Hi! I’m just starting my first game with unreal, i have been programming for the web for ages and I want to make my first steps into unreal making a simple games for my friends and i.
I’d like to make a local coop sacred 3 / gauntlet clone, but i don’t really know where to start. So my questions are:
While making combat, should i start making the character stats? or maybe I should do animations which do damage and then add stats on top of it?
should I start with a game template?
if i use a template, which one? (i’d like to use a top down camera but driven by direct gamepad/keyboard movements, not clicking a place to go, but topdown shooter template does that, but it SHOOTS, i need phisical attacks instead by default )
where can I get some models and animations to start working?
i have already tried to just change meshes in some templates and projects i found on the internet and it didn’t work, do skeletal meshes for characters have some differences between them apart from the visual design?
First off, welcome to the Unreal Engine 4 development community.
For your initial question as to if you should start with making stats or start with animations. I personally find that when making a prototype of a game I create the stats first, so that you end up knowing what animations you require for those stats, however its more of a personal choice in the end.
In terms of a game template, either one of the top down templates would work as you would simply have to alter the Blueprints to match with your desired use. The shooting if i recall correctly is a single event from the left click and removing is as simple as deleting the event in the player character blueprint.
For some initial models and animations i generally get the free assets from Epic Games Marketplace, however currently Mixamo (owned by Adobe) assets are free, these include Characters and Animation Packs.
In your question about skeletal meshes, all depending on the artist who made the character mesh, the skeleton can not vary at all or vary from a few bones to the entire structure. However some characters match in skeletal structures enough for you to “re-configure” the animation to the new skeletal structure.
All in all, seeing as you are new to unreal engine but at the same time not new to development completely, I would suggest checking out the official tutorials on the UnrealDevelopmentKit youtube channel or even the streams (i believe they stream every thursday or second thursday)
i like your explanations about stats, makes sense, because, if i make a warrior first, then i must “redo” the mage completely, it’s more productive to create the player model. Is it be safe to say that a Model-View-Controller pattern would work while programming in UE?
I’ll try these templates as you suggested
I am currently having problems with mixamo, since i can make the “attack button” to play the whole sword swing animation at once, currently, i have to keep the mouse pressed the whole animation. Do you know of any tutorial or UE answer to solve this problem?
I have already been a few hours in EU youtube, It’s huge… there’s hundred of hours there… And it’s great to see how epic supports the community in such an amazing way.
Thank you very much for your answers, I’m really excited to see what comes up in my EU adventures