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How hard is building a 3D game alone?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by JohnSaita, Apr 20, 2014.

  1. Schneider21

    Schneider21

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    I never could wrap my head around string theory.
     
  2. SarfaraazAlladin

    SarfaraazAlladin

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  3. RichardKain

    RichardKain

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    It's extremely hard. There is simply so much work necessary in so many different disciplines. It is very rare for a single individual to tackle such a project all on their own. It's not impossible, but it is very, very difficult, and almost disturbingly time-consuming.

    If you are serious about tackling a game project on your own, the very best thing you can do for yourself is to scale back your scope AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. I would personally recommend scaling back your graphical expectations right off the bat. Making a game that looks like Skyrim is something that every new developer seems keen on. It isn't happening. they have hundreds of artists working on projects like that for multiple years. Artists who are considerably more talented and experienced than you are. I don't mean that as a slight on your artistic aptitude, whatever it might be. I have an art background myself, but I also have exposure to how competitive the art side of gaming is. Gaming companies are spoiled for choice on talented artists, and it's fairly easy for them to stack their teams with the best of the best. (limited demand, enormous supply) The kind of artists who work on big game projects are REALLY good at making those kinds of detailed models. Even a talented artist would take years of full-time practice and work to reach a comparable level of proficiency. And that's if they were purely focused on nothing but the modeling, texturing, and animations.

    So right off the bat, you can reduce your expected workload a hundred fold by scaling back your expectations on graphics. Instead of shooting for Skyrim, think Doom. Quake at the very most. Focus on simple models and textures, low polycounts, and very basic animations. Make things iconic and representational, instead of realistic. Think about how the visuals communicate simple ideas, instead of cramming in an unrealistic amount of visual detail. It doesn't have to be pixel art, you can still use 3D. But don't go overboard. Good games can be made with simple graphics. Just look at Minecraft. It's graphics are crap, and its art is mediocre at best. But it does use its visuals to communicate clearly with its players. It may not be visually stunning or polished, but it is easy to understand, even for very young players.
     
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  4. neginfinity

    neginfinity

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  5. GarBenjamin

    GarBenjamin

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    This is one of those evergreen topics. Relevant 3 years ago. Relevant 3 (30?) years from now when people will still be asking the same thing.
     
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  6. dogzerx2

    dogzerx2

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    I estimate Unity's MMO button will be ready by 2025
     
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  7. Schneider21

    Schneider21

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    I'd prefer a thread being necro'd than new ones being created all the time, too. At least this way it's a subtle hint that maybe your common question was already asked a hundred times before!
     
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  8. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    Are you referring to a certain other thread by any chance? :p
     
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  9. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Im convinced my games would be finished many seconds earlier if I spent less time on the forums. :p
     
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  10. smacbride

    smacbride

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    Software development takes as much time as you have.
    If you have two weeks, then it will take you two weeks.
    If you have 5 years, then it will take 5 years.
     
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  11. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    An indie game with simplified graphics ? basic gameplay ? it could be easy. It depends only the scope of the game, making a minecraft FPS won't be hard, while trying to make BattleField graphics, animations and gameplay, effects, AI etc ... will be very hard or very long.
     
  12. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    Fix'd.
     
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  13. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    I really feel this needs an exponential term. Or at least a second order polynomial. As written it implies a linear relationship between all of the terms. Which isn't quite right.

    ;)
     
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  14. EternalAmbiguity

    EternalAmbiguity

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    Team Size = (1 dev + (0.50 * all other devs))

    Because 9 women can't have a baby in one month, ya know...

    Edit: -50 (-1 + e^(-TeamSize))
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2017
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  15. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    Not with THAT attitude they can't.
     
  16. Billy4184

    Billy4184

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    Well all of that may be relevant to calculating the time required, but then you have to factor in the probability that the game will be finished at all.

    Probability of finishing = motivation = e^(- time_to_finish).

    But since the motivation in turn affects the time to finish, what you end up with is a runaway feedback system the likes of which Al Gore has never seen, a singularity of un-probability of success that dooms all who step beyond it to a weeping eternity of half-finished Unity projects...

    PS I don't want to be too pessimistic, so there's an alternative ...

    a9645aef5a1dcf056ed06aff4952e87007e2cdec3f204edd39c7dccbd4942699.jpg
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2017
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  17. TheAlmightyPixel

    TheAlmightyPixel

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  18. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    If you aim realistically (though good luck knowing what is realistic if you're completely new) and stay within the limitations of the asset store you can make an FPS without too much trouble. The real catch is when you want to make something more complex than these assets are capable of out-of-the-box. Or if you want coherent artwork.

    https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/2943 - Ultimate FPS ($75)

    Here's hoping one day someone wanting to know will actually read these posts. :p
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2017
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  19. AlanMattano

    AlanMattano

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    Wellcome @JohnSaita ! Yes,is same how hard but possible to do it by yourself as RichardKain mention. It will take you time so try to be focus and use what you are making wile you are learning. I'm making a simulator by my own and this is the 3° full yr using Unity but 7yr overall. Unity is much simpler and faster. My advice is just make it draft.Unity is capable of all. Do not make it perfect. Each time you learn something put it inside the game. For example make a low poly draft simple models with no texture, put the uv and textures later and animate it. Then put it inside unity. Make the other object fast and as soon as possible. Because if you go to other side, AI for example, then you can forget how to uv process was. Is better to has a draft finish one than a good 7yr and half. The best thing is to make it fan and same how attractive. This last part (aesthetic ) can be improved later, when the game is finish. Try not to use big plugins that includes dll. Make one game and open it each day to improve it. Outside, in a new unity project make test to merge them in. The first video game will take you much much longer than the second one. Is like your first drawing. You can't make normal drawing if is your first one. Maintain your console clean. There are books (for when you are travelling not at your pc) as this that is free for the next 10 houres: Unity AI Game Programming (sec edition) . But my preference are Unity videos, ( eventually latest treehouse game video courses) and youtube tutorials. There are so many task to do as for example programming multiplayer networking that are more simple now and can be integrated. But all task are so new for you that you can forget something in the process of learning. So is important than you merge it into one game.
    Comment your learning in a personal documentation where you put : "How to make Animation: link" In this way if you return to improve that sector of your game you will find the explanation.


    Querido @dogzerx2 I rearrange that equation to real life and it can be:

    (Devs Skill * Team Size * Time ) / ( Game Quality * Game Size) = Time Efficiency

    Because Devs Skill is direct proportional to time and we must divide our skills into all that task , GQ and GS that are inverse proportional to time.
    for you John will be

    Devs Skill * Time
    ------------------------------------------------- = Time Efficiency
    Learning * Game Quality * Game Size

    Nice to have you with us
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2017
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  20. Martin_H

    Martin_H

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    The OP is from 2014. This forum would really benefit from some necro-warnings. Like when you click on the quote button, a popup warning you if the post is older than a month, would already be a huge step up.

    @SaraCecilia Is something like that already on the roadmap maybe? I've noticed some improvements lately, like the new search within a thread function. Awesome addition to an already great forum!
     
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  21. SaraCecilia

    SaraCecilia

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    Yes, we are discussing a solution for this :) While I appreciate older posts getting updated with replies on how things are done today (applies to Answers as well), with the current amount of content on the sites, locking and archiving (making them read-only but still available) would help bump up newer and more up-to-date posts in a Google search, guiding users to leave their replies there instead. There have been so many times where I've been searching for something and hit super old posts where the OP has figured out a solution but never shared it and then left, and it keeps getting bumped by users active today asking what the solution was :p Dead ends are never great.
     
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  22. Martin_H

    Martin_H

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    I totally agree on the deadends and outdated info issues. Wasn't that long ago someone here thought he needed a Unity pro license because of a 6 year old post on unity answers comparing unity free and pro. And it always annoys me when I google for a solution and find threads that never get followed up on or end in "nevermind, I solved it." without further explanation.
    When something is still relevant or a year later you find a better solution to something you had written about, I'm all in favor of making sensible necros. Auto-locking old threads leads to further fragmentation which can potentially make it even harder to find the info I'm looking for. And sometimes it's interesting to just continue in old threads a year later with the new context of hindsight. E.g. I've made some predictions about humble monthly that I might want to follow up on some day.
    What I'm concerned most about with the necro issues is people wasting precious time answering questions from years ago because they don't realize the thread has just been necroed by someone. I've seen what must be countless hours worth of well meant advice given to 2-3 year old questions that the OP won't ever return to.
    I think there are two sources of necroed threads. One I can only explain by some people possibly not being aware that it is frowned upon to necro a 2 year old post (which could probably be greatly reduced with some kind of warning message) or never having used a forum before, the other one is that iirc people have reported to sometimes get very old threads presented by the forum. This was much worse during the lithium incident when the forum had that box of "related" threads at the bottom.
    I'm very happy to hear you're working on this!
     
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  23. Player7

    Player7

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    who the F*** censors a meme? lol
     
  24. Billy4184

    Billy4184

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    Haha I'm not very good at figuring out whether people are going to get offended or not.

    Strangely, swearing and cursing seems to be fine, but mentioning the idea of making an AAA game does a good job of unearthing the spanish inquisition ...
     
  25. Martin_H

    Martin_H

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    As I've said before, I think adding AAA to the autocensor filter would vastly improve everyones forum experience. Just think about the typical thread titles: "Can Unity be used to make games look like A**?", "What A** games were made in Unity?", "Can a solo-indie make an A** game?", etc.
     
  26. Billy4184

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    What would be the point though? The term has already taken on an urban-dictionary level of meaning, and it's used everywhere from forum threads to the asset store. Its days of being a precise term (if ever they existed) are long gone.

    In any case, it's usually pretty clear from context what people mean in those threads, and if it's not, whether they use a specific term or not isn't going to change people's ability to respond usefully to it.
     
  27. Martin_H

    Martin_H

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    That's my point, it should no longer be used because it has been used incorrectly for too long.

    Looking at the AAA-thread-trainwrecks we've had in the past, I'm not so sure that is accurate.
     
  28. Billy4184

    Billy4184

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    It was fun though, much more fun than the average thread on this forum :)

    Honestly, it's one of those unfortunate things that everyone does that you just can't do anything about. The funny thing is that it was a term that sort of rubbed me the wrong way at first because of its generous application around here, which is why I used it in a bit of a facetious way in 'that thread'. But I think it's taken way too seriously.

    And people asking whether Unity can make AAA games has nothing to do with that term specifically. If someone is playing call of duty and decides that they want to make an equivalent, it doesn't matter whether it occurs to them to use that term or not, they still have the same somewhat misguided point of view.
     
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  29. Studio22

    Studio22

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    Has this guy who posted the question in 2014 ever made a game after 5 years ? He may now be able to answer his iwn question, how did things work out ?
     
  30. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    They haven't been around since 2014. You can find this information by clicking on their display picture to see their profile info.
     
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  31. Rodolfo-Rubens

    Rodolfo-Rubens

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    Well, if he started working on a game by that time he would've finished...
     
  32. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    Unless they were struck by a meteor and died.
     
  33. elmar1028

    elmar1028

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    What if he was working on an MMORPG and just recently pivoted to Battle Royale?
     
  34. MadeFromPolygons

    MadeFromPolygons

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    Lets not feed the necro.