Hi,
new guy here. No training, no back ground, no education in the subject mattter. Hoping to learn! So I like airplane games, specifically ww2 planes. Played Fighter Ace and Aces High for years.
Been viewing videos, reading, trying to focus down on which aspects of the engine to learn.
WW2 planes is the subject matter, and dog fighting/racing the goal. Would like real physics, small amount of engine management and drag management. Will try a racing level/map first. hold off on the combat attributes get the flight right.
I have no illusions about the complexity here but I have been waiting for software to catch up, get ahead and lets see what I, an illiterate on the subject, can do with unreal.
I will be modeling planes in blender, I started this once before, animating and rigging. UE will do textures, landscapes, world.
Im still trying to reduce the scope of what I stare at,theres a lifetimes knowledge here.
so racing ww2 planes with a real world map. Any mentoring appreciated.
there is a LOT here, and to keep this away from “make my game for me” are there any specifics that you were finding trouble with?
are you planning on working with purely Blueprints or C++ and Blueprints?
At its core game dev is a specialization of programing (even if you are going to be scripting through blueprints entirely that is still programming). many programming principles are expected to be understood (data types, inheritance, scope, its all just ones and zeroes that we put is special orders, in most cases you need to set the value to something for the change to be actually made, you need to have the reference/address of an object to get the data inside it, and there is no such thing as impossible just problem solving)
there are a few different starting points you can take.
- there are Sample Projects on the Epic Games Launcher → Unreal Engine → Samples which you can look at, pull apart, and use as a base for even a commercial project (including using the included assets as long as they are used with an Unreal Engine project)
- You can also try finding a tutorial that is at least close to what you want to accomplish (like “unreal engine airplane flight”), and then follow it “mostly”.
if you are “only following” tutorials even if the presenter goes into every tiny detail of what and why, as long as you are just copying the actions, you will get stuck only following tutorials (you might excel past that, but it will take longer to hit the loop of: try->fail->try->succeed = learning). let them say what they are going to be doing, pause the tutorial, and see if you can figure out what might be needed to get it to work. this way you are kind of treating the tutorial as more of a cheat-sheet/study guide. the blueprint editor has a context search (right-click in empty space, or left-click pull off a pin and let go in empty space) most of the functions/events are named based on what they do.
then try to take that principle and see if you can apply it somewhere else.
if you have a specific question about implementing a feature, or working out something and can’t find good answers on a web search, you can try asking it on the Forum as a Question where someone may be able to lend you some insight, guidance, or provide a snippet to get you moving again.
software is always evolving, the engine is getting additions, and improvements, but when you start working on your project don’t get caught up in the hype of a newer version, if there is a feature that would be very helpful sure, and when/if you do decide to upgrade sometimes things get removed as well, so create a copy of the project and upgrade that one, because sometimes the upgrade/migration process will break parts of your project even to the point of rebuilding bits and pieces.
try sitting down and writing down your high level concepts, don’t think of it as a list that must be followed in a specific order, but a jumble of words and ideas (you are mostly there), a game can really be reduced down to “triggers and responses to triggers” or “spreadsheets with graphics and music”
don’t worry on exact details at this point, you aren’t looking for funding, and you might just end up making it to big without realizing it.
when working on a feature like “flying a plane” try to break it down into smaller pieces and attack those smaller pieces. Art gets people in the door, mechanics gets them to stay, so start with the incredible adventures of a cube/cone then make it pretty (you could work with an A-Pose Manny if you really want).
a plane needs to move in a semi consistent direction (hopefully forward) then we want to be able to turn, but “what does that mean” are we rotating the flaps to simulate air moving that leads to the rotation of the plane, or are we rotating the plane and maybe the elevator has an animation play on it (this second one is a lot easier and it only needs to be “believable enough” the rest is suspension of disbelief)?
don’t worry about learning everything about the engine, you might only use that “really neat feature” for a few minutes, similar to the Pareto Principle (the “80-20 rule”) you will be using 20% of the engines feature 80% of the time, and that is before you build your own systems that you will be dealing with more often then the Engine/Editor pre-defined things at which point it becomes 10% and 90% respectively if not more disparate.