Good luck! It can be fun to do. I liked Godot the little bit I messed around with it. I've been using Unreal Engine right now. The visual scripting has helped me through some places I'd roadblock in the past, boring things like programming the intro menu for example. I had an entire game written for Xbox 360 using XNA, but the menus and all that were just such a pain in the ass in that architecture that I never released it. It didn't help that it was not fun to play either. At all. I might try Godot again for another project if I actually finish this one.
I've been making an FPS now with mechanics I'd call "Doom 3" style, so a little more run and gun and no ADS, no snipers, no cover mechanic. Partly to limit the scope, partly because I like that style. Will it be a breakthrough in anything? Not a chance. At this point my goal is like a $20 game on Steam that isn't awful. I've got more done than I probably give myself credit for, just because all the little details will take ages to work out. It will probably be a bit generic because I'm not really interested in 3D modeling so I'm using free or purchased stuff. I don't think it will matter that much in the end, the lighting and atmosphere is the game, not whether or not I modeled the microscope on the counter or the wooden crate on the floor. If I had, it's still just a microscope on the counter and a wooden crate on the floor.
Still, if 6mo to a year from now I have enough of a game that it seems realistic to release, I'll probably pay someone to model a main character and some of the bosses, the music, and the minuscule bit of voice acting I'd want.
Just curious, have you checked out Unigine at all? Seems to be rapidly gaining popularity as an alternative to Unreal. Not sure if they have anything as robustly fine-tuned as Epic's Blueprints, though.
Most people I've encountered who use Unigine mostly used it for productivity purposes rather than gaming, but it seemed interesting.
I hadn't heard of it honestly. Which is really odd because before I started this foray into trying a 3d game I looked into a lot of different engines. Maybe I try something for the next game if there is one. I'd like to try something in Godot too, just thought in the interest of finishing something I'd be better off in Unreal for an FPS game. I've got somewhat of an idea for a 3D puzzle game I may try in Godot some time. As of now, if I have an idea while I'm working on this I put it in a notebook to try later so I don't get too distracted.
Blueprints are nice, but I've ended up doing a lot in C++ too. What I like is how they let you layer them, e.g. I made a C++ class for the weapon that does all the basic stuff, fires, etc. If I want to make some one off unique weapon? I can just override the actions in Blueprint to do whatever I want. I've heard it's bad on performance so I haven't used a ton of that for gameplay, but for a settings menu? That's not really enough to matter and it let me make menus and things in a tiny percent of the time versus learning how I need to interact with a text box in my code.
I've heard it's bad on performance so I haven't used a ton of that for gameplay, but for a settings menu? That's not really enough to matter and it let me make menus and things in a tiny percent of the time versus learning how I need to interact with a text box in my code.
Oh definitely. You can always tell games that rely on a ton of Unreal APIs because of how it causes a lot of slowdown or stutter. But it's good you're going the coding route to improve optimisation. It seems to be something a lot of larger studios forego these days.
Oh that's really good to hear. Working through the incomplete documentation will help pave the way for a lot of other devs who follow in your footsteps using Godot.
Have you been uploading videos to YouTube as well with the documentation updates as you progress? I'm sure there are some aspiring devs out there who might also be working through similar issues and could probably use that guidance in their projects, too.
Good luck! It can be fun to do. I liked Godot the little bit I messed around with it. I've been using Unreal Engine right now. The visual scripting has helped me through some places I'd roadblock in the past, boring things like programming the intro menu for example. I had an entire game written for Xbox 360 using XNA, but the menus and all that were just such a pain in the ass in that architecture that I never released it. It didn't help that it was not fun to play either. At all. I might try Godot again for another project if I actually finish this one.
I've been making an FPS now with mechanics I'd call "Doom 3" style, so a little more run and gun and no ADS, no snipers, no cover mechanic. Partly to limit the scope, partly because I like that style. Will it be a breakthrough in anything? Not a chance. At this point my goal is like a $20 game on Steam that isn't awful. I've got more done than I probably give myself credit for, just because all the little details will take ages to work out. It will probably be a bit generic because I'm not really interested in 3D modeling so I'm using free or purchased stuff. I don't think it will matter that much in the end, the lighting and atmosphere is the game, not whether or not I modeled the microscope on the counter or the wooden crate on the floor. If I had, it's still just a microscope on the counter and a wooden crate on the floor. Still, if 6mo to a year from now I have enough of a game that it seems realistic to release, I'll probably pay someone to model a main character and some of the bosses, the music, and the minuscule bit of voice acting I'd want.
Just curious, have you checked out Unigine at all? Seems to be rapidly gaining popularity as an alternative to Unreal. Not sure if they have anything as robustly fine-tuned as Epic's Blueprints, though.
Most people I've encountered who use Unigine mostly used it for productivity purposes rather than gaming, but it seemed interesting.
I hadn't heard of it honestly. Which is really odd because before I started this foray into trying a 3d game I looked into a lot of different engines. Maybe I try something for the next game if there is one. I'd like to try something in Godot too, just thought in the interest of finishing something I'd be better off in Unreal for an FPS game. I've got somewhat of an idea for a 3D puzzle game I may try in Godot some time. As of now, if I have an idea while I'm working on this I put it in a notebook to try later so I don't get too distracted.
Blueprints are nice, but I've ended up doing a lot in C++ too. What I like is how they let you layer them, e.g. I made a C++ class for the weapon that does all the basic stuff, fires, etc. If I want to make some one off unique weapon? I can just override the actions in Blueprint to do whatever I want. I've heard it's bad on performance so I haven't used a ton of that for gameplay, but for a settings menu? That's not really enough to matter and it let me make menus and things in a tiny percent of the time versus learning how I need to interact with a text box in my code.
Makes sense. Unigine isn't widely advertised because it's mostly used by a specific kind of designer. Some of the new features look really amazing in a real-time runtime environment, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKQbj_zvueA&pp=ygUHdW5pZ2luZQ%3D%3D
Oh definitely. You can always tell games that rely on a ton of Unreal APIs because of how it causes a lot of slowdown or stutter. But it's good you're going the coding route to improve optimisation. It seems to be something a lot of larger studios forego these days.
Oh that's really good to hear. Working through the incomplete documentation will help pave the way for a lot of other devs who follow in your footsteps using Godot.
Have you been uploading videos to YouTube as well with the documentation updates as you progress? I'm sure there are some aspiring devs out there who might also be working through similar issues and could probably use that guidance in their projects, too.