Working with the Unreal Engine

SeeknDestroy · 31 Jan 2011 at 00:39

I've been studying a bit and writing some code for game prototypes in c# using Microsoft XNA.
So, after this I decided to download and check the Developing Kit powered by Unreal Engine 3, and I have to say I'm completely overwhelmed by the quantity of documentation, tutorials and videos available for this engine. I have tried a couple of other engines in the past but since the potential of this one is significantly higher the amount of information one needs to know to work with it is huge, to say the least.

So, based on this, I'd like to know: Has anybody here worked with this engine or at least tried to before? If so, how long did it take to grasp the basics of it before being able to to render his first texture?

Souleh · 31 Jan 2011 at 16:03

Not experience of the Unreal Engine but plenty of experience in worldcraft and valve hammer with the HL1/HL2 engines.

All I can say is do every single tutorial you can find. May take a while but once you can do them then you can start to pick and choose what you like and work from there.

Never release your first map or game copy :-P

Hopefully this doesnt need explanation

Chaos · 31 Jan 2011 at 18:59

If you know C# then the Unity Engine might be worth looking into.

You can get started with learning Unity here -

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/73...of-downloadable-videos-for-Unity-Fundamentals!

Tilluss · 1 Feb 2011 at 10:50

I started learning UDK just after xmas and it is very overwhelming to begin with. I went to 3dbuzz.com and watched all of their UDK tutorials before I even touched the engine and everything was a LOT easier, the tutorials are very well done and the tutor is very enthusiastic and explains everything very well so you might wanna check that out.

After just watching those tutorials I could find myself around UDK pretty easily, but it's only built for people new to UDK, for the more advanced stuff you have to dive into UDN and start reading and generally experimenting with the engine.

Chaos is right to recommend Unity, it's a very good engine, but it still needs a lot of work to bring it upto the fully featured engine that UDK is.

SeeknDestroy · 1 Feb 2011 at 13:44

@Chaos: Thanks mate, I'll have a look at that

Tilluss said:
I started learning UDK just after xmas and it is very overwhelming to begin with. I went to 3dbuzz.com and watched all of their UDK tutorials before I even touched the engine and everything was a LOT easier, the tutorials are very well done and the tutor is very enthusiastic and explains everything very well so you might wanna check that out.

After just watching those tutorials I could find myself around UDK pretty easily, but it's only built for people new to UDK, for the more advanced stuff you have to dive into UDN and start reading and generally experimenting with the engine.

Chaos is right to recommend Unity, it's a very good engine, but it still needs a lot of work to bring it upto the fully featured engine that UDK is.

I have downloaded some videos from the UDK website, there was a long list of videos there, I don't know if they're the same you're talking about but from your description of the videos I think they are.
So have you started to "play" with the engine? How do you like it?

surfsquid · 3 Feb 2011 at 21:30

If you can find a collectors edition of UT3 it has hours of really good tutorials on, saying that I'm sure you can find them somewhere on the net...

cokecan · 4 Feb 2011 at 12:41

surfsquid said:
If you can find a collectors edition of UT3 it has hours of really good tutorials on, saying that I'm sure you can find them somewhere on the net...

This. I started out before UT3 was released and was using Roboblitz on Steam (it came with the Unreal Editor), that was overwhelming due to pretty much no documentation. Got the collectors tin a little after when UT3 was released and the videos that come with it are excellent.

The 2 guys that do them talk you through each bit and show you pretty much everything you need to know about building a room/level, sculpting, texturing, importing models, rigging events with Kismet etc etc

If you can get a copy of them it's well worth it

I've not used the UDK much at all but I'm fairly sure it's just the Unreal Editor (UE) but renamed/patched/updated