General

One of the best ways to increase the chances of your game project succeeding is to identify and mitigate risks early on.

Today we’re going to talk about something that can hurt your motivation over time.

Something that has the power to make you quit.

Something you don’t even think about, but it is there, watching your every move.

It eats starry-eyed game developers like you for breakfast every day.

And most of them aren’t even aware of its presence!

I’m going to show you what it looks like, and teach you how to defeat it!

Are you afraid yet?

You better be.

Because we’re going to talk about the law of diminishing returns!

[Read more…] about How To Defeat The Law of Diminishing Returns and Keep Yourself Motivated

This week, I worked on the WW2 German dive-bomber JU87 Stuka for our PolyWW2 game asset collection, and I decided to record it and create a timelapse video.

It took me 12 hours to model, uv unwrap, and texture. There is still some work needed to make the model game-ready, but that would be a bit boring to watch, so I won’t be recording it.

Enjoy!

Making games is a demanding job, to say the least.

No matter how good you are at what you do, you are always at risk of being creatively drained and burnt out.

Or just plain bored.

Over the years, I’ve applied some good advice that kept me afloat, I’ve also crashed and burned several times.

So I believe I have some valuable tips that I’m going to share with you in this post.

[Read more…] about 12 Tips To Rekindle Your Love For Game Making

If you’re anything like me, you’ve started your game development journey by making simple 2D games.

A lot of beginner tutorials and books introduce people to game making through 2D.

Have you ever asked yourself why?

Is 3D a magnitude harder to work with when compared to 2D?

Do you really need AAA grade resources to produce a fun 3D game?

Is 2D game development actually harder?

For a long time, I was held back by some limiting beliefs about 3D, I never dared to make the jump because of them.

Now that I have, I’d like to share some common misconceptions about 3D to spare you the pain that I’ve endured and to help you reach your full potential as a game developer.

[Read more…] about Misconceptions About 3D That Hurt Your Game

I’m a decent 2D artist, but deep down, I’ve always wanted to make 3D models for games. I guess I just lacked the determination and patience to go through the learning process.

Like a child sitting at a piano, feeling the music inside but unable to hit the right notes at the right time, I’ve always had the 3D music in me, but I needed to get real and start learning the basics.

I decided to begin by learning 2D art a few years ago. My reasoning was that it would be easier to jump from 2D to 3D. In hindsight, I was right.

I followed tutorials, learned the ropes, and kept doodling every day. Soon enough, I reached a level decent enough to work as a professional 2D game artist.

I produced more than a hundred 2D game assets in the past 3 years to sell on various asset stores, I also did some freelancing on the side.

The experience changed my life for the better.

I interacted with customers for the first time in my life. It was humbling to see people willingly part with their hard-earned cash in return for the fruits of my labor.

I earned enough income to upgrade my tools. I purchased a better graphical tablet, better software, a better desk, and a more comfortable chair.

I also published my first indie game on Steam in April of 2019. Which took a few months of hard work.

So with all that experience, I felt ready to jump into that sweet third dimension.

In August of 2019, I took the leap.

I knew the drill: follow tutorials, practice every day, don’t give in to frustration, etc. I was a professional, after all.

I learned to love the process. The small failures. The tiny successes.

I produced terrible results, but I knew it was part of the fun. So I kept at it, often remodeling the same thing 4 to 6 times just to get it right.

3D wasn’t completely new to me. I had some experience making simple models in the past. What I lacked was discipline and motivation to get to the next level.

As with 2D art, I gathered a collection of images and videos from the web that I would look at every day. Being inspired is important for an artist, as I’ve learned throughout my short career.

I got pretty good at modeling. So I started focusing more on UV mapping and texturing. It took me quite a while to wrap my mind around these subjects. Fortunately, the web is rife with tutorials and courses to learn just about anything.

Now that my skills are on par with many professional artists out there, I can finally start adding my personal touch to the world of 3D game art.

For me, 3D is all about more ways to express myself. In practice, it will allow my studio to produce more useful game assets for you and other developers all around the globe.

I’m happy and excited thinking of the beautiful assets I will be sharing in the months to come. I’ll try to write posts like these on a weekly basis to keep you informed of what is going on in the studio.