But what to do for people who seem to write code, but have no time to study all the intricacies. As an answer, I will give Unreal Engine as an example.
Unreal Engine is one of the most popular game engines available today. Not only that, it is completely free and open source. True, when you reach a certain amount of earnings on the game, you will have to pay royalties (this, by the way, also applies to other AAA engines, for example, another equally popular Unity engine).
As some people know, you can write game logic in C++ in the engine. But I hasten to reassure you: you can also create game logic in it using a visual programming system – Blueprint is a visual scripting language that allows you to write game logic without using programming languages. As complex or simple as it may seem, it remains a pretty powerful tool that can be used to create almost anything from a simple character or door opening to procedural level generation.
Unreal Engine itself provides a certain set of tools, so you can create something of your own without having to use third-party software (not counting textures). Inside the game editor there is a tool called BSP, thanks to which you can design a scene. Although it is intended for design and not for the final result, you can use it to make a simple model and even convert it so that it can be subjected to physics. You can make a building, some not-so-complex models, and the like. Also provided is a toolkit for creating landscapes, with which it is possible to make a pretty beautiful landscape and enrich it with vegetation and some additional details. By adding some post processing, you can get a wonderful picture.
Of course, you should not consider UE4 as a set of buttons called “make everything look good”. The tool is very powerful with impressive functionality, so you can’t learn everything at once either. However, if you set yourself a goal and have enough patience, you will succeed.
A beginning developer needs a lot of patience in mastering mod-building, development on special game builders without programming, and it is also necessary to learn the whole developer’s toolkit. This will come in handy in practice in the future. Well, and, of course, to love games!
As for more advanced people, then here the list is much longer. It all depends on what profession you choose. For a programmer – work in high-level languages so that the threshold of entry is lower, the basics of modeling, geometry of things, working in 3D space with 3D modeling and much more – in general, this is what is called the subject area. A love of games and programming is also a must.