In my most recent idea, a game involving living as a Sim of sorts in a small town, I decided the best way to be taken seriously by a programmer I'd want to work with would be to create the town in a 3d program, and in a presentation video have a character walk through the town. My understanding is the town might be created in software different from the software used for the animation. This way I could explain precisely the aesthetics/design I was going for, certain logistics.
I tend to pick up software very easily, and I've got ideas for software to use, but am figuring might be good to do a shout out, ask for tips on people with more experience in such things. I have the Adobe CS Master collection, if that helps any.
Unity3d is a free program that allows you to make simple objects and terrain. A lot of people use it, and you can program in C#, JavaScript, and other languages. I personally like the Unreal Engine. For doing complicated things, you'd need to learn UnrealScript, but for many things you can use their very easy visual scripting. It used to be called Kismet, though I think it's changed its name. I like Unreal better than Unity 3D just because the modeling is much easier, and the terrain features are very nice. I also like animating in it. You can make a great looking prototype a lot faster, I think. But if you intend to use a separate 3D modeling program, I hear good things about Blender, though I've never used it. All of these tools are free, by the way :)
Darn you. Three days straight I've been watching Unity3d tutorials, trying to learn the program (just now starting to get basic jist), watching youtube videos about it, can't stop thinking about it. Sitting at computer eyes glued to computer screen for as much as 8 hours or more, forgetting to eat, forgetting everything. You have cursed me. The black mark has appeared on the palm of my hand.
Ah, those videos don't remind you to sacrifice a goat every Tuesday to make sure that doesn't happen. Little known secret of maintaining sanity while using Unity. Seems you missed yesterday's sacrifice, so you'll probably be pounding your head against a padded cell by Friday. Tough luck!
Just finished recreating the Roll a Ball tutorial on their website, less than a minute ago. Countless videos, poring over code, what open/close curly bracket did I miss that's messing everything up, troubleshoot, troubleshoot, alt tab over and over and over, test, play, learning things, and finally several hours later I produced a minigame in which I roll a white ball around a plain blue box collecting spinning yellow boxes, and there's a basic UI that counts the boxes as you roll over them and then says "You Win!" (white, arial/helvetica for extra snazzy flair) in the center of the screen when you got the last one. I'm so proud of myself. I don't know if that's meant sarcastically. ... Damnit, where do I get a goat to sacrifice? Freakin' cults, always assuming you have money to buy livestock with.
Downloaded Unity3d, and while it was installing watched a bunch of the beginner tutorials on their website. More than an hour in, was losing interest, it was so basic; so decided to see what youtube had to offer. And then I found this video, oh my gods I wish I could afford to get my medical marijuana card renewed because the only way watching this nearly 30 minute video could've been better is if I'd been stoned. Mind is aflame with ideas now. I'll play with Unity3d for now, and then after a bit I'll check out Unreal Engine, and UnrealScript. Thank you, thank you, thank you.