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A bit off topic: does anyone else find Unreal Engine 4 just ridiculously complex? I've spent so many hours getting nowhere using it. It makes the work most of u

A bit off topic: does anyone else find Unreal Engine 4 just ridiculously complex? I've spent so many hours getting nowhere using it. It makes the work most of us do in web dev look stupid easy. Which is a shame because ue4 seems to have a great future if you are into graphics. It's graphics stack is second to none amongst engines with SDK's available.

dave_sullivan 6y ago
Eh, I suppose it's a matter of opinion, but no, I find it pretty consistently organized and the abstractions are pretty good. Games are rediculously complex perhaps, and I think UE4 saves you from a lot of it while also giving low level access if you need it. One could call it bloated, but it's bloated like django is bloated, which is to say it has batteries and a lot of other stuff included.
keyle 6y ago
I was lucky that I got into it when it first went open, 4.03 was unusable I think, 4.05 was getting good. Anything over 4.10 became rock solid and the complexity grew. I agree I imagine it would be very confusing for someone to pick up today. The cinema stuff wasn't in it really at the start, neither was really terrain, or VR. Everything was simpler. In a lot of ways, it's still all there, but there are layers of new stuff on top and some stuff completely new as "the new standard". It's one of those "you had to be there" and it's tough to get into it today. But given enough time, you will find your way and selectively ignore the stuff you won't touch.
Tepix 6y ago
UE seems to have better defaults than Unity resulting in a better look. On the other hand i found Unity much easier to learn.
klmadfejno 6y ago
Two things that were difficult for me to get used to in UE4. 1) Lots of nested menus. A class has multiple tabs, sometime with nested levels of information about them and it was easy to get lost in regard to where you actually were. 2) It felt hard to "find the code" that actually made stuff happen. But neither bothers me now. Just bite the bullet and watch a basic make-a-game tutorial and you'll get the gist.
- Pulcinella 6y ago
  Yeah I feel a bit the same learning Unity. Lots of stuff seems buried in menus, tabs, and panes. Though I also feel the same learning a new code base. Like learning where everything is in someone else’s filing cabinet or kitchen.
  - klmadfejno 6y ago
    FWIW I feel like that's the best part of UE4's blueprint system. It makes the engine API very discoverable. Type signatures in code take a lot more mental energy to parse. Dragging out a blueprint pin provides a nicely organized, context sensitive dropdown of potential methods, which is usually more helpful than a tab completion pop up imo.
SeanBoocock 6y ago
Relative to other game engines, particularly proprietary ones, no. Epic is dominating the engine licensing space in large part because their tooling is better than the alternatives.
dagmx 6y ago
UE4 has great tooling but their UI is really cluttered compared to other engines and their UX is split into many panels. I wouldn't say it's difficult to learn UE4 but I think it is overly complex which can be a high barrier. I've used it and unity for years. Opening unity is generally less mental fatigue, like walking into an ordered office, whereas unreal is like falling into someone's messy room.
mhh__ 6y ago
Its not that complicated it just leaves you on your own to find what you need. The documentation is diabolically awful the moment you step beyond blueprints
TheMagicHorsey 6y ago
Coming from the game industry, I find Unreal Engine easy to understand and React Native app code to be completely inscrutable. So its really just perspective. The only app framework I can grok properly is Flutter.

dave_sullivan 6y ago

Eh, I suppose it's a matter of opinion, but no, I find it pretty consistently organized and the abstractions are pretty good. Games are rediculously complex perhaps, and I think UE4 saves you from a lot of it while also giving low level access if you need it. One could call it bloated, but it's bloated like django is bloated, which is to say it has batteries and a lot of other stuff included.

keyle 6y ago

I was lucky that I got into it when it first went open, 4.03 was unusable I think, 4.05 was getting good. Anything over 4.10 became rock solid and the complexity grew. I agree I imagine it would be very confusing for someone to pick up today. The cinema stuff wasn't in it really at the start, neither was really terrain, or VR. Everything was simpler. In a lot of ways, it's still all there, but there are layers of new stuff on top and some stuff completely new as "the new standard". It's one of those "you had to be there" and it's tough to get into it today. But given enough time, you will find your way and selectively ignore the stuff you won't touch.

Tepix 6y ago

UE seems to have better defaults than Unity resulting in a better look. On the other hand i found Unity much easier to learn.

klmadfejno 6y ago

Two things that were difficult for me to get used to in UE4. 1) Lots of nested menus. A class has multiple tabs, sometime with nested levels of information about them and it was easy to get lost in regard to where you actually were. 2) It felt hard to "find the code" that actually made stuff happen. But neither bothers me now. Just bite the bullet and watch a basic make-a-game tutorial and you'll get the gist.

Pulcinella 6y ago
Yeah I feel a bit the same learning Unity. Lots of stuff seems buried in menus, tabs, and panes. Though I also feel the same learning a new code base. Like learning where everything is in someone else’s filing cabinet or kitchen.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  FWIW I feel like that's the best part of UE4's blueprint system. It makes the engine API very discoverable. Type signatures in code take a lot more mental energy to parse. Dragging out a blueprint pin provides a nicely organized, context sensitive dropdown of potential methods, which is usually more helpful than a tab completion pop up imo.

SeanBoocock 6y ago

Relative to other game engines, particularly proprietary ones, no. Epic is dominating the engine licensing space in large part because their tooling is better than the alternatives.

dagmx 6y ago

UE4 has great tooling but their UI is really cluttered compared to other engines and their UX is split into many panels. I wouldn't say it's difficult to learn UE4 but I think it is overly complex which can be a high barrier. I've used it and unity for years. Opening unity is generally less mental fatigue, like walking into an ordered office, whereas unreal is like falling into someone's messy room.

mhh__ 6y ago

Its not that complicated it just leaves you on your own to find what you need. The documentation is diabolically awful the moment you step beyond blueprints

TheMagicHorsey 6y ago

Coming from the game industry, I find Unreal Engine easy to understand and React Native app code to be completely inscrutable. So its really just perspective. The only app framework I can grok properly is Flutter.