I'm a budding game designer (no real experience in other words) who wants to make a survival horror cover shooter. What i want to know is if anyone knows where I can suitable animated weapons, items and maybe enemies (I have no experience in animation or modeling). Also, as this is likely to start as a mod, could someone point me in the right direction of a game to modify or easy to use game design software?
Game design help
- Thread starter Sam Aldam
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All I know is Source is good for animation if you know how to use It But Unreal is easier If I'm correct.(probably not though)
Sigh... you will not be able to come up with a good game borrowing animations, models and textures from sites. I go to school for game programming and know this to be true. Everything that I have ever seen that was quality, everything was made from scratch using tools like Blender, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Photoshop, Audacity and any game engine out there. It is a learning process and if you want to become good at making games you either need to learn how to animate/modelling or find someone who will do this (an artist friend of yours or someone online) and work together on a game.
I imagine Gears of War with Zombies/Monsters/Ghosts. A good engine to use would be the Unreal one. Source engine is pretty good but you probably have to do a lot of hard coding.
If this is your first game you are attempting btw, don't do 3D. Come up with a 2d game and work your way up. You can't grasp the complexities of 3D right off the bat without handling making a 2D game first.
Plus if you want to DESIGN a game, you can do this without ever doing any coding. A lot of writing though. Games take months to make and the first step is always writing out what you want in the game. It is called a Design Document. Google Video Game Design Document and you will find examples I am sure. You need to make one of these before you even begin toying with graphics and engines and such.
I imagine Gears of War with Zombies/Monsters/Ghosts. A good engine to use would be the Unreal one. Source engine is pretty good but you probably have to do a lot of hard coding.
If this is your first game you are attempting btw, don't do 3D. Come up with a 2d game and work your way up. You can't grasp the complexities of 3D right off the bat without handling making a 2D game first.
Plus if you want to DESIGN a game, you can do this without ever doing any coding. A lot of writing though. Games take months to make and the first step is always writing out what you want in the game. It is called a Design Document. Google Video Game Design Document and you will find examples I am sure. You need to make one of these before you even begin toying with graphics and engines and such.
Hmmmm, well I actually have a plan written up, but I can't actually use it, I was contemplating using First Person Shooter Creator, but all the games I've made in that have been crap. I was thinking of something along the lines of Splinter Cell combined with Silent Hill.
You have to remember that creating a 3D game is a huge painstaking, horrible and at times rather boring process.Sam Aldam said:
And borrowing models and other assets will never get you far.
In fact, if you are serious about this whole game-design business, I would recommend that you take a two-fold path.
First of all, write up a couple of boilerplate designs, thought experiments if you will. Write them like they were actual design documents. As auronvi mentioned, a quick google should provide you with some examples you can look at.
Show these documents to you friends for critique, hell, publish them here, I am sure there are many of us who can help out at least a little bit. There are even some members with actual industry experience as well (if I remember correctly, there used to be a guy from BioWare hanging out around here for example).
Secondly, download a free game engine, personally I'd recommend source, it seems easy enough to work with, and has (unlike many others) lot's of great documentation available at the Valve Developer Wiki [http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page]. Play around with it, never mind assets, story or design, for your first project, do something extremely simple, make a small room where you can shoot Gordon Freeman copies or whatever.
Keep it simple at first, and learn the engine, you will never get anywhere if you lack the will to explore and learn, curiosity is a great asset.
When you feel that you know the engine properly, you could get started on your first project, this time, write a proper design document, pass it around, if people seem to think it's an all right idea (doesn't have to be outstanding), the go for it. But once again, you'll want to keep it simple, use Source's built-in assets. Make a small mod, with some simple story, and some simple modifications to gameplay. Keep going until you've had some experience, until you feel that you get a hang of the workflow, and understand how the process works. Then you can try working with custom assets, either by learning (for example) 3D-modelling yourself, or assemble a mod team together with your friends, or with complete strangers.
Modding in general is a great way to learn quite a bit about how game design works, without having to do everything from the ground up, and it can be great fun as well.
Last but not least: Good Luck, hope you get somewhere, and I hope you have fun doing it.
And do not forget to read the documentation, whatever you do.
I've personally not worked with Source, only looked at it, the documentation, and the projects spawned from it. And it seems somewhat easier to work with than Unreal (which I have worked with), especially considering the amount of documentation available for Source, compared to Unreal.SleepyOtter said:
Don't get me wrong, Unreal is a very powerful engine, but I think you need quite some experience in game design in general, as well as in the Unreal Engine in particular, before you attempt creating anything with it.
Despite the fact that using other people's assets will severely limit the scope of your game, it is not necessarily a bad thing if you just want to use them as stand ins for your prototype. After all, getting the engine straight can take some time, and if you have to worry about the 3D assets at the same time, it might get a little overwhelming.
But listen to the guys above, dude.
But listen to the guys above, dude.
Ok, sorry for the double post here, what I am wanting to do is create a prototype for a game, I'm experienced with level design software, just haven't used Source or Unreal. Are there resources like pre-made weapons and enemies I can use to demonstrate what I want to do?
You need to open up steam, click on the library tab and then the tools subtab and install source SDK, If you want to make a new game you will need to learn some coding no matter what, If you want to create a level or a set of levels for an existing game just open source SDK, select the game you want to make a level for and then open up Hammer.
If you want help with making a mod or a game you may want to consider looking at a site such as www.fpsbanana.com and posting in the DevHub section. The pre built resources are in the entities section of Hammer.
I recommend that you find tutorials online, www.3Dbuzz.com has some decent HL2 tutorials which has lessons applicable to the Hammer editor as a whole
If you want help with making a mod or a game you may want to consider looking at a site such as www.fpsbanana.com and posting in the DevHub section. The pre built resources are in the entities section of Hammer.
I recommend that you find tutorials online, www.3Dbuzz.com has some decent HL2 tutorials which has lessons applicable to the Hammer editor as a whole
I appreciate the help