PC Game Design Questions

[Krado]

Well, I know one thing.  Running around like a chicken with your head cut off wastes your time.  Determine what you want to do and focus on that. Talk to people who already know how to do what you're interested in.  If you don't know the answer to something, there's no such thing as a stupid question.  Study! Study! Study, until your eyes rotate in opposite directions...

[satori]

Couldn't agree more, still, there's nothing wrong with some hands on experience while you're studying.

[V]

I'm with chiQ on this one. modding and polycount.com also register on CGTalk.com and CGchat.com and do as many of their challanges as u can, good ways to get noticed.

School is good for learning the basics and wasting a ton of time and money, and it won't teach u how to be really good, you will have to learn on your own. even if you go to any of the specialized schools like fullsail or digipen, or the upcoming guildhall... u'll still need time and lots of practice in your own time to build up a kickass portfolio.

I found that it really helps when u know someone who is in the industry for guidance and stuff, or just someone who really knows what they're doing. I met lots of people through modding and they've all been of great help.

[thugcore]

I just wanted to reply by saying that all of the feedback I'm getting is awesome ... thanks a lot to all of you!

[Krado]

School?  Well, that's an idea!  I'm just studying tutorials until my eyeballs feel like they've been swimming in lava.  Mutliple formats and expensive programs (New 3DS Max = $3100.00 to $3500.00) makes hands on a little hard at the moment.  I had hate spending large amounts of cash and looking at the screen and going duh... now what?

[jmichl]

You don't have to get one of the expensive modelling programs.  I use Milkshape 3D, which is something around 20 or 30 dollars (US).

[Krado]

quote:Originally posted by Miles Invictus:
You don't have to get one of the expensive modelling programs.  I use Milkshape 3D, which is something around 20 or 30 dollars (US).

Thanks!  I saw that today while I was darting from site to site and I also found OpenFX.  It appears to be free, 44meg download though.  These sound like a good way to get the "hands on" experience being discussed.  But I'll MilkShape 3D seemed the best plus there's tutorials for it! ¶=0)

[Bad Sector]

You can also use Blender, which is opensource (with whatever that means in cost ;-). Also you can Use Open3D or other stuff. Check out http://www.freshmeat.net/ for other free/opensource tools you may want to use. They're been made to be used for such cases, so why don't use them since they're free? :-)

It's like the linux case: linux is better, but people prefer windows because they pay for them... (ok, ok, i know that the microsoft marketing blurb helps a bit, but i'm just pretending that i don't know it ;-).