Hi all!

Yet another which engine post...but hear me out please :)

After getting some good advice in here i started following a few Unity tutorials and I'm now able to toy around with prototypes and kind of understand how it works.

Got C# 2013 Step by Step book to get further into my programming but dropped it since it's focused on making Windows programs, rightly so, but since i'm learning everything included Art, Sound, the Tech and the Engine itself seemed a bit too long of a detour for just scripting using very specific tools.

Now,

I've always been fascinated by Unreal Engine, not sure why.

The business model seems great to me (source code and no upfront cost for commercial projects) and i sense a strong community feel with the Unreal Tournament project.

But it doesn't seem very easy for beginners (semi?) with not as good a documentation like the Unity scripting reference, and a lack of tutorials to get you started except the usual FPS ones.

Finally my question being: Could you suggest a path for learning it and how much of C++ do i need do know beforehand and what's the best/efficient way to go about it? My initial project being a 2D horizontal scrolling Shmup with 3D graphics if that makes a difference.

Thanks for taking the time to read!

On the unreal website is documentation and videos to get started. The unreal also has a few tutorials build into it.

https://www.unrealengine.com/what-is-unreal-engine-4 Just goto the Learn tab.

There are also unreal users here when you need help.

The best way to start with the unreal is just to start. Make a small game like a top down shooter or one of the retro games.

Make a list of the game from A-Z and learn each step as you go. Menu -> Making the character move -> Jumping -> Anything you need.

it's true that the Unreal 4 engine is meant for more experienced game developers, with most of the tutorials being crash courses into working with unreal, yet if you keep your game to a realistic scale there is no reason you couldn't make a game if you are a complete beginner.

You don't really need any C++ ability at all to get started, you can make an entire game using Blueprints. I'm a pretty experienced C++ programmer for my day job, but one of the things I enjoy most about using Unreal Engine for my hobby projects is that I hardly if ever have to write any code. You might be pleasantly surprised at just how far you can get with blueprints alone.

As far as learning goes, I found the curve to be a bit steep at first, but the most useful thing for me was checking out some of the example projects. Download the Flappy Bird blueprint project for example, and walk through the most important bits of its blueprints, stuff like input handling and so on. Try to distil that down to the things that you need in your game. I find the documentation is complete but is a bit hard to apply at first without seeing a working example. You could also get some blueprints from the marketplace and see how they work, for more inspiration.

You don't really need any C++ ability at all to get started, you can make an entire game using Blueprints. I'm a pretty experienced C++ programmer for my day job, but one of the things I enjoy most about using Unreal Engine for my hobby projects is that I hardly if ever have to write any code. You might be pleasantly surprised at just how far you can get with blueprints alone.

As far as learning goes, I found the curve to be a bit steep at first, but the most useful thing for me was checking out some of the example projects. Download the Flappy Bird blueprint project for example, and walk through the most important bits of its blueprints, stuff like input handling and so on. Try to distil that down to the things that you need in your game. I find the documentation is complete but is a bit hard to apply at first without seeing a working example. You could also get some blueprints from the marketplace and see how they work, for more inspiration.

Great advice, as i came across C# and Unity already shoudn't be that hard to understand the logic of Blueprints and i think a Shmup has simple enough mechanics to be achievable with it.

Thanks, will get cracking then :)