Guides for Total Newbies

[berengor]

Hello there!

I just purchased a few tutorials for learning Ue4, and was slowly trying to learn game development skills. First, I was wondering if there was an in engine way of making assets, the way one uses blender? Second, I was wondering what poeple here think are the best assets, resources, or sources of litterature for learning would be? Let’s assume I am doing everything from absolutely zero, beyond learning some basics.

Suppose you had to explain a schema of the skills needed to be grown over a year period before someone could release a game? Should they focus on design? Should they focus on technical aspects, like memory allocation first?

Feel free to answer however you’d like!

Thanks!!!

b

[HAF-Blade]

Noone cares for things like memory allocation , especially not at the start.

Simply start with something you have the most fun with.

Read the documentation of the Unreal Engine and than try to find learn resources for the things you are currently working with.

You ca not learn all at once.

Let’s say you are a programmer than start with Blueprints and than C++. Blueprints are great to learn the basics of the engine framework and to prototype.

Let’s say you are level designer than choose some cool assets you like and try to build a level

Let’s say you are 3d designer than start with creating assets and animations, niagara particle system,…

Don’t start with complex things like multiplayer, character movement implementations or shader development.

UE4 has nothing to create 3d assets. It is a 3d engine for games and no asset creation tool. You have to use Bleder, Maya or similar tools for 3d and Photoshop or Affinity for 2d objects. Animations can be created in ue4 but it is limited. Textures are created with tools like Quixel Mixer, Blender or Substance Painter…

Oh and most importantly: Have fun

[Everynone]

A similar question asked a few days ago:

Advice for someone new to game development?

That’s a problem (not really a problem) with tutorials, they assume you have grasped certain concepts and have a rough overview of the ecosystem. You do not need C++ to make a game. There are limitations to blueprints, though. Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, you may hit a roadblock sooner or later. Or never. Blueprints are easier to get into and you can always add C++ to the project a bit later. Either to achieve a must-have feature, improve performance or handle logic that is …

But it’s pretty much what was mentioned above.

[scottunreal]

Start here

Epic Developer Community

And there are several tutorials on YouTube.
Here’s a full series that takes you through the basics to get you started

Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial for Beginners - #0 Series Introduction

[Gronklywonk]

Some good answers above.

The key thing is not to expect too much as an absolute beginner - it takes time to develop an understanding of the high level approach to building a game in Unreal (or any engine), and then further time to understand the lower level tools and techniques available to achieve specific elements of the game.

Once you have that understanding, you can think more seriously about long term projects that you may actually release. You’ll know when youre starting to get to that point because you’ll have ideas for things, but incorporated into those ideas will be notions of HOW you will try to do it rather than just “it would be cool if…” type things. What data do I need to create or to get, what format does it need to be (float, integer, vector and so on), what does it represent and what do I want to do with it so that the end result is the gameplay feature I had in mind.

The best way to get to that point, is to jump in with some basic Blueprint tutorials. I mean really basic, like “here is how to switch a light on and off in game” or the like. They will introduce you to core concepts, and the more you do the more you will understand about how you make arbitrary game objects and actors behave in a specific way. Before you know it, you’ll be ready to tackle more advanced tutorials that assume a bit more pre-existing understanding of how the engine works in general, and completing those will further advance you.

As mentioned already, Unreal is not an asset creation software in the sense you asked about. There are assets you can acquire from the marketplace, and from places like Megascans, but beyond that you will need to get familiar with external packages to create specific visuals. I would recommend doing so alongside learning the engine; even if you have no intention or capacity to become a professional grade artist, there are a lot of workflow benefits to being familiar with those applications. Even if you work with an artist at some point, you’ll want to be able to adjust the content they created in many cases, and a basic understanding of something like Blender is not too hard to gain.

That said, it is a separate discipline all its own at the higher level. I have been doing 3D art for nigh on 20 years, 10 of those in a professional studio setting, and I still learn new tricks all the time. I very much doubt I will ever be done learning, truthfully.

All in all, even making even a simple game is a complex, multi-faceted endeavour - and it only gets more so as the game you want to make gets more complicated. Don’t worry about building an entire house without first learning to dig and pour the foundation, so to speak.

As HAF-Blade said, get stuck in and HAVE FUN! It is, deep down, a very rewarding creative process for the most part and because of that, the complexity of it should not put you off - you will have a good time whether you release a game in a year or not.

A thousand mile journey always begins with a single step!