Since making things with AGS involves drawing, writing, sound and scripting (or seperately as components, if you've got more than one person), everyone evidently has something they can do towards making a finished product. And, I would guess not everybody got them from studying them in an academic institution.
So, what do you know, and where did you get it from?
Personally, I like constructing the stories of games, and the blame firmly rests on the obscene amount of reading I used to do as a young 'un. My drawing still sucks, but I'm improving, I think - that's mostly coming from internet tutorials, and a lot of trial and error (emphasis on the latter).
Everything I've learned so far has been from practice and asking others for help/advice basically. I tried studying art when I was quite a bit younger and never got anywhere with it, and never had the chance to study coding at school/inclination to study it after school.
Writing I just make up as I go along ;D
I didn't know anything when I got here and I learned drawing/visual design, programming, writing and composing from AGSers. Afterwards I've just studied and practiced those skills separately in my free time. I learned some programming from studying computer science but I still got more out of just reading up on it and practicing out of school.
I had always been a keen artist as a kid, and it's something that AGS has brought back out of me. Pixel art is something I learned - and I'm still learning because I'm a bit rubbish - by asking experts and other AGSers online.
Writing stories is again something I did a lot when I was little. It is all down to reading books, watching films and having an active imagination, I suppose.
Scripting is my weakest link, really. I have been interested in programming since learning HTML and then CSS when I was about 14 or 15. I have to code in C a fair bit at uni but I find it all rather dull.
I have learned nothing from my degree.
studying... for many many many many many many many many many years... :=
Both scripting and composing I started at a very early age.
My story with scripting began as a child (~7 years old?), when my parents bought me my first computer. It came with three games (digger, root beer tapper and another one with spaceships), and I remember thinking "Wow, there is so much more to create here!", so I asked around how do people make games, and that lead me to teach myself some qbasic, which I used to create mostly idiotic text adventures... Later I took CS in university and it became my day job.
As for composing, my parents (again), bought me a keyboard and keyboard lessons (also from a very young age). I was not much of a keyboard player (and I'm still pretty mediocre at keyoard playing) but I got really interested in composing music.
Also, there was a project in our school with a youth wind instruments orchestra so I joined in and played the Tuba for 6-7 years, and that's where I got the feel for arranging parts.
Both story writing and drawing, is something I have no knowledge or experience in, and try to learn as I go...
For me it's mostly seeing something and then thinking "Oh my god - I want to be able to do this"
So I read up on it, get some tutorials look at other peoples work....
And then it's practice...and practice...and practice
Well, tutorials and experimenting. Lots of the later. Observation skills also help and referencing is invaluable. That is for Art.
To writing, competitions in various forums, including here, and several write-ups of novels (managing to finish none so far)
Whatever I have has been cobbled together, piecemeal, over a depressingly undisciplined period of years.
Never studied. Just stumbled.
programming - Learned it and practiced in high school
drawing - I had no training besides occasional doodling for fun and indeed I can't do much good besides fairly decent characters
writing stories and dialogs - I just assumed I can do it
designing ridiculous puzzles - learned it at the university :)
Quote from: Ascovel on Sun 14/11/2010 22:52:24
designing ridiculous puzzles - learned it at the university :)
They have courses for that now? :=
I learned to write by roleplaying on Internet forums. I mean, I did finally take a creative writing class in college, and I did learn from it, but it did more to make me worse at bad writing than it did to make me better at good writing.
All the scripting skills I have I developed through unfinished game building attempts with AGS. The same is partly true of my art (pixel and freehand), as well, but drawing for me has also always been a peripheral hobby, so while I'm not very good, and I'm certainly not very efficient, my freehand drawing skills tend to increase gradually even when I am not working on a game. Internet tutorials and tracing have probably affected my work more than outside input, with the exception of walking animations, which my dad has often critiqued for me (he is a prosthetist, so he has to know that stuff for his job). I usually get bored of drawing before I really get a chance to bog down the Critics Lounge, here, though I learned things the one or two times I did post there.
Not really a music person at all yet, though I would like to learn theory.
Books, school and patience.
Browsing, Dreaming, Testing.
Drawing, writing and even programming* are things I already did as a kid. Throughout the last 10 years I had different periods with different focus, for several years I didn't do much of any of this. Since 2006 / 2007, when I discovered AGS, I'm drawing and programming continuously again - sometimes more, sometimes less. It's all learning by doing really, I didn't study any of this and didn't do many tutorials either.
I'm in a good position for making games, since music is practically the only thing I can't do myself (though I do play guitar and bass ;)).
* You remember these old pseudo-laptops with a two-line display? One could code around a hundred lines in Basic with the one I had..
Basically the same here, I started with AmigaBasic when I was about ten years old, then AMOS, moved on to Java, then AGS.
On the topic of pseudo laptops, I had those:
(http://calculators.torensma.net/files/images/texas_instruments_ti-74.jpg) (http://pdadb.net/img/psion_s3a.jpg)
TI-74 BasiCalc (one line display) Psion Series 3a (three color pixel display)
I studied computer science for about two years, didn't profit much from it though.
I'm completely self-taught; mostly because I never really found a book or something that'd surpass "practice makes perfect".
Quote from: Khris on Tue 16/11/2010 14:30:14
On the topic of pseudo laptops, I had those:
A Psion3a!!!! A had serie5 and a Revo and loved loved loved those! Bring them back plz!
Here's a Revo in Austria for â,¬19,99:
http://cgi.ebay.de/PSION-REVO-LADEGERAT-HANDBUCH-/360319705827?pt=PDAs&hash=item53e4ba62e3
Quote from: Ben304 on Mon 15/11/2010 02:48:06
Quote from: Ascovel on Sun 14/11/2010 22:52:24
designing ridiculous puzzles - learned it at the university :)
They have courses for that now? :=
Something like that, yeah. ;)
Or rather ridiculous puzzles is what I've kept coming away with every time I tried to comprehend something.
Nice subject. Conceptualization* & creation of an adventure game "learnt" through experiencing the best of the best back in the 90's, I suppose. Many years of making adventure games & point & clicks in QBasic & Delphi from the ground up, with no real knowledge - trial and error.
Music orientated stuff - like tzachs - getting a keyboard at a young age, and just having the built in ability to compose by ear. Specific inspiration along the way was definitely GCSE music and the fact my teacher always loved my original compositions. I owe a lot of my talent to that guy. And you folk, for the constant inspiration.
* With an s, if this wasn't an American spelling forum. Conceptualization is my word of the week. I dare you to use it in person...
Funny thing for me is, I've learnt everything just by having it in front of me, but sadly never anything that's industry standard, always the alternative. You know how Photoshop is industry standard, I always learned on Paint shop pro. You know AVID or Final Cut is industry standard, I always learned** & used Premiere.
** Isn't learnt a word? Bloody red line >:( hehe
Put it this way, education never taught me anything to do with this stuff. Luckily it's a gift, if you believe in such things. In fact, I never understood maths - programming taught me maths. Messed up !
Same here, actually, about the maths.
I'm not very good at maths unless I can see a use for it in programming, or more specifically game mechanics.
If so, I study it until I understand it enough to use it in a practical situation.
By having equipment infront me free to play with! :)
Hmm I'm not sure if I have anything that could be considered a 'skill'.
But if I do then it didnt arise from formal training.
Except Grade 4 in clarinet! BOOYAH!
Well, after taking the red pill from some sketchy guy in shades, I woke up in a reality greater than anything you plugged-in humans can imagine. I then spent many years on an awesome ship called the Nebuchadnezzar, which had laser guns and everything. I took an apprenticeship with Cypher, who taught me to read the Matrix, but after he betrayed my best friend Morpheus to Agent Smith (another sketchy dude in shades), I took to the road with a chic called Trinity. She was perfect but it never came to anything, because she had the eye for Neo... just because he was The One =(
So I entered the matrix with Neo and we had this awesome fight, while Trinity was watching over our twitching bodies back on the Nebuchadnezzar. I landed blows that could tear holes in the time-space continuum, but Neo got hold of this pole (which you can see wobbling on Bonus disk 2) and started doing crazy martial arts on my arse. Then Agent Smith turned up and started replicating himself like horny bunnies until Neo was swamped! I knew we'd never be free without The One to save us, so I found the nearest telephone and warped back to the Nebuchadnezzar. I had to reprogram the Matrix so Agent Smith's int Strength equalled 0!
Suffice to say I failed so that's why none of us are unplugged.