Excellent video Jason! I made/support the asset "Character Customization" on the Unity Asset Store. It solves the real-time customization challenge and tries to be compatible with as many different characters and controllers as possible. Additionally, it allows the creation of prefab variations that artists might not have included in their packs.
Thank you for your thoughts on this. I decided 18 months ago to do something I wanted to do back in the naughties. Build a game! I grew up with CPM and basic. Was IBM mainframe programmer (DB2, JCL etc to show my age). Then had to apply my original career choice of Management Accountant for 25 yrs. Your tutorials together with select others have allowed me to realise that my dream is achievable. Having finally decided on the architecture, I am now feeling confident that I can make my 3D team based strategy game work. I am now in the process of pulling the code and assets together from various projects to test each element of the game. Thank you and I look forward to more of your instructive videos.
I have been working on my own game for a couple of years and it should be finished by the end of the year. So now I'm very excited to see if anyone will buy it, nevertheless just getting it done and getting it out will be a huge success for me
I made a small tool which is kinda must-have and placed it into the UE Marketplace. Very tiny but well written solution in C++ and Blueprints, with documentation. It's really good and I am working on another much bigger Code Plugin to sell. It's for grids on large terrains where you have integrated shaders to render really large terrains optimized with grid cells that can be managed individually, like team colors, borders and stuffs.
Gamedev job + Asset Store developer :D Edit: In the end you ask how the Asset Store thing went. AMAZING. 2 of my assets are in the top sales chart. As you say, if you solve a problem people buy it
No but I probably should make some soon :) Working on a big art update w/ the latest course, maybe I'll make one right after that since it'll be pretty :)
I follow few of ways you are telling about. - I am working on the game "Druid: Test of faith" it's not ready at all but I've release demo on steam. - Since i am working all alone I had to learn how to draw 2D sprites for my game and in my opinion doing it quite well. And since now I am running out of fond I have to sell parts of my game on Unity asset store... Quite sad... - Also now looking for full time job or contract... 😀 - Also started gamedev youtube channel Just would like to add: About 3 years ago I've left full time job as web developer and started to learning gamedev. And get all my skills for that period. So wish to say thank you and your videos. By the way, I’ve mentioned you in my game info section.
I'm surprised your VRMP template asset worked for that long... I was thinking of making a similar tool, but dismissed it as things kept changing on the VR end (and on the MP end) and I assumed it would need contestant updating to keep alive!
I work as a contractor gamedev for a startup, but recently it got a few million in investor funds and im getting bumped up to a full time senior position! Its a good opportunity to aim for those higher positions from a contractor spot if you can
Thank you for this! My skills are kind of hybrid between art and programming, and I've thought about making assets on the asset store before. I never thought it would actually make any money though, so I never tried it. After this, I might just give it a shot!
So, my case is a bit strange. I guess you could consider my work as contract work, but the way it's structured feels a lot like regular employment. I work with a startup made up of 2 people but they keep me on an 8 hour work day with regular weekends and a monthly salary (which is a decent salary tbf). However, there's no written contract involved what so ever. It's all based on mutual trust. I Trust that at the end of each month they roll out my monthly salary (which they have so far), and they trust that I won't take our prototypes and sell them to a competitor (which I haven't/would never do). Keep in mind that I live in a country where game dev jobs are pretty much non-existent. We only have like 1 or 2 major studios and the rest are just startups. I consider myself to be quite lucky to have even managed to land this job because it is very difficult to find one in the first place. On the other hand, I'm well aware that this job won't be permanent. As cushy as it is (I work from home) and as nice as the salary is, I know that it's a contracting job and I will have to look for something else eventually. This was my experience so far, I hope tis helps anyone who reads this and thanks for the video Jason.
I always think of selling assets (3D art/animations mostly), but as someone who uses a lot of Houdini, I never really know if I can just export a digital asset and sell it on the asset store. I dig through there a lot, and I don't think I ever saw procedural assets for sale that required the Houdini Engine to work. Either way, this video is pretty great and made me consider some stuff, so thanks!
@@Unity3dCollege Thanks! I would really appreciate it. Worst case scenario I guess just exporting a non-procedural version as an .FBX is also an option. But the Houdini Engine is so powerful that I really wish to leverage it.
Another option is to just hire (or rev-share) with a Unity programmer who can take your art and rig it up for Unity (animations, scripts, etc) so that you can upload and sell them.
@@markmccorkle25 The thing is, is that .HDAs (Houdini's digital assets) are a different type of 3D model. It's a little hard to explain, but basically it's an asset that allows you to leave a lot of the appearance and customization to the game designers. The classical example would be a building digital asset where, inside of Unity, using the Houdini Engine, you get to choose how many floors it has, how big it is, the size of windows, doors, etc etc, but honestly, it's almost limitless what you can actually accomplish with them (seriously, RUclips has some good demonstrations in case you want to see). You can't actually just use scripts to rig it because HDAs only work with the Houdini Engine (it's also not a runtime solution, you create the model in engine and then bake them into static assets in the end).
I started Learning game Dev using unity at the age of 14 , now i am 16 waiting to finish my school next month , and be ready for my fresher job as a game programmer. ( PS : Already Done an Internship ) :) Thanks For Making this Videos They are Really Helpful !
Hey! Hi Jason! Thanks as always for the advice and the knowledge. Do you think that is there market for 2D art assets? Pixel art an not pixel art? Thank you! I really do appreciate your content. I've learned a lot from you😊
im a little bit curiose on the art part. its about Scale and how other Objects Scale with other Assets you downloaded in the past. do you put Too much attention in to that or you care more that the Asset pack Works with each other.? Like Maybe you Download a Counter that 1 M in Size but another pack made the exact same counter using Real life Measurements. does it bother you or you simply care that it Looks Good and performs Well in your Project that your doing. and yes its a question that has been bothering me for a while now LUL. (its Pretty much Measurements and Scale kind of Question LUL).
Hey Jason, love the video. In regards to contracting work, what do you feel is the best way to gauge whether you can handle a particular job? I've been working with Unity for about a year, and I feel I've learned a lot, but there's still tons I don't know. I don't want to try to start a contract job only to find I'm in over my head in terms of what needs to be done.
If you have done that kind of game before you can handle it, otherwise you should try build something similar on your own beforehand. On too, if it contains the words MMO or open world, just don't 😁
No one can ever know everything as things are so fluid and constantly changing, that's way game dev has seperate department ie: level design, coding, 3d modelling etc what you are best at take that role in the contract or set up indie studio and have no pressures
I have a full-time dev job. I contracted for a long, long time before I started getting regular jobs. This channel is always a big help no matter how much you know. ❤️
@@sir.niklas2090 I like the full-time jobs because of the stability and extra employment benefits. Contracting leaves everything up to you: you have to get your own health insurance, withhold your own money for taxes, you have to manage everything like a strict business owner, and you even have to advertise, promote and find your own work. Another thing that kind of sucks is working on projects that are under strict NDA which you can't talk about or put in your portfolio. I contracted a long time and realized that I still had very little I could even share with other people, which was kind of sad. You can make a whole _lot_ of money contracting, but it's also up to you to find all the right clients and jobs and then you better be accurate in giving them estimates and such as well (something I hate trying to do!), because if/when things get delayed they're going to be upset! Some clients can be very hard to work with, extremely intrusive and demanding with unrealistic expectations -- a lot of them have no understanding of software development and it's hard to even explain things to them, so some will honesty believe you're tricking them with fancy tech jargon to make the job take longer, lol. You'll encounter people like that and it's up to you to figure out how to deal with each one and their quirks. The best contract roles are sometimes when a game studio is outsourcing a job and you're able to work with other professionals. But those can often be very stressful for other reasons. A lot of times the only reason they're hiring you is because they're running out of time and have an extremely hard task that needs to be done in no time at all ... so it's like they're hiring a mercenary because no regular soldier can or will do the thing they need done, lol. That's a good analogy actually, because a mercenary gets paid a lot of money, often way more than regular soldiers, but they have the most hard and brutal job to do and then usually can't talk about it afterwards, haha. 😄 So the full-time job at a studio is by far the most pleasant and stable, and depending on the company and your position it can also be very highly paid and come with great benefits. Contracting has a lot of risks and pitfalls, but it gives you the _chance_ to earn more than you could get from a salary (it also gives you the chance to earn much less or even nothing lol). Small contracts are a good way to get your hands dirty and gain some experience though.
@@GameDevNerd Thank you! I ask because I am wanting to do game dev specifically programming/engineer. I was just trying to figure out which way I want to go! And now I think you answered it. :D Thanks agian.
I have made and are making money on my game "Fireworks Mania" selling on Steam. Yeah big surprise to make money on making an game as a game dev :P Even though the game is released, I am still actively working on it, which is one of the reason it keeps selling I guess. For instance, I added mod support here in December, which was 1 year after initial release. Game dev, however, is a "spare time" thing for me - I'm an IT consultant/Developer (.NET and C#) in my fulltime day job. Keep the awesome videos coming Jason :)
@@eliorubenstudios9469 Hey. Well, I'm not gonna share my earning, but my game is doing really great. Its all relative, but for me the game is doing great. However, keep in mind, that its fairly unique, I spend a long time making it stabile and performant also, I'm still working on it and updating it, even after a year of release.
@@Unity3dCollege Looks nice on you though, Jason. But pretty sure you are lovely unbearded. As soon as I have got more time to do so, I shall follow and watch your Unity tutorials. :-D
If you go for option 2, making your own game you need to realize that like 50% of your time needs to go to marketing. You need to increase and learn marketing skills just as much as your dev skills or your game will just die on steam or app stores.
As a professional music composer, I've found my way after 2 years of struggling with Unity and C#... that was that easy: I'm a musician and I'm 50yo, I can't learn all the programming related stuff and compete with people with 10+ years of experience in that field... so I've ended up composing soundFXs and music themes for games and you know what? I really love it! 😍
If you can make a game and sell it to 1 more person than an experienced developer it doesn't matter about competing my friend, just make a game and put it out there. It's not about what you know it's who
I was re creating old school 2d pixel art assets tile maps etc..they were of r type/ turrican style games..problem was I re created them TOO GOOD and too much like the original....which BTW is the whole reason why I done them so people could make like 90s games like turrican etc. But unity pulled them off the store cos they were "too the same" lol
I just do normal gamedev jobs. I still haven't used Unity professionally, but that might finally be changing soon. The way I use the asset store is by buying all the cool looking toys in case I ever think of something fun to use them for.
Do you consider building out a game on your own to be a viable strategy for establishing credentials to get a job? That's kinda my plan as of now since I have no education or experience in game dev apart from my partially complete independent ventures and helping friends out with theirs.
I'd say Yes and No. Its a great way to build a portfolio and for stuff like this people will definitely ask to see your work. Go for it !! Having said that there are so many different parts to each game and when your applying for a job its usually just one of the different parts, not all of them. For example, if you're a coder its much harder to show your work when all they're seeing is the graphics of the finished product, not your code behind it all. The other thing is ... just cuz it works doesn't mean its any good. The fancy graphics on the front end could be hiding a disaster on the backend. (But hey it works !! :) Long story short ... if you go that route you'll need to develop something that actually shows what you're selling in yourself.
![DDG & G Herbo - Nosey [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/I9Ra0Zc2NlQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Made money making a racing game similar to Split/Second! Its on steam as early access. Most of the money went back to assets and contract workers.
how much time did it take ?
Excellent video Jason!
I made/support the asset "Character Customization" on the Unity Asset Store.
It solves the real-time customization challenge and tries to be compatible with as many different characters and controllers as possible.
Additionally, it allows the creation of prefab variations that artists might not have included in their packs.
Thank you for your thoughts on this. I decided 18 months ago to do something I wanted to do back in the naughties. Build a game! I grew up with CPM and basic. Was IBM mainframe programmer (DB2, JCL etc to show my age). Then had to apply my original career choice of Management Accountant for 25 yrs.
Your tutorials together with select others have allowed me to realise that my dream is achievable. Having finally decided on the architecture, I am now feeling confident that I can make my 3D team based strategy game work. I am now in the process of pulling the code and assets together from various projects to test each element of the game.
Thank you and I look forward to more of your instructive videos.
I have been working on my own game for a couple of years and it should be finished by the end of the year. So now I'm very excited to see if anyone will buy it, nevertheless just getting it done and getting it out will be a huge success for me
I dig the blooper haha Thanks for being awesome and being a wealth of info for all the devs out there
I made a small tool which is kinda must-have and placed it into the UE Marketplace. Very tiny but well written solution in C++ and Blueprints, with documentation. It's really good and I am working on another much bigger Code Plugin to sell. It's for grids on large terrains where you have integrated shaders to render really large terrains optimized with grid cells that can be managed individually, like team colors, borders and stuffs.
Gamedev job + Asset Store developer :D
Edit: In the end you ask how the Asset Store thing went. AMAZING. 2 of my assets are in the top sales chart. As you say, if you solve a problem people buy it
You're All in One VFX pack looks great. I haven't got it yet but am planning to eventually.
@@kyleme9697 Thank you
Nice video! Very informative.
I released an asset on the store (Stylized Vegetation Pack) and sold ~$200 worth as well as a steam release.
3D mapping content rule guys!
Hey! Really loving your videos and would love to grab your courses from the Easter sale. Do you have any trailers For the course?
No but I probably should make some soon :) Working on a big art update w/ the latest course, maybe I'll make one right after that since it'll be pretty :)
I follow few of ways you are telling about.
- I am working on the game "Druid: Test of faith" it's not ready at all but I've release demo on steam.
- Since i am working all alone I had to learn how to draw 2D sprites for my game and in my opinion doing it quite well. And since now I am running out of fond I have to sell parts of my game on Unity asset store... Quite sad...
- Also now looking for full time job or contract... 😀
- Also started gamedev youtube channel
Just would like to add: About 3 years ago I've left full time job as web developer and started to learning gamedev. And get all my skills for that period.
So wish to say thank you and your videos. By the way, I’ve mentioned you in my game info section.
Subscribed :) Also quit my full time job to work as a Unity Developer which I do currently. Looking forward to see how your game does
@@luistotoro Thank you! I will do my best!👍
You forgot to add making tutorial videos or sponsored videos like the one you have just made
I'm surprised your VRMP template asset worked for that long... I was thinking of making a similar tool, but dismissed it as things kept changing on the VR end (and on the MP end) and I assumed it would need contestant updating to keep alive!
:) I developed SpriteCreator3 put it up on itch. Made with Unity3D. Dress up a sprite and save the animated sprite sheet.
I work as a contractor gamedev for a startup, but recently it got a few million in investor funds and im getting bumped up to a full time senior position! Its a good opportunity to aim for those higher positions from a contractor spot if you can
👍
Cool video
I worked for a game dev company for a year and I am currently developing 2 indie games. Hope they do well.
Thank you for this! My skills are kind of hybrid between art and programming, and I've thought about making assets on the asset store before. I never thought it would actually make any money though, so I never tried it.
After this, I might just give it a shot!
If you plan to make assets, the market is very competitive you'll need to find your specific market, as for games I'd stick to that
I love this video
Great video
3:37 big what now?
So, my case is a bit strange. I guess you could consider my work as contract work, but the way it's structured feels a lot like regular employment. I work with a startup made up of 2 people but they keep me on an 8 hour work day with regular weekends and a monthly salary (which is a decent salary tbf). However, there's no written contract involved what so ever. It's all based on mutual trust. I Trust that at the end of each month they roll out my monthly salary (which they have so far), and they trust that I won't take our prototypes and sell them to a competitor (which I haven't/would never do).
Keep in mind that I live in a country where game dev jobs are pretty much non-existent. We only have like 1 or 2 major studios and the rest are just startups. I consider myself to be quite lucky to have even managed to land this job because it is very difficult to find one in the first place. On the other hand, I'm well aware that this job won't be permanent. As cushy as it is (I work from home) and as nice as the salary is, I know that it's a contracting job and I will have to look for something else eventually.
This was my experience so far, I hope tis helps anyone who reads this and thanks for the video Jason.
I always think of selling assets (3D art/animations mostly), but as someone who uses a lot of Houdini, I never really know if I can just export a digital asset and sell it on the asset store. I dig through there a lot, and I don't think I ever saw procedural assets for sale that required the Houdini Engine to work.
Either way, this video is pretty great and made me consider some stuff, so thanks!
That's a good question. I'll ask around and see if there isnsome official stance on this
@@Unity3dCollege Thanks! I would really appreciate it. Worst case scenario I guess just exporting a non-procedural version as an .FBX is also an option. But the Houdini Engine is so powerful that I really wish to leverage it.
I'm also interested in the answer to that. When I learnt about Houdini I found it very strange that I never saw any of those in the Asset Store.
Another option is to just hire (or rev-share) with a Unity programmer who can take your art and rig it up for Unity (animations, scripts, etc) so that you can upload and sell them.
@@markmccorkle25 The thing is, is that .HDAs (Houdini's digital assets) are a different type of 3D model. It's a little hard to explain, but basically it's an asset that allows you to leave a lot of the appearance and customization to the game designers.
The classical example would be a building digital asset where, inside of Unity, using the Houdini Engine, you get to choose how many floors it has, how big it is, the size of windows, doors, etc etc, but honestly, it's almost limitless what you can actually accomplish with them (seriously, RUclips has some good demonstrations in case you want to see).
You can't actually just use scripts to rig it because HDAs only work with the Houdini Engine (it's also not a runtime solution, you create the model in engine and then bake them into static assets in the end).
I am 61, and live in southern England, so I think its a little late for me :(
I started Learning game Dev using unity at the age of 14 , now i am 16 waiting to finish my school next month , and be ready for my fresher job as a game programmer. ( PS : Already Done an Internship ) :) Thanks For Making this Videos They are Really Helpful !
Algo
Hey! Hi Jason! Thanks as always for the advice and the knowledge. Do you think that is there market for 2D art assets? Pixel art an not pixel art? Thank you! I really do appreciate your content. I've learned a lot from you😊
there is, icons & ui stuff is always needed :o
@@tbbivi Thanks for the info!😁
I do gamedev job so haha
im a little bit curiose on the art part.
its about Scale and how other Objects Scale with other Assets you downloaded in the past. do you put Too much attention in to that or you care more that the Asset pack Works with each other.?
Like Maybe you Download a Counter that 1 M in Size but another pack made the exact same counter using Real life Measurements. does it bother you or you simply care that it Looks Good and performs Well in your Project that your doing.
and yes its a question that has been bothering me for a while now LUL. (its Pretty much Measurements and Scale kind of Question LUL).
what about making free games with ads and/or selling in content/decoration? 🫤
Hey Jason, love the video. In regards to contracting work, what do you feel is the best way to gauge whether you can handle a particular job? I've been working with Unity for about a year, and I feel I've learned a lot, but there's still tons I don't know. I don't want to try to start a contract job only to find I'm in over my head in terms of what needs to be done.
If you have done that kind of game before you can handle it, otherwise you should try build something similar on your own beforehand.
On too, if it contains the words MMO or open world, just don't 😁
No one can ever know everything as things are so fluid and constantly changing, that's way game dev has seperate department ie: level design, coding, 3d modelling etc what you are best at take that role in the contract or set up indie studio and have no pressures
I have a full-time dev job. I contracted for a long, long time before I started getting regular jobs. This channel is always a big help no matter how much you know. ❤️
Would you rather contract or have a full time job?
@@sir.niklas2090 I like the full-time jobs because of the stability and extra employment benefits. Contracting leaves everything up to you: you have to get your own health insurance, withhold your own money for taxes, you have to manage everything like a strict business owner, and you even have to advertise, promote and find your own work. Another thing that kind of sucks is working on projects that are under strict NDA which you can't talk about or put in your portfolio. I contracted a long time and realized that I still had very little I could even share with other people, which was kind of sad.
You can make a whole _lot_ of money contracting, but it's also up to you to find all the right clients and jobs and then you better be accurate in giving them estimates and such as well (something I hate trying to do!), because if/when things get delayed they're going to be upset! Some clients can be very hard to work with, extremely intrusive and demanding with unrealistic expectations -- a lot of them have no understanding of software development and it's hard to even explain things to them, so some will honesty believe you're tricking them with fancy tech jargon to make the job take longer, lol. You'll encounter people like that and it's up to you to figure out how to deal with each one and their quirks. The best contract roles are sometimes when a game studio is outsourcing a job and you're able to work with other professionals. But those can often be very stressful for other reasons. A lot of times the only reason they're hiring you is because they're running out of time and have an extremely hard task that needs to be done in no time at all ... so it's like they're hiring a mercenary because no regular soldier can or will do the thing they need done, lol. That's a good analogy actually, because a mercenary gets paid a lot of money, often way more than regular soldiers, but they have the most hard and brutal job to do and then usually can't talk about it afterwards, haha. 😄
So the full-time job at a studio is by far the most pleasant and stable, and depending on the company and your position it can also be very highly paid and come with great benefits. Contracting has a lot of risks and pitfalls, but it gives you the _chance_ to earn more than you could get from a salary (it also gives you the chance to earn much less or even nothing lol). Small contracts are a good way to get your hands dirty and gain some experience though.
@@GameDevNerd Thank you! I ask because I am wanting to do game dev specifically programming/engineer. I was just trying to figure out which way I want to go! And now I think you answered it. :D Thanks agian.
I am game developer, make "epidemyc" a tower defense. make U$S 80, and we work for 4 years to make it. :(. Working in another personal project .
I have made and are making money on my game "Fireworks Mania" selling on Steam.
Yeah big surprise to make money on making an game as a game dev :P
Even though the game is released, I am still actively working on it, which is one of the reason it keeps selling I guess. For instance, I added mod support here in December, which was 1 year after initial release.
Game dev, however, is a "spare time" thing for me - I'm an IT consultant/Developer (.NET and C#) in my fulltime day job.
Keep the awesome videos coming Jason :)
I'm curious about how much money you made... also I subscribed to your channel. I'm in the similar path with my game.
@@eliorubenstudios9469 Hey. Well, I'm not gonna share my earning, but my game is doing really great. Its all relative, but for me the game is doing great.
However, keep in mind, that its fairly unique, I spend a long time making it stabile and performant also, I'm still working on it and updating it, even after a year of release.
I mostly made money with game dev working for other people creating interactive experiences, using projectors and custom Arduino controllers.
Jason, will you please shave up your beard ? ☺
Wife just asked the same thing.... :)
@@Unity3dCollege Looks nice on you though, Jason.
But pretty sure you are lovely unbearded.
As soon as I have got more time to do so, I shall follow and watch your Unity tutorials.
:-D
If you go for option 2, making your own game you need to realize that like 50% of your time needs to go to marketing. You need to increase and learn marketing skills just as much as your dev skills or your game will just die on steam or app stores.
Just started blender and Unreal engine, but I would like to try Unity in the future if its possible to make a commercial game with visual scripting.
As a professional music composer, I've found my way after 2 years of struggling with Unity and C#... that was that easy: I'm a musician and I'm 50yo, I can't learn all the programming related stuff and compete with people with 10+ years of experience in that field... so I've ended up composing soundFXs and music themes for games and you know what? I really love it! 😍
If you can make a game and sell it to 1 more person than an experienced developer it doesn't matter about competing my friend, just make a game and put it out there. It's not about what you know it's who
you can develop your art skill
I was re creating old school 2d pixel art assets tile maps etc..they were of r type/ turrican style games..problem was I re created them TOO GOOD and too much like the original....which BTW is the whole reason why I done them so people could make like 90s games like turrican etc. But unity pulled them off the store cos they were "too the same" lol
I just do normal gamedev jobs. I still haven't used Unity professionally, but that might finally be changing soon. The way I use the asset store is by buying all the cool looking toys in case I ever think of something fun to use them for.
Do you consider building out a game on your own to be a viable strategy for establishing credentials to get a job? That's kinda my plan as of now since I have no education or experience in game dev apart from my partially complete independent ventures and helping friends out with theirs.
I'd say Yes and No. Its a great way to build a portfolio and for stuff like this people will definitely ask to see your work. Go for it !!
Having said that there are so many different parts to each game and when your applying for a job its usually just one of the different parts, not all of them. For example, if you're a coder its much harder to show your work when all they're seeing is the graphics of the finished product, not your code behind it all. The other thing is ... just cuz it works doesn't mean its any good. The fancy graphics on the front end could be hiding a disaster on the backend. (But hey it works !! :)
Long story short ... if you go that route you'll need to develop something that actually shows what you're selling in yourself.