Hi everybody! I'm currently studying my second year in BSc Computer and Video Games Technology at Salford University over in rainy ole england. In my final year I'll be working with a team, developing a computer game for about 6 months. My main interest lies within 3D art and Designing, I have very little programming skills, and was wondering if there was any artist friendly engines that I could use to make my 3rd year game. My ideal situation would be to wake up one day and say "I know C++!" (refers to Neo from Matrix). Right now I'm just trying to weigh out my options early, so I can have a clear plan of what I want to do. I am also hoping to work in the industry eventually and want to know if employers would be most impressed by - a poor quality game that was created on an orignial engine in 6 months or a high quality simple game created using an existing engine. Any advice for a young budding CVG student will be very helpful, thanks.

Noth would be good. I can't imagine they will have very high expectations of a 6 month final year project from a bunch of students so don't worry if it doesn't look professonal. I do imagine they will be looking for good code quality and some original ideas.

Search these forums for "free engines" and you will turn some good results.

Dave

If you are hoping to get hired doing 3D art and design, I don't really think your programming skills will ever come into question. But the nicer looking the game, the better it is. You want to be able to properly show off your art skills not to mention spend more time refining and perfecting the art assets and game play (design) instead of sinking a bunch of your time into programming.