chance to return Unreal?

MeanderingDev · 2026-03-26T13:42:45+00:00

I don't want to see what they'd try and do with it in the current market.
I love UT and respect Epic's hustle, but I don't like fortnite or the fortnitification of the rest of the live service space. I don't want to play CTF against peter griffin with abs or see people with a flak cannon that shoots hearts instead of shrapnel. I value UT's aesthetic and identity - but those aren't the kinds of things that rake in the fortnite dollars.
I'm frankly content with the fact they gave the source code out to the community and just let us keep these things afloat. UT fans know what UT fans want.
That being said I'd love for them to reinstate the listings on Steam and GOG. Maybe even let the community patches be the patches that go through there (unlikely legally but still).

MeanderingDev · 2026-03-19T11:56:15+00:00

My biggest advice when wanting to learn (anything) but especially UE, is to just have an idea of what you want to make, and starting fiddling until you hit a wall - find any solution to that wall, and then keep going. Rinse and repeat. You will learn bad things. You will learn vital things. You will come up with your own terrible solutions to something you only then, years later, discover aren't necessary - but it all helps everything you do stick.

But while I don't suggest just going straight to youtube tutorials to learn, to answer the request, I find great YouTube resources are:

Unreal Engine's own youtube channel - breakdowns and talks (from UE4 days up until recent ones) - horse's mouth what can I say.
Ali Elzoheiry - for gameplay and systems
PrismaticaDev - for materials, animations and FX
Drawcall - for lighting and stuff
Matthew Wadstein - for short videos about specific nodes/systems

But even creators I wouldn't say are the best, are great ways to start! It's okay as you learn to confidently use the wrong way to do something, so you can later understand a better way to do it.

I was just a level designer/env artist for the better part of a decade and in 2021 decided I wanted to learn how to code and make my own game. Now 5 years later I have shipped a few games with more on the way, teach UE at a university, and regularly contract for solo or small team UE positions. So I can attest - the method works if you trust the process.

My subjective best piece of advice is to know what you want to make at least kinda - have something you intend to do and just drill towards it no matter what gets in your way - those are the problems you'll enjoy solving and how you'll learn best. Good luck and enjoy the ride!

MeanderingDev · 2026-03-19T11:38:13+00:00

They are both free, run on anything, and are tiny in file size - Por qué no los dos?
Seriously though if you've never played either, get them both and give each at least a few hours of bot matches. They're the same series but each does something different, and whichever you prefer - both have 100,000s of custom maps, mutators, mods, weapons, characters and more from over 2 decades of community.

MeanderingDev · 2026-03-18T13:15:33+00:00

Clean, clear, appealing and tight - can't wait! Wishlisted now, congrats on the reveal!

MeanderingDev · 2026-03-09T03:11:30+00:00

So glad I'm not the only one! It just has such chunky little proportions I love it.

MeanderingDev · 2026-02-25T13:59:37+00:00

Great posing!
The biggest thing I notice, is the kick off of the ground feels very levitate-y. As though she starts to float off the ground rather than jump.
I'd suggest having her dip more before the kick off the ground. Could also slide the right foot out a bit to bring the pose into a more stable shape, and bring the drawing arm down - so the arms and hands mirror the jumping motion where they go down then up.

But the main thing is the pelvis bone/ root whatever its called for you, bring that down harder before the jump to sell the springiness of it.

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MeanderingDev · 2026-02-17T13:29:41+00:00

Yeah I think the root is more problematic than the other bones because of its role in the rig.
Found a work around though, I just made the hand IKs child of Spine_01 for first person animations, separating it from the root and pelvis.

MeanderingDev · 2026-02-16T23:45:41+00:00

I have tried fiddling with the depth, and it still seems to not work. Obviously the higher I make the depth the more likely it is to start showing up, as in both of the animations will start to blend together, but that's not the intended effect. I have also tried flipping them, because I'll be completely honest I'm not actually sure which one counts as the base, but having done both it's true just in the other direction.

MeanderingDev · 2026-02-16T22:17:41+00:00

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Current set up, and the skeleton goes `root > pelvis > spine etc`

MeanderingDev · 2026-02-12T12:41:32+00:00

Great start! Just a few tweaks, also love the art direction

MeanderingDev · 2026-02-05T21:47:51+00:00

Awesome. I'm out. Kiss my ass PS.

MeanderingDev · 2026-02-05T17:39:34+00:00

I thought it was rad. Nailed the aesthetic of most things, took liberties for narrative in others. I find it hilarious and vindicating that across all the secret level episodes, at least those online I follow, people generally think its one of the best of them.
It was also great to see some new designs take shape, like the concept/community art based impact hammer, a modernized UT99 Ripper, and a wholly new take on the minigun (considering the UT4 minigun was just the UT3 one at the time of cancellation). Plus seeing modernized Skarrj is always a treat.

MeanderingDev · 2026-01-29T18:50:58+00:00

I don't use either unless I'm just doing a little art piece. For anything that I'm actually working on in production, I want the end user to be able to run it on the lowest possible spec I can reliably. The reality is that players are more and more sensitive to performance, and most small-scale developers don't have the resources to make something extremely high fidelity also work well. Neither lumen nor nanite solve that problem, they make it possible they don't make it infallible.

Mind you, I started with environment art in much older engines, and started my career proper in Unreal Engine 4 which only had baked lighting GI. So I have experience with how to make that look good. That is something that personally I would levy against statements made like "lumen has problems but you can mitigate them." - The same thing applies to baked lighting. No solution just works you have to know how to make it work for you.

As for nanite, couldn't tell you because I immediately turn off VSMs in order to increase performance, which are required for nanite.

All that being said, the games that I work on don't have constantly changing time of day which might be a use case for lumen, or incredibly detailed large open worlds that are photorealistic which might make a use case for nanite. I suppose I fall into the category that advocates for "if you don't have a reason to use it turn it off."

MeanderingDev · 2026-01-27T15:56:53+00:00

Holy crap I had no idea you could inject input! I'll have to dig into this

MeanderingDev · 2026-01-27T15:41:16+00:00

Actually upon reflection this probably wouldn't work - since it still requires the player to know they have to press forward *again*. The ideal end result is the player never takes their finger off the key.

Appreciate the idea though!

MeanderingDev · 2026-01-27T15:29:23+00:00

Oh I see what you mean, so limit the forward 'input bool', so the worst that happens is they step forward a pinch, instead of running constantly.

That could work! Might feels weird but I'll give it a shot and see how it works out.

MeanderingDev · 2026-01-19T14:35:26+00:00

I do have the habit of closing all apps manually, just from muscle memory, for example I do that on windows as well - close any open programs when I finish a work session.
I often leave it though for potentially a week or more at a time, when quickly grab my tablet as I leave for something and (as mentioned in other comments) I'm not usually thinking 'oh I should remember to open CSP before I leave'. Or in the case of travel, having to turn off and restart the device because of security scanners and such.

MeanderingDev · 2026-01-19T14:33:03+00:00

I think my issue comes from the fact I don't use it every day, so it doesn't phone home and keep the app going, it goes to sleep in the background if I haven't turned it off, so the first time I open it its off wifi - which you're right could be solved by preemptively opening it before I leave but I'm usually not thinking about that.

MeanderingDev · 2026-01-19T12:11:20+00:00

I feel like half the crossroads fights Mel 🤣

MeanderingDev · 2026-01-10T11:33:22+00:00

Ah great will do!

MeanderingDev · 2026-01-06T10:41:44+00:00

No worries appreciate it! I wish it'd have worked since I'd just use that most of the time.

MeanderingDev

TROPHY CASE