Where to begin

Hello mates!

I'll try to keep this brief.
I'm trying to figure out where to start. Should I learn coding and Unity myself, or find groups to join?
I am 40 and decided after a life of construction and odd jobs, I wanted to be an artist. I have finished my BS degree in graphic design with a major in animation last year. While in school, I joined the game club and played around with Game Maker and Torque, mainly providing the art. I also looked into the code end and helped provide logistic solutions but not the actual code. As much as I try to avoid designing and making games, I keep coming back to it. I think I have finally accepted that's just my lot in life.

My problem is finding other people that share this passion. I really think it might just be easier to learn the coding end as well and do it myself. Problem is time....no one is getting any younger.

So...learn the code myself and stick with Unity to start and finish a game and see how it goes? Or keep looking for online resources for teams to join? My real strength is in challenging the current standards of game design and finding new ways to play. For now, I would pick a tried and true simple game to learn Unity with; platformer or shooter, etc. I have almost no code experience. My art skill set is much larger but I am not a master of any one area.

Suggestions? Stick with art (need to improve always) or break out and try to be that rare hybrid dev that does art and code?

 

Here's a quick tip, but don't tell anyone...

coding really isn't that difficult. If people actually knew that, we'd get paid a whole lot less.

But seriously, learning c# on top of your abilities in art will take you a long way, and it'll be a fun path to follow.

 

@Whippets you and I are the same in being terrible at keeping this secret. I want to be a professor just so I can make this clear to future generations.

 

You could try out a visual scripting system such as PlayMaker.

 

Nice find! PlayMaker looks great. I'll check it out for sure. The voice in my head says "Yeah but it won't be the same as having complete control and understanding of the code" I, however, am not opposed to any tool that makes Dev easier. Thanks for all the replies so far!

 

Sure it may not give you 100% control or understanding, but if that's the path you chose (and there's nothing wrong with it), it will save you months of reinventing the wheel.

 

Once you understand the logic, you may begin to desire more control over things that happen in your games. At that point it would be best to learn programming. But if total control is not the top priority then playmaker is a nice option. The only reason we're all here is because we think development time is a larger priority than raw power, haha.

 

You can also create custom nodes using actual code if you need something very specific that PlayMaker does not cover. I tend to approach visual scripting as a tool that allows you to easily glue reusable code modules together. It can still outright replace coding, but it works great along side it too.

 

Basic stuff is not difficult, no. But it can be extremely hardcore, depends on what you mean by 'coding' as such. Understanding and coding efficient and advanced algorithms is not that easy for everyone.

 

The programming is rarely the difficult part. If there's any difficulty, then it's very likely what's being misunderstood is how to solve the problem. I agree that it would be difficult to make a program to solve integrals if you could not, on paper, solve integrals.

I did not know that. That's starting to sound like how the new UI works lol. You link a script and a function in script.

 

I know someone at Uni right now doing a Math degree that is struggling to get his head around OO concepts. Everything is easy once you already know it.
We should encourage everyone to get into programming, but let's not set them up to feel inadequate by telling them it's supposed to be easy. It might go easy for them - if so great! But if takes some time getting you head around a concept everyone else picked up on the first day, that's ok too.

 

My brief exposure to coding was limited and c++. But honestly, I loved it. I love how black & white it is (either it works or it doesn't) but there are so many ways to solve a problem. I love spending hours or days tracing a problem down in code and then fixing it, watching it work as intended then waiting for the next challenge. I also love art....lol...so it hard to want to do it all. I'm going to give it a go however. I assume C# is a good place to start?

 

Very!

 

I've found many good resources for scripting and Unity in general. My concern now is confusing js with c# as some examples use one or the other. Should I just get books and tutorials that deal strictly with code? Also, are there websites that allow you to post game designs and build teams based on those interested in the design?

 

As others have said, depends on the situation. I've done some pretty okayish stuff that a person with a couple years wouldn't understand just yet(I've also been programming for a time longer than that). So, it's not all easy.

 

Coding isn't all that difficult, but depending on the task... the difference between an experienced coder and an inexperienced coder can be night and day.