Some quick noob questions

[tbergeron]

Hi!

I'd like to learn how to correctly use the UDK. Because I always wanted to create some games just for fun... And maybe in the future, professionally.

I have a very good working knowledge in C/Objective-C and some C++. I work with a lot of web programming language as well such as PHP/Ruby/ASP, etc.

What I'd like to learn is how to make a complete game, including every aspects of it. I started to look at some nice video tutorials and I played quite a bit with the terrain editor. Thanks to the ressources listed here:
http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?p=27211296

What I'd like to have more then this list is a good reference, a complete book or something that I could read. Because you know, maybe I can program some shiny things, but I must learn all those concepts hidden in game programmation.

UDK seems to be easiest/most common/best free/etc/etc. So I really believe that I should invest quite some time into this.

I have passion, and time to learn.

In the end what I'd like to create is maybe some kind of RPG, maybe an MMO, I still don't know and I'm far from comfortable about talking about projects that I still don't know how to make yet...

Any good starting tips (not listed in the forum post below) is welcome.

Thanks a lot for your understanding and your time!

[UnspoiledWalnut]

There's a book on it. I forget what it's called though.... You won't be making an MMO with this very easily because the client doesn't support more than 64 players, and unless you can figure out how to code a new server without the source then I don't think it's gonna happen. And modelling and texturing and animating all have lots of tutorials on them for whatever program you want to use for that. Blender is free, although I think it's borderline useless since whoever designed the UI obviously didn't do it with the intention of anyone else being able to understand it. The engine uses UnrealScript which is kinda like C++ I guess, and has Kismet which is GUI. For modelling I have 3DS Max and Zbrush because I like them the most, but they're kind of expensive, and Photoshop and a digital camera for textures.

[tbergeron]

Thanks for your quick answer! I read about the 64 player limit of the engine... Do you know anything else I could do it with? If not, then is it possible to have the source?

I already have 3DS Max. Need to learn a bit more about how to use it though... I'll check out ZBrush. And yeah I totally agree with you about Bender, every time I installed it, I'm like WTF? and I uninstall it...

I read a bit about the UnrealScript and it doesn't seem to be difficult to learn, so that's reassuring...

I only want someone to point me in the right direction. I'd like to learn all the basics, but I still don't know what I should use. If I can't do an MMO with this engine, that'll be lame since the UDK seems very complete...

Thanks!

[UnspoiledWalnut]

I don't know if you can write a new client without the source. You CAN get the source if you buy a full license, but then you're going to be shelling out like thirty grand or something. I would buy an indie engine the includes the source or one that has MMO support integrated like Shiva or BigWorld or something. I don't really see why there would be an issue with it not being capable of being able to make an MMO, I mean it's a free version of a highly acclaimed and incredibly expensive game engine only without the source. It wasn't ever designed with an MMO in mind, I mean look at the games. UT and Gears of War are the big ones, not remotely something that would require thousands of players. Most engines aren't designed with that kind of support. If you DID get the source version it's possible, I forget what it's called but there is something that is designed for it but like I said you need the source which comes with a full version.

Zbrush is a sculpting tool, not modelling so you can't do animation and will need to retopologize which if you have Polyboost or the Graphite tools you can do in 3DS Max, or use the tools in Zbrush or a third party tool like Topogun or 3D Coat. There's Mudbox too, for sculpting, by Autodesk, but I don't like that very much.

If you want a game engine with the source there's C4, which is 350 dollars per seat unless you have a major publisher then you need to get a professional license, but you can just upgrade to that later if needed. Shiva is a couple hundred as well, no source but it has server support for up to 2000 players per game instance I think. It also has a PLE version that has the majority of the tools, minus export and a few other things. There's also the I Novae engine being used by the team working on Infinity, which they say they will be licensing out when it's finished but I know that there is at least one other project that is using it to make a more realistic game like Spore. Infinity is an MMO though so I don't know if they'd be too keen for releasing it to someone else with that same goal.

You MIGHT be able to set up a really weird server system with the UDK for a quasi MMO, but it would require a lot of servers I think. If it would work, which I have no clue as to whether or not it would or not, you would need to set up several game instances for each part of the MMO's world and then the player would just jump between them as they moved around. No idea where you would even begin setting something like that up to see if it would work, but it might be a way around it.

There's also DLLBind which kind of alleviates not having the source since you can bind other applications to the game, but it's got limitations since it doesn't get access to everything.

But yeah, if you want to make an MMO this isn't the engine for you. There are other engines designed for that, but not this one. With that aside, it is still a really good engine for other things, if you look through the WIP thread there's a lot of really good work that's been done. I personally wouldn't recommend that you start with an MMO if you haven't any experience in the field, but that's not my decision. There are a couple of people on the team I work with that are making plans for one (and need to condense their plans because I have a two hundred page stack of paper about it that I have no intention of reading), and it's just not a small project. You'll need lots of servers with a good connection, backups in case the primary servers are down, probably a lot of models and animations and space. Runescape I think was actually made by two people originally, so it's not impossible, but just not the first thing I would do.

You could be like me though, and get really bored with one project. I have like ten altogether that I'm working on, I know a couple that I'm probably going to drop and two that I'm focusing on, and then another one that I'm kinda doing in the background that won't be done for a long time.

[tbergeron]

Wow, thanks for the great post. It helps me a lot!

First, I'd like to say that my main goal isn't to make an MMO first. I'd like to learn the gaming creation basics and then (maybe in 1-2-3-4-5 years who knows) I'll try to make some MMO or something similar.

For now, I'm by myself, without too much money to spend on engines, etc. But I'll try to make my way through all of this and choose what seems to be the best for what I'd like to do.

I know that it's possible to do an mmo with UDK since APB (www.apb.com) is doing it. But I think instances are 100 persons max per instance so... It's not quite optimal for an MMO.

I'll try to check out the applications you told me about, there's a lot of stuff to do/read! Learning to use an engine is a whole world. Learning to do 3d is another whole world... So I'll be learning quite a lot of thing at the same time...

I guess that's why people takes university courses to learn it. It just seems to have so much things to learn at the same time

Finally, I sure am like you as I'm always running many many projects at once and always get bored with them too fast, etc etc.

Thanks a lot for your time, you gave me very good opinions and directions. I'll check everything out when I'll get back home! Thanks again And if you have any other things to add, do not hesitate

[UnspoiledWalnut]

haha, yeah that's kind of our goal. We have so many projects that have been thrown out that everyone WANTS to do, but realistically it probably isn't going to happen unless we're churning out games every six months.

They might be doing the same thing that I pointed out, I don't know enough about running servers to tell you much other than my off the head theory. I don't know anything about that though.

Most people don't know how to do EVERYTHING in the game. There will be texture artists who can't figure out for the life of them how to run 3D software, just like I can't draw anything I have to use pictures. People that program probably can't do much of that either, they're just good at math and codes. Level Designers... well I'm not really sure if that's an actual position or not, but I guess people that can make maps and stuff. Cartographers of sorts. I really only know how to do 3D because I took classes in high school, and I'm studying computer science and architecture right now so I'm getting a bit better with the programming. I suck at level design, and I can't draw at all. I tried a while ago and ended up with some partial stick figure demon things, for textures 90% of the time I use imagines that I somehow manage to crop and place onto the mesh that it looks good, when you look at the image it's a matrix of WTF. UVW's too! I forgot about those, unwrapping the UV is a ***** I hate it.

[tbergeron]

ahahah. Okay I was pretty sure that programmers were not doing the design etc..

It's like where I work, there's web designer, and programmers. No one does all the stuff by himself...

But anyways, I'd like to learn a bit of everything just to be able to create something for the fun of it. But my future goal would be to learn how to program games and maybe find a job in that area.

For now I think I'll try to find out 3d models, textures, etc on google just to test out. I don't see me doing massive 3d models anytime soon :P

But I'm surely interested in all those areas... Ah so much things I could learn! It's becoming hard to know where to go, what to do, etc. I can't wait to come back home and learn some stuff. I had a great lot of fun yesterday playing with the UDK terrain editor :P

[UnspoiledWalnut]

It's good to know, to decide what you like to do. I really don't like modelling that much, I think it gets really tedious and annoying, but I like to do retopology for some reason. I like programming too but I don't know enough to really do anything. Trying to teach myself C and C++, or at least C++ since most things are written in that.

But yeah, there are a lot of different fields of it. Play around, decide what you like the most and focus on that. I doubt that there will be a development team that wouldn't think more of you if you knew your subject really well and then a bit about the rest of it. But really, the core things are modelling, level design, and programming. And by modelling I'm grouping CG artists into one thing, since there are a lot of different things (I know that studios have people who only work on weapons, people who only work on characters, etc. Epic can back me up I think, since they narrators of the tutorials introduce themselves as "character designer" or something).

But yeah, best way to go is to just play around like you're doing for a while, get the basics down and then you can either go through all of the tutorials, which I don't do, or just figure out exactly what you want to do and skip everything else and figure out how to do that, which is what I do (so I have no clue how to do a lot of things, but... I don't care because I don't need to keyframe a ball bouncing around in 3DS Max, and chances are neither does anyone else except for to do that tutorial. Now, if the ball were to bounce and then blow up while shaped suspiciously like a grenade, that would be useful).