This last week I have been learning quixel and I think I got the basics down. I can set a model up and use the program to apply textures quickly. Quixel is great for being able to change textures on the fly and add a lot of small details quickly with masks and a fairly good library of textures. Still I did run into a couple crashes and one annoying thing: it kind of sucks at updating a model. Like if you set it up a little wrong with material IDs and need to reload an update it tends to fail at that. The set up is key and I would say double check it.. but even if you have to reload applying textures is so smooth it almost doesn't matter time wise if you have to restart from scratch (as long as you haven't gone too in depth in making really unique materials). So I would definitely just keep textures in a draft form until the model is fully textured to make sure everything is working how you want before you get into the small detail work. So here is my first quixel result, with a couple of my own textures and some of the built in sets as well:

Other than that I have been finalizing Sundered Arvena and renamed it to Knight Quest just to make it a little easier to find and remember. Overall The game does not seem too popular. I think the main mistake I made was making it too hard from the start. You open the game and right away you are bombarded with enemies. Which would be fine, but I could see how it might get frustrating pretty quickly. From my standpoint I like the challenge, but I suppose a lot of people might find it very discouraging. The other theory I have is maybe the combat just isn't fun enough. I mean you tap and stuff dies but that is about it... I don't have any cool skills or powerups. So that aspect may be too simple. Even Mario has to hit an enemy a certain way to defeat it or have a certain powerup.

That is about it for this update. I am thinking of some other game ideas to try and implement and also keeping up with my other two projects. See you again in a couple weeks!

It starts with a single game

Alright, been a bit since my last post, here is what has been happening: Tried to get feedback on my game and didn't have a whole lot of luck; though I did get suggestions that I successfully implemented. It has been an adventure optimizing and updating the APK to have no issues with google play but looks like everything is set. I can't say it has been a successful project, but I did learn a lot and it is a game out there which is farther than I ever went before. The first time I attempted to launch a game on the app store it was a few years back and it never got past a prototype stage (a lot of that due to a programmer bailing on the project and me not being in the right state of mind to learn programming at the time).

So in short it seems the game is a success and failure at the same time. For me personally it is a big success, but in terms of the world at large not so much hah! I did upgrade it to production recently, and had to change the name due to an issue. You can find it here: Sundered Arvana
please click on some ads if you get the chance!

After I finished that journey I decided it was high time I learned Blender. It may not be industry standard, but it just fits my needs as an indie dev on a budget  better. I tackled a heck of a first project for it though: Goddess statue
I am fairly happy with the progress, and have since started work on textures.

Future plans are probably to focus more on my own personal projects/learning until I see more progress from the people I am working with. It seems working with people who have a lot of other stuff going on is a lot of stop and go in terms of game development progress. It gets a bit disheartening to toss hundreds of models at a project and see not a whole lot in terms of an actual game. Ah well time to put this book to a close, stay tuned for more on the journey to becoming a pro game developer/3D artist!