I remember when I started learning about game development, the thrill I always feel anytime I discover a new game engine and how my face lit up whenever I"m reading about the engine features. I wasted a lot of time performing searches in multiple tabs of a brower and even sometimes used different browsers to access different search engines. It was later I got to realise that I had wasted too much time on the minor things with little efforts dedicated to the really important stuffs.So I'm going to share some tips and what I think newbie developers should avoid while learning game development.
Avoid game engines battle royale
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Though its good to explore the features provided by different game engines, spending too much time on this leads to a situation where you start pitching one engine against another. At first your comparison look like this: shiva vs 3D Game studio, shiva vs Unreal Engine, vs CryEngine, Unity vs CryEngine, then before your know it your comparison turns back on itself and you have started comparing Unity with Shiva. So compare but once you see a game engine that has all or most features you are looking for, make it your engine of choice.
Learn one 3D content(assets) creation package
(At first this might seem to you as not being needed,since you can get free 3d contents online or through the market place of the engine you are using.In the game engine, you will be manipulating these objects by changing the object properties such as transform, scale, rotaion, materials and textures among other things. So understanding the basic concepts of 3D modelling and animation will help a lot.
Learn the basics of computer programming
In game engine such as UnrealEnging 4, you can create a fully functional game without writing a single line of program, thanks to Blueprint Scripting.This does not mean that you will not be dealing with programming terms such as, data types, looping, functions, object class, superclass and inheritance among other things.So dedicate time to read up on this concepts.
Start with small projects, Dont shoot for the moon yet
Don't make Call of Duty type games your first independent game project, start with small projects thet implement simple game mechanics and game logic.