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The new learning portal preview is now live!

Unreal Engine Announcements and Releases
#1

Hi everyone!

I’m pleased to share that the next evolution of the Unreal Engine learning portal is almost here! Today we opened access to a preview of the next iteration of our learning portal and you can try a** preview of the new learning experience **now. We are excited to share some of the great new features and content for this much-anticipated update.

In addition to new content, we’ve added key features you’ve asked for, including:

  • Improved search: Browse courses by topic, author, or industry to more easily find the material you’re looking for.
  • Progress tracking: See how far you’ve progressed in any course, and easily pick up where you left off. Bookmark your place within a module, and add a course to your favorites, so you can easily revisit it later.
  • Quizzes: Check your understanding with built-in course assessments and make sure you are ready to apply what you’ve learned.
  • Badges: Earn skill badges as you complete courses. Keep track of them on your profile.

We hope you’ll enjoy these new changes that are just the start of what’s to come. Please let us know what you think by dropping us a comment here or leaving course feedback in the “Touring the new Unreal Engine learning portal” at https://learn.unrealengine.com/.

As a note, you will need to be logged into your Epic Games account in order to access the preview.

By the way, lots of completely new courses are also in the works and will be released soon!

Best,

Chris Murray

2 Likes
#2

The portal looks amazing, I am hoping that this will be more updated and relevant than the old Youtube videos. That being said, and I don’t want to sound like a negative nancy here, is this supposed to be a replacement for the old wiki, which has been disabled for over a year now? I see that there’s a Contributors section in the new portal, is it intended to be community driven to a point? If yes, will it always be video only or will text-only (i.e. wiki) entries be possible eventually? If no, is there any alternative to the wiki anywhere in sight?

#3

Hey there, DamirH.

Thanks for the feedback. I will follow up with the team on your questions about contributors to get a better understanding of the long term plans for that, and what we’re able to share.

As far as the wiki, we’re getting closer to a resolution on that front and should hopefully have news in the near future.

UE4 Wiki editing disabled beginning May 3rd
#4

Hi Chris, Since you’re open to feedback… Here’s 3 points to consider:

#1. Learning Samples / Examples:
UE4 devs have been asking for more of these since 2014. Here’s one example that went unanswered. I started making the same request here. Is it possible to change hearts and minds and get Epic to place a higher priority or importance on this form of learning? There’s such value to seeing sample / learning projects in action. Deconstructing working projects is absolutely priceless, because the amount of knowledge you take away is far higher than any video tutorial can ever offer!

#2.** Missing Content**:
I wish Epic would start by covering the most difficult topics and then work backwards (if time allows). For example take the 4 horsemen of the video game apocalypse: C++, AI, Multiplayer, Characters+Animation. They all seem to be absent here… Type C++ and the search returns a Blueprints course. Type AI you get lots of irrelevant hits. Type Characters / Animation, nothing… Multiplayer, same again, nothing… Any plans to add these 4 areas to the academy course list?

#3. General Feedback:
Since Unreal Academy was initially launched last year, its not clear who this is really aimed at, or at what level more importantly… It definitely seems more geared towards enterprise / corporate, correct?.. In a way, this initiative is a victim of Epic’s past success, because its effectively competing with all the other learning resources out there especially on YouTube (many of which Epic sponsored indirectly through Dev Grants etc)… So it would help to understand how this course library differs or compliments those other resources, and what the future of the program is etc…

#5

In the vein of #3 I’d like to add a practical example:

We have several employees who are good artists, modelers, animators etc. but lack in UE4 knowledge. We have to deffer stuff like importing animations etc. to programmers. It would be very valuable for us to be able to create “classrooms” where we can add our employees and assign them a curriculum that we could then track their progress on. For example we want John Doe to take over said animation importing - assign the UE4 Basics, UE4 Asset Management etc. courses to him and his manager can then track how far along he is on that course.

#6

Hi DamirH,

Thanks for the feedback and compliment. We want our videos to be relevant. We will have feedback mechanisms for the viewers to tell us. Also we have up front subject matter expert review from Epic to make sure the content is relevant before its even made. That said, everyone learns differently, so we want the content to be correct and well presented and produced. You may see occasional over lap and repetition, but this is by design. Once older material loses its relevance, we will keep it up (because many teams still on older versions) but we will try to categorize it as such.

As for contributors, those are the Authors that create the material. We want to work with best instructors who also have vast engine experience. Not just anyone can contribute because we have a well defined quality standard. That said, anyone can submit a proposal to create content for us. There is an author selection and vetting process.

Best,

Chris

#7

Hi Clavos, Thanks for your comments and feed back.

Here are some of my thoughts.

@#1: Project based courses are a priority. Those are coming and we are actively planning them. They won’t completely replace our workflow based courses, but compliment them. These do take some real planning as we also have to chunk the parts of the projects to make sure they effective learning modules.

@#2: YES. Planned. C++ will likely occur first. The whole Game Dev Track in planned. Initially the learning material was focused at “enterprise”. But Game Dev and more Fiom/VFX is coming.

@#3: Yes it still is mainly focused at enterprise. Hopefully the new course discovery features will make courses relevant to you easier to find. However, we have ambitious plans for adding new material. They main thing about our material vs. others is that our material is made to our specifications and is vetted by Epic. There is a lot of great material out there, and we want to compliment it from our point of view. Everybody learns differently so we encourage people to find the best way to learn that’s right for them. We also hope that when we can do better people will tell us so we can adapt.

We are still early days for the new learning platform to as the year progresses, please let us know how we are doing.

Chris

#8

DamirH,

This is a great idea and something we are considering. Stay tuned for more in the 2nd half of the year on this.

Chris

#9

I really like the new layout. Thanks for this.

#10

When you say “there is an author selection and vetting process” do you mean like, right now?

#11

Would be great if you can click on next lesson while you are in full screen, is a bit pain watch a video in full screen and when it finishes Exit full screen mode -> Next Module -> Full Screen -> Play, make a button that appears when the video finishes so you just click on it and start the next lesson in the current format you just saw the video (full screen or normal window) and autoplay, or just a countdown you can stop and if you don’t stop it, the next lesson starts to play in full screen if you were watching the video in full screen, or in normal size if you were watching the video in normal size.

Still no C++ courses. Just a note, make C++ courses without telling what to text, if you say something like “write APlayerController->SetViewTarget(CameraOne);” , we learn to do that and only that, it is better to show how to reach and find we need SetViewTarget, instead say “I know I have to use SetViewTarget”. I say this, because it is something I saw in tons of Unreal C++ courses and at the end, you only learn to do what the tutorial is showing (move a character, shot, grab something, etc…) instead how to program in C++ for UE4. It is like teach someone how to tweak a photo in particular saying “I know I have to set contrast to 20 and hue to 12” instead teach how to find the right contrast and hue values by himself, so he can use that knowledge in other photos.

#12

Yes we have an audition process where we evaluate the authors ability to effectively instruct and communicate complex concepts and procedures within the engine itself. If/when they pass the audition, we work with them on a course proposal that is vetted by Epic subject matter experts. Once that is complete and approved, then they have the green light to create video content to our specification.

#13

Thanks Ikifenix,

Noted. I’ll see what we can do.

C++ courses are coming later this year. They take awhile to produce. :wink:

Chris

#14

Is there a way to apply for this at this time and if so, where and how?

#15

When I try to log in it says my account is locked.

#16

send me an email to onlinelearning (at) epicgames.com I’ll forward you to one of our producers who can share details with you.

#17

Are there plans for more text based courses through the portal? The current stuff at docs.unrealengine.com is great to get a high level overview on concepts in order to know if its the correct thing to dive deeper into.

Having transcripts, or some more keywords per course and module would also really help to identify relevant material especially when the library continues to grow.

Incidentally any news when the wiki will be opening back up :stuck_out_tongue: ?

#18

Hi, maybe a bug. I have started following this course
High End Product Lighting and Rendering (Exterior) And redemed the code shown in the “more information” tab, but no product appeared in my vault, I believe the product is no longer available…

thanks

Fred

#19

Glad you like it!

#20

OK, I’ll look into that ASAP.

Chris