A lot of us have come directly from Unreal Engine 3, or even versions of the engine prior to that, or perhaps even other engines. If you understand the basic premises that make up a game, it shouldn’t be too hard to get to grips with Unreal after a while. It’s toolset is radically more powerful and simplified than other engines I’ve used.
I’d opt to change your ego attitude Many of us discover things about the engine and work out different ways of doing things purely by playing with it. I myself have spent years working with Unreal with only a few tutorials from 3DBuzz to get me started, the rest I picked up as I went along. I come from a game modding background so I thoroughly believe in diving in and learning things for yourself, because that’s how you really learn. Documentation and Tutorials only teach you how to achieve a certain goal, but they don’t teach you the theory behind why you’re doing what you’re doing and how you can apply it to other applications. This is why I don’t really do tutorials for my work, but instead direct people to resources where they can learn the knowledge themselves (if they can be bothered).
My advice is to quite literally get stuck in. Game Engines aren’t something you can learn overnight, and there’s no quick course that will give you a solid grounding straight away, it takes many years of tinkering to learn the art of games. Not only that, but too many people get started in Game Dev with a ridiculously over-complex idea. Start small, then work up
Forgive me if it seems a little clunky in my responses. I’m going to try to respond everyone in this one post. If I do miss someones post I do apologize and feel free to call me out on it. If there is something out there detailing how to do something you’ve listed a concern with I’m going to link to it and if you find any thing that doesn’t make sense or needs more clarification please let me know!
On the Trello board we do have some Landscape Tools video(s) planned for September release. I know this doesn’t help you now if you want a video tutorial but this search on our docs.unrealengine](https://docs.unrealengine/latest/INT/Search/index.html?q=landscape&x=0&y=0) brings back all documentation related to Landscapes that may assist you. You can always ask questions if you are having trouble finding something specific.
@ & @Mysticeti
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I think this is common for a lot of new users and is probably an area that could either be highlighted more clearly for new users or have an overview video that explains the simple basics of game development. It’s would probably be difficult to do this though as there are so many different forms of game development that trying to encompass an overview that includes all of those would lead to users asking why “[specific software, item, or otherwise]” was not suggested or included.
I’ve seen this come back and cause a lot of frustration with users. We have Geometry brushes that are used in the beginner tutorials and users will build their entire level out of BSP then have issues. There are some known issues with BSP and we do have on our Trello Board to revisit BSP/Geometry and give it an overhaul at some point but right now it is on the backlog/wishlist. The great thing about BSPs though is that those who do not have access to 3D modeling tools can use them. They can be converted into static meshes and exported to a 3D modeling program as well.
I apologize if I’ve already linked you to this series before, but we do have our Material Series on our YouTube channel that covers a lot of the basics of Materials. Zak Parrish does a good job of explaining the materials in a way for all users to grasp. I’m still learning things with Materials daily and find his videos extremely helpful! In our YouTube channel there are even a couple of videos that relate to creating specific effects. There is a tutorial on creating a “Fire Material in UE4.” We also have all of our materials are available to look at in the Content Examples > Open Map > Select one of the four materials maps to look at.
I think the idea of having some of the more popular material effects and how to create them would be great! I know the community has done this with some things, but having a walk through of why a specific choice was made would be helpful for new and veteran users as well. If you do look at some of the materials in the Content Examples from Marketplace you will find that some of the effects are fairly large to achieve the effect they want. Again, Zak does a great job of explaining some of the basic nodes and what they do. If you break apart some of the larger effect materials you’ll see that a lot of these are being used in there.
In regards to Material Functions we do not have a video (that I’ve seen anyway) that shows the power of these. However, has made a video that demonstrates this functionality. If you watch the video and are still having trouble there is of course our documentation on Material Functions Here and Here.
We do have a video planned at some point for Post Processing. Right now it’s listed as Backlog/Wishlist though.
With your audio questions, I’m not sure if we have anything planned that will deal with Audio in Code specifically. I would recommend asking that question on the AnswerHub in the C++ section if you’re not getting any feedback here. You’ll be more likely to get specific questions answer there more quickly.
I believe you have nailed it on the head with #2. Everyone has a different workflow and it’s really about finding what works best for you. I consider myself an environment artist and in that regard have a different workflow than someone who is wanting to be a level designer or an animator. While we may all have the same end goal, getting there may be different for all of us. But definitely using resources to look at theory and understanding the entirety of the process is a good way to start for new beginners. My lack of C++ skills has been greatly hampered in the past. Although, with Blueprints I’m able to do so much more as an artist without having to have C++ knowledge.
As someone new to game design/building in general (never used a game development engine, never modded games/levels, etc… just -play- a lot of games)… it would be really cool to see an Unreal University with some basic courses around a Game Development 101 premise… something that goes over basic/critical development/design aspects such as “light mass volume”, “bounding volume”, “LOD (spaces/ranges)”, etc. etc. I comprehend some of these concepts, but I don’t have the first clue -where- or -why- to use them.
As another example, I understand a little bit about textures… UV, normal, diffuse… but not enough to have it all solidified in my mind, and not in a way that helps me figure out what to pick in blueprints to create materials… I can follow the tutorials, but there is a LOT that’s taken for granted, like when they grab a UV node and feed that with a normal (texture), all flowing through some math and into a texture all hooked up to base color… with 4 more complex chains each hooked to something different on the final result. Magic happens!.. but I have no idea why or how (and yes, I realize there’s a LOT of knowledge/info that goes into that ). What would be cool would be a nice tutorial on Textures 101, explaining what/why/how Normals versus UV versus Diffuse work (almost a bad example now, since I’ve learned that UV is just the XY(Z) mapping of texture spaces… but still).
Another thing that I kind of probably messed up with my initial build attempt is collision… The engine collision generator was making a mess of my meshes, so I turned on “complex as simple” for all the meshes that make up my base room… I’m guessing that will leave things unplayable by the time it’s more than just 30m x 50m … what I really need to know is, just how bad -is it- to use complex as simple, and what’s a good way (short of modeling UCX_ files in a 3d program) to get “near the surface” collision for things like cave walls. I don’t seem to be able to deform collision volumes the engine creates, and setting up thousands of boxes doesn’t seem quite right either. Good information about why and how to get those (various options from big blocks that keep you 3m from the cave wall, to duplicating the model’s rough shape in a 3d program and exporting it as a UCX file (I think that’s the right prefix?)).
I keep hearing things like “bake the texture” or “bake the lighting”… I have a general idea of what it is, but the terms are tossed around so profusely that I’m sure I’m in trouble by not being -able- to “bake my textures” because I’m not sure enough of what that is.
Though, given the hundreds of hours of information we’re talking about, I don’t expect Epic to get into creating a bunch of info that teaches people how to get into the game creation industry… there’s just too much to teach, and full college degrees dedicated to the task. I would just rather not have to go back to college and get another degree just to effectively and efficiently be able to build a game… but I’m not finding a well laid out set of basic information out there (yet). Tons of tutorials to do specific things, but 90% of those expect you already kind of know the ropes about most everything else.
–as an aside… looking over the example content shows many of these things in practice… bounding volumes, lightmass volumes, etc etc. But it’s one thing to see it and duplicate it, it’s quite another to know -why-, and -what- exactly it does… one can not innovate by copying, innovation requires understanding
Thanks for the detailed response. It’s very much appreciated
I agree that video game design covers a LOT of area (I’m really just starting to appreciate how much). That being said, I love the idea of an Unreal university. For those of us new to video game design, we aren’t going to be asking a lot of questions about why this program or that program, we just want a realistic progression to really get us started with level design. For example, as a beginner I don’t have any particular preference for 3ds , or maya or blender etc. I just want to know how to use one to integrate with Unreal to get some basic level design stuff (including UV, and texture, and materials etc).
Basically take something like the room design tutorial that have, but expand it a little bit more (please also an outside area) and show how that would really be done. More than anything else, we are really just trying to figure out WHAT we need to know.
For example, I watched Jim’s video that you referred me to (before this thread actually) but really it left me with more questions than answers. It felt to me like it was very much a video on the best workflow to do for someone that already knew what was going on.
Also, at least for me, not all the video’s in a section need to be released at once. If you can only do 1 a week, just do the 1 a week. I’m of course going to continue pursing other avenues of education as well. But as new people continue to come on, this would be very helpful.
I am in the same boat as you are in right now. I watched a lot of the official unreal videos, and took for granted the user made tutorials. So I recommend you look at some of the usermade tutorials, they help alot and complement the official videos very nicely! Good luck, and don’t worry , you are not the only one with this issue!
Many of us discover things about the engine and work out different ways of doing things purely by playing with it. I myself have spent years working with Unreal with only a few tutorials from 3DBuzz to get me started, the rest I picked up as I went along. I come from a game modding background so I thoroughly believe in diving in and learning things for yourself, because that’s how you really learn. Documentation and Tutorials only teach you how to achieve a certain goal, but they don’t teach you the theory behind why you’re doing what you’re doing and how you can apply it to other applications. This is why I don’t really do tutorials for my work, but instead direct people to resources where they can learn the knowledge themselves (if they can be bothered).
). What would be cool would be a nice tutorial on Textures 101, explaining what/why/how Normals versus UV versus Diffuse work (almost a bad example now, since I’ve learned that UV is just the XY(Z) mapping of texture spaces… but still).