School: Not specific Books: Gets you essentials Tutorials: Surface information I did all of that, but if you even do one. The most important skill is consistency and actual work. Good luck.

@Gildar76

3 жыл бұрын

I completely agree. I can only speak for programming in general. I think the most important thing I got from university was learning how to learn on my own. I had serious problems with motivation at that time though, so maybe I could have got more out of it :)

@twisted_cpp

3 жыл бұрын

The most important skill is consistency. You can't work on a project (a game, or anything programming related tbh) once a week or twice a month and expect to get somewhere.

@vegitoblue2187

3 жыл бұрын

but the problem is getting hired from this knowledge

@Kkyo_Raps

3 жыл бұрын

@@Gildar76 I relate to that! Like lectures are so boring!

@georgechios1227

3 жыл бұрын

@@vegitoblue2187 you don’t. You have to go outside of those systems and learn on your own. Anyone expecting to get spoon fed information (especially in programming) will be sorely disappointed.

As a programmer for the last 30 years, I think it might be easier to start off as an artist and learn programming versus starting off programming and trying to do artistic things.

@MehmetSarkd

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah I can feel that since i am a beginner programmer with no art skills.

@Justfillintheblank

3 жыл бұрын

This is a huge thing actually. I'm a beginner coder learning C# on my spare time, however, I've been producing music and doing a ton of different artsy things for the past 6 years or so. Having prior knowledge to these sorts of things really does help the overall process of coding and can be a lot less overwhelming.

@thedude4039

3 жыл бұрын

Why would one make the other easier?

@NervusEnergy

3 жыл бұрын

@@thedude4039 I think misunderstand me, I'm not saying one would make the other easier. I'm saying that starting out as an artist and learning how to program would be easier then starting out as a programmer and learning to be a good artist.

@thedude4039

3 жыл бұрын

@@NervusEnergy So your saying it’s easier for artists to learn programming than for programmers to learn art? Why?

It's nice to read through the comments on these videos and know I'm not alone in being lost

@Unity3dCollege

4 жыл бұрын

most of us developers suffer through the same problems :)

@codydomo123

4 жыл бұрын

Suspicious Crow your are not alone people will fight if we lead them

@carelhaasbroek1575

4 жыл бұрын

One thing I learned from this feeling. Pick a direction and start picking away at it. The worst that can happen, is you learn something.

@haniboutlat3711

3 жыл бұрын

So i was looking at this vid and then he said :" 9:10 ". So thats what happens every time.

@khiplouke9883

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the comments guys. This helped me in motivation to get coding in general again for unity to make my own game. I still can't get a normal programming job as I've not been employed within the desired career path of software programming. Still wanna programming for fun and working, well minimum wage now.

I was one of the fools who went to itt tech for game design, left with a useless degree, barely usable knowledge and a 'job' working for some guy in a tiny apartment making a website. at the time we learned actionscript 3.0,which is used no where today. 13 years later, I'm teaching myself c# and unity

I fully agree that you can go the self-taught road. I finished Jason's Mastery Course a few weeks ago and i did not need much of my 30 year old Electrical Engineering degree and i do not program as my paying job. My first game is simple, crap and half finished but it is a game and getting this far brings a smile to my face. I am now hooked.

@cam4722

3 жыл бұрын

Great work, mate! I've been wanting to do Jason's course for several years but the price is so prohibitive for me. I'm coming from an artist background so I'm a bit of a dummy when it comes to programming. How did you find the course?

@feliks8388

2 жыл бұрын

In my opinion, what you say will rarely apply to most self taught if their base or foundation is different or vastly different than you. I mean you start of as Electrical Engineer, it's almost the same as programmer or computer science, of course you and everyone else who start of from the same point will learn smoothly along the self taught GameDev route. Well, at least from what i saw most people from pure design and artistry finds it harder than if you are from fields that are siblings to programming field (such as electric engineering for example). However i don't mean it that they can't succeed in the end, i mean in the end it's just about every individual willingness to learn that matter

@moose6459

2 жыл бұрын

I was intrigued by the course you mentioned…. $1000? 💀

In my experience, I am currently a computer science student, and I've completed 2 years of college, and I think I can say I've learned more outside of school than in school. In school you are basically learning what they tell you to learn, which a lot of times is really old stuff that is not used anymore, but they just excuse it by saying it's the "basis" that we need (at least that's how it is in Spain). On the other hand, what you learn outside of school is stuff you are actually interested in, so you usually pay more attention to it, you learn faster and you have more fun, which is one of the most important parts of learning!

@feitingschatten1

4 жыл бұрын

I quit programming after college made it seem boring. Then I remembered, over a year later, that I enjoyed code... and it's been a fun career. Keep up the self-study! College is not a good place for code... they do weird things like take longer than a week to go over the basics, then they might throw in engineering puzzles on top of structures, making your brain go like "What the hell... why am I being thrown everything at once" But after failing some interviews, you really will need to know the basis things. Just for the interviews... the jobs never require them. It sucks, but get ready to do algorithm puzzles like codility, hackerrank, codewars, etc.

"Slowly start leveling yourself" Spoken like a true game developer :D

This channel has tripled my C# and Unity skills and this video at least quadrupled my morale.

@Unity3dCollege

4 жыл бұрын

Great to hear that :)!

@weirdwesteros1109

4 жыл бұрын

Keep it up!!! It can be really tough learning on your own. I’ve been learning software development for 2+ years and I still feel impostor syndrome. Do what you have to do to show yourself that you know things and can get the job done :)

@jbeachboy100

9 ай бұрын

can you learn it online for free?@@Unity3dCollege

At 20:02 he said "Code Katas". Kata like the Karate training routine :) (For everyone also struggling to understand it acustically :D)

@trivialusername

3 жыл бұрын

jesus fucking christ and his holy mother mary, i listened to that more than a hundred times and still did not get it, thank you

@marikishtar5760

Жыл бұрын

bro thank you I was searching in comments I relisten it a lot of times :D

I'm coming into the skill in my late 30's and feeling frustrated with my low speed of learning. Thank you for normalizing my frustration and expressing my situation very well. Gives me some hope.

@jakedunbar4063

3 жыл бұрын

Hey Aaron, I'm turning 33 early next year and JUST starting to get into thing. I'm starting at literally ZERO. No coding background, nothing. the only things that I do have experience in from the past is Film and video production (that I'm sure will come in hand for somethings I guess). I think we just need to remind ourselves that being in our 30's really isn't that old. And there is still LOTS of time. Even if you have a family and kids and a full time job that's completely unrelated to Development.... that's ok. What ever time you do have, if you have discipline, you'lll move forward each day and that's what matters. We don't need to worry about comparing ourselves to others. Just be a little better each day then you were the day before. That's how I'm going to approaching it :). Best of luck to you!

@Laiser

3 жыл бұрын

I'm about half a 30, but I can feel the struggle too.

@eddyrc7

3 жыл бұрын

​@@jakedunbar4063 hello, I'm in the same situation we should make a group!!! (I'm a 33 y/o web dev)

@eddyrc7

3 жыл бұрын

@@Laiser hello, I'm in the same situation we should make a group!!! (I'm a 33 y/o web dev)

@eddyrc7

3 жыл бұрын

@@cembaturkemikkiran4109 hello, I'm in the same situation we should make a group!!! (I'm a 33 y/o web dev)

All programmers should learn (in great depth) algorithms and data structures. A lot of what programmers do is store and manipulate data. Learn how to do these things and it still be easy to construct almost everything you can imagine. You'll be exposed to concepts. You don't have to memorize everything, but relearning is way faster than learning the first time. Optionally, I'd say learn the SOLID principles and common code smells and how to fix them. These four things I found akin to tools in the wilderness. If I didn't know everything, I at least knew how to build a fire (so to speak).

@weirdwesteros1109

4 жыл бұрын

On top of what you’ve already mentioned, if you can work on your ability to problem solve with your control flow it’ll make your skills stronger and make you feel more confident in your abilities. Being able to flowchart your code before you dive right in will work wonders for your learning.

@malprimitvs577

3 жыл бұрын

@@weirdwesteros1109 By "control flow" I'm assuming you're rerring to if/switch statements? I.e. controlling the logic of your program? Also do you have any tips (resources) on learning how to flowchart code?

@chrismaxwell8347

2 жыл бұрын

@@malprimitvs577to help make a flow chart you break a problem down into smaller problems, then break those down till you get the most basic problem. Then make that into a flow chart, and yes, it probably will include if else, try except and other elements. Once you finish your chart, the program almost writes itself

I've been going through the process for 4 months & it's going smooth. Still, it feels great to listen to someone who's been there & done it, doubling up on the legitimacy of the process I'm going through. Thank you!

This video really helped me feel more motivated and less lost in my dream of working on games. I can't thank you enough.

For those like me who did program something simple and then did not for 10 years or so...try remembering what you still can do and you'll see: that stuff stuck. It stuck despite it having been a "I don't understand this copy pasted code snippet" once when you started. And so it will be with every other problem and solution. Getting into a concept is difficult, the key is time, exercise and repitition...things you hear from everyone but only realize when you yourself experience it like your parents saying "this and that will help you later" but you get impatient anyway. And really try to realize something that fits your interest. Having someone get you to program a solution to what isn't a problem for you, isn't as effective as having a problem that you yourself want to get fixed. I learned this from having programming class in vocational school in a language I did not like (although it should not matter but it does kind of for some people) and having the teacher let us solve mathematical problems that I - not having been to the uppermost school form - wasn't even able to solve without having to put it in code. So my learning in that class was practically nil as all that I would have needed to learn first, was taken as a given. And you don't want to raise your hand and let everyone know that you are probably the dumbest. But then years later after I stopped doing code for my own little things, I got Stormworks and got into that microcontroller mechanic. I wanted to make a mechanical/optical rangefinder and came about with some weird mathematical formula (that I have already forgotten again because once it was done I did not need to revisit it) to get the angles and what not, that I had to teach myself. And math wasn't exactly my strong point in school. Grasping the concept is what matters most and this won't come in a day. And every compiler error teaches me another page in the big book that I might revisit because I might have written a class but now I can't do anything with it because I still did not grasp the concepts of communication between classes, objects and so on. And what exactly is a singleton and when do I need it and do I need it at all? Then when you research it, you might find "oh this is exactly what I need and why my approach went all nuts because I did not use that concept". Same for other things, when you have a problem that is oriented at a practical thing, you yorself want to do then you have much more energy to dive deep into finding a solution instead of just an "oh well what does that have to do with me anyway"-problem. Maybe other people go well with "foreign problems", for me the most successes I had were when a sharply cut out practical thing was to be solved. Not something that a teacher wanted, not something that my employer wanted, not something a tutorial wanted from me but something that came from the deepest depths of my own world of interests. You may call it a lack of self discipline but as long as there are people that lack this trait, a solution must be found for them (or us lol) too. And if the solution is to focus on one's interest then the ends justify the means imo.

Thanks for this vid Jason, helped alot! Also, I love your background/room there, very cool!

You're awesome man. Best videos I've found on this topic so far. Not just on coding explanations, but overall general life experience and knowledge. Thanks for working hard (and being nice to people)

Thank you! Learning game development and programming for me is a slope that sometimes leads nowhere, your tutorials are straight to the point and honest. Love your work.

Been starting my journey of self taught Game Dev and Jason's videos have lead me to the most progress I have made yet! Hope they keep coming and in time can start my own series on what I have learned from your videos and others!

"WORK HARD & BE NICE TO PEOPLE" lol nice panel u got back there :)

Hi Jason. Thanks for all the usefully info you always deliver.I am a self thought programmer, I started 4 years ago. The more you do programming, the easier it gets.I build a few small games and is now busy with a game that will actually be published on all the major platforms.Keep up the good work

I just want to say thanks not just for this video but your channel, in general, I stumbled across it looking for Unreal Engine stuff about 2 months ago (even though this seems more tailored for unity). I really enjoy these videos, you're well-spoken, come off as a very informed, good guy. As a completely self-taught programmer, you also help to inspire me to keep plugging away. I switched to software development as a career path a few years ago and many of the things you touch on help me out immensely. Thanks for taking the time to do these video's and share your experiences.

Good video post, Jason. I'm also a self taught developer of almost 30 years. I think it was easier to be a self taught developer starting out a couple decades ago, but now I think people will struggle more due to the large number of developers that exist. While I don't think a 4 year degree is required, a bootcamp or certificate program could certainly give a person a boost.

Extremely to the point. I am self learning SwiftUI and find your content very relevant to my hobby. Thanks

Thank you so much for this video Jason. You have reaffirmed my new passion and career path! Today you changed someones life.

I’ve been learning and developing on Unity for 5 years now and especially this year I’ve made huge progress and my scope was enlarged. I love doing gave dev as a hobby and whenever I’m free doing game dev makes time enjoyable because you’re like the god of that world you control everything and now I want to start learning about graphics programming in opengl and I’m really excited in what I will be capable of doing in like 3 years.

Hi Jason, I'm a 14 year-old self-taught Indie-dev and I think teaching yourself how to code and make Games is 10 times better than going to college. It's ,mostly theories out there in college. There is nothing more cooler than learning how to make Games yourself and write all the projects you've worked on in your Resume. It's just feels amazing!

@Unity3dCollege

3 жыл бұрын

Awesome! Keep coding!

@cloudy7107

3 жыл бұрын

@@Unity3dCollege Thank You Jason!!!😊🙏

Great video and advice! Thanks for sharing.

Great talk. -self taught programmer & developer. And you are one of my mentors

Learned valuable lessons, appreciate it, wish you all the best ✨

Man it was so good to watch this video. I am an Architect with 3 Masters in City Planning =S and I have always loved games. I think I picked the wrong profession and I feel so old to start learning new stuff =( I'm 37 but I am going to start learning this stuff because it's amazing and I really like it!!! So I want to thank you for sharing your knowledge with all of us and to inspire us to aim higher. Thanks Jason!!!

I really like how you don’t dwell too much on the financial side of this medium. For a lot of people this is a focal point of programming, but you seem to mention it, but not make it all about that, which I think reaches the right people. I’m an absolute noob at any kind of programming and being 38 I’m probably quite old to be getting started in this field but I’m enjoying your angry birds tutorial currently and, while it doesn’t make a lot of sense (the coding) I’m picking up small things. Anyway, much appreciated overall. Keep up the good work.

I liked learning by myself but I got frustrated lacking a good solid base. I went to school then, and because I dug so much getting chunks of information by myself before, it really helped glue all those bits together and help them make sense. You also assimilate those classroom theories way better when you had the practical knowledge to back it up:) Well Its how I learn best. I know a lot of people are amazing autodidacts , cheers for them, I admire them :) Even if you go to school, its not a field of work where you can just sit on your knowledge anyway :3

Hey man thanks for the advice! this video was so helpful!!!

Went to college in the 90's for Computer Science. Learned basics of coding there, but your videos have taught me to become a "self taught" game developer especially with Unity. Thank you for these videos they have been very helpful easy to watch and follow.

thank you for being helpful without being discouraging

Thanks for this video, and all of the great information! :D

Awesome video. Awesome backdrop. Awesome guy. Subbed. Im self taught in GameDev on just about everything from modelling game assets, environments, coding, animation and concept, but only because I had no choice as sadly for years nobody could point me in the right direction for years and most of the software I use I found by accident, also I didnt and still dont know anybody that has the patience so I am totally indie.

The way you talk is very easy to listen to, no over the top excitement, put stressing the points where needed.

this was very encouraging. TY!

Thank you for making this video Jason.

Thanks for your videos, they are changing my life.

Thanks so much for this i really needed this! I love your channel! Best Unity/Programming/Discussion youtuber ever!

@Unity3dCollege

4 жыл бұрын

aww thx :) glad it was helpful

@Lightologyy

4 жыл бұрын

Sure ^^!

Thank you Jason your thoughts and suggestions are very precious to people who try to self learn game development. I think you are right when you say that is very important to practice code everyday. Totally agree with you!

Just started a position as a games tester. Looking for ways to expand my skills and make myself a more attractive candidate for getting a job in the industry. Love your videos.

Glad I bumped into this one. As someone who a short while back decided to teach myself Unity (and then Blender, because cubes are boring) with practically no experience in the area and only the most basic grasp of C++ coding from like 20 years ago... It's good to be reminded about the fundamentals and realities occasionally before getting too lost in the abundance of all of it.

Great video as always! KZread recommended me with your channel, and I am addicted...

Amazing video!!! Thank you so much 💛

I am currently in university (so not self-taught) and what I can confirm is that the pace it is going for me is REALLY slow, so at the end of the day I have to spend many more hours at home in order to learn more. Basically my point is: Going to uni 8 hours a day and learning is the equivalent to learning AT HOME for perhaps, 4 hours MAXIMUM, 2-4 hours. The only difference is that being in uni you get motivated to keep going. So if you can have your motivation whilst being self-taught at home then dont even think about "should I go to uni" or "should I have gone to uni?". Keep at it by yourself, be motivated, dedicated and you will do much better going at it solo. summary: being self-taught is better if you have the passion for game developing and can motivate yourself. going to uni will help you keep on track if you aren't as motivated FYI: I am going to university but I am also learning many other things by myself in regards to game developing :)

Thanks for your advice. I'm going to check out Unity and Unreal and start learning.

Thanks for the video!! need positive energy now :)

After watching a few of your videos I just wanted to take the time to say thanks, without these videos I wouldn't know that I was more of a dev than a programmer.❤

@Imran7jr

4 жыл бұрын

dev is one who plays the god in game.... and in reality dev (in Hindi ) means a god

This is pretty motivational for me, and see good direction to start with.

I'm mostly self-taught as I messed around with pixelart as well as writing and music. I'm learning programming in general though I did mess around with Gamemaker and so forth. Honestly, being self-taught has been a good route for me to take because it's more hands-on and gives for good experience.

Never saw this video before, but nice that it autoplayed me here. Good tips Jason, did a few of them in life already - also self taught here brother.

I went to college for software engineering. It didn't work out for me, I had this intrinsic motivation and others didn't. All we did was group projects and most of the time my teammates didn't know what I was talking about. So I had to explain everything the teacher had discussed two weeks prior. This was really stressful and I decided to drop out. The thing I did like though, I built an app and got to present it to the teachers. They were amazed at what a first year student could do. The applause they gave me still makes me smile. It wasn't even for a programming course, but it was the only opportunity I'd gotten to really do my own thing. So I showed them. Now I want to start doing game design and game development. But no way in hell that I'm going back to school for it. Just found your channel and you really motivate me to keep going on my own. Knowing that it is indeed possible. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience. This video will be of great help to me.

I suffer from "code fear", I decided to go back to school in 2013, I wanted to learn programming, I had no idea what I was getting into, so I signed up for "information systems", little did I know I had no practice "doing", while the instructor was giving lectures. I worked hard to get my assignments done, and work on the the little they said had a deadline. The instructors was more focused on teaching the lesson plan, and mind you, forgot to tell us, practicing is important to. I practiced very little, I had no friends, and no one to buddy up with, so I worked hard in trying to understand the information from the lesson plan. It was really tough. My final project was harder than life. I still feel I did not get the practice I should have gotten to love to code. Today I want to learn to be a developer. And it's very hard; I forgot a lot of stuff I was taught, but very little was on learning HTML, CSS, AND JAVASCRIPT. I never knew about (css). less JavaScript, Phew. this was hard writing my feeling, but today I suffer from code fear, and it sucks.

@SDB_Dev

3 жыл бұрын

Start by following simple tutorials in Unity or something! Its easy enough to follow along and copy what the person in a video is doing. Do that for a couple of weeks (Yes, seriously), and then when you feel somewhat confident in how things work in general.. open up your first empty project and make something from scratch. It can be as simple as flappy bird or just making a character move around, just make sure you do it by yourself and dont get too reliant on the tutorials forever. I followed tutorial after tutorial for months in the beginning, but after a while I felt limited by them and started doing stuff on my own. You can do it too!

@thedude4039

3 жыл бұрын

Here, these are some of the best unity tutorials on youtube: kzread.info/dash/bejne/kZd3qaSGnbC1dto.html

I think in 2020, you can self teach almost anything, and what you learn is so much more focused. I'm learning c# and game development right now for fun and personal improvement and its going great! It's also cheaper. A few Udemy courses and a Head First text book set me back like $100. KZread and Stack Exchange have filled in the rest. We're living in the future people!

@dabiYappa

4 жыл бұрын

do you recommend Udemy courses?

@gregcugier6345

4 жыл бұрын

@@dabiYappa I definitely would, just make sure to wait for a sale. They have sales constantly, like once or twice a month. I've been doing some courses from gamedev.tv and they are very good for learning both unity and c#. Also, Mosh Hamedani has some great courses that are just straight c#. Good luck!

@Azihayya

Жыл бұрын

I'm learning with the help of ChatGPT now in 2023.

Finally!! The first video that KZread recommend me and it was really helpful.

I see the book of lenses in your background. Awesome book by Jesee Schell!

This was a great video, thanks!

hey Jason, thanks for all your awesome videos! I heard you mention your son, thats awesome that you're a father! I am as well, and I'm wondering if you would ever make a video on how to be a game dev with a family/as a parent. I know its a personal subject, and there's no easy solutions that fit all situations, but it still might be helpful to hear how you navigate it. Not every game dev is someone with no kids and no spouse and all the free time in the world! Thanks again for all your content!

About podcasts- CoRecursive is really cool! Its an interview show, mostly around functional programming but sometimes it just has really interesting high level talks about abstraction, software engineering, business, recreational coding and a whole lot of good stuff. I tried Coding Blocks for a while but it seemed like mostly filler of friends chatting (which is fine, just not why I listen to a coding podcast)

Don't be afraid to join game jams! They can be a great way to both connect with other devs and learn something new. I always go into a game jam (finishing my eighth this weekend) with the mindset of just learning a new skill. Maybe I just want to focus on writing clean code, maybe I just want to make this one really colorful/flashy. It's a good way to push yourself and make some friends along the way. And even if the game isn't the greatest at the end, that's fine because you'll at least have made it through. Get a bunch of crappy small games out of the way so when you're ready to tackle a slightly bigger project you already got some training under the belt.

Always Learn Something Great From Your Videos

@Unity3dCollege

4 жыл бұрын

Happy to hear that! :)

love this video, my thoughts exactly... self taught is the best way to go because of learning whats needed for you

I picked up unity last october and just released my first game on the play store. I started with the official roll a ball tutorial and kept adding functionality until I had made a (crappy) monkey ball clone game. My advice would be take advantage of anyone giving you free information. Even watch tutorials that don't apply to what you're working on just so you can learn workflow and technique from experienced developers. My second bit of advice would be to learn to read the documentation effectively. This is one of the most important things you can do after you have learned most of the basics from watching video tutorials. I'm really glad people like jason and many others are making such good quality content or else I probably would have never started making games.

For what it's worth, I'm a self-taught developer and learned the basics before the Internet was widely available. Just bought some books from the bookstore and dove into it. In high school, I tinkered around with Nibbles and Gorillas in QBasic just to get an idea of how things worked. The books helped guide me through learning the mechanics of programming. About 10 years later, I finally finished a degree in computer science, mostly out of convenience and a desire for higher pay. But I found that college kind of rounded off the rough edges of my development habits. To me, the classes that really rounded me out were linear algebra, data structures, and discrete mathematics. Those are topics I never would have desired to study unless someone forced me to do it, but they have helped me gain a deeper understanding of algorithms.

I am in college as a backup plan to be honest. So I have something to fall back on in case I am unable to be a full time game dev.

@cavemann_

3 жыл бұрын

@@cembaturkemikkiran4109 not in the current society no

Podcasts are great for motivation. I listen to them when I'm driving for DoorDash.

going into my 2nd week of learning how to learning how to code watched a few tutorials currently taking my time on one tutorial where I try to really try and understand how the code works and remember all those type of functions/methods.

I started out by making maps for unreal tournament 3 20 years ago, i learned on youtube. After about half a year i got a job in a small studio, after that i got into techland and worked on dead island, both dying lights, later got into lucid games, and now for the last 8 months i’m working solo on my own game GlitchStorm. I learned the most working on my solo project, just by youtube and google research :)

Also, everybody has a different routine. I tried to force myself to work in the mornings but I just couldn't get going, but from lunch onwards and into the evenings my brain was flying at a 100%. So I did all my coding in the afternoons and evenings. Well into the night sometimes. Tried all sorts of things to feel more up for it in the morning, but nothing ever worked. Coding is a very intense process and unlike a lot of regular jobs out there where you can spend the morning relaxing into the day's work.

@Unity3dCollege

4 жыл бұрын

I know a few guys who do their best work around 2am :)

I didn`t expect to watch the entire video :D

I'm doing follow along tutorials on KZread. they show you what assets to download step by step. I then restart the project half way through! just so I am actually LEARNING it and I get an idea of how to properly apply controls for a 3rd person character or how to set up animations.

Well said. Great inspiration for anyone wanting to make games, but also to learn about the process of critical thinking, which is the core of self-teaching. Great video!

It's interesting to hear this from a US perspective. US colleges sound like they make you take unrelated topics for reasons I don't understand. Here in the UK a university course tends to concentrate on topics in the area you're studying.

I'm currently in a game programming bachelor course here in Switzerland and am very happy with my choice. It's a 75% hands on principle, we are coding games since week one. Learning game design and writing GDDs for every project. I'm in the first semester and my current project is a procedural generated Stardew Valley clone in Unity. For me it's definetly worth taking the shortcut instead of learning for yourself, plus you get great connections with artists and other coders. But the experience very depends on the school and your motivation outside of class I guess. Great videos Jason, I learned alot.

@Unity3dCollege

4 жыл бұрын

Sounds like a great course. Do you mind sharing a link for anyone else who's in the area and interested in checking it out?

@tripnils7535

4 жыл бұрын

Sure. I'm studying here: www.sae.edu/che/de/games-programming-bachelor They have schools in many countries, not everywhere you can learn the same courses though.

Hey Jason, I want to get into game engine/tools programming. What's the simplest step to start with? Also thank you for your talks, they are always inspiring.

There is two things that came to my mind when i watched this video. The first one, if you're self taught, you're going to go for the things that interest you and go through with them in one go before trying to learn another one unless a problem arise meanwhile. On the other hand if you study in College or some important establishment, you're going to jump between multiple topics or classes that might not help you really get that knowledge imprinted in your head. The second one, having been an animation 2D student, I can tell you that there is some visibility that you wouldn't get if you would be self taught because a lot of schools will make you do a little game either by yourself or in small group and these final games will put everybody on a stage. The whole industry or at least some of it will watch and check which game interested them the most and evaluate your work. It may give you great career opportunity, but it will also give you that community that you are talking about in a lot of your videos (i just found you). If you complete this program and make friends along the lines and the said friend get hired in a company that is doing mass hireing or they start their own indi studio, they might call you!

Great channel been 3 months randomly playing round with ue and still have no idea wtf I’m doing lol but still having fun

I’m 0:41 seconds in and I think this is the video I’ve been needing. Actually sitting here ready to take notes from a KZread video!

@gabriela_xy

3 жыл бұрын

Same, I took a lot of notes, really useful video

I quit university at year 1 and i never regret about it.

@ahbarahad3203

3 жыл бұрын

Hats for the courage

@awad7391

3 жыл бұрын

honestly, universities are in desperate need of reform

@professorposh4146

3 жыл бұрын

Good move. Only reason I'm going uni is because of peer pressure. If it were just me, I probably would have done the same because I've learnt very little of the things that I believe would be valuable to me for the path that I'd like to take in the future. BTW, I am in my 3rd and final year now of my Computer Engineering course and on track for a 1st class (not that it will mean much though...).

I've been on the self taught road since my college got shut down. You mentioned copying and pasting code which is something I usually try to avoid. I think part of the reason why I never improved as a Software Developer is because I was caught up with the idea of not cheating. I think copying and pasting code is cheating. And yet oddly enough, when I was a kid, I had a lot of fun playing video games when I was cheating using cheat codes and cheat menus, passwords that change how the game plays, or trying out a glitch. I don't know if I can apply that kind of approach to learning programming, but I learned that I need to stop being too moral about how I learn information. I've been reading Automate the Boring Stuff with Python and following the lessons in that book and the book constantly asks me to copy and paste the code and see how the code works. Maybe I should pay attention better; the book was on to something I never WANTED to consider that was actually important in my growth. And it's that moral mindset that makes me afraid of taking risks and breaking things. Correct me if I am wrong.

@GilbMLRS

Жыл бұрын

Useful insight how you can block your own development. Think of it this way: A game company has coders, artists and a bunch of other specialized people. Each one does his special job. Why should you have to instantly be able to do all of it yourself? You can't at least as a beginner so you need help to see a result. After that result you can always get back to that snippet and analyze what it does and the next time write it yourself. Take it as the snippet is you having asked the teacher to explain it for you and him writing it on the board. Or think of it as a construction site. You are there as idk TV technician or what you can imagine and have forgotten your drill but you need a hole in a wall. Is it cheating to ask the electrician to borrow you one or to have him put the hole in for you? No it is not, it is just asking for help because your customer does not care how that hole got into the wall but that it is there and he or you can put a cable through it. Also you may be at a point where your limited experience prevents you from getting a job done, is it really an option to dwell on that problem while the painter waits to get finished so he can get into the room and do his job? Then no, it is not cheating to take a help. Chances are you will need that help again and after the third time watching how it is done, you will have gotten into it and be able to do it yourself. If I want a game object in Unity I can teach myself Blender. Will take a while but does not bring me anything for that specific thing I wanted to do in Unity for this while so I load a game ready asset from the store and only when modelling becomes a definitive necessity and my Unity specific problem is solved or laid back until later, will I look into Blender and how it all works. Because chances are, that certain things that I need to have in the model I will have learned of because I had an asset that was ready and done so I know what to expect and what I need to implement into the model rather than modeling and after import running into a wall of "this is all wrong". So get rid of all the morals and principles that block your way and only abide them when the consequences are real like it would get you in earthly trouble.

I'm a (I think fairly competent) self taught programmer for about 5 years now and I've started by learning the pure basics like variables, functions and loops from a friend and from there on I watched a few tutorials on unity to simply be able to move things over time. From there on I just worked on whatever came to my mind next to high school and just googled stuff when I was stuck on something. Personally, I think a problem about being a self taught programmer is that you don't know what you don't know. For example just a few months ago I didn't know about inheritance but I did know about coroutines which seems a little like reverse order to me. Basically you never know if there are concepts that make your life way easier and make your code more efficient/readable. If you're being taught coding (I have no experience but this is how I imagine it would go) the teacher obviously knows those concepts and if they're important and useful, they'll be taught to you.

Honestly the most important thing to take from this in my eyes is to be persistent and keep pushing through problems one doesn't know how to do, as that's how new things are learned. Always strive for learning more, alwaya strive for growth.

WOW, these are ALL of the things that I do as a game developer almost verbatim.

I started 2 years ago, a couple months after this came out. I've gotten pretty damn good.

My 1 beginner must know is "Stack Overflow". When I was self learning Python/VBA I stumbled upon Stack Overflow. My number 2 beginner must know is be ready for your post to be downvoted and closed as you learn how to post a good question. SO can be a bit trigger happy on closing post.

Graduated from civil engineering and i am a self thought dev. Earning from full time dev job and having some projects just for myself. Glad to be here.

Thanks for this video

i went to community collage and it was an amazing course (web and mobile app development). I had done a lot of research and not only was it the cheapest but also had the best reputation (post graduates were actually working in their field). It also had an over 60% drop out rate which kind of scared me because i thought maybe it was a bad course so people bailed but it turned it out was the opposite of that: it was an extremely intense course and the students (mostly the ones fresh out of high school) were not willing to commit. Im now doing game development which only has like a 30% knowledge cross over so i had to self teach myself most of it. I think school was a really good way to cram a bunch of knowledge into my head in a short amount of time but its very risky, if you are not lucky like me it could be a waste of time and money. I have worked with a bunch of people who just graduated with a CS masters also and i was not impressed with their knowledge base. Really i think its up to the person, if you need a teacher to direct you than maybe try school (but definitely do your research on which one) but if you have the ability to teach yourself, i would say its the safer bet.

In my country I'm currently in a specialist school for Games, Animation and Film VFX. I'm currently doing my Diploma and Advanced Diploma in Digital and Interactive Games/Professional Game Developement (Programming diplomas) not sure how other countries are but I'd highly recommend a specialist school over a standard school... A bit of insight into my classes consist of learning and executing C, C++, C#, OpenGL, Open-Source, Perforce and Git, FMOD, 3D Graphics, AI, Networking, Physx, Console Hardware, Profiling and managing medium to large scale software projects working with Unity and Unreal engines to name an overview... our projects include stuff like working in a "real world game studio environment" so that entails the programming students collaborating alongside the game design students and game arts students from the other classes as a whole to then develop a playable game to mirror production cycles in the real world from the Ideas all the way to QA testing to bring it full house. Our school also has international game developer/publisher recruitment programs aswell as a majority of students move on to AAA studios overseas. But never the less you can do this all by yourself but at a slower rate plus your prospects for AAA studios is almost nill with nothing to back up your claims. imo 1 hour session of coding next to full time 8 hours of coding 5 days a week with dozens of people's input and advise in your work is much more beneficial to me.

Thank you man!

I did go to college for computer science, however, there were no courses related to game development at the time, or even any programming classes outside of COBOL or FORTRAN. So, I consider myself as self taught, especially since I was teaching myself programming long before I took any classes on the subject. With the rate of change in programming languages and development tools, I really believe whether a person goes to college for formal training or not, if that person wants to remain vital in the development world, they would essentially need to be self taught for the most part. Most colleges can not keep up with current practices, and even if a person is able to attend one that does, most things will change shortly after graduation. Really, I see very little that a college offers these days over what is available for being self taught in any subject that, as you say, does not have high risks involved, besides a lot of dept and wasted time.

Hi Jason. Can you make a video talking about Unity DOTS, ECS and the new way Unity wants us to build games? Thanks!

@johnleorid

4 жыл бұрын

He has a few videos about ECS and DOTS, but the whole system is still in development - I don't think it's a "new way of building games", it's more like a high performance thing that should be used where needed - who needs high performance for a doorbell? But you have to write like 7 different classes/structs to make this doorbell work. If it goes in a hybrid way, which may be the case, everything will stay as it is, just with a new cool tool that can be used wherever high performance is needed. I don't think anybody knows where this is going right now..

I remember taking this free weekly game developing class in high school at my library. I thought it was interesting but learned absolutely nothing except knowing that computers have languages and you have to type everything in to communicate with it. The guy just told us what to type into the computers and other days we made our own video games through Scratch (It’s a child friendly game development site) and the last day he had us put a bunch of codes in just so Minecraft could pop up on our screens to play it. I wish I understood what I was actually doing and would like to give coding and such a shot. I’ve always wanted to create a video game as a creative way to write stories and would like to learn how this all works

Personal timestamps 7:20 - Process 14:47 - Tips

I have a weird question... How do you gather yourself for making a video or a dev blog post? I tried dev blogging; started weekly, then went monthly and eventually I just feel it's too much of a burden... But I do want a dev blog, to share experiences and pitfalls, to have an archive, to market myself shamelessly, to share my creations. I also believe using a dev blog as a reflection on a project is an integral part of making the art. Thank you so much for your work, you're amazing and my #1 source of motivation and knowledge in game dev! (aside from my film making past)

I started tinkering with old school DOS batch scripting in early 90's. Never did any schools. By now half of my job is software development work in a dozen of languages. Self learning worked with me, but for my kids I am recommending proper school route - mostly for fundamentals and making connections with companies and other students: future peers.

Best off the best for how to start indie development!!!!