Idea to increase the collaboration between members

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#1

Hello,
I was wondering, this section should be more utilizated. The community here is very nice, It would be very good to have more collaboration between members here, so people can get to know better each other in order to build a networking and perhaps even get to know people that we could work on more serious projects in the future.

I feel that the problem is that most of us are a little afraid about how it would work legally and about how it would feel to work with other people from the other side of the world. So I was thinking that perhaps we could have something similar to what we have under the Blender Section, a weekly challenge or even a monthly one, but with small/tiny projects, something casual instead of big projects that requires a lot of work, I think that it would be a friendlier approch for whose that have never worked for other people.

What do you think? Any idea into how to increase the collaboration around here?

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#2

I know I want to collaborate, but it’s my head game that gets in the way - what will my family think, why am I taking away from them, is this the best use of my time, etc. But I could definitely think of ideas for games to collaborate on, or if someone else has ideas, I’d love to hear those too. :slight_smile:

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#3

I feel ya… but, have you asked them?

#4

You don’t have to feel that way, it’s not easy to get in the game market but for those that succeed it can be very profitable. You could try to talk about it with them, you may not work with games in the future but at least you gave a shot at something that you like. Everyone deserves that

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#5

Hey guys; Blenderite here (And, actually, FYI, the founder of the Weekly Blender Gallery! :smiley:)

Maybe you guys could have a “Monthly App” gallery, like our Blender Gallery. You could split into small teams and make something in a team over 4 weeks. And then on the start of every month, reshuffle into a new group and go again?

That way, it’s not a massive monster-dedication to creating something that will shatter the industry, but just something that you can show off to friends or potential employers. I mean, heck, you could just start with a clicker or idle game collaboration for the first week or month. It’s easy, and you could put it in the appstores!

After all; Our Blender Gallery isn’t for monetary gain, or even working on stuff for our portfolios: Just a little weekly tracker to show others that we’re giving it a go and trying to make progress all the time! I’m sure some Blender-ites would even enjoy participating in something like this!

Maybe if you could get Ben’s go ahead, he could organise a sort of Game-Jam thing to kick off the collaborations, maybe even offer one of their courses for free as the prize for the winning team? Just a bunch of wild theories, but I too, want to see this community of 3D Modelers, Programmers and Designers, break down this wall between the communities and make some awesome stuff!!

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#6

Hey McFuzz,

That is exactly what I had in mind. This kind of collaboration would be very nice to have, this way we can get to know each other better and perhaps even join together in further and bigger projects. We would also learn how to work in a group of developers, which is very good.

What do you think about it @ben?

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#7

As a future idea, and perhaps one that could be shared across with those working on the Blender course and weekly/monthly challenges, there may be the opportunity for some cross over skills collaboration here too.

If for example the Unity weekly/monthly challenges were perhaps running 1 week/month behind the Blender challenges, the Unity people could perhaps use the same theme and, with the consent of those involved, use a creation(s) from the Blender challenge in the Unity challenge… just a thought - it may not always work depending on the theme, but it would be a way to take what has been created and actually get to see it in something playable/interact-able - and for the Unity peoples they’d have a theme and asset to steer something around.

It takes the collaboration to another level and I would suggest it needs to start in its own right/infancy first - but what do you think? Just throwing out an idea to you all :slight_smile:

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#8

This would be awesome!

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#9

The idea itself is awesome, I’m barely starting on programming world but would definitely like crafting something in collaborations once I get things a bit more clearly :smiley:

You posted this on lounge, which course are you currently in? I’m on Blender and Unreal Engine. I’m an architect so I have proficiency modeling but mostly on other software like Sketchup or AutoCAD ^^

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#10

I`m doing the Unity course so far, but I’m also studying 2D design and I have some experience with Sketchup and Blender (but I’m not very confident about the later one yet)

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#11

Don’t worry about it, I don’t think I’m either hahaha. Nice, I might take interest on unity later on, maybe we can have a small brainstorm one of these days to see what kind of crazy ideas could come up as collaboration perhaps between courses; having so many different abilities we should be able to create something (I hope) ^^

Right now I’m too new in coding, but if you think there’s info we could share let me know and we’ll see what comes up :smiley:

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#12

I myself had Unity in my head when I responded, but of course, there’s no reason why it couldn’t be across both of the courses really. In fact, that could be very interesting - with the same theme would Unity and Unreal students make similar games, or different, with the same asset(s).

There are some fantastic possibilities here :slight_smile:

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#13

Isn’t it awesome to realize potential? As gamers we are probably really good organizing raids. Focusing on same goals for other purposes should be easy too right? xD

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#14

Great idea guys, one for next year I think. I’d love to get into helping you all collaborate, our plates are just a little full finishing Unreal, I’m about to start an iOS Swift Game course with Rob Percival, and we have the RPG and more to think about.

Bear with us until we have our own website sorted, and we start building multi-person games as part of our courses and we’d love to pick this up.

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#15

You’re collaborating with Rob Percival? Excellent! I took his iOS course, and he’s excellent in his realm just like you are in yours. :smiley:

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#16

Very nice to hear that there is so many things under the way!

I’m looking forward to see those new courses and the website too!

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#17

I’ve also noticed a lack of interest in collaboration… I think there are a few things that could be affecting it.

First, I’m not sure if there’s enough interaction between communities. Until I began my project, I rarely ever checked the blender forums. I never check unity, as I’m a UE’er.

Solution: cross posting collaborations in each forum or make collaboration threads also appear in each forum.

Second, I think many people may not be confident in their ability, or others ability. For instance, newer people may not be confident oh their own ability to want to publicly work with others. And experienced people may not be confident in others’ ability to offer or accept offers of collaboration.

Solution: Really, it’s just taking the first step. Accept small roles or small parts in larger projects. I have a project I posted up looking to put a small team together. I was lucky and received a response from a pretty talented artist. He’s still learning a lot, but he took the step and appears to be doing wonderfully and is learning new skills as he goes. That’s really the only solution-- find a project you can have passion about and get out of your comfort zone.

Third, I hope this doesn’t apply to many people, but worry LESS about thinking you need to be a breakaway success rich off of you’re first title, and worry MORE about getting a finished title under your belt.

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#18

Also, I think another good tip for collaboration, treat recruitment like you would publishing: have something to show.

No publisher wants to hear your “idea”. They want to “see” a product. Being an idea guy will get very little attention.

Programmers, that means some sort of prototyping that shows off one of your main selling points, or since sort of functioning mechanics. In my project, it was a working “world builder” ands player movement that a GM will use to create campaigns in real time. For you, it might be a skill tree or some unique mechanic. No artist will want to make assets for a project that you’ve not shown ambition for and dedication to.

Artists, that means modeled assets, animations, textures or concept art. No programmer will want to build a game around art that her can’t see.

In short, have something that shows the same dedication to your project that you’re asking them to have.

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#19

Totally agree with your points @Bryant_McCracken, I agree that we have to be confident about a project in order to get in it, that’s where a montly challenge would kick in, those projects are suposed to be very simple. Its a chance to add those small games to our own websites or portfolios too

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#20

We’re perhaps too young as a community just yet @Bryant_McCracken, @Joao_Dalvi and our proficiency is not enough to actually do something. In my case I’ve been trying to order my personal experiences behind me so that someone else much more imprinted on videogames or interested in combining knowledge reaches out until I get more familiar with my new tools. We should just give at least a month and we’ll see a huge change.

Hmm might I suggest @ben and @Rob something like “an exchange”? for instance every now and then a member of any of the communities can take a step and introduce himself to the whole community, a bit on his experience, why the program etc… I bet we have some people among us with a couple more years of experience that could just give a short video with his exp to allow for discussion (it could be a single question like “Why Unreal for you?”) and eventually asking other members even much newer to game developing (I’m an architect for instance) to sample other students the many different fields we could apply our knowledge to (the video would be posted on all the platforms to encourage course crossing). It could bring a start to many fun synergies :slight_smile:

And one last thing, it’s easy on starting communities to get discouraged by lack of participation or things moving slowly but I think it’s part of a natural process, many of our classmates are simply very busy or new to this and cannot participate more actively, perhaps we can show them how much of a great benefit it is ourselves to get them involved more? :smiley:

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