Hi, I’ve recently started to learn programming. I’ve been doing a few simple platformer games in game maker using only coding. They have basic movement, gravity, collision, enemies, animation, level switching and a few minor mecanics. Now I’ve become kindah boored with game maker. I really don’t like 2d and I feel as though I’m very limited. I’d like to do 3d games in first person but I’m afraid I’ll buy ue4 and get stuck before even creating a level. Now I can do a TINY bit of c++ (cout cin if while loop etc. Super basic stuff) but my question to you is: Is it enough? Do I have to be able to do more advanced things in c++ before trying out ue4 or can I learn ue4 programming on the fly while looking at youtube tutorials? Should I begin with a more simple (and preferably free) 3d engine? (if so which would be a good starting point?)
You can always pay for one month and cancel if it’s not to your liking. You still have whatever versions were released in the month you paid for even after that time.
That said, I’m horrible at math and don’t think coding will ever be a real possibility for me, but I’ve worked in the game industry for nearly 15 years in Production and I was able to do this in about a month casually playing around.
Obviously, being knee deep in game dev for that long I understand a lot of the high level concepts and needed to make a game, but from what you describe I think you’ll do just fine.
I would highly recommend diving into UE4 as soon as possible. With all of the tutorials and documentation on the Engine, now would be the perfect time to jump right in. If you wanted to, you could start out in UDK, which is free and can be found here: Unreal Engine 3 Features - Unreal Engine. As Gooner44 has previously stated, you also have the choice to purchase a UE4 subscription at $19/month and cancel after your first month. You will still be able to use the Engine and all of the assets that come with the Engine but you will not have access to any updates, until you subscribe again. This would give you time to learn all of the tools associated with UE4. I believe that ‘Blueprints’ is what really make UE4 stand out above all the rest. It makes it easy for someone fairly new to programming, or even a developer with no experience in programming, to create a project without ever having to enter a line of code.
I hope this helps with your decision and if any other information is needed, please feel free to ask.
Ah thx for the responses people I have three more questions though. If I buy and unsubscribe right now can I, at a later date(lets say a year), subscribe and unsubscribe again to get the latest ubdate?
Also is UDK any similar to UE4? Can I transfer knowledge from udk to eu4 or do I have to begin from square one once I switch? If the later is true I don’t want to dive in too deep in udk before getting ue4.
Lastly, can I send my projects to people who do not own ue4 to let them try it out or do they have to have ue4 to play them?
Wow really cool to see how much one can do without having to do any programming. Great work! However I must ask something since I really want to learn the coding aspects of ue4. Do you think I can easily transfer what i learn from blueprints to coding or should I do as I did with game maker, begining with the coding as soon as possible?
I believe you can re-up at any point and get the latest for that 30 day period. If you wait a long time between updates you of course run into compatibility issues, but you can work around most of that with varying degrees of effort I’m sure.
UDK is pretty different from the visual scripting side, but I don’t really know about content creation and coding. I’d say start with UE4.
You can cook builds for all supported platforms and give that to other people to try. Depending on platform you may have to jump through some hoops to get the build playing though. i.e. iOS devices require special dev access I believe. Windows and Mac are no issue.
I have three more questions though. If I buy and unsubscribe right now can I, at a later date(lets say a year), subscribe and unsubscribe again to get the latest ubdate?