Well here we are again.

I'll sum this up by saying: being an Engineering student is very stressful. This last week was just as stressful as my last few. I want to say this next week will be better for me, but who knows. I suppose I should write something here regarding my thoughts.

I chose Java as a language to learn because it's what I'm currently being taught as part of my classes, which might actually change soon so I'm putting that on hold. Talk about dedication right? Basically, the University teaches C++ (which I'd much rather learn) and the community college I'm using to transfer to university teaches Java for the soul reason of we have a old teacher and that's all she knows. Talking to University advisers, they basically said I'm going to be screwed when I get to higher level university classes without knowing C++, but.... It's not recommended I retake a class at the university instead of the community college that way I can learn C++....

So where does that put me. Well I can continue down the Java series and just deal with it when I get to University or I can retake a class as an online university class. The downside to that is I'm already under such a heavy load that isn't advised. I guess it all comes down to how well I do in my classes and what I end up taking next term.

Where does that leave me as far as game development? Well, focusing on my school as usual. But I'll still work on refreshing my Java and on my Source Mod. I want to take a video of some of the small things I was able to accomplish with the mod. Just to give me something to look back on whenever I feel a lack of motivation.

Re-evaluating.

3/20/2016 Edit: I think we can disregard the entirety of this 're-evaluation' as I didn't follow through on it at all and continued working on my mod. Whoops.

This blog is doing a fantastic job holding me accountable for my progress, or lack there of.

Let me level with you here, my goal is to make games that I am proud of and are worth playing. I want to work at those few dream companies and make the best games I can with the best people in the industry. But I know in order to do that, I need the talent and the skill to get to those companies. I want to be able to program the game, build models, and animate. Be able to create the worlds and lore to be immersed in.

So how do I plan on accomplishing this. Mainly, I'm working towards a Computer Engineering Degree with a Computer Science minor. This is taking up almost all my time, my free time, and stress. It's not as fast or specific as I'd like it to be, but hopefully that will be changing when I make it to the ladder years of the program. This should give me all of the programmer skills I need to get myself started in the industry.

What about outside of school. Well that's what this blog is for, holding me accountable to get work done in my free time. Unfortunately, what little free time I have goes to relaxing to maintain my mental sanity. Ideally, I want to start with Codecademy and learn programming. Do Blender tutorials to learn modeling and animation, and then start making mods with Source and videos with Source Filmmaker. Eventually moving to Unity to make games, but as I said, Free time eludes me.

So, now we reevaluate. I've been thinking of different ways to make use of my free time and learning the things I want to learn. What I think I'll do is which to a month by month schedule where for one month, about 4 blog posts, I work on something specific. Spend a month coding, a month in blender ect. I could do this on a week by week basis, but as these last two weeks have shown, there isn't much progress I can make depending on the time of year and where my school is.

For the rest of this month, I'll focus my time on Codecademy as I've already started the Java course. Why Java? Well I'll get to that later.

Moving outside.

Well. Here we are. Another week by and no progress. To be fair, it is half way through the term and midterm season. As I said last week, I wanted to show you outside my little testing building. 

So here it is. My little test building with a fake second floor and stairs to bring it out to the street.



I started to expand the street, adding buildings and making it look like an actual world.



Some of the buildings are made by me, and some are ripped straight from City 17. I'm sure it's hard to tell which is mine and which isn't. The Source Engine is really good at making linear object, and it's apparent if you stop to look at any building or structure made in the engine. This can of course be used to your advantage.



I even added an alley way with a little nook behind a building, mainly because I can. I have plans to expand on the roads and have it move into a courtyard area similar to that in the main sequence of city 17. I have a small story written out that would make up a small mod. It wouldn't be anything special with custom shaders or improved AI or anything. If anything, I can probably get my hands on some custom models and maybe better textures.. but of course, I need a world to put them in first.

There's something really satisfying about walking around in the world you create. Add some node graphing to have your squad follow you around and you feel like your world is actually becoming something. I plan on my mod being a couple of maps and I'm far from having something to show off for it. Hopefully this next week will be a bit better and I can work on expanding my map, or at least do some Codecademy.