Any Unreal Engine Experts Here?

[Renzatic]

If I'm not mistaken, Unity has similar tools available. Seems like there's several as I recall. I can't name them off the top of my head as I wasn't interested, but I do recall coming across a series of videos where a school teacher tried several different tools with his class.

I was gonna say "I think there's an addon for something similar," but then I realized that I have the internet, so I should just look it up.

I'll be back in a second.

 

[Renzatic]

Yup. It does indeed. It's a fairly recent addition.

Real-time tools for 3D, AR, and VR development | Products

Unity is the ultimate game development platform. Use Unity to build high-quality 3D and 2D games, deploy them across mobile, desktop, VR/AR, consoles or the Web, and connect with loyal and enthusiastic players and customers.

unity.com

 

[DT]

I've only looked at some Unreal stuff, but I've spent the past year playing around with Unity quite a bit. So I can't compare the two, but I can say I've found working with Unity to be a fun time. Especially after I picked up a mouse with a scroll wheel to use on my Mac. Unity + track pad = To be fair, I think it would be an issue for any Windows software ported to the Mac that relies heavily on the scroll wheel.

I'm a web developer, so I've just been playing with it experimenting with some VR stuff. It's tons of fun to step into a world you've made. I just wish I had the artistic skills to compliment my developer skills. Earlier this year there was a 2-3 month stretch where I was probably spending 50-60 hours a week playing with Unity. And that's after my day job. I've not played much with it lately. Kinda burned myself out. But I might jump back in again real soon (at a slower pace). I had started something I'd like to get back to.

Sounds like you've put in some decent time, you should share some of your work. I hear you about the design side, while I have very good design sensibilities, my skills [in that capacity] aren't up to par with my coding ability.

Yup. It does indeed. It's a fairly recent addition.

Real-time tools for 3D, AR, and VR development | Products

Unity is the ultimate game development platform. Use Unity to build high-quality 3D and 2D games, deploy them across mobile, desktop, VR/AR, consoles or the Web, and connect with loyal and enthusiastic players and customers.

unity.com

Oh, that's very cool, even if it's just for getting a sense of model movements, doing some basic collision detection, controllers, etc., that's great.

 

[Renzatic]

Sounds like you've put in some decent time, you should share some of your work. I hear you about the design side, while I have very good design sensibilities, my skills aren't up to par with my coding ability.

If it weren't Blender, I would've spent my entire life never once using what I learned in trigonometry.

 

[DT]

Yeah, my former partner in the AR/VR company (a former colleague and sometimes friend, in two previous startups and my partner at the company I sold in 2000), is a killer designer, I mean really world class, 2D/Print, 3D, UI, custom artwork - too bad he used his powers for evil instead of good ...

 

[Renzatic]

too bad he used his powers for evil instead of good

Did he...did he join a marketing agency?

 

[DT]

I guess I should say he's also reasonably technical, this is the guy who's son started GaTech when he was 16, smart folks.

But to answer your question, I can't really answer your question, the level of insanity has to be shared "live".

 

[MEJHarrison]

Yup. It does indeed. It's a fairly recent addition.

Real-time tools for 3D, AR, and VR development | Products

Unity is the ultimate game development platform. Use Unity to build high-quality 3D and 2D games, deploy them across mobile, desktop, VR/AR, consoles or the Web, and connect with loyal and enthusiastic players and customers.

unity.com

Yeah, that's one of the two I came across. Some high school teacher was using that with his students. He had a big series of videos on using that and Blender.

Since I already know the coding part, those tools didn't really grab my attention. So I have no clue how useful they may or may not be, but the stuff I saw looked good.

When I checked out his blender videos, it took about 3 minutes to come to the conclusion that I'd be better off looking for assets online rather than trying to create my own. I'd have more luck writing a tool like Blender than being able to put it to good use. I just don't have those skills.

 

[Huntn]

What I’m doing right now is mechanical, interface familiarization. I need to get farther down the rabbit hole.

 

[MEJHarrison]

Sounds like you've put in some decent time, you should share some of your work.

It's 100% VR stuff. And it's mostly been working through different YouTube tutorials. How to grab things. How to move around. I think the most impressive thing I did was expand a little on a demo I worked through on making a gun shoot. I have nothing of substance at this point. I just lack a good project to sink my teeth into. And a Windows machine. I've not missed Windows until I got into VR.

 

[Renzatic]

Since I already know the coding part, those tools didn't really grab my attention. So I have no clue how useful they may or may not be, but the stuff I saw looked good.

If you know coding, you can do things with more finesse with pure text than you can with nodes. The nodes are good for people who don't know how to structure things in a raw programming language, like how Function A connects to Function B, combining to produce Output C, by giving them a easy to follow flowchart and blocks that have singular use.

A good example would be this video below. What he's doing in this video is, for all intents and purposes, programming, but with a layer of abstraction applied.

 

[Huntn]

Though starting out, you'll probably want something that takes you through the bare basics step by step. For that, I recommend the now legendary Blender Donut Tutorial!

The bare bare basics


Part 1 - Beginning The Donut

That's Blender, which you'll probably be using if you want to tailor or create objects specific to your scene.

The good news is that Unity can read .blend files natively, and Epic made a nice importer addon that makes moving objects between the two programs as quick as hitting a button.

Thanks for the links. I see that Blender is open source, so this is something I'd want to check out. Is it respected in the 3D Modeling community?

Today in the First Hour in Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial, I spent 3 hours in one section, creating a new level. In terms of creating a game, this is incredibly easy and I was wowed by the power of the sky lighting. Incredible. I've finally figured out that yes, a 3D modeling is required to import architectural elements into the program other than simple floors and walls. I maybe wrong, but my impression is that Unreal Engine can do terrain modeling, although for my purposes, I don't need a lot of terrain, but I will need some. And I have no real idea how well the unreal engine does water, as in standing, vs running, vs waterfalls...

 

[Huntn]

I've only looked at some Unreal stuff, but I've spent the past year playing around with Unity quite a bit. So I can't compare the two, but I can say I've found working with Unity to be a fun time. Especially after I picked up a mouse with a scroll wheel to use on my Mac. Unity + track pad = To be fair, I think it would be an issue for any Windows software ported to the Mac that relies heavily on the scroll wheel.

I'm a web developer, so I've just been playing with it experimenting with some VR stuff. It's tons of fun to step into a world you've made. I just wish I had the artistic skills to compliment my developer skills. Earlier this year there was a 2-3 month stretch where I was probably spending 50-60 hours a week playing with Unity. And that's after my day job. I've not played much with it lately. Kinda burned myself out. But I might jump back in again real soon (at a slower pace). I had started something I'd like to get back to.

For myself, VR is for later, maybe much later. However is developing for VR, that much different than developing for non-VR? I'm playing a game called No Man's Sky which can be played either way. Honestly VR has wowed the heck out of me in a couple of games, but mostly I would not choose it for games that are input heavy. An RPG I play called Greedfall, has 20 programmed buttons I need to use spells, and potions. This would just not work well in a VR environment based on the OR controllers I have.

 

[Renzatic]

Is it respected in the 3D Modeling community?

As of the 2.8 release is it. That’s when it went from being a bit player, to this huge deal everyone is using. It’s since been adopted by a few big studios, and just about every other 3D based program out there has support for it.

 

[MEJHarrison]

For myself, VR is for later, maybe much later. However is developing for VR, that much different than developing for non-VR?

I only did a handful of tutorials that were non-VR games just to get a sense of how they constructed. For me the hard part wasn't the pieces but putting it all together. And I'd say that was about the same both ways.

The example I used to use was: I know how to get a chainsaw and put it in my scene. I know how to make the user grab the chainsaw. I know how to put a tree in the scene. But how do you "cut down" the tree when the user puts it against the tree? The pretty much the same problem in VR or not.

I was eventually able to answer that question. The other hard part was trying to work on a Mac. You can't just hit Run and slip on the headset like you can on a Windows machine. That was a disappointment. I had to actually build and deploy each time to test it. So that slows things down. But it works. I do plan at some point to dive back into Windows. That would not only make development easier if I got back into it. It would also open me open to a ton of new games.

 

[Huntn]

As of the 2.8 release is it. That’s when it went from being a bit player, to this huge deal everyone is using. It’s since been adopted by a few big studios, and just about every other 3D based program out there has support for it.

It's now on my todo list. So would this be used for plant modeling? It's very possible in the EpicGame Marketplace there are inexpensive products. BTW take a look at this:

Make a forest in an hour using Unreal Engine and Megascans:

Holy Crap​

I'm now in my 6th hour of the Your First Hour using Unreal Engine, lol. I watch, I take notes, because there is so much stuff thrown at you, I'd forget a lot of it without some reference, and I follow along, mimicking what I'm shown, and then I type it up on my computer so that is taking twice as long, but it gives me time to digest what I just watched before moving onto the next topic.

 

[Renzatic]

It's now on my todo list. So would this be used for plant modeling? It's very possible in the EpicGame Marketplace there are inexpensive products. BTW take a look at this:

Yup. I've seen that. It's cool stuff.

The only thing I don't like about the Megascans is that they don't provide you any trees. They provide you the textures for the bark and leaves, and occasionally they'll throw a trunk your way, but mostly they expect you to use Speedtree to make your own.

 

[Renzatic]

If you're going to want to get into modeling, you're going to need to get into texturing too, which means that you're gonna have to consider buying Substance Painter, which is the de facto standard for texturing, but costs $200/$20 a month subscription, Quixel Mixer, which is free, but lacks a few features...

...or this, Fluent Materializer, which came out recently, and I only just now discovered.

I already have Substance Painter, but this has interested me, because it works right inside of Blender, meaning I don't have to take all those extra steps having to export and import my models. Plus, it's just $35.

Annoying accent aside, this videos shows off how versatile it is.

 

[Huntn]

Yup. I've seen that. It's cool stuff.

The only thing I don't like about the Megascans is that they don't provide you any trees. They provide you the textures for the bark and leaves, and occasionally they'll throw a trunk your way, but mostly they expect you to use Speedtree to make your own.

I’ve looked at the Epic Games Marketplace and see there are packages available, I assume there and elsewhere and for the sake of saving time, I’d consider something like a $40 tree and bush package, but that is for saving time. Megascans appears free if you sign in with your Epic/UE account.

Having not done it, I could see myself spending a lot of time building generic trees and bushes, but then you either need a program that automates this for you, or become educated about tree growth patterns and manually put them together. The key would be to end up,with so,ethi g that looks natural.

Referencing the video, the author says he made this scene in Unreal Engine, but in the comments section someone commented that he made the initial terrain mesh with Maya.

If you're going to want to get into modeling, you're going to need to get into texturing too, which means that you're gonna have to consider buying Substance Painter, which is the de facto standard for texturing, but costs $200/$20 a month subscription, Quixel Mixer, which is free, but lacks a few features...

...or this, Fluent Materializer, which came out recently, and I only just now discovered.

I already have Substance Painter, but this has interested me, because it works right inside of Blender, meaning I don't have to take all those extra steps having to export and import my models. Plus, it's just $35.

Annoying accent aside, this videos shows off how versatile it is.

This bullshit with software developers expecting everyone to rent their product strikes me as heinous. Currently grappling with that as you know with picking a new password manager. If t does the job, $35 is more than reasonable.

Regarding Unreal Engine, starting to get a lot on my to do list. But that’s ok, keep talking and suggesting.

 

[Renzatic]

This bullshit with software developers expecting everyone to rent their product strikes me as heinous. Currently grappling with that as you know with picking a new password manager. If t does the job, $35 is more than reasonable.

Yeah, I know. I hate having to rent software. I wouldn't mind it so much if they also provided the option to buy a license, but no. They're all about the temporary leases these days.

The Substance suite used to have this buy it outright, or rent to own setup that was really nice. Then they got bought out by Adobe a couple years back, and they've been slowly pushing towards a subscription only setup every since. Right now, you can still buy Substance Painter and Designer on Steam, but the rumors are that they're going to nix that, or refuse to update it by the end of this year.