Sep 13, 2023

How in a single moment I decided to drop everything and start game development

Just Hide - ElDim

Hello, my name is Dima, and I am the developer of the game Just Hide (there are two of us in total). I'm 31 years old, and today I will tell you how my life changed in an instant and why I decided to leave everything behind and pursue my childhood dream. It's important to note that everything written below is dedicated to my life journey, my path into game development, and the various experiences I went through. There won't be any details about the game development itself here (but they will be in future materials). And a small request before we begin - please add the game to your wishlist 😉. Enjoy your reading.

Dream

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It all starts with a dream, which sprouts as a seed in your head

After finishing Max Payne with a final shot, improving the lives of all peasants in Stronghold, and distributing advertising flyers in GTA Vice City, I, a twelve-year-old (I can't recall for sure, but I think I was 12 at the time), had an epiphany - I would become a game developer; my time had come. According to articles in gaming magazines, I needed a program called 3D MAX. After multiple trips to various stores in my city, I finally found the coveted CD with the necessary software - Discreet 3ds max 6 SP1 (it may be hard to believe now, but finding licensed software in the CIS region in the early 2000s was practically impossible). Now, all that remained was to ask my dad to install the program and start making my game. While the first step went smoothly, the second one, how shall I say it... well, I couldn't transfer the game level and monsters from my head to the computer via USB, and the most challenging thing I could do in 3ds max was a teapot (if you know what I mean).

Overwhelmed with disappointment, I told my parents everything and they advised me to look for educational books on the program, in the style of "blah blah blah for Dummies." Stage #2 began, but this time with a book instead of a disk. Luckily, there were many bookstores in the city center and I quickly found a book on 3ds max 7. Unlike school literature, no one forced me to learn from this book. I happily read and repeated everything as instructed, but I had exactly one problem that, like a snowball, got worse and worse with each new time. Sometimes when I didn't understand something, I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out, but eventually just skipped over the unclear tasks and moved on until the book said, "repeat what you did in the previous chapter," which often happened to be something I didn't understand. Through a dozen of these skips, I eventually no longer understood anything at all, and rereading the book a hundred times yielded no results. Looking back now, I think I should have tried using the internet, which I had since 2002, but aside from watching South Park, I didn't know what else to do with it. At some point, I realized that my education had come to an end, and I didn't understand anything in this 3ds max, and screw it, a new GTA is coming out soon and that worries me a lot more than learning anything!

Youth

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Scatter the pearls of time into the sea of emptiness
From your bag sewn with threads of seconds
No matter how hard you try, with both hands
You won't reach the bottom... yet

Time passed, besides being a gaming nerd, I devoted a lot of time to game editors: the first Far Cry, Titan Quest, TES 4: Oblivion, but most of all, I spent my time modifying GTA San Andreas. I even used my limited knowledge of 3ds max to add my own buildings to the game. I even managed how to write the simplest mission for the game, after 1,000,000 trials and errors. It's worth noting that 95% of what I did was junk, such as changing the car's physics value in Notepad (for GTA) from 15 to 25, which seemed like an unreal modification that made me a developer worthy of Rockstar Games.

My map for Far Cry. It's a shame that everything I did for San Andreas didn't survive 😔 (click to enlarge).

Now there will be a small digression, but I consider it important for the whole story, and it will be about my parents. My father is a strict workaholic, and my mother is a kind workaholic. They tried their best to turn a mini-stall at the market into 5 food stores. It seemed like they had a "bed of roses life," but then came the day when they just decided to gradually close down their entire business. I never understood this! Keep going on the rails and making money, and when asked "Why did you do this?", the answer was - we just got tired (remember these words, we'll come back to them), tired of changing salespeople every couple of months, tired of the loader getting drunk and not showing up for work. As a result, my father became a videographer, and my mother started selling women's lingerie where there would be only one salesperson, herself.

As often happens, I started helping my father with video filming for various events, starting from birthdays and ending with weddings. Ugh... I could write a whole article about how much I hated this job, but that's not what we're talking about; don't worry, we'll get back to the topic soon, just a little bit more.

During this period, my parents made a big mistake in my upbringing - for all the hundreds of video jobs that I helped to do, they didn't pay me a single penny. All I heard was, "Dima, do you see the food on the table? It didn't just appear out of nowhere," or "And who bought you the new computer? Santa Claus?" and other nonsense that will come back to haunt my mother in a couple of years.

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School would be a great place if it weren't for all these stupid lessons

I hated school, my grades were mediocre, but at the end of each year I would use all my skills to bump up my C's to B's and B's to A's, and somehow it always worked. My whole problem with school was that I didn't understand why it was necessary, why all these cosines and values of x, it is total nonsense.

In the middle of high school, my parents decided to divorce. At the same time, my mother began to nag me about where I would go to study after graduation and who I wanted to be in life. But that was the whole "catch," without the constant pressure from my hardworking father, without holding "real" money in my hands for all the years of helping my parents, and in my aimless teenage existence, I didn't want to be anyone, and considering that I want to be no one, I won't go to university.

All my time from this point until the age of 20 was occupied with parties, watching movies, parties, reading non-fiction books and parties, and of course playing computer games. What could be better than becoming a slacker, knowing that you will never work because "only fools and horses work."

The turning point

Once upon a time, I started courting a girl, and it eventually turned into a full-fledged relationship. She had a degree in design, and one day she mentioned that it was difficult to find a job in her field without knowledge of "3ds Max" (I don't know about the rest of the world, but it's a common practice in Ukraine). That's when memories popped into my head that I had learned that 3d thing in my childhood, and we decided to install the program and try to figure it out together. No sooner said than done! The program was installed, the first tutorial for beginners was opened, and... oh guys, I realized that THIS IS IT! That's what I'm interested in doing! This is what I could potentially earn money from in the future. And this time, I had the key - the internet, which turned out to be not just for watching South Park, but also for tutorials on any topic, including 3ds Max.

The next 2.5 years have been spent in education. It could have been faster, but no one was pushing me, so I could just enjoy learning the programs. I watched and read all the lessons that came my way, whether it was about 3ds max or Marvelous Designer, lighting or glass materials in stained glass; my opinion is that any knowledge you gain voluntarily will eventually come in handy. Somewhere in the middle of my education, having tried a little bit of everything, I decided to settle on the final vector of my 3D motion. As in any profession, there are many directions in 3D, and I chose architectural visualization. A few words about what it is - it's when a designer (not me) provides a floor plan (restaurant, hotel, apartment, supermarket...) with arrangement of furniture (who is the manufacturer, what material for the sofa upholstery...) and all the characteristics of the walls, floor, ceiling; whether there will be track lighting or regular spotlights and exactly which flower they want in the upper right corner.

Wait, Dima, why architectural visualization and not the gaming industry? Well, I'm glad you asked, I'll answer - when I already had some 3D skills, I found out that no one makes game characters in 3ds max and there is Zbrush for it (if you see a hero, monster in a game or movie, know that they made it in Zbrush), and for more convenient use/learning of the software I got a graphics tablet (thanks, Mom). Soon, I came to the conclusion that it would be good to learn to draw for Zbrush (it trains imagination, perspective, and much more), and most importantly, to properly learn human anatomy. But all this took time, and a lot of time, I must say, not that visualization didn't require time, but if I already knew something there, then in "organic" I was a complete zero and could only sculpt non-existent "freaks" from other planets; and despite the fact that no one was pushing me, I already wanted to get off my mother's neck as soon as possible, earn money, buy a new computer, and start living separately, with my woman (the one who "returned" 3ds max to me).

First steps in 3ds Max, take 2 (click to enlarge)

Advanced lessons (click to enlarge).

Time to hit the road

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Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking

Despite the fact that my goal was freelancing, I decided to look for work in my city in order to understand how things worked and not make mistakes in the future. After a lot of searching, I found something remotely similar to what I needed - a company specializing in iron forging and sidewalk tile manufacturing. I went for a job interview. There was a guy who said that they need a person who will visualize working objects and issue an estimate for how much tile needs to be manufactured. I asked, "I will prepare the estimate?" and was told, "Yes; and if you miscalculate, you pay out of your own pocket." After a moment of shock, I thought that this shouldn't be too much of a problem and that AutoCAD could do it in no time. Towards the end of the conversation, the guy's phone rang and he "surprised" me by saying that we were going to a site visit, and this would already be my first project. The task was to photograph the front of a private house, create new 3D entrance gates, and embed them in the photo. When I got home, I immediately started working on this task, thinking to myself, "I will have to pay out of my own pocket for mistakes in the estimate? Why do I even need this? I want to visualize cool cottages in Miami, not go to sites and stand there like an idiot with a piece of paper and a pen drawing some gates!" In the end, after doing what was required of me (which didn't take much time) and not even asking for payment, I said that I wasn't going to work for him and left.

Then I was "lucky" enough to find out from acquaintances that furniture makers need visualization of their products. It's a common practice (and I'll have more of these types of projects in the future), but I guess any newbie should go through a baptism of fire first because it was HELL! They had around 15 products and they wanted 3 perspectives of each product in 5 different materials, which resulted in about 250 finished images! When everything was ready, during the final visualization, I had to stupidly come every 15 minutes and put a new picture on render, and do it 250 times. In the intermediate stage, it was also "fun", since they deal with furniture and I had to be accurate to the millimeter, although it doesn't matter in the pictures, the length is 1155 mm or 1155.2 mm. Billions of edits and a lack of understanding of what they themselves wanted led me into a silent rage, and the main joke was that in the end I received such paltry pennies for the work that as soon as the project was complete, I deleted EVERYTHING that connected me with it.

After two attempts to find something in the city, I decided to create a portfolio for myself and look for a job remotely. When everything, including me, was ready, I started "storming" international freelance platforms (I almost didn’t consider Ukrainian ones, since English-speaking pay more).

As a beginner, it can be challenging to find work as you don't have completed jobs and reviews in your profile, making it difficult for clients to trust you. It’s hard to find clients but what can you do and little by little, I became an architectural visualizer, a freelancer.

My portfolio that I used to look for clients (click to enlarge)

I had freelance projects, but, no matter what, the number of them didn't satisfy me, and sometimes I looked for companies in my country that work remotely. After some searching, I finally found what I was looking for. I will divide the next six years into three parts.

Part 1 (Hooray!)

After receiving my first project from this company, I felt an immense sense of responsibility. I am generally a person who takes work seriously, but this time, I wanted to squeeze the maximum out of myself. Six working days, one sleepless night, and a whole bunch of internal experiences, the project was completed. The company was satisfied and I was paid $500. Words cannot express how exhausted and happy I felt at the same time. Not only did they help me out with everything I didn't understand and provide me with everything I needed, but they also paid me well. A couple of days later, they asked me, "Dima, do you want to take on a new project?" You can probably guess what my answer was.

The following two working years were good; each project took me about seven days from start to finish. Despite my slowness and perfectionism, which often kept me up at night or made me go to bed late and wake up early, I had about four days between projects during which I could sleep as much as I wanted or play computer games all day. In general, having a flexible schedule, around 18 working days and 12 days off, and a decent salary, I had nothing to complain about. The work environment at this "company" was more like a chat among friends who worked together, and the management (if it could be called that) was no different from the employees.

At the same time, I noticed something that, looking ahead, would eventually be my downfall - I never turned down projects. There were times when we were swamped and short-handed, and everyone knew that there was a plan B - me. Somehow it got to the point that I was juggling three projects simultaneously, and despite sleepless nights and unreal fatigue, I was the guarantor that everything would be ready on time, even if the last edits came in at 8pm and the main client, on the other side of the world, had a meeting at 9am, everything will be ready and served “on a silver platter”. When asked, "Why did you do this?" I couldn't give a definitive answer. "Well, it's obvious, you just love money," is not the right answer. While it was true that my efforts were worth being compensated, money was not my sole motivator. Perhaps it was my parents' genes or the image of them working tirelessly to achieve something, or simply the desire to be a good and responsible executor that drove me.

In summary, as mentioned earlier, those were good years until my "leadership" suddenly announced that they wanted to switch to something else and left us with their duties passed on to our best visualizer (not me).

Overall, the next couple of years didn't change much, except for my mood, so to speak. The friendly atmosphere in the chat became "dry" and exclusively work-related (that's how the departure of several important people ruined the atmosphere of the crowd), there were more projects, and less free time; remote freelancing was gradually turning into a "factory," and memories of having 12 free days were a dream I had after another sleepless night. And in general, when you're 25+, all sorts of thoughts come to mind, starting from the fact that the grass used to be greener, and ending with searching for the meaning of life in your head…

A few of my commercial works (click to enlarge)

Part 2 (Train slows down)

And so you live your life, and then bam, COVID-19. You know yourself how it all was, the world was in decline, no work. The first six months I didn't see any significant changes in the number of projects, but then they became fewer and fewer. With the appearance of free time, I started to clean the apartment more often, go out into the fresh air, see relatives and friends, and that was just the beginning... After finishing a few games, I thought it was silly to waste time, so I dusted off my graphics tablet (it had been lying idle all this time), launched Zbrush, and started sculpting the Predator from the eponymous movie. I felt an incredible buzz when the space hunter was ready, and I was very pleased with the result. Then came the time for something I had long wanted - Unreal Engine 4 was gaining popularity among a narrow circle of visualizers, and an interactive walk is always cooler than a static picture. The program was downloaded, a bunch of tutorials were prepared, let's go!

The Predator was made in Zbrush (click to enlarge)

Transferring a finished project to Unreal Engine 4 (click to enlarge)

Throughout my education, my brain was in seventh heaven with happiness, all the rusted neurons were moving again, and getting the desired result after a hundred failures released so much endorphins that I wanted to jump and scream like a little child receiving a gift on New Year's Day. And then one day, a thought occurred to me - in UE4 they make games, remember how you wanted to do the same thing? Maybe you should see how it all works there? And I did, guys, what I saw amazed me. I started thinking about game development again and spent all my free time on lessons and podcasts dedicated to gamedev and then I got a message "Dima, do you want to take on a new project?"

Imagine a city made of papier-mache that is burned with napalm, or a hundred-feet tower made of plates that falls and shatters into pieces, that's what I felt at that moment. On one hand, I had a childhood dream, and on the other hand, "adult" responsibilities. "Okay, now you will spend a couple of years learning and making the first game, who knows how people will receive it, what will you eat during this time? Who will pay for the rent? And go make your woman happy that now you are an indie developer, even though it's your man's duty to provide for your family," all of this was flying through my head, but...I voluntarily "put the collar back on" and took the project, thinking "someday later."

Time passed, and I realized that I couldn't concentrate on both my studies and projects, finally deciding to choose the second.

Although there were projects, their number did not suit me. "Why the hell are our managers doing nothing, why are they needed at all then" I asked, and after a while, I made the decision to leave the team and start my solo flight.

Part 3 (Icarus flies towards the sun)

By this time, I was already an "old hand" and working directly with clients was not a problem. Projects became bigger and more interesting, pay increased, and despite remaining the same crazy workaholic, I could make my schedule more flexible. And then, at one moment, a new client contacted me, saying that they were hiring remote visualizers and asked if I wanted to join. I didn't need any additional projects, but the conditions were very good, so I decided to work with them for a month and then leave.

From that day on, you could say that I started working two jobs. The responsibility didn't allow me to do anything half-heartedly, and I gave my maximum effort everywhere. Now I will describe my typical day at that time:

9:00 a.m. Wake up, in order to have the necessary files ready for client #2 by 11:00 a.m. (their start of the workday) that I didn't have time to complete yesterday
11:00 a.m. I send the files and continue the project for client #1, because at 3:00 p.m. I need to show images for their project
2:00 p.m. I receive comments from client #2 and tell them that everything will be ready by the end of their workday
3:00 p.m. I send the finished edits to client #1 and start making edits for client #2
6:30 p.m. I send everything, or as much as I could, to client #2; if I didn't finish everything, I tell them that there's a lot to do and I'll send it by the start of their workday tomorrow
7:00 p.m. I receive comments from client #1, tell them that it will be ready by 3 p.m. tomorrow, and start working on those edits
1:00 a.m. I crawl to the bed, fall asleep

This is a retelling of a typical, stress-free day when everything goes "smooth as butter"; as you can understand, such days were not always, I would even say, not often. Remember how I just wanted to "play around" with client #2 for a month? Forget it! At the end of the month, I got paid (Ha! And you said that it was not for the sake of money!) and thought that overall, I’m iron, hardworking, yes, but I can hold out for 4 years with two jobs, and then take a break.

And this is what it led me to - not sleeping for two nights in a row, easily, because I have to get everything done; sleeping at 4 a.m., waking up at 8 a.m., it's like a holiday, even got some sleep; not going outside for 3 weeks, no problem, because I need to get everything done on weekends so I can sleep at night during workdays; there's no point in talking about games and movies.

My calculations for four years were wrong, and after eight months, my brain was melted. had psychos from new projects, endless edits made me rage, and holding my phone during meals in the kitchen made me nauseous. Receiving payments didn't bring me any joy. I tried to delegate my tasks a few times, but the fear of "if you want something done right, do it yourself" consumed me, and I ended up rejecting freelancers' help. Realizing that I couldn't continue like this, I went on a two-week vacation and decided that I would take on fewer projects upon my return.

Having done everything as I wanted, I can say that things got better. I had more free time, returned to the gym, and had fewer sleepless nights. However, the problem was that I simply started to hate architectural visualization. I was sick of running 3ds max, and my nightmare about the "factory" became a reality. Do you remember how my parents closed their successful business? Well, now I understand them 100%! And it was all my fault! So, Dima, shut up, because soon it will be New Year's Eve 2022, and an empty table is no use to anyone…

February 24, 2022

5 a.m. I woke up from explosions outside the window, shock and horror, put everything most important in my bag, in 30 minutes my friends will pick us up. In 2 hours we are out of the city, I don’t know where we’re going, but it’s definitely safer there than at home; strangely, after 2 days of lying in bed with a fever of COVID-19, the disease disappeared instantly. We are at the destination, there is hot soup and a bed, great…

In a single moment, life is reevaluated, and a million thoughts flood the mind. One of them: "You could die right now, and you never became a game developer...Dima!!! Can you hear me? You dreamed of making games, but time slipped away from you! What was the point of your years of slavery...Maybe this is the end, and your childhood dream remains just that...a dream."

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Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly

As you can understand without unnecessary words and emotions, I thanked 3D visualization for everything, hugged it goodbye and left it in my past life.

The first part of our introduction concludes here. In some time, I will publish the next part, and that way, we will gradually approach the release of Just Hide. Thank you for reading, and by the way, don't forget to add the game to your wishlist 😉

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2590190/Just_Hide/