Adventures in Game Making: 3D Modeling

My biggest dream is to make video games.

Not just any video games. Games that will actually challenge the player to learn while having fun.

See, most video games are a type of role-playing. Roll playing causes the brain to think in certain habits. Those thought patterns come out as actions in real life.

Now, I'm not one of those people who is going to hate on video games and how violent they are and how they should be banned. But I do see the effect it has on me and the people around me. It's not really that good.

So, how do we solve this problem? WE BAN ALL VIDEO GAMES FROM EXISTENCE!

No.

That is not the solution. It's like banning TV because some of it is bad. There is good TV out there. There are good video games out there.

I think we need more good video games.

My big dream is to make video games that bring the Bible and history and science to life!

My initial inspiration for this comes from a series of computer games I grew up with. This company took the old Nancy Drew books and made them into interactive, fun, mystery-solving, computer games. It brought Nancy Drew to life and I had a lot of fun playing them. I even learned things as I played.

My other inspiration comes from a radio drama called Adventures in Odyssey. One type of episode this series had included a type of time travel. The kids would go back in time and learn about the Bible and history first hand.

So, I thought why can't I just mash the two ideas together?

Of course, I had no idea where to start. So I did some research. Most of the skills that it takes to make a video game are design, art, writing, and programming. Plus others like audio, voice acting, etc.

There's a lot that goes into a game. But these are all things I have an interest in!

The one I didn't know a whole lot about was programming. So, step one: learn computer programming.

For this, I went to Montana Code School. It's kind of like a trade school and kind of like shoving all four years of college into one summer. It taught me everything I needed to know about web and app development. Plus everything was designed to teach me how I can adapt to anything else in the programming world easily.

I took that knowledge and applied it to game making. I'll save some of that learning for another post.

Now all I have to do is learn how to make a video game!

I have the basic tools. I can design the games in a game engine called Unity.

I can design the 3D Models for the game in a program called Blender.

Lately, I have been teaching myself 3D modeling. It's been a lot of fun and a lot of little detail (which I LOVE)

I started with this beginner tutorial.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjEaoINr3zgHs8uzT3yqe4iHGfkCmMJ0P

And I made this little render! Isn't it awesome!

Now however I want to move on to things I will actually need. I'm thinking that my "home" for the game will start in a library. A kind of menu where the player can pick a book and take off on their adventure from there.

So first I'm going to design a library. With books. So I'm following this tutorial to learn how to make books first!

I'll show you how it turns out when I'm finished!

So what about you? Have you ever been interested in making games? Or 3D modeling? It takes a bit to get used to but once you figure it out it's a lot of fun!

If you enjoy any kind of art you should try 3D modeling! It will challenge your skills and make you think outside the box with other art projects.

Or maybe you're a writer? You can use 3D modeling as a way to depict your characters. Or maybe a building in your story that you're having trouble describing. Or even an object or prop.

I want to challenge you to try it out! If you don't want to do a big program like Blender you can try other 3D modeling programs. A program called Paint 3D is now automatically installed on most newer PCs. Or maybe you can find another program that works better for you.

Let me know what you think! And if you do decide to try it, send me a picture of what you've created either in the comments or at grinderlauren@gmail.com! I'd love to see it!

If you want me to do more of this kind of post, let me know! If you have something else you want to learn about, let me know too! I'm here to inspire YOU!