Learning Unreal Engine

From my early days of using computers, starting with the green-screened Amstrad CPC-464, followed by the vivid colour graphics of the Amiga 500, portable playability of the Nintendo Gameboy, sheer joy of the local player-enabled Super Nintendo Entertainment System and then the many complexities of a 486 desktop PC, video games have always held a special place in my heart.

As a lifelong gamer I’ve always been curious about this form of software entertainment and the experiences they provide for millions. With more and more video games having the graphical fidelity of blockbuster movies, I’ve always had a deep interest in wanting to know how they work under-the-hood.

My initial attempts at developing my own video game of sorts started with a basic Noughts and Crosses clone in Visual Basic. This taught me a great deal about programming, data structures, and flow logic and was even featured on a few websites and publications back in the day!

During my university years an assignment also required writing a clone of the classic NES game Duck Hunt in Java. While simple and straightforward on the face of it, Duck Hunter taught me a great deal about object-oriented programming and helped me understand the importance of encapsulation and inheritance.

Revisiting Game Development

While I’ve since applied my programming skills to a variety of commercial products and projects over the years, any form video game development has always taken a back seat. As a result, it has tended to fall to the wayside.

Being a C# developer for most of my career, I had a built up a great deal of knowledge of the language and the supporting libraries. So during the pandemic I revisited my childhood experiences and followed a tutorial to create a clone of the hit mobile game Flappy Bird with Unity.

Although I was able to pick up the engine pretty quickly, I felt there was still a hell of lot that I was missing.

Having played the original Unreal back in 1998 - and the phenomenal Unreal Tournament series that followed – I’d seen the technology expand, grow, and get more advanced with each generation.

Real-world applications of Unreal Engine have also expanded massively over years. From simulations to digital twins, architecture visualisations and now film visual effects and virtual reality experiences. The engine has grown from a 3D game engine into a platform used across a vast array of industries.

Rather than trawl the internet for tutorials and documentation, I really wanted to follow a structured learning path. I also wanted to have something to show for it at the end of my journey.

Find a Learning Path

While studying for AWS Certifications I started to wonder if there was an equivalent path of study for Unreal Engine. With over twenty years of software development experience, I didn’t particularly want to spend another three years studying for a degree – I just needed to know the fundamentals so I could get started.

So I went looking for authorised Unreal Engine training center, eventually landing on the Epic Games’ Training & Academic Partners page. This then led me to the Training Partners Page which is where I found an institution – believe it or not – located right here in Melbourne!

I checked out the official CG Spectrum website, looked at the available courses, entry requirements, backgrounds of the industry professionals and checked out some reviews.

As part of CG Spectrum’s Career Track offerings, I eventually landed on the 9-month Game Programming Foundations course which can be done remotely on a part-time basis and is broken up into two halves:

• Three months Game Programming Essentials – Learning C++ fundamentals
• Six months Game Programming Foundations – Unreal Engine itself

So I went ahead and sent an inquiry via the online form.

Enquiring

A day later I received an email from the admissions team with heaps of information and links. There was a link to the Game Development Open Day at CG Spectrum video, a Student Showcase video of work from previous students and a link to a page of upcoming events.

Unreal Engine is written in C++ and is a powerful and versatile language widely used in the game development industry. However, I’d never really set aside the time to learn C++ – coming from Visual Basic, then subsequently Java at university, my programming journey naturally led me to C# and I’d never really found a reason to learn C++.

I felt that I would be confident enough with my years of prior experience behind me so as part of my enquiry I asked the admissions team whether it would be possible for me to skip the Game Programming Essentials module and start at Term 2.

They confirmed that this is possible, but that I would need to send through a folio or demo reel of my work:

“The first 3 months of the Game Programming Foundations course is the same content as the Essentials. If you wish to skip the essentials content and start at Term 2, we’ll require you to send through a folio or demo reel of your work, demonstrating that you already have the knowledge that first term covers. It can be sent directly to me :)”

Unfortunately, I had no such portfolio as proof, and most of my prior experience was with higher-level languages. Knowing this, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to prove that I had the knowledge required to skip the Essentials module.

In total there are the four modules that make up the course:

• Foundations 1: Essentials of C++
• Foundations 2: Core Game Programming in Unreal Engine
• Foundations 3: Professional Game Programming in Unreal Engine
• Foundations 4: Professional Game Programming in Unreal Engine

The community

Of all the information provided by the admissions team, one thing that stood out to me most on the student testimonials page was the mention of a Slack community:

“One of my favorite CG Spectrum aspects is its community, full of like-minded people willing to see your work and share feedback. Almost everyone from the school is taking part in this community in some way or another. I have gotten feedback from other students, other mentors, and even the CEO of the school. Seeing students’ work has inspired me, and hopefully, my work inspired others as well. And once you get access to that community, you can be there for life!”

Doing a course by yourself is one thing – being able to interact with other like-minded people who are also on a similar path is another. Just knowing there is a place to talk to other students and receive feedback is worth its weight in gold.

Weekly catch-ups with a mentor to ask questions also sounds great as it takes the pressure off getting stuck – rather than floundering around trying to struggle with a challenging problem that you have no idea how to solve, I could just ask my assigned mentor the next time we meet up.

Signing up - stay tuned!

After watching the open day video and student showcases I’ve decided to take the plunge! So I’ve gone ahead, signed the enrollment form, and can’t wait to see what’s in store!

I’m really excited to start the journey and looking forward to getting stuck in to something I’ve wanted to do for a long time!

My course officially starts on the 3rd March – I’ll be sure to document my journey on here as I go along 🙂