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Can development on this engine be learned from zero, or is that a pipe dream?

Frannyies 3y ago
It has never been easier. The quality of all tutorials, the easy free download, marketplace and the community are great!
fxtentacle 3y ago
If you can read C++, this one is surprisingly easy to get into. You can do most things with the amazing graphical editor and for the very few cases where that isn't powerful enough, you can debug the whole thing in Visual Studio which means you can see parameters and stack traces for everything. And in my personal opinion, classes are predictably named and layered in an useful way. I found learning it and working with it quite enjoyable, especially compared to my experience with Unity where the lack of source code forced some very ugly workarounds on us. And with "only" low millions in annual revenue, Unity wasn't even willing to discuss the price for source code access... but with UE, you get a triple A game as demo project for free.
janosd 3y ago
My wife and I started learning game development a year ago after 15-ish years in the software industry. UE is one of our main drivers. It is probably the hardest to learn when compared to Unity or Godot, but you also have some insane capabilities. Taking Godot detours definitely helped our understanding of how games work, and we should have embraced blueprints a lot more instead of trying to solve everything in C++. TL;DR: yes, it's possible, but it has a learning curve.
- fxtentacle 3y ago
  Fully agree, the UE way is to try blueprints first and then convert them to C++ as needed: https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/courses/KJ/unreal-engine-converting-blueprint-to-c/kjB/unreal-engine-introduction-to-blueprint-vs-c https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/courses/KJ/unre...
  - Agentlien 3y ago
    The way we're working with them at my job is more along the lines of: Underlying logic and systems is written as code by programmers. Tweaking and configuring behaviours is done by designers in Blueprints.
senectus1 3y ago
my now 15yr old son taught himself on unity / godot and is now teaching himself C++ via way of unreal. if a self taught 15yr old can do it knock yourself out.
- emanuele232 3y ago
  don't understimate the ability of a 15yo that wants to learn something with passion. It outperforms seniors
  - holografix 3y ago
    And has all the time in the world and all bills pay for them!
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Doing software on the side was quite common for 15 year olds during the 8 and 16 bit revolution, many well known game developers in UK started exactly at that age.
Agentlien 3y ago
It depends on your background. Learning C++ is a prerequisite to being efficient in Unreal. If you already know C++ it can be done without too much hassle. If you also understand the basic principles of game development picking up UE is a breeze.
singinwhale 3y ago
I use unreal professionally. I would say that unreal is very opinionated in the way things are done. This is a good thing if you can stick to it and know how to leverage the systems in the way they were intended but makes it also makes it incredibly easy to shoot yourself in the foot by not adhering to the (sometimes unwritten) rules.

It has never been easier. The quality of all tutorials, the easy free download, marketplace and the community are great!

fxtentacle 3y ago

If you can read C++, this one is surprisingly easy to get into. You can do most things with the amazing graphical editor and for the very few cases where that isn't powerful enough, you can debug the whole thing in Visual Studio which means you can see parameters and stack traces for everything. And in my personal opinion, classes are predictably named and layered in an useful way. I found learning it and working with it quite enjoyable, especially compared to my experience with Unity where the lack of source code forced some very ugly workarounds on us. And with "only" low millions in annual revenue, Unity wasn't even willing to discuss the price for source code access... but with UE, you get a triple A game as demo project for free.

janosd 3y ago

My wife and I started learning game development a year ago after 15-ish years in the software industry. UE is one of our main drivers. It is probably the hardest to learn when compared to Unity or Godot, but you also have some insane capabilities. Taking Godot detours definitely helped our understanding of how games work, and we should have embraced blueprints a lot more instead of trying to solve everything in C++. TL;DR: yes, it's possible, but it has a learning curve.

fxtentacle 3y ago
Fully agree, the UE way is to try blueprints first and then convert them to C++ as needed: https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/courses/KJ/unreal-engine-converting-blueprint-to-c/kjB/unreal-engine-introduction-to-blueprint-vs-c https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/courses/KJ/unre...
- Agentlien 3y ago
  The way we're working with them at my job is more along the lines of: Underlying logic and systems is written as code by programmers. Tweaking and configuring behaviours is done by designers in Blueprints.

senectus1 3y ago

my now 15yr old son taught himself on unity / godot and is now teaching himself C++ via way of unreal. if a self taught 15yr old can do it knock yourself out.

emanuele232 3y ago
don't understimate the ability of a 15yo that wants to learn something with passion. It outperforms seniors
- holografix 3y ago
  And has all the time in the world and all bills pay for them!
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Doing software on the side was quite common for 15 year olds during the 8 and 16 bit revolution, many well known game developers in UK started exactly at that age.

Agentlien 3y ago

It depends on your background. Learning C++ is a prerequisite to being efficient in Unreal. If you already know C++ it can be done without too much hassle. If you also understand the basic principles of game development picking up UE is a breeze.

singinwhale 3y ago

I use unreal professionally. I would say that unreal is very opinionated in the way things are done. This is a good thing if you can stick to it and know how to leverage the systems in the way they were intended but makes it also makes it incredibly easy to shoot yourself in the foot by not adhering to the (sometimes unwritten) rules.