ideas for new computer hobbies i can take up

danlightbulb · 16 Jun 2016 at 21:05

Hi all,

When I owned an Amiga 1200 back in the day when I was about 14 years old, I didn't use it just for games. I tried my hand on animation (deluxe paint anyone?), music creation (octamed anyone?), raytracing (light something?), BASIC programming (Blitz Basic!). I used to enjoy dabbling in these things. I even made my own little maze game once with its own music and graphics. (still have the floppy discs for it but no Amiga to ever play it on lol). Obviously the things I created were pretty crap, but still it was enjoyable learning how to do these things.

Anyway to get to the point, I'd like to take up some creative stuff again, as a hobby. Since it is a hobby, I don't want to buy expensive software to do any of this so it would have to be freeware programs.

Does anyone have any tips on some good things I could try out, names of some good freeware programs to use, and where I can get things like music samples, textures etc from for free?

Thanks!

alle · 16 Jun 2016 at 21:38

...Maybe get a Raspberry Pi and see where that leads you?

danlightbulb · 16 Jun 2016 at 21:53

I'm buying a pc, so spending enough already. Needs to be creative type things I can try on that.

Mel_P · 16 Jun 2016 at 21:59

Learn to code a game with "scratch" (free). This is the ways children learn to code nowadays?

Mel_P · 16 Jun 2016 at 21:59

Raspberry Pi 3 is £27! Price of a mouse?

danlightbulb · 16 Jun 2016 at 23:02

I know its cheap but im gonna have a capable pc in front of me, which i want to take advantage of.

Zefan · 16 Jun 2016 at 23:07

Create stuff for games. Unreal editor is quite simple to get to grips with initially, have a Google around and you'll find video tutorials to follow.

alle · 16 Jun 2016 at 23:24

danlightbulb said:
I'm buying a pc, so spending enough already. Needs to be creative type things I can try on that.

Well you never actually mentioned that. This is 'pc' anyway

If you are as creative as you think then there's no harm in getting one anyway for the money they cost.

Why spend more than you need?

danlightbulb · 16 Jun 2016 at 23:58

Zefan said:
Create stuff for games. Unreal editor is quite simple to get to grips with initially, have a Google around and you'll find video tutorials to follow.

Ah great that looks like just the thing!

Cromulent · 19 Jun 2016 at 06:31

How about making some YouTube videos or something? You can do that pretty cheaply if not for free.

OBS Studio for recording stuff (free)
Blender for video editing (free)
Audacity for audio editing (free)

The only thing you need is a microphone and most people have one on their headsets. If not you can get one pretty cheaply.

Zefan · 19 Jun 2016 at 08:13

danlightbulb said:
Ah great that looks like just the thing!

It's great fun and can get very heavy if you want it to, or it can stay quite simple. You can just create levels out of pre-amp assets, or you can begin to go deeper by learning how to create all the assets yourself from meshes to textures, even make the player models and start scripting to make a single player experience if you want.

djkav · 19 Jun 2016 at 21:55

Or there's Gamemaker Studio if you fancy some 2D game designing.

d_brennen · 19 Jun 2016 at 22:16

Obvious answer for continuity is USB floppy drive and an Amiga emu, take up where you left off. Will cost very little

Nikumba · 20 Jun 2016 at 14:25

Amazon have a free engine as well now, with AWS backing

https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/

Kimbie

nine_tails · 20 Jun 2016 at 15:07

danlightbulb said:
I know its cheap but im gonna have a capable pc in front of me, which i want to take advantage of.

Rasberry-pi has very interesting applications and very little to do with your new PC. Like a live mirror : https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/magic-mirror/ .

You can convert raspberry pi into a headless torrent box , a media player for your TV... google it and you have tons of ideas. It is an exciting device with great possibilities.

Zefan · 20 Jun 2016 at 16:44

I'd also very much recommend having a fiddle with a raspberry pi. You can even get the raspberry pi zero, which costs less than a meal!

Mel_P · 20 Jun 2016 at 17:05

Zefan said:
I'd also very much recommend having a fiddle with a raspberry pi. You can even get the raspberry pi zero, which costs less than a meal!

That's x3