The other side of me from Unity to Unreal course

[rickygai]

Microsoft Windows 11 x64 Version 22H2 (OS Build 22621.1485)
Unreal Editor Version: 5.1.1-23901901+++UE5+Release-5.1
Intel Core i7 6700 3.4GHz (Skylake 14nm)
RAM 32GB DDR4 1069MHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 4GB
TeamGroup GX2 SSD 1TB

Good day,

After went through GameDev.tv Unreal and Unity courses, below were my findings:

Unreal Engine 5 C++ Developer: Learn C++ & Make Video Games

PRO:

• The teaching from instructors are very clear, Sam and Stephen shared very informative C and C++ hints that cleared my doubts in C++ programming and again, this is only if you already have some knowledge in C++ before. The course used assets directly to describe the inner working of UE APIs with C++ programming.

CONS:

1. No section on setting up surface material ( color, normal map…etc ) and assigning to game object ( eg. Sphere mesh ), I think this is very important as starter to Unreal.
2. No section on setting a particular animation keyframe index to trigger callback function ( especially in a Zombie alike game )
3. No section on importing Blender FBX animated model with textures.
4. No section on deploying to other platforms like mobile, MacOS.
5. The Unreal Engine 5.1.1 has intermittent problem on the Live Coding, Editor UI, the need to re-start Unreal Editor and a rebuild project.

I found out the deployment time for Android mobile platform took long time ( 30-60 minutes ) although is not part of the Unreal course, it will be good if GameDev.tv includes such cross platform section as is part of Unreal Engine for its cross platform features anyway.

Complete C# Unity Game Developer 3D

• Statement 1-4 of UE above all available in this course.

I completed this Unreal Engine course, and started to think about:

1. How to import Unity assets to Unreal like THIS ( especially for those coming from Unity to Unreal like me, would love very much to see a section on importing Unity Assets to Unreal Engine ).
2. How to start an Unreal project with statement 1-5 mentioned above ?

Overall the Unreal course is pretty comprehensive, only missing what mentioned in UE course statements above.

I hopes Gamedev.tv considers my suggestions above as its next updates to the Unreal course.

Thank you.

[beegeedee]

Hi,
Thank you very much for the feedback.
I will try and give you answers to these questions but they may not be 100% complete.

The materials system in UE for example is quite complex. There are a number of courses dedicated to just materials out there. It’s not like materials in Unity which, unless you use the advanced shaders, are relatively basic.

The coverage of C++ is really about what you need to use Unreal and by no means covers the extent of the C++ language. In fact, a lot of the basics (if, for, while, class basics, methods and how to form them and basic pointers etc) are there just not the libraries which are different compared to Unreal. There is a dedicated C++ course which deals with exactly that and uses a library to develop basic games but without something like Unity or Unreal. Having worked with C++ for 25+ years and C# for 20 years, I can say that the language coverage is on a par between the 2 courses. If anything, C# in the Unity course covers far less.

For Point 3, Keyframe index triggers are covered in the cinematics course which focuses on using the sequencer. The reason it isn’t really covered is the course content doesn’t have a need to use these features. Cinematics is an older course (best use UE4.27) and does focus on cutscenes and camera use but does use the sequencer as well. I’ve used timeline in Unity and the sequencer in Unreal is simple to use by comparison but tough to master, like everything else in Unreal.

As for importing from blender, again I would say this isn’t an unreal thing although I do know it is possible. I’ve not completed the Unity course so can’t comment on what is done there. I do know there’s a plugin for blender to Unreal (I remember seeing a demo one week during Epic’s Thursday update a few years back) which enables easier syncing between the two.

Importing assets: are you referring to FBX assets? if so, just drop into the content browser and they trigger an import. It’s relatively simple. I thought this was already covered but if not, I know it is covered in the original Blueprints course if I recall. The beauty of UE is there’s a lot of free assets and additionally using quixel bridge makes it easy to import.

I hope this answers some of your questions.

[rickygai]

Thanks for the feedback beegeedee, for importing assets, yes it is related to FBX assets, for example the section Simple Shooter seems to be ready made, I am not sure its motions are from UE or the Asset Provider. I have to personally import a self rendered animated Blender exported FBX with named motions and load it up under Unreal and see.

There is section importing Blender to Unity under the course Blender Character Creator for Video Games Design like snapshot below:

I think is good to add a section “Import Blender to Unreal” as a complete course package

[beegeedee]

Are you talking importing with a skeletal mesh? If they are, they should import in a similar manner although I haven’t tried myself.

I think this may be because the person authoring the course had no Unreal experiencr. So only unity was included and nothing more.

I’ve not looked at the character creator course in a very long time. I remember the original blender course covering unity as well but again I think it was because the Unreal course didn’t exist then. We were talking unity 5 which I learned on.

[rickygai]

Yes, obviously importing animated model I am referring to its skeletal (bone), skin (mesh) and motions.

Most importantly I wanted to know how to trigger a callback function in Unreal at certain animation keyframe during a zombie attack “B” as shown below and not when the zombie hands up “A”

[beegeedee]

This isn’t actually that difficult. Inside unreal you can open the specific animation and Add a notify track. Note the screenshots are from UE4 as I had a project handy for this
So, in the content browser, find the Animation sequence you desire and open. If you are on the skeleton, you should be able to switch to the animation.

Next, add a notify track to the animation. do do this, down in the sequencer for the animation there is a menu to enable you to do this. normally there is a track already added but you can add many if you wish.

Finally, on the track, you can add a notification event.

Now, you can chain animations together using a montage which has similar functionality. In this example I had, there are 2 animation sequences chained together in the montage which enables 2 attacks per swing and calls a damage event.

From here, the event is part of the Animation Blueprint I’ve attached the sample blueprint for your reference. This is quite a complex animation setup and was part of a blueprint course which covered this in great detail - the course is quite old and unsupported but a lot of time was spent with the sequencer in general.

Now, this is probably going to leave you a lot of questions. This stuff isn’t covered in a lot of detail in the course as you’re getting more into the artist side of Unreal but this needs knowledge of Animation blueprints, montages and blendspaces as well as the rigging and meshes and animation sequences. It does enable you to set up blends between 2 sequences and chain different sequences together but at its most basic level you need an animation blueprint and a sequence to define your notifications.

I hope this helps you.

[rickygai]

Appreciated much for the feedback. I will take a look on the info you shared. Thanks again.