So I am wanting to become a video game designer/developer/both, and I am thinking I might eventually apply to Rare, despite in the U.S... how ever I wanna hone my skills, my programming skills aren't as good yet, and I want to get good before I apply to any video game place. And if I do get hired by rare, I'd probably work in Sea of Thieves. So... what code does it base off of? C++? C? Adobe?
What video game code is the game based off?
@cheatingpirate just start with learning C++, or even plain old C for start. UScript is just for making your life easier with UE, when you're starting out, you should learn the basics first. You need to actualy know how these things work, not just how to use some shortcuts. Otherwise you'd struggle really badly with troubleshooting and your code syntax would be unreadable for others, which also means noone would hire you.
@cheatingpirate said in What video game code is the game based off?:
@xcalypt0x wait it says "unrealscript"
I believe UnrealScript kicked the bucket. You can use blueprinting instead. See article below.
Sadly, the answer is pretty polymorphic. There's the common languages that are used in design which tend to include C/C++ but frankly, even java is important in some areas.
It's less about "learning specific languages" than it is about learning as many of the relevant languages as you can.
Just like me being a combat medic... sure the basic effort requires EMT/B and CPR but after that if I want actual employability in the real world.. I need EMP/P ACLS, PALS, BLS/CPR, Cardiac, Phlebotomy, and so many more acronyms my head spins... literally dozens of paths to becoming a relevant medic in the civilian world exist..
It's the same for software development.
Learn some of the important hallmark languages...sure...
But it's more about learning the processes of the job field, finding companies that will make use of the skills you do have, scanning the horizon and finding the most relevant tools is something which will help you in the long run as well.
Just know that even with this, your only going to be scratching the surface. Back in the old days when I was working with software... it was more about my portfolio, the few key languages I coded in that defined what job I would get. I had to learn from the bottom up, hardware, PC building, various software suites, databases, even a bit of electrical hardware concerns and that was before I was able to even think about understanding simple things like BASIC...
What you need is a decent college and some prelude access to basic languages and coding tools as mentioned above.
@CheatingPirate Piggybacking off of what @blooddoll22 suggested. Don't worry about specific languages. Worry about learning Object Oriented Design principles. It would also be good to look up game design principles and, if your game is multiplayer, networking principles (especially network programming).
If you learn C++ you will have a very easy time picking up any other object orientated programming language. Here are three fantastic resources for people who want to get into game dev.
@xCALYPT0x UScript is gone from UE4, but there were some talks about possibility of it returning one day. (hopefuly it won't) BluePrints (used in ue4) are so much faster than uscript ever was...
@blooddoll22 you'd be surprised, how many decent programmers today, have no idea how a pc is build and how it actualy works...
@sir-lotus #sigh, yea I'm old school. Also PCs aren't my field, shortly after most of my college I chose to enlist for a few years. Don't regret it, but I'm Doc now and have no clue in the PC world anymore. I speak only off aged perspective.
@Blooddoll22
I'm sort of "right there with ye" in the old school aspect. My first "PC" (if you can call it that) was a old TI-99A which came with no books or manual. I had to go to the library, teach myself BASIC and save the coding on a 5.25" floppy just to make it do anything.
Over the years I've gathered loads of random knowledge... Working as a website designer, graphic artist, PC hardware tech and now moved on to general electronics trouble shooting for friends and family even though my current job is renting kayaks at a local lake. (Not much money in it but, I'm back outside and on the water.)
@CheatingPirate
Moral of the story: You never know what knowledge will become important until you absolutely need it. Until then, learn everything you can.
It's UE4 so blueprints (visual scripting) and C++. The server architecture could be anything really although UE4 does support a way to make a single map a dedicated server so if you're looking into creating an open world dedicated server you could look into some YouTube tutorials or other documentation on making a dedicated server. You will also need Visual Studio, 2015 works great, not sure about 2017+.
I mean Visual Studio isn't exactly necessary. Sometimes a more lightweight IDE is more than enough. Like Eclipse or Netbeans.
And about those "learn everything" advices. Honestly don't over-do it. Focus on programming, or any other field you want to work in. I deleted more than half of my CV, because noone cared about that stuff.
You should have a general knowledge about all IT fields, but it's more for you, to be able to think about how the code you write will actualy work. It won't help you get a job, it will help you to be better at that job once you have it.
@sir-lotus I say Visual Studio in terms of setting up the dedicated server part of it, assuming that's what he/she wants to do, plus I may be a little biased towards it lol
@cheatingpirate said in What video game code is the game based off?:
So I am wanting to become a video game designer/developer/both, and I am thinking I might eventually apply to Rare, despite in the U.S... how ever I wanna hone my skills, my programming skills aren't as good yet, and I want to get good before I apply to any video game place. And if I do get hired by rare, I'd probably work in Sea of Thieves. So... what code does it base off of? C++? C? Adobe?
If you're interested in becoming a game dev and you're just starting out I would suggest dabbling in a lot of the basics to figure out what you like most.
If you want to be a programmer I would start with C++ or C#. I would also get a game engine, either Unreal Engine 4 or Unity and just start building some of the tutorials. We use UE4 so C++ and blueprints. Good luck with your studies!
If you want to be a designer, to start, I would play as many games as possible and really question why they decided to do what they did. There's also lots of great books out there on game design theory, read some of those. And again get in engine and mess around, build some tutorials. Also check out the GDC Vault, there are some free videos & presentations on a lot of topics of game development and the industry in general.
@cheatingpirate You've received most of the important information that you are going to get here so far, especially from @zZ-Emerz-Zz seeing as this is from the horses mouth!
From my perspective as a Teacher and Head of Computer Science though, I would be concerned throwing a student in straight away with a lower level language such as C or C++.
We start our students off in Python and then Visual Basic as they are both pretty high level languages and teach you the basic programming syntax, as well as OOP fairly easily with Visual Basic.
I would HIGHLY recommend this series by Bob Tabor as he will lead you through every basic aspect of programming.
@sshteeve @zZ-Emerz-Zz
Some great advice there from the horse's mouth - my son is studying computer science now and intends to do so at university, he's started off quite simply and is now progressing to creating his own platforer game for next year. Small steps and building on what you've learned before.There are a number of online schools which offer courses in coding for free as well.
I wonder if modding existing games like Skyrim, fallout etc is also a useful way to become familiar with how games are put together and the code used.
@katttruewalker said in What video game code is the game based off?:
I wonder if modding existing games like Skyrim, fallout etc is also a useful way to become familiar with how games are put together and the code used.
Definitely doesn't hurt. My degree is Interactive Systems and Videogame Design and my final group project was a mod of Half Life 2. I made, textured and skinned the enemies, a mate made all of the world assets and another coded. It helped us to understand how the game was built, without having to work from the group up!
@zz-emerz-zz Well, that's actually very detailed and gives quite a bit of helpful tips! I do plan to be in the video game industry and knowing all of this would increase my chances! Thank you so much!
As far as learning how to write code goes I would pick any object-oriented language (C++/Java are good choices) and pick a ___ coding for dummies book up. It will teach you how to make loops, different ways to search lists, functions, and the in's and out's of classes(this last one is a biggy). In most modern object-oriented languages those are fairly identical with small formatting differences being the only thing to learn between them. Once you have a handle on them most everything else will come easily.
I don't know if you realised that you need at least 3-4 years just to learn the basics at college/university and 3-4 years in ''field'' experience to be hired by a big company like Rare. I don't think they will hired someone without at least some sort of diploma or degree and a solid portfolio. So... yes. See you in 8 years of hard work!
@sir-lotus said in What video game code is the game based off?:
I mean Visual Studio isn't exactly necessary. Sometimes a more lightweight IDE is more than enough. Like Eclipse or Netbeans.
And about those "learn everything" advices. Honestly don't over-do it. Focus on programming, or any other field you want to work in. I deleted more than half of my CV, because noone cared about that stuff.
You should have a general knowledge about all IT fields, but it's more for you, to be able to think about how the code you write will actualy work. It won't help you get a job, it will help you to be better at that job once you have it.
I know I was one of those "learn everything" replies but, there's a limit to my advice. Guess I should have mentioned that in my original reply... oops.
@CheatingPirate
When I mentioned "learn everything you can" in my original reply, it should have come with a disclaimer.
My step-dad was a programmer back in the 60's and 70's. He specialized in Fortran & Cobol on the old (aka: prehistoric) punch card system. He tried to stay up to date on every new language and system that came out, hoping to "learn everything" but it was too much for him, as it is for most of us. Eventually, he learned the basic syntax for the more popular languages and was able to have a basic understanding of the ones he hadn't studied because of common codes.
I did the same when I taught myself years ago. I tried to "learn everything" but quickly realized I wasn't ever going to use (or need to be fluent) in everything. So, I thought about what I wanted to do (at the time it was web design) so I learned to code html from scratch. Then, as Java and Flash became more popular, I worked with that too. I finally stopped when people could "drag and drop" their website for free.
Moral of the story:
Learn what will help you be happy and successful. Anything extra can be helpful but, not always necessary.
Unreal Engine - Wikipedia
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