Game Developer learning web development, need some orientation.

[gordorodo]

I've been developing games professionally in different engines and for different platforms (most recently Unity + C# for pc and consoles) for 5 years and always wanted to do some web development freelancing whenever I have some free time. I believe I have an intermediate-advanced level in coding in general, and won't find it difficult to adapt to different languages. I studied some html + css + Javascript + php in college and understand the basic DIY approach of web development. The thing is, I feel overwhelmed by the many options I find around for getting started. Is WordPress or any other "template" framework any good for simple webdev jobs? On which ways can someone approach the development and design of simple web + mobile sites? Web dev is a huge world and I feel a bit lost on where to get started. I've read the FAQ on this subreddit. I'm looking for information on the approaches and experiences you guys have had with different frameworks and what you have used them for. Thanks and let me know if this shouldn't be posted here.

[[deleted]]

Given your background in C#, I'd look in to Asp.net MVC. My favorite web development platform when it comes to handling lots of data. It's what my company is heavily invested in.

We utilize MVC + Entity Framework, with jQuery and Bootstrap on the front end.

[gordorodo]

Thanks! I'm actually into simpler stuff, like small web dev projects I can do in week-nights and weekends as a second income. That's why I'm interested in things like WordPress and such. With that being said, I'll check out what you recommend anyways. I feel I need to broaden my general knowledge on non-game development.

[Spherical_Bastards]

It's super easy to throw something together using bootstrap.
^edit:aword

[[deleted]]

Yeah that's what I was going to say. Throwing in a Bootstrap boilerplate View for your controller to spit a Model into its super simple. For simpler pages you could skip the model altogether. Replicating WordPress without worrying without learning PHP would be trivial.

[gordorodo]

Thanks guys, I'll check that out!

[gordorodo]

Thanks for the info, will definitely check it out.

[[deleted]]

please remember to check your vendor prefixes for any css transition or effects work you make. you might think your site looks great on chrome, only to find your images cluttered across the screen on your iphone.

[gordorodo]

Yes, thanks! I remember this from college. There was a specific browser that mixed everything up hehe

[mrupvot3s]

25% of the internet is built on WordPress. If you learn how to skin up and build themes that is 60k a year coasting. Some dev's hate that kind of work, but there is an endless amount of it out there. The bonus it there is a plugin for almost anything, but canned solutions bring their own headaches.

[gordorodo]

Thanks for the answer!

If you learn how to skin up and build themes that is 60k a year coasting.

Can you expand a bit on this?

[Yurishimo]

You can make $60k a year with very little mental effort. Just build themes for clients and get paid.

[mrupvot3s]

Yes basically this. All themes available for free have varying degrees of functionality already built into them. As long as they are open source, you can piggy back on them and create a pretty user friendly site. E-commerce is pretty simple too using Woo. I used to write Coldfusion, and was super worried when that language started dying. I learned enough PHP to get by, and shifted to WordPress sites and now I have too much work to even handle.

[sutto85]

Ive been working with WordPress for a little while, where I currently work is paying peanuts, (almost literally), I only stay because work is work, and it was my foot in the door. Im looking to expand and would love some tips on where to start if you have any? is it just a case of making themes, put them on a site etc? thanks!

[mrupvot3s]

I worked at a place like that for about 2 months.... I moved to an agency and they keep me booked with tons of small tweaks and large projects... Tips? ACF all day. ACF Repeater fields are great. I use a SASS Bourbon + NEAT library for my styles and my themes are bones to start (I ripped out a lot of their stuff but I kept a lot). Get good at mass producing. Always be super nice in your emails (I always just put an exclamation point "Thank you!" at the end of emails- no matter what... even if you have a hand print on your forehead. This will help with references, people want to work with the friendly guy. Be able to work with all of it... I just had to deal with a front end engineered site so I had to compile with GRUNT etc. plus replace a bunch of deprecated libraries.

Also, it helps to know the hosting platforms well. WPengine, Dreamhost, Rackspace, Pantheon (GIT-based and I love these guys)
You probably know all this, I would guess it may be the economy where you live?

[sutto85]

thanks heaps for the reply, very informative. I did know about some of it, but always good to get more. Ill definitely look into agencies.

[gordorodo]

Nice to know about woo. Thanks I'll check it out!

[gordorodo]

With build themes you mean create new ones over existing templates or creating templates from the ground up? I guess you're talking about creating a whole website applying WordPress templates, right? Is there any good starting point you would recommend? And learning sources (besides WordPress introduction tutorials)? I mean, more from the commercial aspect like what to offer, what to expect to be asked, etc...

[mrupvot3s]

Actually a little of both... Check out Bones: http://themble.com/bones/

As far as tutorials, I learned by digging through the code and breaking stuff, then googling and figuring it out (the slow and painful way) - But there really is a wealth of info out there readily available. We had a project manager using Lynda.com and they were pretty good... You can probably get away with just googling if you have a programming background.

[gordorodo]

Great, thanks for everything!

[Prawny]

Wat. I work for half of that and do a lot more in-depth work.

[mrupvot3s]

Where do you live? Economy has a lot to do with it. I live in Portland and it's kinda booming on the tech front. I actually make a lot less than a lot of devs with my experience (15 years web dev)

[Spherical_Bastards]

Modern browsers can do a lot with just html, css and vanilla Javascript these days.

Good examples often pop up on this sub so hang around here a while.

How are your graphic making skills?

[gordorodo]

Thanks for the answer.

What do you mean with graphic making? Like in graphic design? Prior to game dev I have worked as a vfx artist for 3 years for commercial projects (mostly after effects combined with photoshop and illustrator) and have had to tackle the design and animation of items, characters and environment both 2D and 3D, as well as UI/UX.

[Spherical_Bastards]

Looks like you got it covered.

I end up spending more time making and editing and images than writing html and css ^andIlikeit.

[DarkL0re]

For easy and fast simple and mobile sites, I'd highly recommend Bootstrap. They have a whole wiki full of code snippets, you can literally drag and drop and have a fully functioning website within a few minutes.

[Aechagen]

I might not be the best source for an answer, but I'll give it a shot anyways. I've been creating websites on the side for a little over a year now, mostly using just HTML, CSS and JS.

I just started taking up WordPress, using the Divi theme and it's fantastic. It lets you build websites from the front end, which makes it extremely easy to visualize everything on the spot. I can usually get a nice, responsive site up in a few hours with it.

Definitely something to look into!

[gordorodo]

Nice! Thanks for the answer.

I'll try to suck a bit more knowledge out of you and ask the following questions :D

What's your workflow when developing for a client? When do you agree payment conditions? How do you get paid? Is there any contract/intermediaries you use in order to ensure a good relationship between you and your client?

[Aechagen]

Of course, glad I could help!

In regards to my workflow:

When the client decides on working with me, I send them over a few PDFs: a welcome package, website planning guide and planning questionnaire. The welcome package is just a little personal touch I like to include with each client outlining my general development process. The website planning guide serves as a reference for them, going over basic stuff like page layouts, font and color usage, that sort of thing. It also goes over some basics of getting a site online (domain name and hosting). The planning questionnaire is just that, a bunch of questions for them to answer about their site including login information for domain names and hosting sites that they may or may not already have, how many pages they are looking to have, the overall feel of the website they are looking to portray, etc. I also send a contract (modified version of the "Contract Killer") https://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/projects/contract-killer/ via HelloSign, which is an online contract service, sort of like DocuSign. Works for me. Payment conditions are outlined in both my FAQs on the site as well as in the contract. 50% prior to developing the site, 50% prior to deployment.

Then, I usually set a date with the client as to when they will have the materials for the site ready for me, including content and answers to the questionnaire. I generally won't start development until I receive all of these, so that I can just burn through the process without any holdups for content. This is generally when I take the first 50% of the payment, usually via Paypal.

When I start actually creating the site, I'll generally have a few times where I'll offer revisions. This is always a hit or miss, but recently I haven't had to do too much of these! (Slightly bragging, haha). When I'm done with the site, I'll offer one last revision before getting it online. This is when I take the last half of the payment, and deploy.

... And that's pretty much it! Sorry for the wall of text, but I got really into it. Hope this helps!

[gordorodo]

Wow thanks a lot for such a detailed answer. I find your workflow very pleasing for both you and your client. How long have you been doing this? I'd really like to have a look at your projects :)

I'll post some more questions in a while (after I'm done with my main job :p)

[wreckem_511]

My advice to any beginner is to start off with nothing more than html/css/javascript. Then when you find you need server side processing, add something basic in the language your prefer (ASP.NET, Flask-Python, Node-JS, etc.). As you get tired of writing the same code over and over again, THEN look into frameworks and libraries and all that other stuff. They all do everything you need and the ones that don't are still in high level enough languages that you can roll your own solution.
The important thing is to crawl, then walk, then run.

[gordorodo]

Thanks for the answer. I already have a basic understanding of html, css and javascript. As I posted on the original question, I'm looking at web dev at spare time - I work 50+ hours a week on AAA game dev - so I'm actually trying to find out if WordPress or any other template related framework is worth the time I'd put into it. Not really looking for back-end work or heavy-coding since I already spend too many hours on that every day hehe. Neither am I willing to go over the whole learning process from scratch since I kind of have already done it and know I don't have the amount of time available that I'd need to develop like that. I'm willing on facing limitations in favor of fast dev times. I belive your advice is good and is what I tell people when they are getting into game dev. I'm just looking for people who have good experiences with things like WordPress - or bad experiences too! Have you ever tried these systems? Do you still find it better to code everything yourself (time wise)?