Lets face it, when you’re working in blueprints and you right click to get your list of options, you can be faced with hundreds (or thousands?) of options to begin your nodes. How do you know which one is best to start with what you’re trying to create?
All the references I am finding teaches you the interface (which I already understand), or videos where the instructor already knows what Right Click item to pick, such as "Right click, type in ‘Set Vetor…’ and you’re done! ", but how did he learn what items to search for?
Basically I’m trying to figure out if I need to memorize what all the right click menu items are for and what they do, is that the way to learn blueprints? I can’t find any documentation on the best way to know what the right click menu I need to search for are. Just takes practice?
I find myself starting to create a blueprint, I create an Event node. Drag out a new node, then I’m stuck there for 5 mins going through the menu trying to decide which is the best next option for what I’m trying to do…
I’m a newbie just like you, its something that you will start to understand in time… I totally understand where you are coming from, when I first started even just looking at the unreal interface I was like dammmm… How do I do anything? I been using the unreal engine now for 1 month, but not that much as I mostly been inside blender trying to get things to work the way I like them 2. I was first trying to do things in unreal that you can’t do lol… I was trying to do things in unreal that you have to do in 3d modelling packages. Over time, you will get used to the functions and start to get a bigger picture. Its not something you will grasp in 1 day… Its about experience and practice using the blueprinting… I don’t know that much yet but I am coming to terms with it and starting to use some of the functions and as you use them, you start to have a play around and find stuff that connects and does the job properly for you. One of the things I do is trial and error (Oo what does this do lol).
You start getting comfortable with a lot of functions and learning what each one does, I don’t know that many of them, but I am getting to know by using them. You have to spend time, have something in mind you want to do, try and achieve that goal within unreal and it will all come together, trust me
Thanks for the feedback twin. Unreal itself is pretty easy for me. It’s just the blueprints node selection that has me puzzled. When it comes to bring in objects from other 3d packages, setting up materials, lighting, etc., I’m having no problems at all. It’s the blueprints node that I’m finding limited solutions for. But I’ll stick with your game plan of trial and error. Thanks for the feedback!
When you build things with blueprints, break them down into separate tasks. Start with the most basic things, and slowly build on it. When I started with inventories, dialogues, skill trees and many other features you’d find in most mmo/rpgs these days, it took hours and hours of bashing my head against the wall to learn how to get through them. Looking back though, it was a good experience and now all these systems are really easy.
Twin is right in that time and practice will make a huge difference
I personally felt comfortable with blueprints in just a few weeks, and was off making my game. Why? Because I have a background in computer programming, so a lot of the terms were fairly straight-forward. Basically the first day of blueprints I was like, where in the world is the node for if statements (branch)? And then it was where in the world is the node for adding children (Spawn Actor from Class)?
To answer your question, it really helps if you are already familiar with programming terms, and other than that, practice make perfect.
Regardless of your goals, the long way will teach you everything you need to know + extra. The logic behind blueprints is the same as the logic behind most other languages.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. My programming skills are at minimum. So that’s probably one of my biggest problems. But I agree that practicing will help make perfect, so I’ll keep researching and setting up challenges for myself. Thanks again!
If all you want to do is a first person shooter with simple mechanics (capture the flag and team deatchmatch), a bit of research+forum questions will get you everything working from scratch to a complete game.
