Let's put a label on it

As some of you know, I wrote Game Development with Blender and Godot, published about two months ago. Since then, I've been itching to create more content. I used to stream a lot which would scratch that itch. Starting live streams might be a thing again very soon, like next week, but I've wanted to try something new since the release of my book.

New recipe with the same old ingredients

I thought to myself that if I was going to use my microphone and camera for live streaming, then why not use the same tools for creating more structured content like a Udemy course? There is something hectic and yet fun about live streams and it may go in interesting angles sometimes; depending on how I deal with the stream's topic or what the audience wants.

On the contrary, a video course must have an outline similar to a book. Although it is possible to record footage for hours with no end, there will be diminishing returns. So, I've kept it under 4 hours and created a course that covers UI skinning in Godot Engine.

Working with themes or skinning components is something I hear that some folks have trouble with. Game developers work so hard on game mechanics and fine-tuning their game that UI concerns are sometimes pushed around. Since I already published a similar video two years ago on this topic, an update was due.

My course discusses what to export from design files, and how to apply these assets to components of different complexity. For example, earlier sections of the course show how to skin a simple button component. Then, we move on to skinning more intricate button components such as a MenuButton that has an expanding part that reveals options.

The Label component is often the backbone of displaying any kind of text. It doesn't have that many moving parts. However, that won't stop you from turning a simple Label component into a Tooltip, Badge, or Notification component. Some of these examples can be seen in the header image.

What's next?

I think I've got the poison. I think this will be the first of many courses I will be publishing in the future. They may be on different platforms. However, video production is something I might pursue more often than exercising my didactic endeavors in a written format. Books, or at least technical writing, just take a very long time to come to fruition. It took me a whole year to prepare the material I discuss in my book and then write it. It's also not easily possible to update it.

Video courses, on the other hand, might be updated quite regularly. You can add new sections to an existing course if it doesn't warrant doing the whole thing from scratch. As far as Udemy goes as a publishing platform, I like its Quiz feature. It was interesting to prepare quiz questions; like I was now behind the scenes whereas, in the past, I would be answering the quizzes of the courses I've purchased on Udemy.

My next courses will most likely focus on Godot Engine content. However, I'm also considering other domains as well since I practice quite a few different tools and techniques for developing games. I'd be eager to hear from you if you would like me to cover a particular topic. If it is within my power, and I can execute it, why not? These days, I'm usually available on Discord where we can easily strike up a conversation.

Until then, if you purchase my course, may your pixels align perfectly!