Unreal Engine Learning Resources

You’ve stumbled upon my collection of Unreal Engine resources and tutorials created by people from the Unreal Engine community. These are resources I sought out and stumbled upon while learning and creating with Unreal for the past few years.

Check out the Game Development Resource Page!

Getting Started

• Unreal Engine Dev Community Tutorials
  Dev Community
• BeginPlay (Tutorial Series)
  Begin Play is a series of videos designed for experienced developers who are transitioning from other engines like Unity to Unreal Engine 5. Each video gives a high-level overview of the various features of the engine and how they connect together.

Programming (C++)

• C++ Complete Guide
  Comprehensive reference guide for Unreal Engine C++.
• Course: Professional Game Development in C++ and Unreal Engine 5
  My Unreal Engine C++ Course for those looking to start or improve their C++ skills. Originally taught at Stanford University
• Laura’s C++ Speedrun Good list of things to be aware of when starting out in Unreal’s C++ environment. Assumes C++ knowledge, just touching on the Unreal specifics.
• Why C++ In Unreal Engine Isn’t That Scary?
  “Working with C++ in Unreal Engine might be much easier than you think. It’s halfway to the simplicity of custom scripting language.”_
• Epic Coding Standard
  Standards and conventions used by Epic Games in the Unreal Engine 4 codebase.
• Balancing C++ & Blueprint
  Epic’s take on combining C++ and Blueprint into your project architecture.
• Unreal Engine Build Tool Guide
  Reuben Ward on “UBT” and how Unreal sits on top of C++. Great to get a deeper understanding of how C++ & Unreal work together.
• Modules In-depth (Plugins)
  The most in-depth video I’ve seen about Modules.
• A Better UE_LOG
  A neat blog on improving the workflow for logging in C++.

Blueprint

• Blueprints vs. C++: How They Fit Together and Why You Should Use Both
  Finally a good look at comparing Blueprint and C++ and how they work together.

Gameplay Framework

• The Unreal Engine Game Framework: From int main() to BeginPlay
  Very insightful video, will greatly improve your understanding of how and when the game framework runs.
• Unreal Gameplay Framework Guide for C++
  Primer to understanding Unreal’s gameplay classes such as Pawn, Components, GameMode, etc.
• Actor’s Lifecycle
  A look into how and when Actors get created and which functions get called to make that happen.
• C++ Save System
  Eventually you’ll need to store player progress. This tutorial will get you started writing your own powerful savegame framework.

For Unity Developers

• So You’re moving to Unreal
  Joe Wintergreen’s page dedicated to converting from Unity to Unreal.
• Unreal Engine for Unity Developers - Epic Games
  Absolutely worth a read to understand the differences and similarities before heading out on your own.
• C++ Complete Guide - Tom Looman
  Comprehensive reference guide for Unreal Engine C++. Read it, Bookmark it and use it as a reference.
• Unreal Gameplay Framework Guide for C++ - Tom Looman
  Unreal has a built-in Gameplay Framework which you really should be using. It’s important to understand the core classes and their intended usage.
• Things I wish I knew coming to Unreal from Unity - BenUI
  Some transition tips from BenUI.

Performance & Profiling

• Unreal Art Optimization
  Many chapters on profiling and optimizing your game.
• Aggregating Ticks to Manage Scale in Sea of Thieves
  One of my favorites from Unreal Fest, showcasing techniques to improve CPU performance.
• Asset Reduction Tools and Optimization Tips for Load Times and GC
  Written form of the Unreal Fest 2018 presentation showing off many useful tips and tricks for optimizing your assets.
• Shader Performance Measurement (why Instruction Count is unreliable)
  Ben Cloward explains why Unreal’s Shader Instruction Count is an unreliable way to measure shader performance.
• Optimizing The Medieval Game Environment
  “Take a look back at Matt Oztalay’s series of talks on how he and the team at Quixel optimized the Medieval Game Environment.”
• Expert’s Guide To Unreal Engine Performance
  List style article with brief insights into different considerations to make to reach your target framerates.
• User Interfaces Optimization Guidelines Best practices guide by Epic for UMG and Slate UI.

Scalability & Platforms

• SteamDeck Plugin
  Make SteamDeck its own ‘Platform’ to easily configure platform settings & apply scalability quality settings

Performance Fun Reads

• Speeding up the Unreal Editor launch by not spawning 38000 tooltips?
  The Editor & Project settings menus may slow down editor starts. An interesting read about the editor performance.

Collision & Physics

• Tech Artist Playbook for Chaos Performance Valuable and practical insight into optimizing Collision & Physics.

Materials (Shaders)

• Shader Performance Measurement (Instruction Count)
  Ben Cloward explains 3 reasons why instruction count is an unreliable method of judging the performance of a shader.
• Understanding Shader Permutations
  UDN Article (Licensees only) Understanding shader permutations is essential for workflow and runtime performance.
• Your Guide to Texture Compression
  It’s important to know some basics about texture compression and how it affects performance and visuals, this guide will help you with exactly that.
• Understanding BCn Texture Compression Formats
  I absolutely love this insight into BC texture formats as it helps demystify their differences.

Tech Art

• Unreal’s Rendering Passes
  A deep dive into how and when a frame is rendered in Unreal’s Deferred Rendering pipeline.
• Creating Portals in Unreal for Psychonauts 2
  Fantastic talk about the detailed implementation and obstacles of portal rendering.
• Creating the Art of ABZU
  Insightful tech talk on underwater (rendering) tricks used for fish, kelp, level design, etc.

Gameplay Ability System

• The Truth of The Gameplay Ability System
  A good read to demystify some of the pros and cons of GAS.
• KaosSpectrum’s Blog on GAS
  Bunch of articles related to GAS.
• Why you should be using GameplayTags
  GameplayTags are heavily used by GAS, but can be used on their own and provide a powerful tagging and context framework.

Multiplayer

• Unreal Engine Multiplayer Tips and Tricks
  “Good practices to adopt, and bad habits to avoid when doing online multiplayer in Unreal Engine”
• Networking Documentation
  Overview page to tons of important networking replication concepts.
• How to Understand Network Replication
  Alex has some of the best videos, this one is about essential concepts for Multiplayer Programming.
• Accurately syncing Unreal’s network clock
  Explains and attempts to reduce the inherent ‘desync’ of the server time clock due to latency.
• Reliable vs. Unreliable RPC performance and ordering
  Just one of those things that’s good to know about.
• Network Emulation - Bad Pings & Packet Loss
  Playing locally can mislead you into thinking the game is well implemented. Network emulation simulates real world connections with higher pings and packet loss.

UMG & Slate

• Common UI Introduction
  “Common UI” is a new built-in framework containing common functionality for UI extending basic widgets like Buttons, Text, etc.
• Connect C++ to UMG Blueprints with BindWidget
  Bindwidget is useful for C++ base widget classes to extend in UMG.
• Advanced Text Styling with Rich Text Block
  Official blog on the power of Rich Text Block.

Loading, Saving & Streaming

• Asset Manager for Data Assets & Async Loading
  Asset Manager provides additional control to loading your content on-demand.
• Persistent Data Compendium
  “Compendium for traveling, disconnecting, and persisting data across such scenarios”

Editor Tools & Extensions

• GenericGraph - Data structure Plugin
  Extend the editor for things like quests, dialogue, and progression systems. Provides a starting point to build your own.
• Adding New Asset Types
  Extend your pipeline by supporting custom asset types.
• Custom Details Panels in Unreal Engine (FPropertyEditorModule)
  Introductory tutorial on setting up a button and details panel.
• Plugin Creation Resources
  Collection of tutorials on creating plugins, modules, and slate.
• Visualizing Everything in Unreal’s Editor Viewport - Hauke Thiessen
  Build custom visualizations to inspect your content directly in the editor viewport. Useful for production tools and performance audits such as visualizing Detail Mode on primitives.
• Editor Visualization Helpers
  C++ Tutorial on implementing editor-time helpers to visualize your Actors in the world.

Sample Projects

• Project Orion: Co-op Action Roguelike Sample Game
  Comprehensive C++ action rpg/roguelike game supporting multiplayer.

Localization

• Unreal UIs and Localization - Ben UI
  Ben prepares you for localizing your game to prevent future headaches.
• Industries of Titan Localization Lessons - Ben UI
  Lessons learned from Industries of Titan localization efforts.

Niagara Particles

• Particle Sorting Mini Tutorial
  Niels explains how Sorting works with Niagara

Editor Workflow & Production

• Content Browser ‘Search’ Syntax Cheat Sheet
  The Content Browser allows for complex filtering in the search box.

People Blogging about Unreal Engine

• Dr. Elliot
  C++ and technical articles.

Misc.

• UE Tips & Best Practices
  Collection of Tips & Tricks from Ari, AAA Unreal Dev & Unreal Engine Evangelist.
• Lessons Learned from a Year of UE4 AAA Development
  Ari Arnbjörnsson from Housemarque talks us through lessons learned.
• Classic Tools Retrospective: Tim Sweeney on the first version of the Unreal Editor
  Fun throwback to the origins of the Unreal Editor.
• Async Loading Screens and Transition Levels
  Practical talk on asset loading and transitions (Unreal Fest 2019)
• Six ingredients for a dynamic third-person camera
  Daedalic Entertainment shows off their camera system and how it’s implemented in Unreal.
• Pause Game When Window Loses Focus
  Super easy way to pause your game when alt-tabbed.

Some Super Niche Tricks

• How to fix Motion Blur for RTS Games in Unreal
  Some camera modes might have problems with motion blur, this might be what you need.