Getting Better 1,198 Polygons At a Time
I read in a book recently that the best way to increase your earning potential is to become the best in your field. And the way the author suggested doing that was to create a list of the main 5-9 skills needed in your profession, and then do a thoughtful self-analysis and rate those skills within yourself. Going by rule of thumb that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, address your weakest skill. It's probably the one thing you like doing the least. Work on it until it's no longer your weakest skill. And then move on to the next weakest.

How do you "address" a weakness? Education is part of it. Especially in high-tech industries, our knowledge is constantly acquiring gaps that need to be addressed. With as much knowledge as is available at the speed of Google these days, there's not much excuse for remaining in ignorance.

But what it usually comes down to is practice. Lots of practice. Scott Hsu-Storaker had a pretty interesting challenge for himself back in 2006 (which he is continuing this year). Given the idea that experience and practice is just as important as talent, and that after spending a thousand hours doing something, you ought to be able to start getting pretty good at it. GBGames has been doggedly posting his updates every Monday morning for the last year and change as he's been pushing to increase his game development skills by putting in 1,000 hours of development time over the course of a year.

I figure I'm pretty dang good at wasting time by now. Too bad that's not one of my skillsets for being the top in my professional field. Or for making the top-selling indie games on the market.

Unfortunately, as an indie game developer, that list of skills is extremely large. Even though I've been a professional programmer for *cough*overadecade*cough* now, I've still got some gaping holes in my skill sets. And since an indie needs to wear so many hats, that's only a drop in the bucket. (Hmm... maybe figuring out how to finance and deligate so I don't have to wear so many hats might be a good start, huh?)

So I have a lot of things I suck at that I've been working on to make them not suck.

Part of my objective with Apocalypse Cow was to spend some time learning the artistic side of game development a little better. Now, I'm nowhere near 1,000 hours modeling and texturing with Blender (and Gimp), but my latest undertaking is a helicopter, originally modeled by George McEwan and subsequently modified all to hades by myself. It currently has 1,198 polygon faces for me to texture - yes, two shy of an even 1,200 - that's taking me several hours (well into my second 20-hour "leveling up" process). While I'm not individually hand-painting all of those 1,198 faces, it sure feels that way.

I've gotten to the point where I can do a passable job (kind of) on pure geometric modeling. I can confidently say at this point that I suck much less at 3D modeling. I don't think it means I "don't suck" yet, but sucking less is progress. Texturing is still a bear for me. And animation is a giant mutant bear with cybernetic legs and adamantium claws. But I figure the best way to learn is to practice, right? And Apocalypse Cow is offering me a ton of practice.

It's just frustrating when I want to get the game out the door.

If anybody knows of any nice tutorials on good texturing techniques / methodologies, I'd like to hear about them. I think I've got many of the basics understood --- but it's still a nightmare of unwrapping, assembling together puzzle-pieces of polygons, exporting the mesh layout, trying to do SOMETHING resembling a non-heinous job of drawing the textures to match the polygon layout, then working with more puzzle pieces for the symmetrical opposite side, etc. I'm sure I'm doing some things... well, sub-optimally.

Labels: game art

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:00 AM (Permalink)