Is there anything that makes UE4 a bad starting point for a newcommer?

Hey there,
Firstly, I hope I posted this in the right section, didn’t see another more appropriate.

So I’m an aspiring musician/composer. I don’t have any in-depth knowledge of programming, game making, etc.

That said I’ve always loved games and I’ve always wanted to try getting familiar with some development tools.
I’ve always been interested in the technical side (i.e. Game Engines, Graphics Elements, Physics, Animation etc.) but never enough to get into it on a serious level.

I’ve mingled around in the CryEngine 2 and 3 Sandboxes, designed a few environments with basic tools.
I’ve fiddled with some visual effects in 3DS Max a bit(not much, a few fluid/fire/smoke simulations and played around with RayFire a bit.)
I’ve designed and modeled ONE object in Blender. ( like so http://i.imgur.com/Var3XkL.png http://i.imgur.com/U7QXPSK.png http://i.imgur.com/0olC2d1.png )
And I worked with 2 friends on 2D Android game where I did music and some 2D art in Adobe Ilustrator.

My question is:

Is UE4 good to start out? I know Unreal Engine 3 was a pretty amateur-friendly engine. I also know there is a ridiculous amount of resources and information for it (What with it being the most wide spread game development tool and all).
I assume UE4’s pool of knowledge will form/grow rapidly as everyone’s probably rushing to transition to it.
I also assume that the Blueprint system is crucial for someone with no coding abilities, though what I’ve seen of it so far has been slightly intimidating (but I am eager to learn).

But I’d want to know if there’s anything that makes UE4 a “bad” choice for a learner’s first engine at this very early point in its release.

Additionally:
I intend to start off by watching every video available on the Unreal Engine Youtube channel. Can anyone recommend any other good resources for starting off?

Thanks in advance and I hope this isn’t a very tedious post, haha. I have a feeling this place gets a lot of “IS UNREAL ENGINE RIGHT FOR ME?!” threads.

To put it simple UE 4 is easier to handle than UDK was. You also do not need to really learn to code with the awesome new blueprint visual scripting. The Engine is however quite new to the public and therefore tutorials are limited but growing weekly. Good news it everyone else here is mostly learning it too so you are not alone in the matter. I would say it is the best engine an Indie can get on the market.

Just read the documentation here on Unreal’s website. Read over the forums on occasions, watch all and any videos you can on the engine. Feel free to ask question on the Answer Hub. This engine has it all and is a great tool out of the box. You can also use the built in marketplace to look over game content made by Epic to get the hang of how they did it. I hope this helps a lot and you go far on your adventure. :slight_smile:

UE is pretty simple and easy to learn. However, there is a lot to learn so some people might feel overwhelmed.

The best thing you can do is just break it all down into general areas of study, just like how the tutorials are broken up, and then put it into practice. It’s no different than trying to learn any other engine or 3d program. You’ve got to learn the basics.

The biggest problem I see beginners doing, is trying to make everything look good before it actually functions properly.

That is a good point worry more about the game play, commands, and lastly basic functions before the eye candy. +1

Thanks a lot for your replies! I’ll be allover UE4 once I figure out why my Credit Card isn’t working, hah.

Regarding focus on visuals, lucky for me I’m a big fan of minimalist stylized designs. And even luckier for me it seems that if you throw a few shapes and a light together in Unreal Engine 4 it already looks fantastic, haha.

Thanks for the help. I’ll be sure to rear my ugly head in here many more times throughout the following weeks, months, years? Hopefully.

Cheers.

I’m going to get this book.

Does anyone think it could help an artist who wants to use Blueprints? Couldn’t hurt, right?