So I spent most of last year learning Unity and I got really good at it, but I always wanted to get Unreal Engine 4, and I finally did this year. Its been so difficult to make the transition to UE4 since I was so trained in Unity. Does anyone have this issue and a solution to master UE4? I feel like the problem with Epic, is their reliance on the Blueprints so much, anything you want to do needs a little bit from the blueprints, even something like using a different texture for your terrain environment, unlike Unity which has the slots you can add textures in to.

I watched the first 2 videos on Blueprints from Epic, and I stopped after the second because the information is so outdated, I couldn't follow along with any thing they were doing because I use 4.7 and they used an earlier version, not very backward compatible if you ask me.

So how does one go about learning Unreal? Is their a good youtube series you can recommend?

Its largely going to be a case of 'try things and see', certainly where UI changes are involved.

The Unreal Engine youtube channel (here) which I assume you've been using does have some old videos but the more recent ones should be using a closer UI. Things like the Blueprint Jump Starts should be pretty up to date.

With regards to the reliance on Blueprints; this is effectively the language for UE4 much like C# is the language for Unity. The idea is to present a (reasonably, some changes are going on still) consistent UI and experience between the different parts of the engine be it Material Graphs (which you call out) to Animation and AI.

With regards to your specific thing about terrain; what you've created is a Material, which can indeed have slots to place different textures in difference instance of it, which should be on a par with what Unity does but in a different way.

Material Blueprints are just describing how the material works, and I assume Unity has a similar system to describe a material without having textures and the like defined directly in the material.

For specific help on things you'd want to check out the Unreal Engine Forums where people are likely to be able to help out with issues and indeed coming from Unity to UE4.

Its largely going to be a case of 'try things and see', certainly where UI changes are involved.

With regards to the reliance on Blueprints; this is effectively the language for UE4 much like C# is the language for Unity. The idea is to present a (reasonably, some changes are going on still) consistent UI and experience between the different parts of the engine be it Material Graphs (which you call out) to Animation and AI.

Yeah I assumed that the Blueprints are to UE4, as C# is to Unity, but in my opinion it is so much more dependent than Unity is. While I definitely say thank you for those links and I will definitely try to learn, don't you find it weird how you need a really good knowledge on UE4 to make a small game, while some basic knowledge and literately 2 scripts you can make a simple game (seriously, follow the roll a ball project on Unity)

But that's just my opinion, I would much rather be good with UE4 then I would with Unity, the graphics are amazing and it gave so much more than Unity 4.6

Also, what are your thoughts on the creation of GUI in Unity vs. Unreal Engine? In Unity 4.6 you can make all the UI stuff relatively fast, I don't even know where to start it UE4.

Their documentation has definitely gotten better with UE4.

I use Unity myself, but have you seen these?

https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Unity3D_Developer%27s_Guide_to_Unreal_Engine_4

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/GettingStarted/FromUnity/index.html

They are what I looked at when I considered switching to UE4.

I use Unity myself, but have you seen these?

https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Unity3D_Developer%27s_Guide_to_Unreal_Engine_4

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/GettingStarted/FromUnity/index.html

They are what I looked at when I considered switching to UE4.

Wow, thank you so much for those links, those are filled with information. According to the links, you have UMG UI Designer which is pretty much the same as the Unity UI. Anyway, I'm definitely gonna study this stuff more see what I can get on all this information.

So as far as learning the stuff, I'll just do trial and error type of work? That tends to work out best, right?

But that's just my opinion, I would much rather be good with UE4 then I would with Unity, the graphics are amazing and it gave so much more than Unity 4.6

Not wanting to rain on your parade, but the graphics quality has little to do with the engine being used and all with the shaders, models and textures used.

Really, comparing stock Unity 4.6 to the current version of UE4 will of course end badly for Unity as Unity 4.6 still misses many things that Unity 5 will bring. PBR Shaders, a real deferred renderer, and many more.

But even so, the quality of the art used is much more important than the engine. And with the improvements of Unity 5 and Unity having switched to making the personal edition pretty much fully featured on the graphics front, I don't think switching between Unity 5 and UE4 based on graphical power is a very good idea.

I am pretty sure UE4 has its strengths (I keep hearing good things about blueprint), and if you have already switched and got the hang of it, then stick to Unreal. But if you are really struggling to make the switch, while being comfortable with Unity, I would sit back and question if you do not expect too much from switching engines.

Unreal is not the silver bullet solving your problems or magically making your graphics look better that some people are looking for, just as all the other engines are not. Its just another engine with slight advantages and disadvantages compared to the newest versions of similar engines.

Thanks for those two links. They hilghlight some of the quirks. One of my biggest WTF moments of UE4 is covered in that FAQ:

Unity3D
Y axis up.

• X - left, right
• Y - up, down
• Z - forwards, backwards

Unreal Engine4
Z axis up.

• X - forwards, backwards
• Y - left, right
• Z - up, down

Everywhere else in the entire computing world Z is depth. UI windows have a z-order, or depth. 3D z-buffers are depth.

I've wondered what kind of shrooms they were on when they decided those. It isn't the traditional orientation. They cannot even use the excuse of a top-down view since Y and X are transformed for that viewpoint as well.

Thanks for those two links. They hilghlight some of the quirks. One of my biggest WTF moments of UE4 is covered in that FAQ:

Unity3D
Y axis up.

• X - left, right
• Y - up, down
• Z - forwards, backwards

Unreal Engine4
Z axis up.

• X - forwards, backwards
• Y - left, right
• Z - up, down

Everywhere else in the entire computing world Z is depth. UI windows have a z-order, or depth. 3D z-buffers are depth.

I've wondered what kind of shrooms they were on when they decided those. It isn't the traditional orientation. They cannot even use the excuse of a top-down view since Y and X are transformed for that viewpoint as well.

I'm actually pretty ignorant of the reason, but it may be due to UE's roots with Unreal. Maybe the initial engine utilized a different coordinate system and they haven't changed it since then, similar to IDTech's situation (that I believe has been changed by now).

Thanks for those two links. They hilghlight some of the quirks. One of my biggest WTF moments of UE4 is covered in that FAQ:

Quote
Unity3D
Y axis up.
X - left, right
Y - up, down
Z - forwards, backwards
Unreal Engine4
Z axis up.
X - forwards, backwards
Y - left, right
Z - up, down

Everywhere else in the entire computing world Z is depth. UI windows have a z-order, or depth. 3D z-buffers are depth.

I've wondered what kind of shrooms they were on when they decided those. It isn't the traditional orientation. They cannot even use the excuse of a top-down view since Y and X are transformed for that viewpoint as well.

Quake had Z as up. Blender has Z as up. 3DS Max used to be Z up.
I think the 3DS MAX being up is the culprit that caused the historical Z up used by IDTech and Unreal and also Blender. The reason 3DS Max used up is because it used the same interface as early CAD packages which always had X/Y along the ground plane because this is the way it is done in architectural plans and maps.