First off I want to say that I have basically zero programming or any type of game engine experience. I’ve always wanted to get into creating games. For the last few months I’ve been looking around at game engines to see which one I wanted to dive into. I was set on unity for a while until I found out about Unreal Engine 4. It just looks so user friendly and polished plus the blueprint system looked awesome. I bought it last week but have only had a few hours to play with it. I can already tell I will be needing to learn A LOT as I don’t understand 90% of it, lol (I figured that’s how it would be for me anyway). I’m an IT Admin so I’m very comfortable with computers and really want to learn UE4.
I guess my question is where should I begin? I’ve been reading the Docs put out for Unreal and the tutorials and can follow along with them but they really don’t teach me the foundation I need to build from. They are great for “put this here to make this happen” but I need to take a step back and learn what those “functions” even mean so I can do it myself. Should I just pick up a C++ book and go from there?
Also regarding the Unreal Editor itself, I want to learn about the basic level of what everything means.
Example: “Place a Lightmass Importance Volume into the level.” – That’s all fine and dandy but I have no clue why I would be doing this or what it does. I guess I need to learn about game mechanics or something like that, I’m not sure.
Thanks for the help and I can’t wait to really get cracking
First of all you should think about what you want to reach, because then the learning process will differ a little bit -> e.g do you want to work in the industry or do you just want to develope your own game?
By the way, you can also add me at Skype, there you can ask me questions and I will try to answer them ()
I defiantly want to create my own game(s) so I would like to learn as much as I can. I know I won’t become an expert at all aspects but want to be able to do what I can.
You need to set some goals, then when you run into a problem you go through the documentation and tutorials and try and find a solution. It’s really difficult to remember what stuff does if you just study a program, it’s best to actually just start using it to do what you want and learn the things as you go.
Can I just say that Unreal engine is NOT the place to start for a complete beginner. It really isn’t. Its a great engine and all, but it needs a bit of development experience to really get to grips with and if you try and use it you’ll just get frustrated.
My advice would be to try for something more like Construct, Stencyl or GameMaker to get going with. Learn the basics of game loops and logic and the like there. Then revisit Unreal when you’ve had a bit of time to learn the ropes. Or maybe use Unity as a stepping stone after one of those.
I have to disagree with that statement In my opinion it was pretty simple to start with the UE (in my case I have started with the UDK-Engine). Of course at some points it was a little bit depressing, but after you have solved/reached something, it really motivates you to keep learning the UE.
Set a realistic goal for yourself. Start out the game design on paper. Write down key things like features, levels, and figure out a basic idea for the overall theme. Also take into account who all you would need to create such a game. watch tutorials, read wiki’s, and play around in the engine until you feel comfortable with the controls. Make deadlines for your learning progression to help further push your involvement. the most important thing is to never give up. These things take work and dedication. I wish you good luck on your adventure.
That’s my thinking process. I already use Basecamp and Trello to keep track of stuff I need to learn and specifics about game(s) I want to create. Want to start small but it is definitely a little overwhelming jumping in heads first, lol
In all honestly, that’s how I usually learn the best. Just by getting my hands dirty and diving in. This however does seem a bit overwhelming and just thought maybe I need to get a better foundation of what’s going on.
That’s a pretty tricky part, because either you scrape all informations from different websites together (youtube, forum, google,…), ask questions in a forum or you find somebody that is willing to help you (easiest way to get fast and good informations)
But when you learn the best with solving problems that are annoying you, just jump right into the adventure and start doing some stuff with the UE4 (e.g create a level, create and import your own assets, make some materials,…)
Looking back I would say the first step is to just play.
Planning things out is good advice but it’s kind of like Mario Andretti giving you racing advice and you don’t even know how to drive a car.
My advice to anyone who has never done this 3d stuff before is to spend the next year just playing around with the different buttons just to see what happens.
I created a test level, where i experiment with things i want to develop and learn deeper. Just a playground. From there ideas come too. Maybe this works for you.
I completely disagree. It took me three months to make a box with a door in it in UDK, (five years ago) and what drove me to this particular form of art, was passion, not experience. I had no idea where to start and how 3d models were even constructed, let alone how a game worked. I didn’t even play CG games much.
A single video by Geodav making something in UDK changed my life from glass blowing sculpture and pottery, to this
I started at Unreal Engine 1. UE4 is a lot simpler than those engines now, so I disagree as well. UE4 is a great starting point. Blueprints wont take you away from programming theoretically. You still need to think with logic in mind when working with blueprints. So its similar to programming.
As everyone says, start with goals, and move on from there.
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In my opinion it was pretty simple to start with the UE (in my case I have started with the UDK-Engine). Of course at some points it was a little bit depressing, but after you have solved/reached something, it really motivates you to keep learning the UE.
