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GODS OF GAMEMAKER, I NEED YOUR HELP!!!

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Leviticus

Guest
(I'm new, so sorry in advance if this is in the wrong place!)

Okay guys, I wanna make an indie game... I have a base game mechanic, a story, art assets, the music, and basically everything else I would need to complete said game. The only problem is... I DON'T KNOW HOW TO PROGRAM!!!

This is a somewhat complicated project, so I can't exactly go with those, "programs for you!" or "no programming needed!" options. I feel that this project will not be too difficult a task for someone determined as me. I want to learn really bad and I have been studying TONS of online tutorials on how to code and work with GameMaker Studio. But sadly, not everything I'm looking for is out there on the internet... so if anybody out there can help me with the following issues for my indie game, I would be incredibly grateful!
  • How to make Paper Mario: TTYD's low poly world design. (any helpful advice on blender, or tutorials?)
  • How to make Paper Mario's flat character sprites 3D space.
  • How to make Paper Mario's following cameras that can shift, see through walls, area timed transitions, etc...
  • How to make Paper Mario's house break down animation. (outside fades to black)
  • Undertale's basic enemy attacking mechanics.
  • Importing assets from Blender? (Can I even do that?)
  • What's the limit to GameMakers 3D? Would (as reference) Paper Mario be too much for it?
  • Fading in/out midi files to change the mood of the music.
Once again, if you are able to help in any way I would be eternally grateful!!!
 

TLH14

Member
Reading the manual is, honestly, one of the best ways to learn GameMaker. Sure, there's Shaun Spalding, HeartBeast, Making Games 101, etc. but if you want to learn more advanced stuff, just thoroughly reading through the manual and learning GM's ins and outs is the best way to go.

As for Paper Mario... you could probably make something fairly similar; the main limitation to GM's 3D is that it doesn't support animated 3D models, but you could at least have 2D characters moving about in 3D space.

That said, this should, by far, not be the first game you make. By all means, work towards making this game, but start with a whole bunch of smaller projects first. Find a tutorial online, maybe HeartBeast's RPG tutorial to start, and then start branching off from the tutorial, making the project your own. If you start working on a big project now, you'll only find yourself frustrated later down the line at how much more you know than when you started, potentially having to start completely over because the foundation you laid for your game simply wasn't good enough. It's better to just make smaller projects, because it also teaches the process of actually finishing something, which is a valuable skill even some of the best programmers don't actually have.

Last, but not least, just have fun. If you don't enjoy making games, you're not going to be able to force yourself into putting in the extensive time required; the best way to make games is to simply enjoy passing the time that way.
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
A lot of your questions are too broad to answer them in a single forum post, and thus are not a good fit for this forum (or any other forum). Some of them basically require reading material on the level of full-fledged tutorials in order to explain them accurately, and even if I had those ready at hand, I doubt you would be able to make much sense of them as you, like you said, don't know how to program. This situation is the core issue here, and therefore the one I will tackle in this post.

The most important thing to keep in mind regarding this situation is that you should not be trying to program a game for now (especially not the game you're trying to make). Your primary goal is to learn how to program (and maybe how to code - there is a fundamental difference between those two!), as that is a prerequisite to programming a game. If one of your learning experiments turns into a playable, maybe even enjoyable experience, that's an added bonus.

If you haven't already done so, you should start working through the official tutorials (start GM:S -> Tutorials tab). All of them. Don't do one after the other, though. Do one, then experiment around with the completed tutorial (change some things, add a feature, etc.), do the same tutorial until you can recreate it without checking the tutorial again. You are ready to move on once you have truly understood what you are working with, and most importantly, how and why it works the way it does.
Read The Manuaaaaal~♫ if you're ever unsure about what a function does or how certain functionality works or should be used, or use its search function if you have rough keywords of what you want to do in mind but don't quite know how to do it (I'm thinking on a very abstract level here - keywords like "model", "3D" or "projection"). Also read it if you just want to learn something new - the more you know about the language or IDE, the easier your time using it will be. Knowing about functions or features even if you don't need them just yet will benefit you greatly in case you need them in the future.



Once you have a fundamental understanding of how programming in GM:S works, you may find these responses to your not-quite-as-boundary-breaking-as-the-others questions helpful:
What's the limit to GameMakers 3D? Would (as reference) Paper Mario be too much for it?
That depends on so many external factors, most of which are the target device's hardware, that it's impossible to answer this question with a yes or a no. All I can tell you in this regard is that GM:S is not primarily oriented around 3D games, and its subset of default functionality that deals with it is limited as a result thereof. If you're intending to make a 3D game, do not expect your hand to be held by the engine or lots of convenience functionality to be available and be ready to take things into your own hands. (...and for the love of Theoxidos, don't try to make a 3D game as your first game.)

Fading in/out midi files to change the mood of the music.
Forget about the midi files, as those are not supported by GM:S by default. I'm having a hard time coming up with reasons why anyone would want to use those in this time and age anymore, anyway, so I won't suggest finding an extension that allows playback of midi files (and I'd be surprised if there was one).
Regarding audio resources of file formats that are supported, there are functions following the audio_*_gain pattern in the audio* family of functions, though, and they control the volume of audio resources.
 
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Jeshuakrc

Guest
Hey bro! I've been just in your place. I´m new in GameMaker too, but I guess a little bit more advanced than you. Sorry for what I gonna say, but; it would be better if you save that game for the future. Trust me, don't get in GameMaker or to another game engine with a clear idea if you have never made a game, or you'll be disappointed. Also trust me when I say you that GameMaker is realy easy to learn, the D&D is a good way to get in if you have never coded before. Do not despair to be a master, so I repeat, save your game, get in GameMaker, do mini platform games and topdown shooters, Tetri's clones etcetera. GameMaker is realy a great candidate to be "my first game engine". If you wanna be faster skip directly to coding, if you have some kowledge of Java, GML (GameMaker Language) will be so easy for you; but bases in what you said, you have never coded; well, get in touch whith programing with GML! Is realy easy. Just relax, and learn. Go to the oficial guide and learn the functions ans statements, if you realy realy have any idea of programing, search what's and variable, a function, and other bacis conpcepts.

MAke a game isn't easy, don't forget it. You right now are very exited and pasionated of you game, but I've benn in your place. I know what i say you.
 

Mornedil

Member
GameMaker is primarily a 2D game development tool, and has limited 3D capability by default.
If you're completely new to GameMaker, I suggest trying out Unity for this project instead. It's free to use and to publish on different platforms, and a very powerful tool to develop 3D games. It will support your exported Blender models without any problems, including animation, which is something I promise you'll have a lot of trouble with in GameMaker.

Basically:
2D games ---> GameMaker
3D games ---> Unity (or GameMaker if you're either very experienced or have a deathwish)
 
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zircher

Guest
GMS is perfectly fine for 3D, if you stay within its constraints. Something like 2d billboard characters in a 3d world is totally within its capabilities. Same for 3d static objects like tanks, terrain, and fighter jets. What it will have problems with is 3D animation or tweaking lots of polygons on the fly.

For example, in this WIP everything but the HUD is a 3D model. You can zoom in and out, rotate the camera etc. The turrets are separate from the hulls and can rotate independently.



For something like a Paper Mario, you could take all those counters and billboard them to face the camera. Off of the top of my head, I don't know if 3d models in GMS support transparent textures. That would be a thing to research and confirm.
 
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Leviticus

Guest
Thanks for actually answering one of the questions! I honestly don't know if I wanna use GameMaker though... I don't really know what it would take or how it works, but I see other games that people have tried to make in 3D on GameMaker and they never seem to look "polished" enough for me.
This is the closest to what I wanna see in my game, but even at this, the frame rate isn't very steady. I mean, would my game, (with opening doors, lots of characters and their dialogue, enemies who trigger battle sequence (like undertale)) ,be able to fuction on GameMaker?


This is a full game I eventually plan on making... a pretty long one... at least 2 hours of RPG action adventure. I'm thinking about going with another engine like Unity and learning C#. It seems plenty capable of doing everything I want it to do. My only real worry with it is one, learning C# ,and two, the 10% revenue cut that they ask for if you get popular....

But what do you think of all of this? Am I underballing GameMaker here? Should I go with Unity for a project like this?
 
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wantafanta

Guest
Thanks for actually answering one of the questions! I honestly don't know if I wanna use GameMaker though... I don't really know what it would take or how it works, but I see other games that people have tried to make in 3D on GameMaker and they never seem to look "polished" enough for me.
This is the closest to what I wanna see in my game, but even at this, the frame rate isn't very steady. I mean, would my game, (with opening doors, lots of characters and their dialogue, enemies who trigger battle sequence (like undertale)) ,be able to fuction on GameMaker?


This is a full game I eventually plan on making... a pretty long one... at least 2 hours of RPG action adventure. I'm thinking about going with another engine like Unity and learning C#. It seems plenty capable of doing everything I want it to do. My only real worry with it is one, learning C# ,and two, the 10% revenue cut that they ask for if you get popular....

But what do you think of all of this? Am I underballing GameMaker here? Should I go with Unity for a project like this?
If you managed to make the equivalent of Super Mario 3D as a polished and a 2 hour RPG action adventure, you will be rich regardless of what engine. That 10% cut would be nothing. The truth is though, its extremely hard and they sink millions into developing those games and that's why you rarely see an indie developer manage to make a equivalent, even the most talented find it extremely difficult and time consuming.

If you don't know how to program, you're going to have to resolve yourself to learning programming from the ground up and making a lot of bad prototypes and doing years worth of studying and hard work to learn the basics of game programming.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't to dissuade you, game making is a very rewarding pass time and you will develop a lot of great skills but its important to have realistic expectations, no one in human history has been able to build a 3D Super Mario RPG clone as their first game.
 

Mornedil

Member
Yes, it's entirely possible and it will be able to function, but getting there with this specific project will take 100 times more effort than in Unity, based on the fact that you're new to both Unity and Gamemaker.
If you ask me, learning GML is slightly easier than learning C#, but the things you'll have to program to make this project work in GameMaker will in the end make it a lot harder than the amount you would need to program in Unity with C#. In Unity you could have a character jumping around on platforms in a day as a newbie, while in GameMaker you would need to learn advanced GML techniques to even get reliable 3D collisions working.
And I'd say don't worry about the 10% revenue cost.. if your project ends up earning enough money to qualify for having to pay that, you'd have an amazing income anyway.
 
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zircher

Guest
Tip: If you decide to stick with GMS and try the Paper Mario thing. These two lines will be important for your project.

draw_set_alpha_test(true);
draw_set_alpha_test_ref_value(128);

What they do is enable additional testing for alpha channel in your model's textures (just confirmed that it works.) So, applying a transparent texture like a character sprite to a 3d card is certainly doable.
 
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