on or move, but couldn't be moved to begin with.
I left other thoughts on the end of the video as I was doing the survey.
My point was that it runs on OpenSuse. Because if You would look at http://unity3d.com/unity/4/faq ("What hardware/software configurations will be supported?") You will find that there is only one officially supported distribution -- Ubuntu.
Mad is an understatement. Microsoft itself released a game for iOS using Unity, which uses Mono. Yes, Microsoft released a game for an Apple device using what was originally intended to be a Linux port of a Windows software development technology.
>I personally wouldn't use Unity though as it "has no debugger".
Quite a few unity actually. (Less sure on game maker.)
Here, looking down this list should be fun. Games made in Unity A lot of things on steam in there.
The example project that comes with Unity is quite good and will help you get started (more available on the official site).
If you're already a programmer, these video tutorials from BurgZerg are also very useful.
Well, the game is made in Unity, the browser plugin is standard for Unity projects, it's the easiest way to export your project for testing.
That said, Unity is pretty good for an all-in-one game engine. It has really taken off in the iPhone and Android space - it makes game dev on those platforms really easy (if not necessarily as efficient as native dev tools).
It sounds like he wants to do two things. Learn to program and learn to make games.
The answer to both is absolutely he can.
He can learn to program with C++ with that laptop. His laptop is more exponentially more powerful then the common machines when C++ was introduced.
He can also make games with that laptop too. At a minimum he can create 2D and 3D games with it. Unity 3D should actually work just fine according to the Unity system requirements. He could also use a lightweight 2D Engine or framework.