I was planning on learning 3D development with Defold and eventually make tutorials on it but after checking out Scene3D example, I see that there are many things one need to know to have a proper 3D game (unless I am missing something crucial). It is nice to have control over rendering but learning it alongside with shaders for lightning etc. (and also physics I guess) seems a bit intimidating.
I’d really want to get to know more about Defold so I can replace my current engine with it as I believe it suits my interest more but I do not have enough time to learn so many things at once to be able to start developing simple 3D games here.
I checked out asset store for 3D assets and I’d appreciate any suggestion/opinion on this matter.
Thank you
Simplistic 3D games is a great goal to have with defold, not every 3D game needs to have realistic lighting and elaborate rendering to be a great game. You can create 3D games with defold without touching the render script. To create 3D games without lighting you can use things like unlit materials, vertex painted models or baked textures and display them using a shader. Like in this Example
Here you can see the colors are displayed via a small texture which has a variety of gradients the uv’s are mapped to. This unlit technique is very optimal for performance and looks great imo. You can also use vertex painted models and in the shader use the vertex color attribute to display them like in this Example
Then of course you can also just display textures on the 3d models and baking or painting in your own shading for the models can be a really nice way to have a unique or specific looking art style.
So that just covers the art assets what about everything else.. This depends on the game you are making. a 3D game can be just as simplistic as anything else. You can use a perspective projection for your cameras or just use orthographic like a 2d game its up to you. You can use x and y axis like a 2d game or also use the z axis to move your models around. Most things are most likely designed the same as it would in a 2d game.
Overall I think the most technical aspects come from mostly the assets themselves and creating them with the games intended specifications. From the topology to texturing or vertex data and animation rigging etc. for someone starting out fresh this can be a lot to learn. If you are someone that wants to use free assets that can be a great option and it would be valuable knowing some technical aspects around 3d models to fix issues that you will come across from free models as they are often exported in non specific ways and some can be non game ready assets and knowing how to make changes to fit your games specifications can take you a long way.