24th December 2003, 9:58 PM
... at least now we're back to some educated discussion ....
Good thing the tutorials available at 3dbuzz.com prior to Epic contracting them for UT2K4 have all been free then, eh?
You can't honestly believe that. If a good book covered "all" of Maya, then there would be no need for other books. You're lucky if a good books covers everything to do with modeling and rigging a single humanoid character.
MEL is Maya scripting language. It is very powerful, inside Maya. It is not designed to do the stuff Direct X or Open GL can do.
And here I thought making a game required making the models in the game, and thus artists. Foolish me.
Try again, as I told you to do two posts back. Saying "I fixed the link".
They aren't teachign Maya. They are teaching everything needed to do a basic game mod. This involves creating levels in UnrealED. Creating Characters in Maya, moddeling, rigging, importing, etc. Same for vehicles, and weapons. Yes, even the scripting needed to import them.
I didn't say that. I said this will help. You know the Make Something Unreal Contest for Unreal Tournament 2003? Do you remember the one for UT? The guy who came in second place is now working for Epic Games. I don't know his qualifications, but Epic noticed him because of his mod. Have you spoken to Cliffy recently? What about Mark Rein? You know the Lead Programmer for Epic Games and the Vice President? They BOTH said that a great way to get noticed in the industry is modding. But then again, I guess you know better.
We're not talking about Doom modding here. We're talking about current generation modding. There is a TON of scripting and programming that can be done for a good game mod now adays. It isn't like the Blizzard "make your own map" thing anymore. Hell, a good mod on a powerful engine can completely change the game. Even the GENRE!
What about the "script kiddies" who see a step-by-step tutorial on how the program that was used was made. And then turn around to create a new program themselves, that can crack amazon? Bad example, I know. But these tutorials aren't showing you how to run a mod, they are teaching you how to MAKE a mod. If you choose not to learn from them, and only to follow them step-by-step that is YOUR decision.
Lew levels, new characters, new vehicles, new weapons, new scripts. Hmm, almost sounds like a whole new game.
Quake released on: 05/31/96
Quake II released on: 11/30/97
Half-life (runs on a Quake / Quake II hybrid engine) released on: 10/31/98
Half-life Couter-Strike released on: 11/08/00
Isn't Half-Life like the most played FPS ever, but by your logic it should be a "graphically dated game" being a mod and all. Even though it is the most played FPS -- right now -- beating out any other game. And by a big margin too.
http://www.gamespy.com/stats/
Which you need the fundamentals before you can learn.
That *strongly* depends on what you're trynig to do. If you're looking into creating a game engine, then you're right, this won't do you all that much good. But if you're looking to create the next Half-Life then this is definately a step in the right direction.
If you need to have a game published before you can get a job making a game, then wouldn't that be a catch-22? A good mod can get you noticed, a mod that is a dime-a-dozen won't. Talent gets noticed. This will just teach you how to use the tools, and draw on the canvas. It is up to you to make the next Mona Lisa.
Quote:Let's just say I don't have a lot of faith in free stuff from commercial America.
Good thing the tutorials available at 3dbuzz.com prior to Epic contracting them for UT2K4 have all been free then, eh?
Quote:a good book will cover all of Maya.
You can't honestly believe that. If a good book covered "all" of Maya, then there would be no need for other books. You're lucky if a good books covers everything to do with modeling and rigging a single humanoid character.
Quote:Also, MEL is nothing compared to Direct X or Open GL- it is used as an extension to those APIs.
MEL is Maya scripting language. It is very powerful, inside Maya. It is not designed to do the stuff Direct X or Open GL can do.
Quote:As I said before, Maya is fantastic. But it is a program for animation- and that makes it for artists.
And here I thought making a game required making the models in the game, and thus artists. Foolish me.
Quote:No, I didn't read all about it- I tried but the link didn't work.
Try again, as I told you to do two posts back. Saying "I fixed the link".
Quote:So I assumed that since they are teaching Maya, this whole thing is aimed at artists and aspiring programmers.
They aren't teachign Maya. They are teaching everything needed to do a basic game mod. This involves creating levels in UnrealED. Creating Characters in Maya, moddeling, rigging, importing, etc. Same for vehicles, and weapons. Yes, even the scripting needed to import them.
Quote:Demon, you can't really believe that someone can walk into a game studio and apply for a software engineer position with just this.
I didn't say that. I said this will help. You know the Make Something Unreal Contest for Unreal Tournament 2003? Do you remember the one for UT? The guy who came in second place is now working for Epic Games. I don't know his qualifications, but Epic noticed him because of his mod. Have you spoken to Cliffy recently? What about Mark Rein? You know the Lead Programmer for Epic Games and the Vice President? They BOTH said that a great way to get noticed in the industry is modding. But then again, I guess you know better.
Quote:Modding a game, no matter how powerful the mod, is not programming.
We're not talking about Doom modding here. We're talking about current generation modding. There is a TON of scripting and programming that can be done for a good game mod now adays. It isn't like the Blizzard "make your own map" thing anymore. Hell, a good mod on a powerful engine can completely change the game. Even the GENRE!
Quote:That's like these script kiddies who follow some step by step instructions on how to use someone else's programs to crack a Windows box- and then claiming they are master hackers. It's bogus, and anybody who really is in the industry will see through it.
What about the "script kiddies" who see a step-by-step tutorial on how the program that was used was made. And then turn around to create a new program themselves, that can crack amazon? Bad example, I know. But these tutorials aren't showing you how to run a mod, they are teaching you how to MAKE a mod. If you choose not to learn from them, and only to follow them step-by-step that is YOUR decision.
Quote:The people at Valve and Ubisoft may have used another game engine and maybe it was something a lot like this, but they also had the ability and knowlege to do more than just add new weapons.
Lew levels, new characters, new vehicles, new weapons, new scripts. Hmm, almost sounds like a whole new game.
Quote:If you use a year old game engine, don't you have a graphically dated game?
Quake released on: 05/31/96
Quake II released on: 11/30/97
Half-life (runs on a Quake / Quake II hybrid engine) released on: 10/31/98
Half-life Couter-Strike released on: 11/08/00
Isn't Half-Life like the most played FPS ever, but by your logic it should be a "graphically dated game" being a mod and all. Even though it is the most played FPS -- right now -- beating out any other game. And by a big margin too.
http://www.gamespy.com/stats/
Quote:Yes, unless you can push and expand and build on top of the engine to make something a lot better. That requires real programming experience.
Which you need the fundamentals before you can learn.
Quote:As I said before, it's a nice start, but without a solid foundation in programming, plus Open GL and DirectX and a lot of time coding in all that, you won't go anywhere.
That *strongly* depends on what you're trynig to do. If you're looking into creating a game engine, then you're right, this won't do you all that much good. But if you're looking to create the next Half-Life then this is definately a step in the right direction.
Quote:If you've looked at jobs that are listed on places like gamedev.net, you will see that not only do they all want a CS degree or equivalent experience, plus at least one published game.
If you need to have a game published before you can get a job making a game, then wouldn't that be a catch-22? A good mod can get you noticed, a mod that is a dime-a-dozen won't. Talent gets noticed. This will just teach you how to use the tools, and draw on the canvas. It is up to you to make the next Mona Lisa.