After pluggin’ thru lots of tutorials, runnin’ thru docs galore, I was just wondering after seeing all the great content & games that have been created, how did ya’ll do it? what great mystery have ya’ll solved? Is there a great secret depository of knowledge I’ve missed? (half the tutorials are broken somewhere usually due to newer version of the engine or the documentation which half is broken or just dead-ends, ie: just stops or even worse ends in a technical explanation, way over my head. (tho’ kudos to the ones that try to keep up with all the changes etc.)(and finding the solutions is a great, altho’ painful way to learn, still I’m looking for a better way!)
Now mind you, especially before replying, let us assume I have the intelligence of somewhere between a ‘Rock’ & a ‘Badger’. (altho the Badger usually wins out in the end) And I have had successful results to some end, and am not totally without hope.
Also take into consideration that I struggled with Blender for 5 or so days, out of this month, with limited results. (picture a car self-destructing when hitting play) I have enjoyed the engine and feel my struggle hasn’t been fruitless. I even have the buggy (sample game) driving around in a landscape (editor). And some blueprints that even work.
But still some questions still come up & solutions evade me, but I still want to develop and release a quality product, or products. So… :
Tell me… where is this hidden vault of great knowledge?
Any information or documentation, etc. that would help with a finished product? As in figuring out system requirements and other options such as video etc & or adjusting these inside of game or at start of installation.
I’ve found finishing up a product the most harrowing experience ever and almost the hardest part. This includes advise on implementation in Steam and work with their API.
Also any advice on workflow from Blender to Maya LT or just use Maya LT ? And your successes / advise on the subject.
Any and I mean any advise on Landscapes (that work). I’m trying to create a scenario with rolling hills and even considered using a box (sorta like a skybox) on the sides with trees/ scenery to fit in this scenario.
And has anyone come up with a useable Mirror that can be used in the HUD with UMG that won’t make my game run like a old 60s Volkswagon. Also, I want to get a radio in the HUD as well, and have them all fit happily all together. Any help or suggestions or experience trying to do this?
I’ll have cut off my sub to switch to Maya LT to create (hopefully) some useable models / meshes. And I wondered about being able to still use forums &/or answer hub still or do they require a subscription? And if you cancel does it go into effect immediately or at the end of your month?
Anyone know or figure out what the new quality settings for projects in 4.5 do, exactly? What systems etc. they target, etc.?
And if you’ve read all this, Thank You! & I appreciate any help, advise, or comments that you might have or want to share.
You can find it in the documentation, here in the forum and by doing game dev stuff
Why do you want to export something from blender to maya? -> you can do everything in blender
You **dont **need a subscription to have access to the forum or answerhub -> you just wont be abel to get the latests updates + why dont you just stay with blender? You can create amazing stuff with it (it’s as good as other 3d programs ^^)
It takes some time till you have something very good to show -> spending 5 days in blender or any other 3d program is not enough to learn how to create something awesome:)
Another important point is to be active in the forum, because you can learn plenty of stuff by just reading threads, asking question or answering stuff
ahh… a blender luver, can’t argue with none of that.
most of those 5 days was not working in blender (got ‘some’ exp. w/ blender and some other modelers), it was trying to get it into UE 4. (exporting into UE from Blender should be a crime) lol
and btw, thx for the info
ps: I’ve watched ‘many’ of your videos and thx for those!
A lot of stuff that time, some ridiculous amount of time. Making a game is hard, because of the amount of things you need to know, the amount of time to create the contents asserts, working mechanic.
I wouldn’t worry about #2 at the moment, its good to know, but have a check list of all the questions you have, but do not stress having all of them answer immediately. If you start to think all the pitfall, it could drastically affect you.
I find the important thing is to be able to move forward, making progress ie pick new skills, or making new asserts, day by day. It will add up.
There’s no special trick, many people have experience already as programmers or 3D artists, having that means that UE4 is just another tool. Also, if you’ve worked with UDK/UE3 before then you can learn UE4 quite fast since many things are similar.
Since you mentioned Badger, you are right, you have to be persistent like a Badger to make a game. Like a Honey Badger. Honey Badger don’t give a ****, it keeps going and going.
Honestly best advice I think is spend more time, A lot more time. I first started using blender when I was 12 I’m 15 now and still don’t feel I’m where I want to be with it(great place to start with blender is BornCG tutorials on youtube in my opinion). But in all reality people spend years studying this stuff, you could spend a year easy learning just how to make good animations. I wouldn’t expect to be anywhere in a month your expectations are to high, learning through youtube tutorials is a slow process but as long as you are learning faster then they are updating you’ll get there.
Yeah, I don’t expect instant results, oh wait… yeah I do, but that’s beside the point, I am realistic.
But I am looking for a better & ‘quicker’ way to learn and accomplish the desired end results, and that is what I’m asking and the reason I posted.
Like with BP Event Graphs, it’s hard to find out what the correct options are to hook into. Although 4.5 Editor Documentation looks so much better, there’s still a lot of dead ends. (ie: the Content Example, most links lead no where)
Not trying to blame anyone, I just feel like I’m cutting weeds with a butter knife instead of a weed whacker, and was wondering about other people’s thought process and how they achieved results. Was wondering if I was doing something wrong or just not doing it right.
Just wanted to pitch in here, I have been working with UE4 for about 2 months roughly, 2 hours a day.
Only starting to feel confident now. Keep going with blueprints, it will all start to make sense at some point.
The only experience I have is with VB and I would say that is only 6 months of experience.
If there is one advise I can give you, start with a concept, any concept.
For e.g. Making a object move away from the player whenever he overlaps the Sphere component.
You will pull your hair out, but when you have thought about how it should work, how it should behave and what conditions has an effect on it. You start to get the just of what it takes to implement the concept. Once you hit the point that you made your own implementation of something it becomes easier to understand what the tutorials are trying to represent.
The biggest thing I gathered from most the Tutorials is where they are placing their triggers, sometimes they are within the level blueprint, sometimes its embedded in the pawn, sometimes its a different blueprint interacting with another blueprint and other times its mapped to action mappings or input mappings. Essentially you just need to get the understanding of what will trigger your blueprint.
Dont know if this helps but hang in there keep going, eventually you will wake up one morning going LOL, cause most of the stuff people do are from trial and error.
Not really. I have the benefit of 15 years of professional game development, and 8 of that using Unreal. However, I cut my teeth on modding games, and the principle is the same. Accumulate all the knowledge you can about everything in the engine, read the forums daily. Half of the knowledge you need is acquired by pushing random buttons and trying different things (not kidding). I cannot stress this enough … persistence wins. Keep at it, it does get better.
Get very familiar with profiling. Use different machines, and get your friends involved with testing, installing and doing things you never intended them to do. As far as I’m aware, there’s no set rulebook, and it’s knowledge acquired by trial by fire, because every game is a little bit different.
Lastly, making games is actually really crazy hard, and a lot of the knowledge critical to shipping games is learning to learn, and (oddly) to know yourself (cheesy but true). You need to anticipate your motivation, know what motivates you, find help where you can for things you’re not (currently) good at, get a feel for the rhythm and pace of developing a game and especially knowing how the scope of a game must be altered to make it feasible.
Anyway, good luck, keep at it and don’t get discouraged. If you really enjoy making games, you won’t be able to stop yourself.
Great comments & thx for the replies… & thx for the encouragement, it never hurts.
I’m not exactly giving up or quitting, or at least hope not. I’m dropping sub for now to work on & concentrate on what I have and try to get some models working (if not in Blender then will try Maya LT)(and the blasted mirror, I’m trying to figure out, don’t want to lag out game. lol) And thanks UE for the 5.4.1 update on the last day of my (recent) sub, .0’s scare me. lol
Guess the main thing I’m asking or looking for is how everyone goes about the creation process like from conception or when you first get an idea, to the end result. How do you get there, where do you start, it seems like I do a lot of hashing around, searching thru tons of videos & documentation. Which is fine but it usually ends up with dead ends & hurdles I have to fight thru. (again, slowing or stopping productivity) Not trying to re-invent the wheel here, just I know there has to be a better way & that’s what I’m looking for.
Unreal Engine is trying to empower us with the ability to create games and these hurdles & dead ends are what hurts their efforts to help people make games. And has been the shortcoming & downfall of so many other efforts (of others) in the past. They have a great idea of how to do this and I’d like to see it work. (especially in my case )
If you really want a quicker way to learn, study learning itself and find out the methods that work best for you.
For example the dead ends and broken bits you have found, are some of the most fertile areas of learning for me, I find there is nothing like being stuck with a puzzle I won’t let go of, to help develop a solid understanding of something that is probably never forgotten.
Sorry if I came off sounding rude. Just give it some time your ability to learn and become good with this depends highly on your ability to not quit or give up when your frustrated. There really isn’t any smooth way to learn the program but if you don’t think this way is working for you there are paid courses you can take online or at colleges/university’s you can look into. 3D Buzz has some content you can look into as well (I haven’t used them before yet but their worth checking). But it will click eventually if you just keep at it and not give up. Best of luck man
-> you can do everything in blender