Learning Resources

Welcome to a curated list of online learning resources!

Mixed topics

These resources are excellent to learn about many different aspects of this complex engine.

Mathew Wadstein

Youtube tutorial series by Mathew Wadstein is the great way for newcomers to get started with the engine. Episodes are usually short, explaining just a single thing at the time.

Unreal Fest 2019

If you already understand things or two about Unreal Engine, dig through recordings of Unreal Fest talks.

• Presentations mostly prepared by studios using the engine, passing the knowledge about using tools, optimization, best practices and more.
• Including few talks done by Epic itself!

This kind of event we were waiting for, a way to share the collective knowledge of professionals working daily with the engine.

https://youtube.com/=xQjRhBFcMjM&list=PLZlv_N0_O1gbmtS-hQFAVEF_zBOJPCaaX

Network

Developing a multiplayer game adds an extra layer to engineering a game.

• You need carefully plan the implementation of every feature, would be this script executed on the server, client, replicated from server to all player?
• How to minimize the amount of data sent over the network? How to ensure the game feels responsive even if the remote server needs to approve every player action in order to prevent cheating?

Fortunately, Unreal Engine 4 provides amazing networking support of out the box. All we need is to learn how to use it.

• Try the official documentation first!

Unreal Engine 4 Network Compendium

A 100-hundred page compendium written by Cedric 'eXi' Neukirchen is one of the first stops for everyone trying to understand a network layer of UE4.

Gameplay Ability System

This is a special plugin developed by Epic to be a standard solution to execute gameplay actions over the network.

• Actions such as dealing damage, casting spells, activating a custom character state.
• It would be even useful even in a single-player game. Basically it's a standardized way to implement various mechanics.
• You won't see in blueprints, but this plugin takes care of optimizing multiplayer code for you. As you wouldn't be simply able to do it with regular blueprints.

Resources

• Gameplay Ability System with a multiplayer sample project - a GitHub project + extensive documentation on GAS
• The official Action RPG sample uses GAS too, download it from the launcher.