This is from Epic’s Engine Support department. I’m going to be running a twitch tutorial stream for blueprint scripting in my free time starting tonight, 8pm-10pm EST. This is primarily targeted toward new users who are trying to grasp the system and learn how it works but anyone is welcome to join in!
Note: The stream is my own and is not directly associated with Epic Games or any affiliates therein. The opinions expressed on stream are strictly mine and in no way reflect the opinions of Epic or its affiliates.
Thank you, Geodav! I’m looking forward to this though I have to admit quite nervous. I’ve never done live streaming or video tutorials before so this will be a wholly new experience for me!
As soon as I figure out how to go about that I will for sure :). At present the stream interface will be fairly plain as I haven’t set up any UI or additional scene info quite yet. I’m looking over OBS’s capabilities and will be adding more (including a countdown timer) as I go!
Look forward to these, though I won’t be able to make it this evening. What kind of schedule do you think you will be trying for? Once a week? Once or twice a month?
I’m thinking about as often as possibly 2-3 a week with these shorter sessions, but a lot of it depends on the general reception and if people feel like this will be helpful/useful to them in the future. Im looking at most likely 2 a week on Tues/Thurs or Wed/Fri.
Ahh… my eyes are almost shut here on the other side of the planet.
I guess I could stay awake for the stream but I doubt that I could concentrate on anything…
A link where I can watch it tomorrow would be nice
Thank you so much to those who came out today! The video is in the past broadcasts on the channel if anyone wants to watch! Additionally, I’m uploading the video to youtube under the email unreal.zombiebear@gmail.com. If you have suggestions for the stream or topics you’d like covered please feel free to shoot me an email!
Would you mind posting the Channel/Video Link here? Seems like i’m too dumb to find one of it with the email you posted.
Want to give you some critiques, because i couldn’t watch the stream!
Ok, a small list of what you could change or work on. Notice, i only watched a around 30 min. Later
clicked through the second hour to check if i could find something:
All in all that looked like a nice stream. The first hour went for your little planned thingy and
the second one was viewer driven if i saw that correctly? It is always nice to show beginners
how you plan to solve a new problem. Because tutorials are always planned. Seeing how you
go about creating a specific gun type without planning it seemed like a good thing to do!
Since you have a smaller screen, you could easily place the chat next to it.
When using something like “OpenBroadcaster”, you can create multiple “layers” which capture
different areas of your screen and move them around for the final stream.
So you could move the desktop/UE4 a bit to the left and place the chat right to it.
Also, try to not get distracted by the chat while explaining something. You can use the chat
if a question is coming midair, but i would only answer questions every 15-30 min. That’s also
why it would be nice to see the chat. Rewatching your stream is better with the chat visible.
To get a bit more screen size for the blueprint, you could move the variable options tab to the left
side and completely shrink down the right tab.
You are already explaining a lot on beginner level. That is nice. You could also mention what other
things are possible with specific classes and functions, so that the beginner isn’t stuck on that
specific example you are showing. For example you could use the PlayerState for the Score variable.
So many beginners are stuck on this CharacterBP instead of using all the other cool classes.
You don’t need to use the class, since it would take more time to setup, but mentioning it would
be enough.
Try streching the nodes even more. Even if you need to scroll the graph a bit around to get to your nodes.
A packed graph with overlapping nodes and lines is very confusing.
So that’s just what i saw in the few minutes i watched. I don’t have the time right now to watch the full 2 hours,
but maybe i will watch your next stream (: I hope that my suggestions are ok for you and that they actually help you.
I’m always happy to receive constructive criticism! I’ll see what I can do about setting up the scenes properly, might not be done this week but I’ll be pushing for the next week or two! The chat thing is definitely one of my downfalls. I can be a bit ADD when working and try not to look TOO much at it but I don’t want to have people feel like I’m ignoring them or they don’t matter :). I’ll probably move it to slow mode so that the messages aren’t popping up quite as rapidly and I can get to people within a reasonable timeframe. Also you bring up a great point about moving to some more advanced topics without throwing too much at people at first. I’ll look into how I can incorporate that into the next stream! If you have any other suggestions feel free to drop them in here, I’ll take a look periodically!
I’m going to be doing Wednesdays and Fridays, 8pm-10pm. I’ve posted the schedule on the twitch stream so everyone knows when to expect me to be there, barring anything from happening that would force me to reschedule on a day I’m supposed to be streaming.
