The BRAWL² Tournament Challenge has been announced!
It starts May 12, and ends Oct 17. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
It starts May 12, and ends Oct 17. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
Best Of
Re: What Are You Working On? (3D) 2026
Workin on my evil morty primus pose turntable, i am getting happy with it, for 2026.
iam717
3 ·
Re: What’s a realistic first step for someone trying to make their first game solo?
I’d suggest modding an existing game. This will give you key insights into many of the constraints and challenges of generating game assets.
It’s also very accessible, there are lots of communities for modding support, resources to learn from, and tools.
Eric Chadwick
3 ·
Re: What’s a realistic first step for someone trying to make their first game solo?
Sure. But you’re just starting out, with zero experience. It may seem like an indirect course, but at this point you don’t know what you don’t know.
Trying to create a game on your own, from scratch, is bound to be a frustrating experience. Using an already-functional game will allow you to learn via situational progress.
Trying to create a game on your own, from scratch, is bound to be a frustrating experience. Using an already-functional game will allow you to learn via situational progress.
Eric Chadwick
3 ·
Re: What’s a realistic first step for someone trying to make their first game solo?
"[...] Back to the main thing - I met an old friend of mine a while ago and he shared with me the project he is working on. I am not able to share the details but long story short it is kind of a game engine (not something revolutionary new I get it) but the thing that caught my attention wasn’t the tech itself, but the idea of how games created with it could be monetized."
Run.
"[...] the big amount of my personal time I will spend on it if I join."
Time spent doing ... what ? Your original post made it seem like you, yourself, wanted to learn how to make games, hence the earlier recommendations. But if you are looking for opinions on the timeframe for this engine project : some people manage to build that kind of stuff on their own over the span of a few years, using premade assets or by going for a simple visual style ; and a few startups have attempted to get into that space by raising money for a whole team. It hasn't worked in either case (in the sense of ultimately generating revenue) as the market is already taken by Roblox and Fortnite Creative on the "easy to use walled garden" side of things, and by regular commercial 2d and 3d game engines for the target audience more serious about making games and fully owning them.
Overall, the appeal of products advertising themselves as "come use our thing ! It's easy to use, and you can even make money with it !" has fully run its course years ago IMHO. Not only because such products haven't managed to generate revenue so far, but also because people are generally growing more aware and tired of our every day dependency on online tech in general.
And to be clear : the above doesn't mean that such products can't be enjoyable to use, as some of the attempts made in the past few years were genuinely well-made ! But as far as I am aware they all failed to capture an audience. Whereas in the meantime the popularity of free to use tools like Blender and Godot has reached new heights.
Now people and small teams *do* manage to generate revenue with products that are genuinely useful for gamedev, like for instance Kenneyshape :
https://kenney.nl/tools/kenney-shape?kenney-shape/
Or the aforementioned pico8, which is not trying to lure anyone into any monetization scheme but is still a commercial product generating revenue for its owner.
All that said, good luck !
Run.
"[...] the big amount of my personal time I will spend on it if I join."
Time spent doing ... what ? Your original post made it seem like you, yourself, wanted to learn how to make games, hence the earlier recommendations. But if you are looking for opinions on the timeframe for this engine project : some people manage to build that kind of stuff on their own over the span of a few years, using premade assets or by going for a simple visual style ; and a few startups have attempted to get into that space by raising money for a whole team. It hasn't worked in either case (in the sense of ultimately generating revenue) as the market is already taken by Roblox and Fortnite Creative on the "easy to use walled garden" side of things, and by regular commercial 2d and 3d game engines for the target audience more serious about making games and fully owning them.
Overall, the appeal of products advertising themselves as "come use our thing ! It's easy to use, and you can even make money with it !" has fully run its course years ago IMHO. Not only because such products haven't managed to generate revenue so far, but also because people are generally growing more aware and tired of our every day dependency on online tech in general.
And to be clear : the above doesn't mean that such products can't be enjoyable to use, as some of the attempts made in the past few years were genuinely well-made ! But as far as I am aware they all failed to capture an audience. Whereas in the meantime the popularity of free to use tools like Blender and Godot has reached new heights.
Now people and small teams *do* manage to generate revenue with products that are genuinely useful for gamedev, like for instance Kenneyshape :
https://kenney.nl/tools/kenney-shape?kenney-shape/
Or the aforementioned pico8, which is not trying to lure anyone into any monetization scheme but is still a commercial product generating revenue for its owner.
All that said, good luck !
pior
3 ·
Re: What’s a realistic first step for someone trying to make their first game solo?
The path into game development really depends on where you're starting from. Some people start with an idea or thing they want to see in a game and learn skills as they go. Others master art or programing first and either find a counterpart or eventually branch out into the other discipline while working on different projects.
It's a similar sort of thing with how projects get started and how they develop. Ideas are important but so are constraints: including choosing a game engine. So getting all of that (ideas, constraints, wants, needs, features, themes, story elements, game-play mechanics, etc.) fixed into some kind of design document or rough outline is probably a good first step while also moving into prototyping and white boxing. Start small, iterate, improve, repeat.
What the path and process looks like will vary depending on the idea and where the person is starting from. Lots of people get started by messing around with modding or by following basic game development tutorials. Some people go to university to get a degree in game development. Others do art or programing and eventually switch from whatever they were working on to making games. Sometimes as a hobby, sometimes professionally.
From a general, personal perspective: What does this project's primary goal or ideal outcome look like? Are the key metrics for that mostly monetary or non-tangible and personal? Are those elements aligned with what you personally want to do or achieve?
From an investor or stakeholder's perspective: What does a SWOT analysis of this project look like?
If the goal is to build and monetize a new game engine or even just a single game then what's the financial runway look like for everyone involved? Is there a specific threshold for the total number of users, sales, or some other metric that make this a go, no go? What's the worst that happens if the project doesn't reach the primary goal or desired outcome?
How many active third party developers, published games, and total users are requited to make this engine both financially viable and self sustaining? Is there external funding or buy out potential, not at some point in the future but right now?
From an independent developer's perspective: if an engine doesn't have any significant competitive advantage then what's the incentive to use it?
How does this new game engine compare to the top three engines most independent developers are already using? Not just in terms of features or licensing schemes, but also in terms of non-tangibles that include things like broader community support in form of third party documentation, examples, tutorials, and existing (engine specific) asset marketplaces, ready to use modular game play systems, etc...
Does this particular engine have any significant competitive advantage? Especially considering the sizeable moat established engines already have. What is the main selling point or plan for attracting developers to this new game engine?
From a monetization perspective: What does the licensing scheme for this engine look like? Is it competitive with what the top three engines are currently offering and is there a plan to avoid common pitfalls related to monetization that drive developers and users away? (If access to a game engine is either monetized right out of the gate or later pay walled then what's stopping developers from moving to a competing engine?) Unity would be a great case study to get some insight into monetization issues and how both consumers and developers react to that.
Even if the idea is as simple as monetizing a single game: How large is the target audience, who's the top three competitors in that space, what does their monetization scheme look like, and what's the draw that will pull the audience away from those existing games to this one? How do developers and players tend to respond to paywalls, subscriptions, DLC, pay to win, etc. in different market segments?
From an advertising perspective: What does the ad budget look like? How much time is left until the planned release date? Does social marketing make sense as part of the development process? What are the pros and cons of sharing parts of the development process to build awareness and interest? What's the opportunity cost and tradeoffs of doing / not doing that?
This is kind of a chicken and egg thing because there has to be enough to show potential customers but also enough time left to build awareness before release. Same with paying for ads and putting out highly polished showcases Vs sharing large portions of the development process while also leveraging the developer / development team's personality. Something that works well, right up until it doesn't...
If the goal is to leverage your existing B2B skills by assisting in developing and marketing a new game or game engine then it's more a question of formulating the core vision for the project, working through the development process, and aligning the product's features and benefits with the target audience. Part of that is understanding what people want or need and another part of that is studying the competition to see whether or not there's even room in the market for the product. Sometimes it makes more sense to pivot and fill a specific tool or platform need rather than completely reinventing the wheel.
There's small games and big games. Niche game engines and mainstream game engines. It's generally easier to start small and figure out what works before investing a lot of time and resources in something. That strategy tends to work well with individual game projects but maybe not so well with game engines if the goal is to scale immediately and compete with even the top five engines... So that question really comes down to scale and time.
In that case, outside of the more personal question of whether or not you want to work on a project like this, it's also one of those things where it's probably a good idea to have some potentially tough conversations with the other person to figure out where they're at, where they want to go, and whether or not they can realistically get there.
It's kind of trite but one of the fastest ways to ruin a friendship is to involve time or money, creative vision, and post launch compensated effort...
It's a similar sort of thing with how projects get started and how they develop. Ideas are important but so are constraints: including choosing a game engine. So getting all of that (ideas, constraints, wants, needs, features, themes, story elements, game-play mechanics, etc.) fixed into some kind of design document or rough outline is probably a good first step while also moving into prototyping and white boxing. Start small, iterate, improve, repeat.
What the path and process looks like will vary depending on the idea and where the person is starting from. Lots of people get started by messing around with modding or by following basic game development tutorials. Some people go to university to get a degree in game development. Others do art or programing and eventually switch from whatever they were working on to making games. Sometimes as a hobby, sometimes professionally.
AleksDjarin said:Back to the main thing - I met an old friend of mine a while ago and he shared with me the project he is working on. I am not able to share the details but long story short it is kind of a game engine (not something revolutionary new I get it) but the thing that caught my attention wasn’t the tech itself, but the idea of how games created with it could be monetized.
Game development can be challenging and fun at times but challenging none the less. Both in terms of skill building and the work that goes into creating a product that's well received. Developing a new game engine that's competitive enough to be [fully] monetized on the developer side is probably more challenging than creating a single game. So there's a lot of different ways to look at this.
From a general, personal perspective: What does this project's primary goal or ideal outcome look like? Are the key metrics for that mostly monetary or non-tangible and personal? Are those elements aligned with what you personally want to do or achieve?
From an investor or stakeholder's perspective: What does a SWOT analysis of this project look like?
If the goal is to build and monetize a new game engine or even just a single game then what's the financial runway look like for everyone involved? Is there a specific threshold for the total number of users, sales, or some other metric that make this a go, no go? What's the worst that happens if the project doesn't reach the primary goal or desired outcome?
How many active third party developers, published games, and total users are requited to make this engine both financially viable and self sustaining? Is there external funding or buy out potential, not at some point in the future but right now?
From an independent developer's perspective: if an engine doesn't have any significant competitive advantage then what's the incentive to use it?
How does this new game engine compare to the top three engines most independent developers are already using? Not just in terms of features or licensing schemes, but also in terms of non-tangibles that include things like broader community support in form of third party documentation, examples, tutorials, and existing (engine specific) asset marketplaces, ready to use modular game play systems, etc...
Does this particular engine have any significant competitive advantage? Especially considering the sizeable moat established engines already have. What is the main selling point or plan for attracting developers to this new game engine?
From a monetization perspective: What does the licensing scheme for this engine look like? Is it competitive with what the top three engines are currently offering and is there a plan to avoid common pitfalls related to monetization that drive developers and users away? (If access to a game engine is either monetized right out of the gate or later pay walled then what's stopping developers from moving to a competing engine?) Unity would be a great case study to get some insight into monetization issues and how both consumers and developers react to that.
Even if the idea is as simple as monetizing a single game: How large is the target audience, who's the top three competitors in that space, what does their monetization scheme look like, and what's the draw that will pull the audience away from those existing games to this one? How do developers and players tend to respond to paywalls, subscriptions, DLC, pay to win, etc. in different market segments?
From an advertising perspective: What does the ad budget look like? How much time is left until the planned release date? Does social marketing make sense as part of the development process? What are the pros and cons of sharing parts of the development process to build awareness and interest? What's the opportunity cost and tradeoffs of doing / not doing that?
This is kind of a chicken and egg thing because there has to be enough to show potential customers but also enough time left to build awareness before release. Same with paying for ads and putting out highly polished showcases Vs sharing large portions of the development process while also leveraging the developer / development team's personality. Something that works well, right up until it doesn't...
There's also the question of what the completion conditions or exit strategy look like. Is the goal to build something that can be sold to another company or publisher or is the goal to see everything through from start to finish as an independent developer?
Overall it really comes down to what you're looking to get out of the project: Lots of good advice from everyone else in the thread.
If the goal is to develop a new skill set or have a change of pace, personal enrichment type stuff, and it's more of a hobby with the hopes of the final project having some kind of return but it's not critical that it makes money: modding or making simple games that have a very narrow scope is a good way to learn while building a portfolio and connecting with other artists. Many people get started working in game development this way.
If the goal is to develop a new skill set or have a change of pace, personal enrichment type stuff, and it's more of a hobby with the hopes of the final project having some kind of return but it's not critical that it makes money: modding or making simple games that have a very narrow scope is a good way to learn while building a portfolio and connecting with other artists. Many people get started working in game development this way.
If the goal is to leverage your existing B2B skills by assisting in developing and marketing a new game or game engine then it's more a question of formulating the core vision for the project, working through the development process, and aligning the product's features and benefits with the target audience. Part of that is understanding what people want or need and another part of that is studying the competition to see whether or not there's even room in the market for the product. Sometimes it makes more sense to pivot and fill a specific tool or platform need rather than completely reinventing the wheel.
There's small games and big games. Niche game engines and mainstream game engines. It's generally easier to start small and figure out what works before investing a lot of time and resources in something. That strategy tends to work well with individual game projects but maybe not so well with game engines if the goal is to scale immediately and compete with even the top five engines... So that question really comes down to scale and time.
In that case, outside of the more personal question of whether or not you want to work on a project like this, it's also one of those things where it's probably a good idea to have some potentially tough conversations with the other person to figure out where they're at, where they want to go, and whether or not they can realistically get there.
It's kind of trite but one of the fastest ways to ruin a friendship is to involve time or money, creative vision, and post launch compensated effort...
FrankPolygon
3 ·
Re: What Are You Working On? (3D) 2026
Took some time over break to work on some renders for my portfolio. Trying to finish up my construction shots for the weapon I made for Chimera CUSTOM XG! 
Mrfido
5 ·
Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | January - February (100)
@Fabi_G Something inspired by a jar of puke is not something I expected to like, but this is neat. Did I spend a few minutes playing with the web demo, trying to propel the jar this or that way by timing the clicks to the momentum and direction à la Portal? I absolutely did. 😄
I love the simplicity of the technique, thanks for sharing that post and your approach!
(Edit to avoid double posting)
It flies!
Rigged the locking mechanism and crudely animated it to check if I positioned the hinges correctly so it's capable of opening.
I love the simplicity of the technique, thanks for sharing that post and your approach!
(Edit to avoid double posting)
It flies!
Rigged the locking mechanism and crudely animated it to check if I positioned the hinges correctly so it's capable of opening.
Celosia
3 ·
Re: What Are You Working On? (3D) 2026
New Cycles render for the new year - tough to get interiors to render noise free without a bit of 'fast GI Approximation'
Ruz
6 ·
Re: Depiction and Inclusion of Religion, Culture and Ethnicities in games
Are we being farmed here or something?
The OP's other post was formatted almost exactly like this. "Hi all", question question question, "looking forward to hearing your thoughts", topics but no comments, questions about relatively hot button/controversial topics....It's a little bit strange.
Smells off, but not enough so that I'd grandstand and say it must be AI-written posts or whatever. But off nonetheless.
Rima
3 ·
Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | January - February (100)
@Celosia very cool! Already looks very tasty 
Looking forward to see it with hand-painted touches.
I found myself in the same boat, not much time on my hands, but thought that jar would make for a short project. In particular, I was interested in making the liquid surface move, in memory of the vomit jar featured in Left4Dead2. @SimonT documented this here on his cool website: Left4Dead2 - Puke. Using this as a reference, I weighted the liquid surface to a joint and in Unity added a swinging physics objects which rotation is being transferred to the liquid surface joint using a parent constraint. Hopefully this video capture shows:
It breaks easier with a jar of this shape, but possibly just works well enough. Surely something similar could be achieved with shader.
Here is a web build too Jar. Left mouse button will add an impulse to the jar, and it collides with the player capsule. R will reload the scene.
Have a great week
Looking forward to see it with hand-painted touches.I found myself in the same boat, not much time on my hands, but thought that jar would make for a short project. In particular, I was interested in making the liquid surface move, in memory of the vomit jar featured in Left4Dead2. @SimonT documented this here on his cool website: Left4Dead2 - Puke. Using this as a reference, I weighted the liquid surface to a joint and in Unity added a swinging physics objects which rotation is being transferred to the liquid surface joint using a parent constraint. Hopefully this video capture shows:
It breaks easier with a jar of this shape, but possibly just works well enough. Surely something similar could be achieved with shader.
Here is a web build too Jar. Left mouse button will add an impulse to the jar, and it collides with the player capsule. R will reload the scene.
Have a great week
Fabi_G
6 ·