A more personal introduction.

[Lord Ash]

love this site, I've been looking for a place like this for a while now.
couple a questions...

where is the official, "I'm trying to learn something and I have question, have searched or want specifics to my case" thread ?
yes I want to ask how to UV again, and sweep, and specular map, etc.
want to hear it personally I guess

Is this site pro only, or are indies welcome ?

A bit about me, I've Introduced myself in the appropriate thread, but for simplicity, I'm 28, trying to get a studio of the ground for several years. I read a lot of tuts and forums, but I am blown away by the skills I see around the net. I have never worked on a game other than testing some freeware engines, and a dash of GameMaker, which I did buy a copy of. I have never owned a serious FPS. I'm content playing ChronoTrigger.( after ten years I finally decided to not kill Magus, just got him last night) I had PS2, games I had were StarOcean: Till the End of Time, SoulCalliber, Arc the Lad, etc. 'Tekken whatever' was a staple. Dynasty Warriors, things like that. Most of what I see is FPS related. Only AAA game I'm getting anytime soon is Neverwinter 2, Atari say the campaign editor is exactly the same tools the developers used. Sounds good to me, should look good on a resume` I would think. Like if you did a "killer mod" with it.

I work in gameSpace, which seems to get a lot of bad rap. I like it, it's cheap, it's fluid, I get more done there than in blender or "generic freeware 3D". Caligari has been an innovator for as long as Max and Lightwave have, and they make good software.. Working out a deal with the developers to get the full version of the software, yes $300 is out of my price range. I am getting Real Adobe Software, (after years of screwing around with Pixia, "The Gimp", and "generic freeware Paint") software in a couple of days(the current Web Bundle), but according to Adobe, I dont have enough ram. Go figure. My loans come in a month though, so I should be OK.

Games are my life. After almost twenty years of trying to achieve my dreams, I am forced to wonder, can I make it, will I be able to develop the skills to work along side you guys. Compete hell, I'd love to be able to hire half you people. I want to make games, but I cant code. I'm not that good a modeler, much less animation. I attached a screencap of a beauty render I did for work. All that stuff is going in the content pack I mentioned. I'm really aiming for low-poly, and a good purchase for indies and small game studios. I want to make sure my work is quality. I'll post some wires in the WIP section after this, I could really use some crit on my work, especially before I go public.

UV makes my brain hurt. This stuff is hard. Modeling texturing and animating are hard. Rigging fascinates me. I can come up with a 6 hit combo that makes sense, and puts DBZ to shame. I've designed better dungeons sitting on the can, than half of what I've played in games. Need a magic system, I have 20 of em. I've spent 20 years fleshing out my Pen and Paper RPG, which I'm self publishing THIS YEAR. (there, now I have to...) It has 13 unique planes, the first of which is detailed in the core rules. The others will be covered in an expansion that also covers world creation in it's system. My website has a list of projects to keep me busy for the next 20 years, and I have a new one I want to add, it just came to me in a dream. I've got stuff I want to do ranging from simple games that should take two or three months, to commercial games that will take thousands of man hours. Everyday, I wish I'd taken more math, just so I could grasp a shred of code. Glad I'm back in college.

I learned more about Normal Mapping and what it is, in 2 hours here, as opposed to 3 days on google and the wikipedia. I hope to be of value to this forum, and to learn as much as I can while I'm here. I'll give your eyes a rest, and post some wires, I'd really like to see what you guys think.

thank you,
'ash'

[andrei313]

Where to start... I think with the questions.
The best way to learn is by practice. So I would say when you start something post it here and ask for help if you need it. There are a lot of people that want to help out. Just saying that you want to learn more about UVs will not help a lot, show us what you're trying to UV and what you've been able to do by yourself and we'll try to point you in the right direction.
This site is not is not for showing off our work and feel good about ourself. Personally I'm doing this because 90% of what I know came from forums like this one and I want to give a little back to the community now that I have some basic knowledge. But I'm FAR from a pro and I'm still learning a lot of new things here everyday.
From you're introduction I'm not sure what you want to do We all want to make games... but one person can't do everything, it is too hard and it takes too much time. What exacly do you want to do? Model, texture, animate, rig, code, level design?

[Lord Ash]

I want to run a studio. I have no problem working on other peoples games until I get there, but ultimately I want Lead Creative Developer. I know it's the hardest position to attain, but I believe in myself. For the time being I want to be able to model, texture, and do simple animations, i.e. doors, gears, waterwheels, etc. From there more serious level design and scene layout. Eventually I'd like to rig with some accuracy. I need to know enogh code to talk to a coder, and understand what they are saying, and what limitations there are. I need to script, and write scripts(dialog). I need to know enough sound to lay out loops, and tell a sound guy what I want. So yeah I've got wear a lot of hats, but I want to focus in modeling and mission/campaign creation. I make worlds, right now I'm getting down the "stuff to go in them" department.

I see the "Hollywood" side of the industry, and I would love to see my name under animator, level editor, or modeler in the credits of a "AAA" title. I also see, and am decidedly a part of, the "indy" side of things as well. The "Paperback Book" era of game design is here. So "Game Author" isn't a horribly mis-chosen job-title. Games are Art = Game Artist. Atleast that's the idea.

Other than to learn some new things, I guess I'm here as much to communicate with others in the industry, not a lot of game-devin' going on in Wichita...

[Pankake]

I think you have the right idea about working yur way up through the ranks to get where you want, nothing worse than working for someone that doesn't know much, if anything about the technical side of things.

I look forward to seeing your work in the future, for that's the time when you will get some serious help - art wise.

Aaron.