College first?

I think I am going to have to go to collage first before I continue with my game, I can work with just about anything under any conditions, but... Simply not knowing a lot of what I need to as a must, just isn't the easiest way. I'm not looking for easy, because nothing about making your own game is easy... Just, I would like to be at least experienced with programming in this light. I used to program Java with Jagex, but that was just simple stuff, and errors. I really don't want to completely drop everything, and stop working on this for a few years as I go through collage so I was wondering if you guys know of anywhere I can learn programming for free. I tried TreeHouse, and I completed all of their lessons in under 24 hours so I got my refund. I need something more advanced than that, but not too advanced I cannot just jump into it. Preferably hands on, with projects type of training environment. Any ideas/answers?

 

I did electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and automotive engineering at college - none of which helped with my coding - so I'm not going to suggest college You seem to have a good background in programming already, so I'd say just crack on with your game idea and learn what you need on-the-hoof. Use google and Answers when you get stuck - maybe join a couple of the unity skype groups too.

 

See, you know of more sources, and places to look when I get into trouble. But when I get into trouble, I know how to get out. My problem is knowing where to get started.. I've done so much research over unity it's unbelievable I found out that most people concentrate on their gameplay before their map is even built? I assume that's the way to go, but what if my game runs off of the design of my map? Then what? I've looked over so many tutorial videos for unity, a lot of which are for Unity terrain.. I don't understand how any of that works. None of it either looks real, or doesn't apply to my gaming type. I know there's a way to create my own because I mean god sakes, people are asking me to redesign their house just because of the project they seen me working on... I can do good graphics nearly exact replicas.. When it comes to simple stuff like a house made of bricks, or two by fours... But for example a house made of logs, like a log cabin.. I have no idea how to approach that because no two logs are exactly the same..? So I don't know how to make those SMALL changes. Let me give you an example, I downloaded a model. It was just a boy, a simple teenage boy that I was going to work with and practice changing and coloring but.. I have no idea how to go about it.

I am rambling, and I see that now... Just, I am not a quitter by no means but where do I learn what I need to know? Google is great for questions, and stuff, Answers is good for problems but what is good for learning? I want to learn.

 

"Professor Gibs goes to college" sounds like the title for an Adam Sandler movie. So based on that alone I have to oppose college in your case.

Joking aside, I don't think you'll learn any of the things you mentioned in a regular college curriculum. You might learn the basics of programming and, if you're lucky, learn some discipline by running the gauntlet of completing assignments and a graduation project or two. Otherwise, what you get out of college is more or less completely up to you

That said, if you can afford it then you should probably get a college degree in any hard science discipline. You might learn a thing or two, you'll make a few contacts, meet your future best friend that you will always regret never contacting, and life in general will be slightly better for the college educated version of you.

HTH

 

Okay? I was asking if I should go to college first, not in general. Sorry for the confusion, but I am going to college to know more than I already do because unlike a lot of people that I have come into contact with, I love to learn. I plan to keep learning, and try to learn as much as I can in the limited time I have in this world. If colleges were useless like you're portraying, then they wouldn't even be here. Why does Codecademy have such limited resources, ha. I've already passed 10 lessons, and still haven't learned anything new or useful.. Where's the help I need, gawd.

 

College is mostly a faster way to learn a subject but it isn't necessarily better than available alternatives. It really sounds like what you need is not so much learning but simply experience. There is only so much you can pick up by reading, listening, etc. You need to jump in and get as much hands-on as possible with the tools available.

I'd recommend starting by making simple games and gradually working your way towards more complex games. Ideally keep them simple enough that you can complete within a short time frame. A week isn't bad.

 

Going to college is a "now or never" sort of proposition for the majority of people, and I assumed that that is the case for you. My apologies for assuming that you're like most people.

I never said it was useless. I said it was limited in what it teaches. If you want to learn the basics of programming with a solid theoretical foundation, then any half-decent college program should be able to teach you that and then some. The problem with computer science is that it advances at a pace that most college curricula are unable to keep up with. So they end up teaching the theory and the basics and leave the rest for you to figure out.

All what I was trying to say is that college is never a wrong choice, but that you should temper your expectations.

 

Okay okay, I understand both of you. Ryiah, I do need hands on which is what I will be looking for when choosing schools, as of right now I am using Codecademy.. They don't offer C#, but they do offer HTML, CSS, and JavaScript which will all be of use to me. I've started the HTML about a half hour ago, and have already learned three lessons within it. Could someone please tell me, is that slow, average, or better than? I feel like I am moving quick, but I have reasons to. I know most of what it is saying, and can shoot through it all while actually retaining the information. I don't know if it's too easy for me or what, but I am looking to get into places where I feel challenged, but know that I can do it, and will help along the way.
Shaderop, again then sorry for the misunderstanding I see what you are saying. But I do plan to do a lot of research, and snooping around before I ever decide on what collage or place of learning I will choose. I have high expectations, everyone has to start somewhere right?

 

Yes but you don't have to start with college. I started programming long before I was old enough for college courses. I followed books for a while but eventually I realized that they only went so far and began simply trying to use the tools I had available to piece together whatever idea came to me at the moment.

When I stated experience that's what I meant, actual hands-on experience with the tools you intend to use. College is certainly a way to accelerate learning a subject, but their primary focus is on teaching you enough to get started in a profession and continue learning on your own.

You'll eventually be working a lot in the tools anyways, might as well get a head start.

 

Where do I start, I like how codecademy's structure is while learning. They tell you about it, teach you how to use it & apply it, then they make you apply it. Anywhere else like that, or anybody else?

 

Where you start is going to depend on what you've learned so far. If you still need some tutorials for Unity, 3D Buzz has a few free offerings. I've only tried Unity Fundamentals though.

http://www.3dbuzz.com/training/view/unity-fundamentals
http://www.3dbuzz.com/training/view/creating-2d-games-in-unity-45
http://www.3dbuzz.com/training/view/3rd-person-character-system

Otherwise I'd recommend opening Unity and throwing together whatever you can even if it is just cubes with some scripts attached. Getting used to the interface is just as useful as being able to make something.

 

Most good paying jobs now require either loads of experience or a Bachelors in CS or CIS, go to college if you want a piece of paper that states you're competent enough to program like a monkey.

 

Thanks guys, I will look into all of the help I have received. Within two hours, I have learned all of the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript basics, while getting help from you guys! Haha, I believe today was a pretty good programming day! Night guys.

 

Loving to learn is critical to living in this industry. That alone puts you at a great starting point.

In addition to what some of the other have said, I would suggest trying to build up your ability to learn without any or with limited resources. Basically being able source knowledge from trial and error and experimentation. The farther you progress in gaming (and a lot of tech in general), the closer you get to the edge of tech. Google gets few and fewer results. It's never dull.

Good luck!

 

While I agree with zombiegorilla - breaking new ground for yourself is a huge part of the job - I also think that getting a formal education as well is super important. By the very nature of the first of the four stages of competence, you don't know what all of the things you should spend time learning are. As a result of not knowing what you should learn there's a huge risk that you'll miss something important and not even know about it.

So, definitely learn to learn by yourself, but also take advantage of the knowledge of others where you can. Get the best of both worlds. There's no reason not to.

 

At the risk of sounding like your mom, go to college! Not to learn programming but to have something you can actually use in the real world if making games doesn't pan out.

That said, there are lots of great technical programs out there at community colleges that focus on computers. Some of them have gaming programs that expose you to both programming and art, plus some design work. Some have actual 2 year computer programming IT specialties. They are usually inexpensive and if you have limited income or are over 24 you can get financial help. Often the classes are online. You can still work on your game and earn an A.S. degree that will mean something if you want a job someday. Not everyone gets a job when they finish college and I would be careful about listening to antidote evidence that they do or don't. Lots of reasons people don't get jobs (or do) with any degree or lack of degree. However, statistical facts show a college degree, even a 2 year degree, helps and you make more money than a high school diploma alone. A degree shows you were committed to something and you followed through.

Whatever you do, don't go to a for-profit school. The amount of money you will spend is not worth the "name" of the school. You will end up paying loans for your entire life, which decreases your earnings.

After considering all this, if you don't want to go to college, you can learn on your own. Check out Udemy. If you register without signing up for a class, they will send you coupons. Try a class in C# programming or Java.

I work with young people have seen some amazing success stories...not so much to do with publishing games, but some have found new careers, and others have become much more confident about their programming or artwork. Whatever you decide, good luck! Make the decision for you, not because of what someone here on the forum tells you. Only you know what you want for your own future.

 

The way I've heard some people describe it is that a degree will help you get an interview. Then you can prove if you're the one they should hire. Because a degree by itself doesn't truly indicate you have the skills necessary.

 

Might be true! But the interview, especially in this day and age with jobs scarce plus the competition in art/game development jobs, might be the door that opens for your new career.

I have multiple degrees and I have been offered jobs outside my degree area simply because I have a college degree. And I mean WAY outside my degree areas. Others have told me the same. College, even a 2 year degree at a community college, opens up a lot of possibilities. It shows you can follow through, complete something, and it really helps you to make contacts/build a portfolio of work experiences. Many programs now have internships and capstone projects.

Just an alternative and probably not right for everyone. Not trying to start a debate here, just offering the OP a different view so he/she can make a personal choice.

 

Alternative viewpoints are always nice to see. I personally enjoyed the time I spent attending some courses at a local community college. Not so much for the languages that I picked up, but the programming theory and concepts that I extracted from the lessons.

It is thanks to a Java course that I finally was able to understand the basic concepts of C++ pointers despite them being different from references. I also used the knowledge from a VB .NET course to pick up C#.

 

Have you thought about posting your project ideas and ask for advice? I have no formal background in coding, 3d, or 2d art, but so far I've been able to figure out everything I need to. There is no reason why you couldn't as well, if you ask the right questions.

Keep in mind that if you think tutorials are too broad for your project, the college will be even worse. I'm not aware of any that teach Unity specifically (though Full Sail uses Unreal 3/4 last I heard). Even if they do, they won't teach you how to make your game specifically.

Try reaching out to the community with specific problems (in the help section). I'm sure someone can at least point you in the right direction.

 

There are a number of college major programs that lend themselves to game development even though they are not "Game Dev" degrees. If you plan to work on a team at some point it is good to have some focused (niche) skill base to leverage as this will serve the team goals better though at the same time it is very good to have a broad understanding of the full game dev life cycle and how all the bits fit together.
College is a great excuse to dig deeper into some topics that maybe you would not have made the time for otherwise (such as business and marketing...).

 

I've got a friend who is finishing up college in Maryland and his specific college actually does work with Unity. I can't think of the name of the college at the moment though.

 

Books, books, books. That's how I learn anyway...

 

Yes, I should have been more clear. I didn't mean to imply that it was an alternative to, but in addition to.

I also agree that a formal education/learning is very helpful. I had no formal education, and while I got there in the end, I do believe I could have saved a lot of time. I was still picking up fundamentals several years into my professional career.

 

My professional career was based entirely on one book.

I was working as load line supervisor at UPS while in college (art college). Because I was good with computers, I often handled the hardware, data collection, simulation and things of that nature. One day the the head of industrial engineering said they had an opening to design/build hardware for voice recognition software/hardware, that was the first step into full tracking of packages (at that time only the air packages were tracked). He basically told me about this totally awesome project and opportunity, and then at the end he said I seemed like a good choice, but a key requirement was being a proficient Pascal programmer. So when he asked if I was good at Pascal... I straight up lied and said yes. The only thing I knew about Pascal is that it was some sort of programming language. After work, I ran out and bought on it, and had one of the longest weekends of my life. I still have that book somewhere.

 

You'd done other programming before that, though, right?

 

Kinda? I had written several games in basic on C64 many years before, and a little Hypercard, but not much else. I used computers a lot, had done some scripting in various environments, but "functions" and "methods" were new to me. I was pretty ignorant of what I was getting myself into. If I would have had a better understanding of "programming" I would have known better than to say I did.

I should clarify that the long weekend learning didn't get me to a stage of actually programming, it got to a point where I grasped it conceptually, and could speak like I knew what I was doing. It took months to really get it down.

 

Great story, Zombiegorilla! Thanks for sharing. I prefer books to YouTube videos! Only problem is they are always behind.

 

I completely agree with that, but hey I've been on several programming websites, and forums to try to take in as much as I possibly can, and everywhere I go I always learn something new, and useful. Every person is different that's why I ask so many questions, and love talking to you guys because no matter where I am in my progress someone is going to be there to help. (Not that I am dependent, I just like the support.)

Again thanks to everyone who has helped me so far, again, I love learning... If you guys could comment with where you learned to program (C#, JS, Java, HTML, CSS, or anything else that would be really beneficial.), I would be very thankful. I know google, and I use it when I need to, but I don't know the books besides searching "The Really Big Index" in Google haha. I use YouTube when need something of a visual, and I try to find all new free websites like the one I am using now; http://www.codecademy.com/ .. I would really recommend it, it's a visual, hands on, do it yourself type of learning style witch suits me perfectly! Anything else, just throw out a comment! Thanks everyone!

 

That's all good stuff to do. The main reason that I, like some of the others here, prefer written stuff over video stuff is that videos are a sucky way to get across some kinds of information. For instance, how long does it take to look over a table describing operators and their precedence? Compare that to how long it takes to effectively communicate the same information in a video.

Then, if you want to review, you can literally do that in seconds with the table. With a video you just have to watch the whole segment again. A major pain in the bum if all you wanted to know was "does X come before or after Y?"

 

I learned all my fundamental programming at a University working on a second degree in Computer Science, after having finished a Bachelors degree in Fine Art. And it has been a true value to learning new patterns and practices (however, some more abstract ones get harder to conceptualize as I get older).

Also, I seem to disagree with some of the responses (and agree with a few) here and just want to make a simple point to hopefully persuade you to choose the University path.

The brain has been found to continue development well into your 20's... I believe (as my wife corrects me from across the room)... up to ~27 years of age. 27!

(boring article link)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892678/

This is the time to exercise your brain with as many experiences and intellectual exposures as possible to help build those synaptic pathways. In other words, train your brain... and this is done well at the University level. You are exposed to more then just a vocational training system which prepares you for rudimentary and often times repetitive oriented tasks. (and yes, in my opinion many game-only-oriented training/degree schools fall in that category [I hesitate to put university there even though some have that in their names]). Do they train you how to make a game using current technology? Sure. However, what happens ten years from now after the next big leap in technology? Did your brain get exposed enough to abstract concepts, theories, and congruent subject matter that expanded your (literal) mental capacity to learn?

You may say, well.. "I can teach myself how to do that!" Well, possibly.. but that will mostly be based on your enabled pathways and linked to what past subjects taught to you.

You may say, well... "What is the point of having to take a Psychology class, when all I want to do is program games?" It may have nothing to do with it at that time, but you get exposed to the subject and may actually like it choosing to explore the possibly of "Psychology in games":

(http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...ent_Applying_Positive_Psychology_To_Games.php)

So yes.. my recommendation is go to a University.. learn the fundamentals of more than just being a coder.... (and perhaps find life long friends and a mate )

 

In high school, our class only needed to take algebra to graduate. We could take more, but that seemed like a silly waste of time. I was going to be an artist, I was going to art school. Why bother learning stuff that I was never going to use later?
Long story short, trigonometry was a bitch to learn from books on my own, especially without the basics. I never pass up a chance to learn anymore, and do wish I would have taken more advantage of those opportunities when I had them.

 

I totally agree... I was in the same boat and was never exposed to any abstract math in High School at all... I have a good story about how I managed to pull a passing grade while working on that CS degree in Calculus 2...

Somewhere, I completely missed a concept and still today... struggle understanding it at all.

 

At least you understand that you're struggling and have some idea as to why in case you need to rectify it. I've seen quite a few people who don't have formal educations in software development who don't realize that they're struggling, they just think that's how it is.

 

Here in India, we had to learn complex topics such as differentiation, Calculus, Vector math, Trigonometry, Matrices, Integration, Permutations and a heck lot more in order to pass Math in 10th grade ... I have to say it was pretty overwhelming but nonetheless useful.

 

Okay, good at least I have the will to keep learning!


OF: Does anybody know much of HTML/CSS Programming? I know a lot, but I believe you can never know it all.. If anybody does can you help me with this really quick?

Code (HTML):

1. <a href="C:\Users\Kevin\Desktop\CodeMode\index.html"; target="_self"><img src="C:\Users\Kevin\Desktop\CodeMode\Images\NavBar\NavBar\images\NavBarMain1.jpg" onmouseover="this.src="C:\Users\Kevin\Desktop\CodeMode\Images\NavBar\NavBarHover\NavBarMainHover1.jpg" onmouseout="this.src="C:\Users\Kevin\Desktop\CodeMode\Images\NavBar\NavBar\images\NavBarMain1.jpg" /></a>

I am trying to make it where when you hover over the Home button it changes the image completely... Just replaces it. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

I don't program in HTML/CSS or know there code very well, but from the pattern I noticed in your code should the quotes after Onmouseover cover the link aswell? Also, you have quotes around onmouseout but not onmouseover.

I may be super wrong on that, lol Just giving input.

 

Well, I didn't really see anything wrong with the quotes. I do believe that's how their supposed to be, maybe it's just the view of the code I put it. Here is a picture to better grasp it.

Okay now I got it to where it switches from the first image to the second, but instead of displaying the second it just... doesn't show it.

Here's the real code:

Code (HTML):

1. <a href="C:\Users\Kevin\Desktop\CodeMode\index.html"; target="_self"><img src="C:\Users\Kevin\Desktop\CodeMode\Images\NavBar\NavBar\images\NavBarMain1.jpg" onmouseover="this.src='C:\Users\Kevin\Desktop\CodeMode\Images\NavBar\NavBarHover\NavBarMainHover1.jpg'" onmouseout="this.src='C:\Users\Kevin\Desktop\CodeMode\Images\NavBar\NavBar\images\NavBarMain1.jpg'"/></a>

 

Technically, no one does. HTML/CSS is markup/PDL. You "write" css or html.

I didn't know that method was used anymore. Typically I would just use CSS for the hover states.
http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_image_sprites.asp

 

Thanks zombiegorilla, but sadly I've already tried that method along with just about every other one on the internet that's up-to-date. I wish I could show you exactly what is happening, because I can get the code to work, and switch between images.. But, it just doesn't show the second one or revert it to the first one after I've hovered.

 

Yep. Absolutely. Don't bother learning the outdated approaches. This is in fact potentially another plus for formal learning - the person teaching you should know which approaches are up to date and current, so you don't have to walk the minefield of figuring that out for yourself.

 

Yeah, just as proof that is what I tried first here's the code I used.

Code (CSS):

1. /*
2. .Home {
3.    background-image: url('C:\Users\Kevin\Desktop\CodeMode\Images\NavBar\NavBar\images\NavBarMain1.jpg') 0 0;
4. }
5. .Home:hover {
6.    background-image: url('C:\Users\Kevin\Desktop\CodeMode\Images\NavBar\NavBarHover\NavBarMainHover1.jpg') 0 0;
7. }*/

*EDIT

*I just just playing around as I was wondering how to make this work, and I decided to test this while changing the opacity... I definded the opacity as 0% in the .Home:hover coding, and it worked like a charm. I now know the code works with just using CSS but it doesn't display the image. I think it's because it is trying to load both of them?

I just added a "WhatsWrong" file.. It shows more than I can explain.

 

Okay I've got it to work, but I had to upload the pictures online before I could actually get it to load. Using the same coding but trying to get it to work by using the files on my laptop it just makes the images disappear... Any help of why?

 

Well, you're using absolute file paths, which you'd typically only do if you're referencing a file that's not a part of your own website.

This thread isn't really the right place to get tech support about something unrelated to Unity, though.