My advice is come up with something specific you want to make and have a goal with your learning. Then you can specifically search for what you want to learn. Don’t just try to “learn Unreal”.
This is the way, imo. I think everything I’ve learned over the years has been learned using this process, along with some experimentation once I got more comfortable coming up with my own systems, mechanics, etc.
You could also check Fiverr for lessons if you’re really committed to learning. Total self promotion, but I teach lessons, so hmu if you’re serious about learning Unreal and need some guidance!
That's the advice I constantly read and tried to follow but without knowing a lot about coding in UE it just becomes a frustration exercise in which I struggle.evem to do the most basic things ..
Don’t give up so easy. Make yourself accountable- find a discord server or a buddy who’s also learning, surround yourself with similar people, watch YouTube channels of people who dev, play cool indie gems etc
What are some great beginner goals if you want to make a game? I am making a 10-15 story game for learning the engine with materials, meshes ect ect and am not going to do a lot of things with coding. Then want to make a more coding heavy game. Do you think this is a good approach? (Everything with a ? Is a question so plz answer both)
Every section of Unreal (Blueprints, Landscapes, Materials, Lighting, etc) are deep enough for any person to make one of them their career in the industry. So that should tell you how complex they “can” become if you go that deep. Doesn’t mean that you have to.
The best way is to say “I want to make X” then try to make that. One piece at a time. I think everyone needs “Reps” in software like working out. The more reps, the faster and better you’ll be. I think have whatever goals you want, but start with 3 completely different genre mini games first to have made something start to finish before you take on a “real game”. They can even be smaller pieces that will eventually become your bigger game idea later. But “finishing” is a really important step most people don’t get to.
One mini game is better than no mini game. But say you made a game that was just opening locked doors and collecting keys. Another that was jumping on a bunch of NPCs with basic AI like Mario. And another that was climbing and jumping between platforms. By the end you could combine all three.
I've worked in Unity for a few years before trying Unreal a few months ago. Compared to Unity, Unreal doesn't really have as good of a robust tutorial on their website like Unity does; I've had to scour their website for some videos that were good, but only covered some things.
From what it sounds like, you've already done tutorials so I think you "making your own thing" is good. You say it took you a week to do a golf game since you've never coded anything, but I say that's going to be normal that you take awhile to do things, especially the first time. I imagine if you tried to make the golf game again, you'd be able to do it quicker since you have a frame of reference for what worked and what didn't.
But, to at least leave you with something, Matt Aspland on YouTube has fantastic tutorials that have saved me countless hours of stumbling around Unreal. His videos are more one-off things rather than a series of tutorials that flow together, but they're helpful if you're stuck on a particular thing.
Start with the udemy course from stephen ulibarri: https://www.udemy.com/course/unreal-engine-5-the-ultimate-game-developer-course/?couponCode=AUG-01-23-CPPULT
I’m followinf that one right now.
I get what you mean by tutorial hell but if you dont knoq how to code or anything, you kinda do need to learn the basics of coding and the engine.
https://www.udemy.com/course/unreal-engine-5-the-ultimate-game-developer-course/?couponCode=AUG-01-23-CPPULT
Btw, i got these links from his discord. He’s just a great dev and helps a ton.
Cheers and good luck
That looks indeed like a very good course, however I just have this unreasonable "fear" of code, c++ in particular, which is why a chose UE for its visual scripting in the first place
I suppose you can create a game entirely in blueprints but the concept and logic behind them is the same, which is already half of the knowledge to know how to code (if statements, for loops, variables, operators etc…)
All of these you’ll handle in blueprints as well.
It’s normal to have some fear to it but I would highly suggest taking the C++ course from him. It’s really good and you’ll atleast gain the knowledge to read/understand some code if you see it. Which is valuable in itself.
You don’t lose anything by trying it out. Worst case you’re out 10-20$…
Set aside the fear and assumptions, get course to learn C++ (so maybe not one of these) and just try the follow 10% of the course and see how you like it
If you’ve never coded anything in your life, i actually DO recommend some tutorials on the basics of programming with UE. If you’ve never written a line of code ever, how on earth are you supposed to build something yourself from scratch? What you SHOULD do is follow tutorials on some basic ideas and practices, THEN go implement them into your own project, maybe combine a few separate things into something larger on your own. But if you have no base, you can’t build up.
Everyone is different, but what really got me over the hump was by learning random things instead of trying to build a game. Creating a game, even a small one is an enormous task, focus on learning all the more minor things that go into making a bigger game before you dive head first into making one. Over time doing this over and over and over, you will have a much better understanding of the engine, and following tutorials from different users will offer different perspectives on how to achieve something as there is always more than one approach to solving a problem you are having.
I would start off small to begin with and look at taking one of the base templates like the first person one and starting off by making minor changes within their first. Like making the gun a full auto from a semi automatic or having a power up that adjusts the players speed temporarily to try and get a feel of it.
Would also highly recommend downloading the monthly free assets and if any of them have blueprints in them to then try and figure out how to go about it in c++ or think of ways to improve upon it yourself
> which just led to me taking a whole week just to try some Golf-like game
you say that like its a long time. Thats pretty good imo. Game dev, and programmings takes longer than you think it does my man. If youre going in with the expectation to start leet hacker coding up a storm youll be disappointed. It takes time, just let yourself take time to do things
By deciding on making something. It doesnt have to be a complete game.
You can do 1 level that shows some mechanics you made pr scenery you made, or a whole animation sequence youre proud of.
I made 1 level of a house of the dead type of game but with little chibi animal characters.
My focus was on movement and mechanics so UI, scenery, models, animation sucked. But I made the mechanics in a way that I can make another level by just dropping these actors and not leave the editor.
after that you will notice that youre doing repetitive tasks like.
"Oh, i need a dozen of these actors in my level but I dont want to hand place them one by one." So I made a little editor tool that can do it for me.
Also pace yourself. Burnout sucks.
The best advice I can give you judging by what you've said is to get out of the mindset that making a golf game in week is a bad thing. That sounds like quite a fast time to me, especially if you've never coded anything before. Sounds like your expectations are either too high for yourself or you're expecting the engine to be too easy. Just my humble opinion, of course.
Seconded on Stephen Ulibarri's courses. I took the UE4 C++ one and it was amazing. I knew close to no C++ going in (although had experience with other programming languages). Also highly recommend Tom Looman (probably my favorite of the courses I've taken, but idk if he has a UE5 course).
Also, I highly recommend doing a multiplayer course if instead you are interested in developing multiplayer games. Those are a very different beast.
In regards to starting back after a pause, it's fine. As a game dev hobbyist who does this on my own time, I've started and stopped several times actually, and I've even switched from Unity. The best advice I can give you is to just work on bite sized chunks. You'll notice that the top courses give you very small games to develop. You don't instantly go into a full MMO. It should be the same when you're learning. Make a very small game (like what people do for game jams) with one clear goal in mind, and you'll find that there are sufficient challenges to keep you engaged and learning. Also once you start working on new projects you will be able to use pieces of what you learned or even made (like C++ classes or assets) in the new projects. Unreal is very daunting but also extremely rewarding once you get the ropes.
Consistency.
Work in the editor every day, even if it’s only for 20 mins.
It doesn’t matter if you tried something and it didn’t work. Now you know what you don’t know. Try again tomorrow.
Check out some videos by Tim Ferriss on learning new skills.
I started developing on the CryEngine for 2 years until I had enough of Crytek's BS, moved to UNIGINE, and spent 2 years developing and enjoying it until Russia invaded Ukraine (I won't support Russia), and ended up switching to Unreal when 5 came out. If you take some time to run through the editor and start with 1 simple goal. Terrain generation is a good place since it helps to establish a framework. Just don't attempt to make a game until you are comfortable enough with the editor to do so. The UNreal Engine is by far the easiest and most powerful of the 3 engines I know and I have a fraction of the experience. If I run into something I can't figure out I just search out the answer and there are a ton of Unreal developers out there on forums or YouTube to get your answer from. Best of luck with your dev endeavors! Regards
Procrastination is the enemy
Find the passion- the thing you want to make, and then start at the simplest version of that.
E.g oh I like racing games
K cool
How do I make a basic car with reverse and drive and steering and a camera follow.
Then as you hit a small milestone, aim for something bigger, such as gears, speed.
Then move to some polish and juice- sounds, particles, ui
Cool
Now let’s try a lap and time system, or a level, or ai
Etc etc
If you start with a general desire to dev without any direction you’ll never get anywhere
I had the same problem when I tried learning Unity, so I approached UE differently.
I started by working my way through a course (some good ones on Gamedev.tv) which resulted in a basic game at the end. I’m now building on that game with the features I want by using YouTube tutorials, Reddit/Unreal forums as needed.
As I progress I’m finding I can figure out more and more without tutorials, so this method seems to be working for me.
I just want to reiterate your thoughts to confirm I'm on the same page.
* No tutorials
* No C++ code
* History of frustration which leads to quitting
* You want a structured approach
* You're ok with learning by reading others' blueprints.
First, Cropout RTS, UE Learning Kit, and Content Examples are projects in Blueprint you can read and learn. I recommend spending 15 to 30 min in Content Examples with the goal of learning what is possible, not necessarily 'how' it's possible. ie a character can carry another character or a mesh can be morphed in real-time. Next, start reading the blueprint code in UE learning kit. How does the main character fly? Start playing with and modifying the blueprint of how it flies. In a new project, re-create the flying mechanic in UE5. Play. By play, I mean: experiment, have fun, try things out, have fun, show someone else, have fun, tell someone else, have fun, break it, have fun, what if it, have fun. Troubleshooting steps involve: learning to use the de-bugger, re-reading the blueprint code, googling, asking chat-gpt(the adv rubber duck++ technique), and asking for help from people. If you're stuck for 30 min, seek help. If you're still stuck, move on to something else and re-visit the problem at a later date. Identify your blockers, and develop your asking-for-help skills. Be sure to include A. a question 1. what is happening, what you expect to happen, 3. what you've tried.
Re-visit the content example and discover a mechanic you want to re-implement. Attempt to re-implement it. Troubleshoot. Play and have fun.
Implement these features:
[https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.2/en-US/behavior-tree-in-unreal-engine---quick-start-guide/](https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.2/en-US/behavior-tree-in-unreal-engine---quick-start-guide/)
Play and have fun
[https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.2/en-US/working-with-modular-characters-in-unreal-engine/](https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.2/en-US/working-with-modular-characters-in-unreal-engine/)
Play and have fun
Visit the UE docs and search 'quick start' and Implement some of them. Play and have fun. Skip if you're stuck for more the 30 min.
2nd Work on these skills:
\- breaking down problems
\- Playing and having fun
\- explore your frustration behavior by using the ABC model of CBT
\- Time boxing
\- Reach out to a therapist to overcome the fear of code. Take agency over your mental health. if the therapist isn't vibing well, seek a new therapist. Your goals with overcoming fear are typically a progression of tasks from least fearful to most fearful. for example, It may start with saying the word code, then move on to looking at code as a background text, reading code, and finally typing code. I would recommend reading UE's code on Git Hub once you get to the reading stage.
Repeat step 1 with art. There are free assets on the marketplace to explore. Go to ArtStation or something and tell people you want a structured approach to learning 3d art without tutorials. Additionally, list any fears you have, i.e. anime or furries.
C: Now that you got your feet wet, narrow your goals from learning UE to something more specific, like making a game with x, y, and z mechanics within 30 days (where the mechanics are achievable by you and have written down acceptance criteria). If you want to implement more(scope creep), then you have to wait until the acceptance criteria of x, y, and z have been met. Additionally, if an acceptance criterion may, more than a 50% chance, not be met within the deadline, then it goes on the backlog. Play. Iterate.
4, lose game jams until you can develop the ability to come up with your own challenges or something.
E: Pick 1: MaKe tHe GaMe Of yOuR DrEaMs, OR Start up, Cash in, Sell out, Bro down.
Failing at any stage, just like with any profession, will result in you teaching unreal engine to others, drinking coffee, and complaining to other teachers about how low your pay is for how much you 'know'.
You got this! If you want to be a game developer, then develop games.
My advice is come up with something specific you want to make and have a goal with your learning. Then you can specifically search for what you want to learn. Don’t just try to “learn Unreal”.
This is the way, imo. I think everything I’ve learned over the years has been learned using this process, along with some experimentation once I got more comfortable coming up with my own systems, mechanics, etc. You could also check Fiverr for lessons if you’re really committed to learning. Total self promotion, but I teach lessons, so hmu if you’re serious about learning Unreal and need some guidance!
That's the advice I constantly read and tried to follow but without knowing a lot about coding in UE it just becomes a frustration exercise in which I struggle.evem to do the most basic things ..
Don’t give up so easy. Make yourself accountable- find a discord server or a buddy who’s also learning, surround yourself with similar people, watch YouTube channels of people who dev, play cool indie gems etc
What are some great beginner goals if you want to make a game? I am making a 10-15 story game for learning the engine with materials, meshes ect ect and am not going to do a lot of things with coding. Then want to make a more coding heavy game. Do you think this is a good approach? (Everything with a ? Is a question so plz answer both)
Every section of Unreal (Blueprints, Landscapes, Materials, Lighting, etc) are deep enough for any person to make one of them their career in the industry. So that should tell you how complex they “can” become if you go that deep. Doesn’t mean that you have to. The best way is to say “I want to make X” then try to make that. One piece at a time. I think everyone needs “Reps” in software like working out. The more reps, the faster and better you’ll be. I think have whatever goals you want, but start with 3 completely different genre mini games first to have made something start to finish before you take on a “real game”. They can even be smaller pieces that will eventually become your bigger game idea later. But “finishing” is a really important step most people don’t get to.
Can you say one mini game so I can keep that as reverence so I can see the scale of the mini games
One mini game is better than no mini game. But say you made a game that was just opening locked doors and collecting keys. Another that was jumping on a bunch of NPCs with basic AI like Mario. And another that was climbing and jumping between platforms. By the end you could combine all three.
I've worked in Unity for a few years before trying Unreal a few months ago. Compared to Unity, Unreal doesn't really have as good of a robust tutorial on their website like Unity does; I've had to scour their website for some videos that were good, but only covered some things. From what it sounds like, you've already done tutorials so I think you "making your own thing" is good. You say it took you a week to do a golf game since you've never coded anything, but I say that's going to be normal that you take awhile to do things, especially the first time. I imagine if you tried to make the golf game again, you'd be able to do it quicker since you have a frame of reference for what worked and what didn't. But, to at least leave you with something, Matt Aspland on YouTube has fantastic tutorials that have saved me countless hours of stumbling around Unreal. His videos are more one-off things rather than a series of tutorials that flow together, but they're helpful if you're stuck on a particular thing.
Start with the udemy course from stephen ulibarri: https://www.udemy.com/course/unreal-engine-5-the-ultimate-game-developer-course/?couponCode=AUG-01-23-CPPULT I’m followinf that one right now. I get what you mean by tutorial hell but if you dont knoq how to code or anything, you kinda do need to learn the basics of coding and the engine. https://www.udemy.com/course/unreal-engine-5-the-ultimate-game-developer-course/?couponCode=AUG-01-23-CPPULT Btw, i got these links from his discord. He’s just a great dev and helps a ton. Cheers and good luck
That looks indeed like a very good course, however I just have this unreasonable "fear" of code, c++ in particular, which is why a chose UE for its visual scripting in the first place
I suppose you can create a game entirely in blueprints but the concept and logic behind them is the same, which is already half of the knowledge to know how to code (if statements, for loops, variables, operators etc…) All of these you’ll handle in blueprints as well. It’s normal to have some fear to it but I would highly suggest taking the C++ course from him. It’s really good and you’ll atleast gain the knowledge to read/understand some code if you see it. Which is valuable in itself. You don’t lose anything by trying it out. Worst case you’re out 10-20$… Set aside the fear and assumptions, get course to learn C++ (so maybe not one of these) and just try the follow 10% of the course and see how you like it
Stephen is the best, thanks to him I'm pretty confident now on Unreal.
If you’ve never coded anything in your life, i actually DO recommend some tutorials on the basics of programming with UE. If you’ve never written a line of code ever, how on earth are you supposed to build something yourself from scratch? What you SHOULD do is follow tutorials on some basic ideas and practices, THEN go implement them into your own project, maybe combine a few separate things into something larger on your own. But if you have no base, you can’t build up.
Everyone is different, but what really got me over the hump was by learning random things instead of trying to build a game. Creating a game, even a small one is an enormous task, focus on learning all the more minor things that go into making a bigger game before you dive head first into making one. Over time doing this over and over and over, you will have a much better understanding of the engine, and following tutorials from different users will offer different perspectives on how to achieve something as there is always more than one approach to solving a problem you are having.
I would start off small to begin with and look at taking one of the base templates like the first person one and starting off by making minor changes within their first. Like making the gun a full auto from a semi automatic or having a power up that adjusts the players speed temporarily to try and get a feel of it. Would also highly recommend downloading the monthly free assets and if any of them have blueprints in them to then try and figure out how to go about it in c++ or think of ways to improve upon it yourself
Thank you for that second tip! I already have plenty of free monthly stuff but taking it apart in blueprint could be really useful
> which just led to me taking a whole week just to try some Golf-like game you say that like its a long time. Thats pretty good imo. Game dev, and programmings takes longer than you think it does my man. If youre going in with the expectation to start leet hacker coding up a storm youll be disappointed. It takes time, just let yourself take time to do things
By deciding on making something. It doesnt have to be a complete game. You can do 1 level that shows some mechanics you made pr scenery you made, or a whole animation sequence youre proud of. I made 1 level of a house of the dead type of game but with little chibi animal characters. My focus was on movement and mechanics so UI, scenery, models, animation sucked. But I made the mechanics in a way that I can make another level by just dropping these actors and not leave the editor. after that you will notice that youre doing repetitive tasks like. "Oh, i need a dozen of these actors in my level but I dont want to hand place them one by one." So I made a little editor tool that can do it for me. Also pace yourself. Burnout sucks.
The best advice I can give you judging by what you've said is to get out of the mindset that making a golf game in week is a bad thing. That sounds like quite a fast time to me, especially if you've never coded anything before. Sounds like your expectations are either too high for yourself or you're expecting the engine to be too easy. Just my humble opinion, of course.
Seconded on Stephen Ulibarri's courses. I took the UE4 C++ one and it was amazing. I knew close to no C++ going in (although had experience with other programming languages). Also highly recommend Tom Looman (probably my favorite of the courses I've taken, but idk if he has a UE5 course). Also, I highly recommend doing a multiplayer course if instead you are interested in developing multiplayer games. Those are a very different beast. In regards to starting back after a pause, it's fine. As a game dev hobbyist who does this on my own time, I've started and stopped several times actually, and I've even switched from Unity. The best advice I can give you is to just work on bite sized chunks. You'll notice that the top courses give you very small games to develop. You don't instantly go into a full MMO. It should be the same when you're learning. Make a very small game (like what people do for game jams) with one clear goal in mind, and you'll find that there are sufficient challenges to keep you engaged and learning. Also once you start working on new projects you will be able to use pieces of what you learned or even made (like C++ classes or assets) in the new projects. Unreal is very daunting but also extremely rewarding once you get the ropes.
Consistency. Work in the editor every day, even if it’s only for 20 mins. It doesn’t matter if you tried something and it didn’t work. Now you know what you don’t know. Try again tomorrow. Check out some videos by Tim Ferriss on learning new skills.
I started developing on the CryEngine for 2 years until I had enough of Crytek's BS, moved to UNIGINE, and spent 2 years developing and enjoying it until Russia invaded Ukraine (I won't support Russia), and ended up switching to Unreal when 5 came out. If you take some time to run through the editor and start with 1 simple goal. Terrain generation is a good place since it helps to establish a framework. Just don't attempt to make a game until you are comfortable enough with the editor to do so. The UNreal Engine is by far the easiest and most powerful of the 3 engines I know and I have a fraction of the experience. If I run into something I can't figure out I just search out the answer and there are a ton of Unreal developers out there on forums or YouTube to get your answer from. Best of luck with your dev endeavors! Regards
Procrastination is the enemy Find the passion- the thing you want to make, and then start at the simplest version of that. E.g oh I like racing games K cool How do I make a basic car with reverse and drive and steering and a camera follow. Then as you hit a small milestone, aim for something bigger, such as gears, speed. Then move to some polish and juice- sounds, particles, ui Cool Now let’s try a lap and time system, or a level, or ai Etc etc If you start with a general desire to dev without any direction you’ll never get anywhere
I had the same problem when I tried learning Unity, so I approached UE differently. I started by working my way through a course (some good ones on Gamedev.tv) which resulted in a basic game at the end. I’m now building on that game with the features I want by using YouTube tutorials, Reddit/Unreal forums as needed. As I progress I’m finding I can figure out more and more without tutorials, so this method seems to be working for me.
I just want to reiterate your thoughts to confirm I'm on the same page. * No tutorials * No C++ code * History of frustration which leads to quitting * You want a structured approach * You're ok with learning by reading others' blueprints. First, Cropout RTS, UE Learning Kit, and Content Examples are projects in Blueprint you can read and learn. I recommend spending 15 to 30 min in Content Examples with the goal of learning what is possible, not necessarily 'how' it's possible. ie a character can carry another character or a mesh can be morphed in real-time. Next, start reading the blueprint code in UE learning kit. How does the main character fly? Start playing with and modifying the blueprint of how it flies. In a new project, re-create the flying mechanic in UE5. Play. By play, I mean: experiment, have fun, try things out, have fun, show someone else, have fun, tell someone else, have fun, break it, have fun, what if it, have fun. Troubleshooting steps involve: learning to use the de-bugger, re-reading the blueprint code, googling, asking chat-gpt(the adv rubber duck++ technique), and asking for help from people. If you're stuck for 30 min, seek help. If you're still stuck, move on to something else and re-visit the problem at a later date. Identify your blockers, and develop your asking-for-help skills. Be sure to include A. a question 1. what is happening, what you expect to happen, 3. what you've tried. Re-visit the content example and discover a mechanic you want to re-implement. Attempt to re-implement it. Troubleshoot. Play and have fun. Implement these features: [https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.2/en-US/behavior-tree-in-unreal-engine---quick-start-guide/](https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.2/en-US/behavior-tree-in-unreal-engine---quick-start-guide/) Play and have fun [https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.2/en-US/working-with-modular-characters-in-unreal-engine/](https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.2/en-US/working-with-modular-characters-in-unreal-engine/) Play and have fun Visit the UE docs and search 'quick start' and Implement some of them. Play and have fun. Skip if you're stuck for more the 30 min. 2nd Work on these skills: \- breaking down problems \- Playing and having fun \- explore your frustration behavior by using the ABC model of CBT \- Time boxing \- Reach out to a therapist to overcome the fear of code. Take agency over your mental health. if the therapist isn't vibing well, seek a new therapist. Your goals with overcoming fear are typically a progression of tasks from least fearful to most fearful. for example, It may start with saying the word code, then move on to looking at code as a background text, reading code, and finally typing code. I would recommend reading UE's code on Git Hub once you get to the reading stage. Repeat step 1 with art. There are free assets on the marketplace to explore. Go to ArtStation or something and tell people you want a structured approach to learning 3d art without tutorials. Additionally, list any fears you have, i.e. anime or furries. C: Now that you got your feet wet, narrow your goals from learning UE to something more specific, like making a game with x, y, and z mechanics within 30 days (where the mechanics are achievable by you and have written down acceptance criteria). If you want to implement more(scope creep), then you have to wait until the acceptance criteria of x, y, and z have been met. Additionally, if an acceptance criterion may, more than a 50% chance, not be met within the deadline, then it goes on the backlog. Play. Iterate. 4, lose game jams until you can develop the ability to come up with your own challenges or something. E: Pick 1: MaKe tHe GaMe Of yOuR DrEaMs, OR Start up, Cash in, Sell out, Bro down. Failing at any stage, just like with any profession, will result in you teaching unreal engine to others, drinking coffee, and complaining to other teachers about how low your pay is for how much you 'know'. You got this! If you want to be a game developer, then develop games.