Post by pixelghost on Mar 6, 2014 13:58:31 GMT -5
for those curious or still not sure how to approach the development process, here is the break down and resources i use for created content that will be commercial and ready for play.
each area of this post will be broken down into sections from resources, tutorials, programs, free, and need a license.
let us begin:
GAME ENGINE
UNITY ENGINE - FREE
unity3d.com/
Unity is a fully integrated development engine that provides rich out-of-the-box functionality to create games and other interactive 3D content. You use Unity to assemble your art and assets into scenes and environments; add lighting, audio, special effects, physics and animation; simultaneously play test and edit your game, and when ready, publish to your chosen platforms, such as Mac, PC and Linux desktop computers, Windows Store the Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8, Blackberry 10, Wii U, PS3 and Xbox 360.
Unity’s complete toolset, intuitive workspace and rapid, productive workflows help users to drastically reduce the time, effort and cost of making interactive content.
unity is free to use, it has a commercial license, but you can get majority of the work done before applying for the license. the license can depend on the platform you are targeting as well as unlocking some other features, though minor, could be a benefit to anyone.
RPG MAKER VX ACE - COST
www.rpgmakerweb.com/products/programs/rpg-maker-vx-ace
SIMPLE ENOUGH FOR A CHILD; POWERFUL ENOUGH FOR A DEVELOPER.
RPG Maker VX Ace improves every aspect of RPG creation, making it not only the latest, but also the greatest engine in the RPG Maker Series. With multiple tileset support, full autoshadow control, and a flexible features system, Ace gives you the most powerful RPG making tools ever.
RPG MAKER VX ACE is a wonderful rpg development toolkit. its easy to get in there and start working. its retro style graphics, look and feel, and open ended to importing, exporting, etc. its license is a one time cost at the engine. it is soon opening up its device porting to android, iOS, and other platforms. for now, it makes windows based rpgs.
ARTISTIC SUPPLIES
INKSCAPE - FREE
www.inkscape.org/en/
Inkscape is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It is used by design professionals and hobbyists worldwide, for creating a wide variety of graphics such as illustrations, icons, logos, diagrams, maps and web graphics. Inkscape uses the W3C open standard SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) as its native format, and is free and open-source software.
inkscape is a lovely free software and is similar to illustrator. it can create amazing vector like imagery, line work, and design friendly stuff. this program is perfect for the adobe illustrator savy who cannot afford adobe illustrator. get your tablets out.
GIMP - FREE
www.gimp.org/
GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.
GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.
GIMP is the ode to adobe photoshop, but for free. it has similar and many features photoshop has and has the same similar HUD as well. the features are beyond explaining, from plugin support, brush support, different file formats it exports, etc.
GRAPHICSGALE - FREE - HAS PURCHASE FEATURES
www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/
GraphicsGale is a simple-to-use yet powerful and feature-rich application that allows to edit and create animations and other types of graphics.
graphicsgale is great for pixel art and animation of pixel art. it features onion layering, key frame support (i think), tiling grid layering, resizing, transperancy support, etc.
this is great for retro, pixel art games at 8 to 16 bit games.
3D ARTISTIC SUPPLIES
BLENDER - FREE
www.blender.org/
Blender is a free and open source 3D animation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. Advanced users employ Blender’s API for Python scripting to customize the application and write specialized tools; often these are included in Blender’s future releases. Blender is well suited to individuals and small studios who benefit from its unified pipeline and responsive development process.
this program right here is our studios main form of 3d design software. it is forever free, commercial free, royalty free, etc free. it has many tutorials, well explained how tos, and many great addons for feature rich of the software. it is very powerful and used by many indie studios. I actually prefer it over any other software for 3d modelling and design.
you can rig, animate, sculpt, 3d model, etc. all in one program. you can even create cinematics, use its game engine built into blender, etc.
it is top choice.
XNORMAL - FREE
www.xnormal.net/1.aspx
xNormal is an application to generate normal / ambient occlusion / displacement maps. It can also project the texture of the highpoly model into the lowpoly mesh ( complete texture transfer, even with different topologies. It includes too an interactive 3D viewer ( with advanced shaders and realtime soft shadows / glow effect ), some Photoshop filters and importers/exporters for 3dsmax and Maya.
It supports high levels of parallelism using multicore/multithreading, distributed/parallel rendering, ray tracing and advanced GPGPU techniques.
this little program will save your time and maybe your life in the future when working along side blender. when getting into high topology of sculpts with close to 800,000 polys, to be able to project AOs, normal maps, displacements, and UVs onto a low poly model with the same sihlouette. you will grow to love this little program.
simple and easy to use, and free as well. it has other features as well, but this is mainly what its used for by AAA designers and artists alike.
ZBRUSH - COST
pixologic.com/
ZBrush is a digital sculpting and painting program that has revolutionized the 3D industry with its powerful features and intuitive workflows. Built within an elegant interface, ZBrush offers the world’s most advanced tools for today’s digital artists. With an arsenal of features that have been developed with usability in mind, ZBrush creates a user experience that feels incredibly natural while simultaneously inspiring the artist within. With the ability to sculpt up to a billion polygons, ZBrush allows you to create limited only by your imagination.
i cannot even begin to explain how amazing and time saving this software is. It is extremely feature rich with easy tools to solve problems that would take other prorgams problems a lot longer to solve. Its UV master plugin is amazing in itself, not to mention zremeshing, dynamesh, vertex poly painting has so many features to it, materials galore, etc. I adore zbrush.
this is basically a AAA sculpting program, and it comes with a steep price tag of $800. This is for the legit 3d modeller and sculpter who is serious about their craft. do not buy this if you are just starting out and are not fully commited to your cause. a price like that, you might want to make sure you want it that bad.
RESOURCES
this section will offer sites with brief descriptions as to what they are used for and how they are used.
INDIE GAME RESOURCES
www.pixelprospector.com/indie-resources/
this is a large list of resources and connections to other sites to help you get started. this includes 3d models, assets, royalty free music, sprites, models, terrain, rigs, animations, skybox, textures, you name it.
letsmakegames.org/resources/art-assets-for-game-developers/
same as above, different list of resources.
indiestatik.com/2013/11/04/game-dev-tools/
this list is mostly other engines you can work with. they range from point and click, drag and drop, to the more internal learning curves of programmable engines. so it scales from right beginner, to the more advanced. prices vary in licensing and royalty fees if you decide to sell your game. please consult whatever engines page for license and terms and agreements.
www.mangatutorials.com/forum/showthread.php?742-The-Ultimate-Indie-Game-Developer-Resource-List
a MEGA LIST of development resources, sorted to the OCD happy. this list is huge, full of free and paid resources as well. this includes all catergories, fonts, 3d models, textures, music, sounds, asset libraries, etc.
must see list.
CONCLUSION
this is all for now. i will be adding more stuff to this in the future. this will get you started quickly and in the right direction. I will be finding manuals and videos for you guys to watch for each area. the best way to get started, is to get started. learning now, will save learning later. never get overwhelmed. and work at it.
each area of this post will be broken down into sections from resources, tutorials, programs, free, and need a license.
let us begin:
GAME ENGINE
UNITY ENGINE - FREE
unity3d.com/
Unity is a fully integrated development engine that provides rich out-of-the-box functionality to create games and other interactive 3D content. You use Unity to assemble your art and assets into scenes and environments; add lighting, audio, special effects, physics and animation; simultaneously play test and edit your game, and when ready, publish to your chosen platforms, such as Mac, PC and Linux desktop computers, Windows Store the Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8, Blackberry 10, Wii U, PS3 and Xbox 360.
Unity’s complete toolset, intuitive workspace and rapid, productive workflows help users to drastically reduce the time, effort and cost of making interactive content.
unity is free to use, it has a commercial license, but you can get majority of the work done before applying for the license. the license can depend on the platform you are targeting as well as unlocking some other features, though minor, could be a benefit to anyone.
RPG MAKER VX ACE - COST
www.rpgmakerweb.com/products/programs/rpg-maker-vx-ace
SIMPLE ENOUGH FOR A CHILD; POWERFUL ENOUGH FOR A DEVELOPER.
RPG Maker VX Ace improves every aspect of RPG creation, making it not only the latest, but also the greatest engine in the RPG Maker Series. With multiple tileset support, full autoshadow control, and a flexible features system, Ace gives you the most powerful RPG making tools ever.
RPG MAKER VX ACE is a wonderful rpg development toolkit. its easy to get in there and start working. its retro style graphics, look and feel, and open ended to importing, exporting, etc. its license is a one time cost at the engine. it is soon opening up its device porting to android, iOS, and other platforms. for now, it makes windows based rpgs.
ARTISTIC SUPPLIES
INKSCAPE - FREE
www.inkscape.org/en/
Inkscape is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It is used by design professionals and hobbyists worldwide, for creating a wide variety of graphics such as illustrations, icons, logos, diagrams, maps and web graphics. Inkscape uses the W3C open standard SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) as its native format, and is free and open-source software.
inkscape is a lovely free software and is similar to illustrator. it can create amazing vector like imagery, line work, and design friendly stuff. this program is perfect for the adobe illustrator savy who cannot afford adobe illustrator. get your tablets out.
GIMP - FREE
www.gimp.org/
GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.
GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.
GIMP is the ode to adobe photoshop, but for free. it has similar and many features photoshop has and has the same similar HUD as well. the features are beyond explaining, from plugin support, brush support, different file formats it exports, etc.
GRAPHICSGALE - FREE - HAS PURCHASE FEATURES
www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/
GraphicsGale is a simple-to-use yet powerful and feature-rich application that allows to edit and create animations and other types of graphics.
graphicsgale is great for pixel art and animation of pixel art. it features onion layering, key frame support (i think), tiling grid layering, resizing, transperancy support, etc.
this is great for retro, pixel art games at 8 to 16 bit games.
3D ARTISTIC SUPPLIES
BLENDER - FREE
www.blender.org/
Blender is a free and open source 3D animation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. Advanced users employ Blender’s API for Python scripting to customize the application and write specialized tools; often these are included in Blender’s future releases. Blender is well suited to individuals and small studios who benefit from its unified pipeline and responsive development process.
this program right here is our studios main form of 3d design software. it is forever free, commercial free, royalty free, etc free. it has many tutorials, well explained how tos, and many great addons for feature rich of the software. it is very powerful and used by many indie studios. I actually prefer it over any other software for 3d modelling and design.
you can rig, animate, sculpt, 3d model, etc. all in one program. you can even create cinematics, use its game engine built into blender, etc.
it is top choice.
XNORMAL - FREE
www.xnormal.net/1.aspx
xNormal is an application to generate normal / ambient occlusion / displacement maps. It can also project the texture of the highpoly model into the lowpoly mesh ( complete texture transfer, even with different topologies. It includes too an interactive 3D viewer ( with advanced shaders and realtime soft shadows / glow effect ), some Photoshop filters and importers/exporters for 3dsmax and Maya.
It supports high levels of parallelism using multicore/multithreading, distributed/parallel rendering, ray tracing and advanced GPGPU techniques.
this little program will save your time and maybe your life in the future when working along side blender. when getting into high topology of sculpts with close to 800,000 polys, to be able to project AOs, normal maps, displacements, and UVs onto a low poly model with the same sihlouette. you will grow to love this little program.
simple and easy to use, and free as well. it has other features as well, but this is mainly what its used for by AAA designers and artists alike.
ZBRUSH - COST
pixologic.com/
ZBrush is a digital sculpting and painting program that has revolutionized the 3D industry with its powerful features and intuitive workflows. Built within an elegant interface, ZBrush offers the world’s most advanced tools for today’s digital artists. With an arsenal of features that have been developed with usability in mind, ZBrush creates a user experience that feels incredibly natural while simultaneously inspiring the artist within. With the ability to sculpt up to a billion polygons, ZBrush allows you to create limited only by your imagination.
i cannot even begin to explain how amazing and time saving this software is. It is extremely feature rich with easy tools to solve problems that would take other prorgams problems a lot longer to solve. Its UV master plugin is amazing in itself, not to mention zremeshing, dynamesh, vertex poly painting has so many features to it, materials galore, etc. I adore zbrush.
this is basically a AAA sculpting program, and it comes with a steep price tag of $800. This is for the legit 3d modeller and sculpter who is serious about their craft. do not buy this if you are just starting out and are not fully commited to your cause. a price like that, you might want to make sure you want it that bad.
RESOURCES
this section will offer sites with brief descriptions as to what they are used for and how they are used.
INDIE GAME RESOURCES
www.pixelprospector.com/indie-resources/
this is a large list of resources and connections to other sites to help you get started. this includes 3d models, assets, royalty free music, sprites, models, terrain, rigs, animations, skybox, textures, you name it.
letsmakegames.org/resources/art-assets-for-game-developers/
same as above, different list of resources.
indiestatik.com/2013/11/04/game-dev-tools/
this list is mostly other engines you can work with. they range from point and click, drag and drop, to the more internal learning curves of programmable engines. so it scales from right beginner, to the more advanced. prices vary in licensing and royalty fees if you decide to sell your game. please consult whatever engines page for license and terms and agreements.
www.mangatutorials.com/forum/showthread.php?742-The-Ultimate-Indie-Game-Developer-Resource-List
a MEGA LIST of development resources, sorted to the OCD happy. this list is huge, full of free and paid resources as well. this includes all catergories, fonts, 3d models, textures, music, sounds, asset libraries, etc.
must see list.
CONCLUSION
this is all for now. i will be adding more stuff to this in the future. this will get you started quickly and in the right direction. I will be finding manuals and videos for you guys to watch for each area. the best way to get started, is to get started. learning now, will save learning later. never get overwhelmed. and work at it.