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Learning better art pipelines and intermediate Unity asset creation

Discussion in 'Getting Started' started by NappyXIII, Jul 6, 2019.

  1. NappyXIII

    NappyXIII

    Joined:
    Jan 13, 2016
    Posts:
    4
    Hi, so I have familiarity with the Unity engine and also various aspects of game development (design, programming, marketing, etc.) But one area where I'd always like to get better improvement on understanding is art.

    Right now, I mostly develop as a solo developer and I'm not much of an artist myself, specifically digital (I've done traditional up through college-level so I have a lot of basic understanding of form, color, etc. And what I don't know I bet I can Google around for and pick up with practice.

    So I don't mean learning how to "draw figures", or "create pixel art", or "create low-poly models" - that type of stuff that normally comes up in the search results and that I certainly can find enough of. More about art in the sense of understanding fundamental game development tools and practices that help me make better decisions regarding how to develop my games "smarter, not harder."

    For example, over the last couple years, I've seen so much about things like render pipelines due to discussion of LWRP/HDRP and actually did some digging to understand what a render pipeline is. But I'm having a hard time understanding things like, "Why would I pick one vs the other, or should I just use the built-in?" Lots of stuff about people using Shader Graph, Polybrush, Substance, the new Animation Rigging preview package of Unity, etc. Articles around these tools generally tell you what they are, or are really intended for artists to dig into.

    So really tl;dr my question is:
    What are the types of consequential knowledge that I should be trying to learn more about that will assist my learning as a designer/programmer and my decisions.

    I'm not trying to be an animator, 3D artist, or rigger professionally. But to develop my games further, are there any particular topic areas that people might suggest diving into first? (animation/rigging vs lighting vs textures vs shaders) What types of tools are more common in smaller team workflows and what have other designers/programmers found beneficial to learn more about?

    I know this is a bit open ended, but I kind of am looking for varied responses, because I'm trying to figure out how to make better decisions about my next project to balance my "creating" with my "learning", so to speak. And it's also kinda vague cuz... I don't know what I don't know. Any advice?
     
  2. Ryiah

    Ryiah

    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2012
    Posts:
    20,954
    Unfortunately I don't know enough about the topic myself to be able to answer it and, while we are now at the end of a holiday week in the United States which might be part of why no one else has responded yet, most of the people who frequent this section likely won't be able to answer it either.

    It'd be best if @hippocoder or one of the other moderators moved this thread to a section where it can get good answers.