How I learned Unreal Engine

You can find a lot of questions “how I can learn c++?“, “how I can learn game development?“, “how to create my first game?” and others similar in the depths of the Internet. I remember times when I was asking the same question.

I was a producer dreaming that some day I will be able to do what my team is capable of and of course I always wanted to create games not just managing production – which is basically boring.

So I started to invest lot of time to learn stuff:

When going to bed instead of watching new series I was watching UDK youtube tutorials – even the same couple of times to understand thing better. Basically understand things was most important for me but I think that I was understanding 5% of the stuff tops.

Try understand – watch and read things couple of times in a row (even if you already know how to do stuff! Watch it again to preserve knowledge! ) but if you can’t understand all of it – move one to another topic after couple of days.

Don’t think that you can learn create games quickly just by watching or reading stuff. You can’t. Time is clue here and you will need a lot of time. Don’t stop when you can’t learn something quickly. It will take time and you will see over time that you learned another piece of stuff.

I was trying to do small games using UDK – shooter based of course as Unreal Engine is feature complete for it. (and still is) Thanks to that I always have topic to learn. For example I needed to shoot a projectile – I was learning about projectile creation in general. Basically one topic was triggering another three. My topic list was always big. Thanks to that I always know what do learn next. When my motivation was falling I was changing project.

If you want to learn Unreal Engine you should have a “project” you are working on. Small one. Shooter based. Thanks to that you will always have big todo list to learn stuff. Don’t be afraid to change or modify your project if you stuck for days.

Basically I was doing A->B->A->B with loop for couple of years. I don’t think you can learn creating games in months. You need to invest more time.

Even now I’m watching every video that came from Epic Live Streams. Unreal Engine is growing up, game development is growing up – you need to be on time and learn stuff every day even if you think that you know your stuff already.

Don’t stop learning. Especially if you are senior.

Answer for these questions is simple but very hard to implement in your life – you need to invest your time to learn new stuff from online interactive platforms. But before doing so, you must first read the reviews, like the Codecademy review, for instance. Investment is needed and will take time. In the end you, will be happy that you are sitting (or standing 😉 ) and just making something by hand.

In the book I will be linking with reads and youtube resources. Hope I will be able to help you find a way.

Note about not posting book chapters: currently I'm learning C++. Creating weather plugin and learning replication to be sure that book will cover everything you need to create shooter game. I know you guys are waiting. First chapter is coming slowly. 

Poll result: final book should be created using

Many thanks for all of your votes!

Final book should be created using:

pollcppvsblueprints

As you can see there is a lot of people willing to focus only on Blueprints. Shooter Tutorial has been for more advanced developers – but still novice.  You can find a lot of Blueprints tutorials and couple made in C++.

I would like to show you that C++ isn’t that bad. It’s just a word!  I strongly believe that everyone can learn UE4 C++. If you were able to learn Blueprints you will learn UE4 C++ API without a problem. It’s almost the same, you don’t need to be C++ guru.

Still I’m focusing on novice developers. I will be doing C++ stuff when needed, will try to show you how to use engine properly.

There will be more advanced tutorials for C++ here at blog. Currently I’m working on extending editor tutorial – so more advanced developers will have something too.

So yea – book will be made using both Blueprints and C++ with more focus on Blueprints. 

Again thanks for your votes! And I have added another poll you might be interested in! (sidebar)

Plug and Play Melee Tutorial

You guys requested melee tutorial and I’m right after game jam where my colleague (cheers Tomek!) did really simple but powerful melee weapon. This tutorial will be about:

  • How to do melee damage,
  • Create basic weapon class to drive melee damage,
  • Weapons can be added to AI characters as well and they will do melee damage to others as well (Player and other AI)
  • There will be two versions: one without any additional preparation and second one in which you need to add sockets to weapon mesh.

So, lets go!

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My GameJam Game on Greenlight!

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Intensive Exposure started as a game jam game created originally in 42 hours. The theme was “No one knows who I am”. It won both first prize and people’s choice award. With such a great feedback and given our love for the original concept we embarked on an adventure to create bigger and more refined version of the game.

It is my first game created without being so serious about it. Lot’s of fun!

You can support the game on Greenlight!  And yeah I will be posting some tutorials from this one as we did a lot of stuff quickly.
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Here you can read story of this project.

ShooterTutorial get soundrack from Karol Kosacki

Another great news guys! ShooterTutorial will have soundtrack created by Karol Kosacki! Karol is experienced programmer… doing… yes –  music!

While listening you can check interview which I did with Karol, asking him about tutorials, how to create music for indie games and other stuff.

I have asked him to put the music on Unreal Marketplace. It is available on iTunes as well! Big thanks Karol for contribution!

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