Will i ever learn coding?

When i first got into game development which was about 6 months ago, i was completely lost and didnt know where to start, then i discovered Unity, watched some tutorials about Unity, and decided to learn Blender with it too. Was pretty good at Blender, and i only wanted to make 3D models for games, because programming was scary and i didnt want to get anywhere near it.

I realized that i wont get anywhere if i didnt learn coding. 3D models alone wont make me a game, and my goal was to be a game developer not a 3D modeler, so i just went ahead and tried to learn coding by watching some Unity C# tutorials.

I learned what a variable is, i learned what a function is, i learned IF statements, and other basic things. I can make a cube jump for 5 seconds and land, i can make a cube change colors, i can make things keep rotating, but that's it, i only can do basic stuff, when i open Unity and say "Ok, i will just open Unity and make the game in my head, i can do it." i decide to start with the character controller first, but how am i supposed to make a character controller? i only know how to make a ball jump! I search for a character controller on Google and see all these vector 3 and delta. I try to stay determined and not give up and go watch some Youtube tutorials about character controller, then i get this guy saying "Hello Youtube, today we're going to make a character controller for Unity3D! It's okay if you're an absolute beginner with no experience, just do what i do!" then he writes the whole code without explaining anything and expects me to know what he's doing, 90% of all tutorials are like that. How am i supposed to learn by just doing what they do?

Now i'm good at Blender, good at Unity, but coding is just the only thing i cant learn. How did all these programmers learn to code? They are humans just like me, we're the same, why can they learn and why can i not? What exactly do i need to learn so i can actually open Unity and get things done instead of having like 100 empty projects?

When am i going to make the game in my head?

I also would like to say that i completed the whole eteeski game development tutorial series, that took months to finish, but i still cant code.

 

Programmers put more hours into training. That's all there is. Someone might have 5..10 years of experience in software development, if you started few months ago, you won't be able to catch up with them for quite some time.

The best idea for you would be probably to team up with a programmer that doesn't have your skills and make game together. OR you could hire that programmer. You could keep learning programming, of course. Working with unity is simpler than writing applications from scratch.

Generally, programmer would approach the problem like this:

• "Okay, I made a cube jump on the spot. How do I make it move with wsad?"
• Checks manual, finds input manager, figures out how to adjust position when a key is pressed.
• "Alright, I have a moving cube. How do I make it a character?"
• Checks manual, finds skinned mesh renderer, animation controller, animation state machines, few hours later replaces cube with a character.
• "Alright, I have a cube. How do I give it a sword that can hits stuff?"
• checks manual, some time later figures out how to attach a weapon with a collider on it and script in damage.
• "Alright, now I want an enemy that can attack me!"
• checks finds navmesh agent,figures out how to write an ai driver for character that supports navmesh agent.

So, to summarize: "Identify the feature needed to advance project towards desired goal, find means of implementing the feature by searching through documentation, then implement the feature. Repeat until project is completed"

 

Have you tried experimentation? Try downloading a tutorial from Unity Learn, or follow along with the videos making it yourself - and then when it works, change something in it. If you get an error or it doesn't work, go back and try something else. As you do this, and the game changes with your modifications, your brain will become familiar with the nature of what the terms on the screen mean. Don't just copy code, play with it, make it do things for you.

 

It seems to me that you are progressing fine. Your concern is stemming from an expectation that you can go from "I know how to make a cube jump", to "I know how to make a full-blown game", without having to learn anything else first.
"Make my game" isn't a skill. It is a collection of thousands of skills. Variables, functions, etc, are the language. It is like learning how to write grammatically correct English. But a game needs to be more than grammatically correct. Imagine if you wanted to use your English skills to write the design for a space shuttle. You would have to be an expert in all of the scientific and engineering principles in building a space shuttle. Actually writing the English sentences is the easiest part.

So what does this mean for you?
To write a character controller, you first have to learn how to write a character controller.
Knowing C# is not supposed to be enough. You need to understand vector algebra and how it is used in physics.
If you don't know what vector 3 and delta are, then you don't know how a character controller works, so of course you aren't prepared to write one. But why are you writing your own? You could use a standard one that is already written.

 

Why do you think programmers get paid so well (unless they're a game programmer.. :S)

Its hard. I got a degree in computing. it took around 5 years. Not all of it was programming, but a big chuck was. Point is it takes a lot of time to get good at coding. Jumping into Unity doesnt help with learning basic/core programming. Its too overwhelming. Sounds like you have made a good start. Just keep plugging away, you'll eventually become competent enough to realise it just comes down to how good your google fu is, pretty much as NegInfinity said.

Identify correct way to google what problem youre trying to solve...

ie. How do I read keyboard input in Unity... find example, apply it to your move code. Progress.

 

How did you learn this stuff? Was it from resources about learning programming, or was it from resources about learning Unity?

I'd suggest finding The Yellow Book by Rob Miles and working through it.

 

Give up. You won't ever learn to code. Might as well quit now and move on with your life.

There is no shame in deciding a particular career is not for you. I am not a musician or and artist. I tried those careers and found they weren't for me, and moved on. In fact eliminating things from your to do list quickly can lead to finding what you really want to do much sooner.

I've given the positive answer in this thread the last five times it turned up this week. So I thought I'd try something different.

 

This is very true. Very few people do all of the different bits of game development. Most people are programmers or artists or sound/music composers or designers. There's generally some crossover, picking up a little skill from other areas, but generally expertise in only one. Furthermore, someone will also generally specialise within their area. Programmers generally have a niche they're good at - they're a graphics programmer, or a network programmer, or something. Same deal with artists - they're a character artist or a UI artist or an environment artist or something.

Games are generally made in teams. People are picked for teams (or hired) based on their area of expertise, not the breadth of their knowledge in other areas. If I hire an artist I don't care how well they can code, I care only about the art they make. If I hire a programmer I'm not asking how good they are in Photoshop.

Considering how darn long it takes to make a game this makes sense. One person doesn't often have time to keep their skills up to date in every single area of expertise needed for a game and also design, build, test, polish, market, release and support a game. So it just makes more sense to specialise in an area and work with others who specialise in other areas. Cover more bases more effectively, and get more man hours of work done in less world time.

So while @BoredMormon's advice might seem blunt, it's well worth considering. If the art side of stuff is working for you then do you really want to force yourself to also pick up programming or do you want to find someone who's good at programming and work with them? One approach takes time away from the thing you're good and motivated at, and also means you've got less expertise in your specialty to offer a team. The other lets you hone a specialty and better fill a niche as a part of a team.

 

So to clarify, you need to figure out what you want to get out of game development as a pursuit. Do you want to make games? Do you want to learn lots of stuff? Do you want to make art / write software / design game systems / draw pictures / compose music? Is it about tinkering and generally having fun? All of those are perfectly fine answers.

The point is, don't learn programming just because you think you have to. If it's not what you want to do then that's perfectly cool, there's still plenty of other ways you can be involved in game development. If you do want to learn programming then sweet, here's The Yellow Book (it's free!).

 

Programming is something that you never truly "learn". It is more a sliding scale of skill, there is always something more to learn. I have been programming professionally for 20 years this year, before that there was college, university and before that a number of years with various computers and books and I still find things quite often that I did not know before!

Then there is learning an engine and you can even go further and learn how to make engines... it never ends

I would actually recommend not learning to code using a game engine... that could be controversial I know. BUT code is code, and if you learn the basics of C# first without worrying about making your dream game then you will be in a much better position to understand what the tutorial for the engine is trying to teach you.

If you don't find the process of programming interesting for it's own sake then it might be just a case of programming is not for you. There are plenty of other things that you can do to be involved in game development. For example I am pretty much useless at art / modelling and all that stuff. I can get by and make stuff work but not to a commercial standard. This is why games are made by teams of people with different skills.

 

Maybe Unity, as friendly as it is, is too much to chew on all at once for beginners. I never got into actual programming because it was too much for me, so I never even touched anything scripting related until the first friendly game engines started to become available, so the manuals were piss easy, taking you by the hand step by step. Unity is still much easier than learning hardcore programming books, yet because it's still quite complex. has a lot more available right off the bat, and that can be confusing.

Unity is much much much better than any of the old game engines but at the same time it's bigger and it may feel like too much. I don't think a lot of people know Unity inside out, especially with new features coming in regularly. More like know inside out what's necessary, a general idea on other things, and other features not even touched.

I reckon jumping into Unity and start doing games coming from zero knowledge must not be easy at all. I recommend not expect it to be easy, though never think it's too difficult for you, or that you can't do it. You're in the right place, this is not Mensa or anything, if you give it time it's guaranteed you'll get the hang of it, but of course it takes time, it's the same for everyone.

 

@DanHedges is spot on. This is exactly the reality. You can learn enough programming to "do things". Tiny things at first. Then learn more programming to do somewhat bigger things or do things in a different area.

While ultimately programming is programming and I find any language easy to pick up.... it is the proprietary stuff that causes the headaches and constant learning. New paradigms, new buzzwords come up continually in this industry and there are always new things to learn.

Even with just game dev you can will likely be exposed to a number of different technologies ranging from gameplay programming to AI to GUI to network to audio to graphics to storage & retrieval (perhaps relational db or the "new" object dbs or maybe something else). And at least some of these will change as time passes and someone somewhere thinks they have found a "better" way that becomes the new popular thing to do.

To be a great all round programmer you must love to learn and tackle different things continually. It never ends.

 

That is what I did with hockey after 5 years.

 

My soccer career went the same way. As did my novelist writing career. Who knows, game dev is still in the early days, it might not last either.

 

You could always try your hand at artwork next. It isn't like programmer artwork doesn't have some popularity after all.

 

He says, at ninety-nine hundred posts.

;D

 

There's a thought for you @BoredMormon. You could apply to Unity as a community manager.

 

Take a few programming courses.

 

My experience with community college was generally favorable but one instructor out of the three classes I took was terrible at teaching and I ended up learning more on my own and from the other students than I did from him.

 

You could give my tutorials a shot. I wrote them for fairly beginnerish people, so they could be useful to you and I suspect you'd be able to provide useful feedback to me.

 

My forum career is going strong. There is a difference between forum posting and game dev.

I peaked at 14 when my art was selected to feature in a Picasso exhibition at the local museum. Lost interest after that, but I could revisit it again. But YouTubing is going well at the moment. And of course there is always my day job.

To the OP: My earlier comments were harsh. It's probably possible for anyone to learn programming, given enough time and effort. The real questions to ask are:

• How much time and effort will it take me?
• Is that time and effort worth it?

The answers to both questions are very individual and personal. They presuppose a bunch of other questions

• How good are you at general logic and mathematics?
• Do you enjoy programming?
• Can you find the skills you need elsewhere?
• Are you doing this as a business or as a hobby?

There really is not right or wrong answer. But if you want our help and support learning to code, we are here to help.

 

I loved community college. Some of the best instructors I ever had were at a CC. Though... that is also where I learned to ice skate/play hockey.

 

Although it's obvious that there are quite a lot of things that some people can do and others cannot, due to hard limitations, in my experience those limitations are usually far, far beyond where people think they are. More often than not, there's a psychological barrier of some sort that's lying a lot closer to where the person is now. The mind is too good at protecting itself - it's self-esteem and it's identity - through various measures, and backward rationalising to support it. Most people don't realise to what extent these mechanisms operate since they've spent a lifetime learning how to avoid knowing about them.

The most beneficial thing you can do is to take responsibility for your success or failure. It sounds obvious, but the moment you blame something else, you've lost control of your ability to succeed, you have to wait until that thing 'corrects' itself - and worse, you integrate that roadblock and your subsequent protest into your identity. Unfortunately for them, people are generally full of these excuses, and the quicker you reach for one of them when something goes wrong, the quicker your progress comes to an end.

It's not easy to ditch the 'excuses' mentality, and it's not easy to initiate and direct a shift in your own psychological framework, nor is it very fun to live with the truth of your own hard limitations, but it certainly enables you to get much, much further than you might have expected. If you can eventually live with it, it's worth it.

 

Agree... completely.

If you keep telling yourself you can't code, your mind will make it so. I know it sounds trite, but attitude makes all the difference. My Pappy always corrected us when we were kids when it came to learning/trying. If we ever said "I can't." he would have us say instead "I can't... yet.". As @Billy4184 said, it isn't easy. But it is never too late to start.

 

The problem is, excuses are literally a long-standing addiction. Not only do you go into withdrawal (literally) when you stop using them, but also you have to ditch all your addict friends unless you want to be pulled back into it. It's often too much of a shift for people who have grown up and built their lives around it.

 

Huh, I never thought of them as an "addiction" before. It seems to fit!

For a long time I've been trying to catch myself using excuses and redirect into more useful behaviour. It's important to note that "not using excuses" does not mean "never give up on anything, ever". That said, if you do give up on something don't do it because of an excuse. As @Billy4184 says, don't let go of that control. Make your own decision on your own terms.

Don't want to learn a skill because it'll take too much time? That's actually perfectly fine, as long as you're making a decision about how to spend your time as opposed to avoiding something because it's hard. One of those is making an active decision about how to spend your time. The other is being shoved away from a path by not taking active control.

 

Yeah, sometimes you have to decide not to continue doing something, though it's never really clear how impossible something is. But the funny thing is that although it's hard at first to accept that there are things you can't really do, the whole mentality of being responsible for your outcomes makes it easier to decide to focus on things that you're good at and give you pleasure - it's no longer your responsibility to re-enact your failures and protests ad nauseum in order to retain your identity.

The first time I thought of it as an addiction was when I consciously tried to take responsibility - in the moment - for a failure of a type that I'd always used an excuse for - the emotion it produced was exactly the same as lack of coffee, lack of sugar or a hangover - an empty, cold and anxious feeling - and just thinking about the idea of accepting the excuse felt warm and fuzzy. Needless to say I went to work after that.

 

Some of my most productive times are when I am specifically avoiding doing something else.

 

Thanks to every single one of you for these comments, they really helped! And i apologize for the late reply. Unity may not be a good engine to start learning on, i will give GameMaker a try.

I hated programming before i got into it because people said if you are bad at math you are bad at programming, i hated math so much, so i never wanted to learn programming. But when i actually forced myself to learn it, there wasnt really much math going on, all basic stuff, but i expect for advanced math to eventually come when i do more complicated stuff. School made me think i am terrible at math, they made me hate it, but it turns out i'm actually good at math, it's just that the teachers were terrible at teaching. I eventually loved coding when i realized it's not what people said it was. Game development is something i wanted to do since i was young, what makes you think it's not for me? English is not actually my first language, i learned it by myself, so why can't i learn a programming language?

 

Pro tip: The compiler will slaughter you for a miss-capitalised word or out of place comma. Practice using grammar exactly in all of your writing. This will make it flow more naturally in code.

 

Fortunately it won't care about your spelling capabilities so long as you misspell the words consistently.

 

That's kind of like asking "why can't I learn to use a hammer?" when you want to build a house.

Yes, programming languages are in fact very simple compared to human languages. If it's just the language you want to learn then that's no big deal. It's clearly defined and far more compact than most human languages. (I think C++ has fewer than 100 keywords, for instance. Compare that to the size of a dictionary...)

Writing code is easy... once you know what to write.

As a hammer is a tool, so is a programming language. Knowing how to use a hammer doesn't mean you can build a house. Similarly, knowing a programming language doesn't mean you can build a game.

The challenging part of programming is the problem solving side of things. This easily requires more learning, and learning of more abstract things, than the language part.

 

Sounds like you're making good progress with the basics. You named the thread, "Will I ever learn coding?" Compared to where you begain, you already have. You're right, there is a lot to learn. And not just nuts-and-bolts "if" statements. There is a lot of design and planning that goes into writing real software, and you need to develop a feel for how that works.

Given that you've shown enough interest to actually get started and can already do useful, simple things, I'm going to say ignore the advice that maybe you should just drop it. Instead, consider that you may not become a programmer as your primary interest, but I'd guess that every programmer here would prefer to work with artists who know something about programming than one who does not (and the converse is also likely true).

But even that is more negative advice than I feel is appropriate at this stage. I also don't think it's appropriate to compare your progress with something like Blender to your progress as a programmer. They're apples and oranges. Blender is just a tool, programming is a broad collection of knowledge, skills and experience. One is designed to be easy to use (Blender's alien GUI notwithstanding!), the other is like walking into an industrial machine shop for the first time and wondering if you should start with the lathe or a mill. Just no valid comparison to be made.

But given what you've done so far, I wouldn't even start to think about giving up on it yet -- as long as you're enjoying it.

Oh, and some math is inevitable if you want to do 3D. It isn't hard to learn and that's where Unity (not programming in general) could be compared to Blender -- it's a great tool to make your ideas easier to realize.

 

Just in case anyone missed it, I'd like to call attention to the context of @BoredMormon's post where he suggested giving up:

I personally interpreted it as a jovially flippant suggestion rather than a serious one, that still managed to point out that it is indeed ok to focus elsewhere instead.

 

@OP:

You want to become a "game developer". That's a general category of related jobs. You need to be CRYSTAL clear who you want to be in particular. Do you want to be a network programmer? Maybe character modeler? Project manager? The sooner you decide upon your specialty the better. If you are young you have years to do it and it WILL take years to find out.

You should start with things which naturally interest you. Very few people can make a full game solo. Huge majority works in teams with very narrow specialization.

 

Coding is really hard, if you don't enjoy doing it.

And if you don't enjoy doing it, don't do it.

But if you do enjoy it, you won't feel like you have to make a huge game and will find joy in banging your head over a problem until some light shines through the cracks in your skull.

Also, make sure to read through ALL of the unity tutorial, and try a game or two.

Also, the wiki has some good stuff in there.

Lastly, to REALLY become a code master after getting through a C# book pick up Programming Patterns and Game Design Patterns.

 

So after a year of no progress and not getting past the basic stages of programming, I realized that i'm the problem. I don't put as much effort to learning programming as anyone else. Or at least I did in the beginning but then started to get lazy and addicted to Team Fortress 2. I always bite off more than I can chew. I open Unity and get this epic FPS game idea that's going to be the next hit, but when I attempt to create it, I realize how hard it is and lose all motivation and close Unity then get back to playing Team Fortress 2.

I wasted a whole year doing this and repeated the same cycle until I realized that I can't even make pong let alone an FPS. I'd follow tutorials on how to make an FPS with Unity and just copy their code without knowing how it works because I desperately wanted to make an FPS then when I finish the whole tutorial i'm left with a half complete FPS game and I can't figure out how to finish the other half. I realized that I should start small instead of attempting to create a whole FPS game with my basic knowledge of programming as a first game.

From today on, I will stop repeating the same stupid cycle and restart the whole journey the right way.

 

http://www.csharpcourse.com


This is a great, actual beginner course. If you have still only done free video tutorials, I'd suggest picking this e-book and reading it. Suddenly everything will start to make sense.

I think I've done about every free tutorial this is out there, and what I've learned is that most of them lack the depth to be true beginner tutorials. They are more like demos, or showcases to give a general idea of what can be done. But if you want to really get some well-thought out instruction, you have to spend a little money.

 

Is it just me or is this sentence an oxymoron? Isn't restarting the journey the definition of repeating the same cycle?

Anyway, good luck on the reboot to your journey. Let us know if you need any specific help.

 

Just use Playmaker

If you are a visual logic solver, and chances favor that you are, it will make it tons easier to figure each small step.

The more experienced you are at work(manship), the less obsessed you become with doing things "right" and the more focused you are with getting to where you need to go.
I am not a programmer, neither am I doing this for a living. I come from an artistic side of things.
So my viewpoint is very biased, in that I have lots of room to fail and the freedom of doing what I want and how I want it, but with the caveat of very limited time.

I tell people I don't do (a) game, I do prototypes. That works for me, because my goal is to explore the myriads of ideas I have, and not necessarily that interested in the title of "game developer" by itself.
I've been prototypes with Playmaker for ~3 years, and feel I have learned lots from it. (Although, I've been stuck with the same prototype now for the past 6 months, so maybe I have to give up saying I only do prototypes soon...)

There are so many elements that goes into making a game, so many problem you have to solve or system you have to figure out. Programming is only a piece of machine, it's like the cogs that drives it.

lastly, I'm going to give a somewhat controversial advice.
Stop learning, start doing.

 

Only if you follow the same path. It sounds like he found a new road to follow. Instead of having someone else drop him off in the middle hand him the keys and walk off while he stands there saying I never learned to drive a stick shift he is going to start at the beginning and learn what that 3rd pedal is used for. I personally commend him for examining past failure, accepting responsibility for it and deciding to change his approach. With his new found attitude of start small, understand the beginner stuff, and dont get overwhelmed as you progress he is on the correct path of learning.

 

Trust me you aren't anywhere near "half" finished.

Why not pick up modding instead?

I think learning to code is a good thing, but it doesn't really sound like you want to learn to code, it sounds like you want to make a game. Modding would probably be a much better fit.

Remember - Team Fortress itself started out as a friggin halflife mod!

So did counterstrike. And DoTA. And DayZ.

Almost all the 'big' pc games of the last decade have their roots in modding.

 

Wanting to start your first project with something really big is a error that most programmers do.
You need to start really small, try to think in a simple game, making it 2D will help you not to worry in working in 3 dimensions.

I first started making some silly games with GameMaker, you can do all the programming without writing any code, this is good to learn how the workflow and logic applies wen creating a game.

PlayMaker is good for unity because that way you don't need to worry much about writing code, but you still need experience in how all the elements fit together in a game.

If you become a programmer, i will say that the most easy thing to do is to drop a project half way and never finish it.

So my advice to you, start with a really simple game, like a game that you touch a ball with the mouse and need to keep it bouncing in the air. You will make a lot of mistakes in this project. Mistakes that you will not repeat in the next one.
Find some Jams and make games for it as well.

But the most important thing you need to have is discipline, without that you will get no where. Before the day starts, make a schedule to work from X to Y without any distractions, or else it will be really hard that some day you can finish a game without any problem.

 

Haha my English isn't the best. Thanks though.

 

I gave Playmaker a shot before. In my opinion, learning coding and getting good at it would be more beneficial. I don't think working with Playmaker would be comfortable on the big projects that i'm planning to make in the future. Plus when you know how to code you can use any engine in the world and maybe even get a programming job in the future. I don't think i'm going to use Unity forever. I understand that making the game is more important than spending a long time learning, but coding is just a skill that's too good to have and it's worth it spending all this time learning it imo.

 

I thought about modding games before but if i'm ever going to mod a game, I'd get into the coding side of modding. Like creating a new game mode or server plugin and these kind of things. I have no interest in just changing sound files, textures, models, etc. I was scared of coding a year ago, but honestly i'm starting to love it now.

 

Only if the person is willing and able to stick to it! Otherwise using Playmaker or using code - really doesn't matter.

I politely disagree with this notion. I think the accurate perspective is if you plan to be in/around the professional tech environment/landscape - learning never stops.
As a 18 year professional animation artist, I've continued to learn as the work and technology progresses. I don't think this is any different on the programming/engineering side. Starting to learn is in essence starting your career and long time journey in on-going, continuous learning.
Fundamentals in any field are of course needed and required to expand ones knowledge and ability, but once those fundamentals are known the learning does not stop, nor do those fundamentals stay constant. Some may evolve over time.

Some people can not learn how to program. They are just not able to retain the syntax and SEE what the code is doing. I suffer from this malady. I've chosen instead of trying over and over to try to learn how to code, waste time and money, to use a tool that allows me to overcome (mostly) that inability.
But your choice is your own.

Unless you are like me - just can't code - I think (opinion) you probably don't have a problem with learning, instead you have a problem managing priorities.

Delete TF2 -

 

That's my problem. I also thought I was unable to learn coding because I couldn't make an FPS as a first game lol.

I wish I could

 

Start with TicTacToe.

I've done that game in 3 different languages. Its a good way to learn basics and doesn't take too long.

 

Great idea, will definitely do that.