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Although I wholeheartedly agree with all the people who are going to recommend Unity (which is also the platform I prefer), you might be better served with UDK when demonstrating to students. I'd say that Unity is a 3d game engine/platform made for programmers whereas UDK is a 3d game engine/platform made for level designers with support for programmers. You can get a lot of mileage from both platforms without much programming, but UDK is specifically designed so you can create an entire game without one stitch of programming (i.e. Jazz the Jackrabbit).

Also, I highly recommend the free training videos from 3dbuzz, here are the ones for UDK and here are the ones for Unity.

Although I wholeheartedly agree with all the people who are going to recommend Unity (which is also the platform I prefer), you might be better served with UDK when demonstrating to students. I'd say that Unity is a 3d game engine/platform made for programmers whereas UDK is a 3d game engine/platform made for level designers with support for programmers. You can get a lot of mileage from both platforms without much programming, but UDK is specifically designed so you can create an entire game without one stitch of programming (i.e. Jazz the Jackrabbit).

Also, I highly recommend the free training videos from 3dbuzz, here are the ones for UDK and here are the ones for Unity.

Although I wholeheartedly agree with all the people who are going to recommend Unity (which is also the platform I prefer), you might be better served with UDK when demonstrating to students. I'd say that Unity is a 3d game engine/platform made for programmers whereas UDK is a 3d game engine/platform made for level designers with support for programmers. You can get a lot of mileage from both platforms without much programming, but UDK is specifically designed so you can create an entire game without one stitch of programming (i.e. Jazz the Jackrabbit).

Also, I highly recommend the free training videos from 3dbuzz, here are the ones for UDK and here are the ones for Unity.

Err, I mean, MIH.

but seriously, http://www.3dbuzz.com/ has very high quality video math tutorials, it's definately worth a look.

• Community forums
• Tutorials - both from members and you guys.
• Tips and tricks - Maybe done like a code database

Depression can be an illness, though. I do remember the case of a woman near where I used to live that basically had what you could call a near perfect life, devoted husband, two very nice children, went to the gym at least weekly and the like, yet she suffered from some very bad (and unexplained by external factors) periods of depression. I do agree that there are LOTS of cases out there where doctors are too quick to put on pills and the like where it's not really needed, but there are some cases too where it's an actual physical illness that can be helped (to an extent) with some responsible use of them. A friend from another forum (3dbuzz.com) put together a little flash animation explaining how it works on the chemical level. You can get the link if you're interested on this thread: http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=121 199 (won't post the direct link to the animation so I don't kill his website.. :) )

Here's a PDF book of 3D fundamentals.

http://sv1.3dbuzz.com/Downloads/3dbook.pdf/

Blender art to inspire.

http://www.centralsource.com/blenderart/index.php/

Wings3D

http://www.wings3d.com/

CGI Filmmaking: The Creation of Ghost Warrior

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1556 222270/ref=pd_sim_books_2/104-8933766-9003967?v=gl ance&s=books/

Being an industry standard for the most part helps. But I think the fact that it's a several thousand dollar piece of software helps.

But seriously, Maya is much more widely known than Blender. More importanly, It has a VERY large market share and a community to go with it. Head over to 3DBuzz and check out all of the FREE training videos you can get, which I watch religously. (Then look for the blender section.) Living out in the middle of nowhere, I can't get easy access to blender training materials terribly easy, or Maya either, for that matter. Being in a 5 person development studio doesn't give me time to learn 5 envrionments - I'm just a programmer! (Albeit a programmer who isn't afraid to trace..err...draw sometimes.)

As it was said earlier, if you're serious about 3D you have to go with at least one big name renderer sometime - especially in a career.

The first thing you should do is hop on over to 3D Buzz. They have video tutorials that you can download for free. Thats how I learned to use Unreal Ed. Unreal Ed is easy to use compared to any of the other editors that I tried. I tried the Valve Editor for Half Life. It is also very good but a little more difficult to learn than Unreal Ed I found. Maybe it was because I didn't have the easy video tutorials though.

I also used the Neverwinter Nights Editor which was pretty easy to learn just using my previous knowledge and experience with other editors. You might want to start with something REALLY basic if you don't have any experience at all. Try making some levels with the Starcraft Editor. It is very very basic. If you know C++(or any language like it) that will be a big asset too because any of the really cool stuff that you can do to create dynamic events is done with script in any editor that you pick.

I'm also interested in getting into game design. One of the things you can do is to get a group of people together and create a mod. That is one way of getting in the door. I think you'll find it hard to get into a game company without a resume with some actual experience with a published game. Otherwise they won't even look at you.

You can also search on google for free 3D engines, or inexpensive ones like Torque. I've also entered the Make Something Unreal Contest. The first round is over but I think you can still enter the second two rounds. I could be wrong on that though.

If you are serious about learning how to use UnrealED, take a look at what 3dbuzz.com has to offer: free video training modules (VTMs) on how to use the thing. Some of the modules are pretty hefty -- weighing in at 100+MB on some lessons. These can be found here.

On a somewhat related note, if you pre-order the special edition of UT2K4 you'll get the VTMs on a DVD.

Regarding documentation, check out the Unreal Developer Network for a huge amount of documentation.

Also, the 3D Buzz team has created many excellent training videos covering many aspects of the Unreal tech, from programming to content creation.

>> Ultimately, the developer of such a mod should be fairly compensated based on the popularity and ultimately, the sales, of their mod, not a one-time payout.

The mod developer keeps complete ownership of his work. The contest doesn't take that away.

For example, if you enter an early version of your mod in the contest, you could later create a retail game based on it and pursue a publishing deal. The Tactical Ops mod for the original Unreal Tournament went this route and was published in retail by Atari.

Regarding tax issues, one should definitely consult a tax attourney upon making the finals for the grand prize. My understanding (IANAL) is that, if we gave you a $350K cash prize, that would be revenue for your mod team's corporation or small business. If you then spent that $350K on an Unreal engine license with the intent of using it commercially (which is the only reason one would want such a license), you would then incur a $350K expense, leaving a net tax liability of zero. So a direct award of an engine license is not necessarily a taxable event.