hey,
my names mike im 14 and ireally wanna get into the game development work. i was at borders and i saw a character development with maya, is maya a good program to begin developing.
my main question is wat program shoudl i learn about, wat is the best program out there, in the acpect of developing characters and creating a game.
ps wat stuff do they use to create like xbox games and pc games?
There are a lot of different jobs in game development:
game designer - decides how the game is going to work
programmer - writes the code that makes the computer / console play the game
modeler - creates the 3D shapes for the characters and props in the game
animator - creates the motions for the characters move around in the game.
level designer - creates the ground, buildings, sky, etc. for the game world
tester - plays the game over and over again to find bugs
audio guy - does the sound effects and music
Sometimes you can do more than one job, but mostly people specialize.
So the first thing you want to do is decide which of these areas you’re interested in. If you want to be a modeler or animator or level designer, than Maya is a great program to learn. It and 3D Studio Max are the two most popular for current game development.
If you want to be a game designer or programmer, then you don’t really need Maya. Try getting a beginner’s game engine like “Dark Basic” or “Blitz Basic”, and use it to create some games. (Also consider going to the web site gamedev.net - that’s a better site for game designers and programmers than cgtalk. cgtalk is mostly for modelers and animators.)
Good luck!
P.S. Oh yeah, for Xbox and PS2 games they mostly use Max and Maya for the art, and use C++ for the game code. You can go to www.gamasutra.com, and register, and read a bunch of articles, called “Post Mortems” on how many different video games were written. Sometimes these articles say how many people worked on a game, and what programs they used to create it. Max and Maya are the most common tools used for professional console video game 3D graphics.
i would really like to b the modeler animator and lvl designer lol so i should pic maya lol,
but should i learn about c and c++ language?
o an i was at borders and i saw a book wit a programn called game character design with maya is dat sometin i should get?
That’s an OK book, but I don’t know if it’s right for you or not. I think it’s kind of advanced for a beginner.
C++ is pretty hard to learn, I wouldn’t try if I wasn’t mostly interested in programming.
You might want to download the free Maya Personal Learning Edition from alias’s web site, and run through the tutorials that come with it first. Then, look at that Borders book again and see if it still looks good to you.
gmax (which is the free game version of 3D Studio Max) also comes with some good free tutorials.
A lot of animators say that videos are better than books for learning. So you might want to search around the web for free tutorial videos. I guess it depends on each person though.
It depends.
Programming knowledge could be usefull when you must design/program ways for the game to access the visual content (models, levels, textures, materials, etc).
But I do think it is important to have some basic programming knowledge. I think it is important for an artist to know whats possible or not possible to achieve. You don’t have to program your own game-engine, but most companies require that you have some basic knowledge about how a game works internaly, which API’s are used (OpenGL/Direct3D, etc) and what the posibilities are of those API’s.
Mikey, it sounds like you are wanting to go down the art path in development. If this is the case, I would recommend working on traditional art skills. Get a sketchbook, look for books on drawing, take some classes on drawing and painting and so on. The more you learn about tradtional art and grow as an artist, the better you’ll be as an artist in game development. In terms of learning software, thats probably not as important right now. If you just can’t keep your hands off it, I would look at either Maya, XSI or Max. But honestly, I would stick to traditional media for now and really work on your portfolio so you’ll be ready to apply to art schools when the time comes.
ok if you are still unsure try reading this it explains alot and takes u through making a fps
3D Game Programming All in One (Course Technology PTR Game Development Series) (Paperback)
You can find a lot of great free video tutorials @ www.3dbuzz.com
Some stuff is only for paying members but most of the content is for free.
You will find there tutorials for nearly all important programs like maya, xsi, 3ds max and many more!
Also videos about openGl coding and generall stuff like human ik and so on.
Its a realy great site!
Speaking as a comp-sci grad who did two years of development with video games, trying to get a bit of a background in C++ can’t hurt. Especially since a lot of languages are derived from the same form and syntax that C++ uses. In teaching classes on this stuff, I’ve found that the best way to learn C++ is to take a workshop on it, but bear in mind, once you’ve gotten the foundation for anything in computers, the only real way to expand is to practice and then practice more and when you have time, to keep practicing.
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