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Learning Unreal Engine

 I have created a few games before using the Unity game engine. However, I have looked into the strengths and drawbacks of Unreal and Unity in order to determine which would be most appropriate to use in my project. 

Previously, every game I have made has been 2D. Therefore, Unity has been the clear correct choice. It is possible to create 2D games in Unreal but Unity has many elements that are built specifically for 2D development. A large distinction between the two engines is the simplicity of Unity compared to the complexity of Unreal. Unity is perfect for beginners as it is simple to learn and basic programming skills in less complex languages can be transferred easily. Unreal is more of a challenge because it has many more features, industry standard graphics and a choice between C++ programming (more complex than Unity's C# or Java) and Unreal's own system, Blueprints. Blueprints and quite straightforward and simple enough to understand with the correct guidance, but one cannot immediately start creating games with just a basic knowledge of programming like they can with Unity. Because of the difference in complexity of the two engines, it is easy for beginners to naturally opt for Unity over Unreal. However, bigger and more detailed games from notable triple-A game studios are made with Unreal due to its greater adaptability and better graphics capabilities. 

I am choosing to use Unreal for my projects because of the fact that it is favoured in the gaming industry today. As well as this, I also believe it would be a good test of skill to learn a new engine as part of the MA course, rather than relying on skills I already possess. Therefore, I downloaded Unreal and found some tutorials to get me started. The first one I looked at was a 5 hour YouTube tutorial that guided me through creating a scene, lighting and setting up an environment. While it was a very comprehensive video, I don't think it caters to beginners very well, as there were some areas (lighting especially) in which the tutor glossed over details as if they were obvious and didn't go into enough depth to explain his reasoning for each choice. The second tutorial I found was on Unreal Academy (First Hour In Unreal Engine) and was much more helpful. It was perfect for a beginner like myself as it guided me through the basic steps that one should begin with when approaching the game engine for the first time. 

From this tutorial, I was able to create a simple version of my own game using the pre-built components provided by Unreal in a third person game package. I made a small platform for the player to stand on, which had on it an exit button that was concealed by a cage, and another button that lifted the cage when stood on. The player could then move to stand on the exit button to complete the level. 





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