Completing My Unreal Engine Course

After what feels like an eternity, I have finally reached the end of my Game Programming Foundations course that I started back in March!

I can honestly say it has been an absolutely incredible journey, and I’ve met some amazing people along the way.

The Journey

When I first started, I was nervous about the course and unsure if I would be able to keep up. Those nerves turned out to be unfounded – but it certainly wasn’t all smooth sailing.

Getting my head around the Enhanced Input system took a while, Animation Blueprints were a steep learning curve for a non-animator like me, and understanding how C++ and Blueprints talk to each other took plenty of practice. Behaviour Trees - Selectors, Sequences, Simple Parallel nodes, and Tasks, Decorators and Services - were another hurdle I had to work through.

Still, every one of those hurdles was a chance to learn, and the further I got, the more confident I became. By the end, I’d built a working prototype of a tank using Chaos Vehicles smashing through a destructible building with Chaos Destruction – my first real taste of how satisfying it is to make things go boom.

The People

I’d especially like to thank Firas Hosn and Cameron Cintron for their support and encouragement throughout the journey – you guys are awesome!

Their guidance gave me the confidence to keep pushing whenever I hit a wall, and I’m so grateful for their help.

As I said back in my original post when I was considering signing up, the community is absolutely the best part of the course. The Slack group brings together an incredibly talented mix of concept artists, VFX artists, 3D modellers and programmers – and it keeps growing every month.

Whether I was stuck on an unfamiliar system, wanted a second pair of eyes on my work, or just needed encouragement on a tough week, someone was always willing to help. I know it’ll remain an invaluable resource going forwards as a place to find support and get feedback.

What’s Next

The biggest result of the course: my first game, Graveyard Gunner. I’ll be writing a dedicated post about it soon, so keep an eye out – but for now, let’s just say the course left me with something I’m really proud of.

If you’re considering embarking on a journey into game development, game design, or any of CG Spectrum’s animation, VFX or digital art courses, I cannot recommend them highly enough!

Resources

Along my journey I have collated together a set of links to resources that I found useful. Here are a few of my favourites:

Unreal Books

• Game Development with Unreal Engine 5 – Cliff Sharif
• Game Development Patterns with Unreal Engine 5 – Stuart Butler & Tom Oliver
• Multiplayer Game Development with Unreal Engine 5 – Marco Secchi

References

• Allar’s Style Guide
• 3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development book
• An unofficial AnimNode Reference

Assets

• Develteam
• Fab
• Kaylousberg
• Kenney
• Mixamo
• Quaternius
• The Models Resource
• TurboSquid