It's been a year since I started learning Unreal Engine and here is my journey so far.
In the past year I learned to make 3D environments in Unreal Engine.
I gained amazing new skills and knowledge I never knew I could
I won a Xbox from a competition.
I met some amazing people who inspired me and helped me.
Also my Youtube channel has grown quite a bit.
Voice : Ha!
Well by my standards anyway.
I only learned through freely available stuff, I literally haven't paid for anything, except my time.
A year ago, I was a regular plain flat 2D video guy who knew nothing about 3D
So why did I decide to learn in the first place? Let me take you back
Early last year, I noticed a video on behind the scenes of the Mandalorian.
I had heard something about it in a podcast so it caught my eye.
The video showed how some scenes were shot in front of a LED wall.
WHAT? You don't need greenscreen anymore?
No more post? I was ecstatic.
I was all ready to hop on the band wagon when I found out about this thing called Unreal Engine
Of course I had heard of it before in gaming but never in a filmmaking context.
Self esteem : So slow
I wanted to learn but I wasn't confident. This was 3D we were talking about.
I never worked with 3D, my brain only worked in 2D.
AND I didn't even know how to code.
I had a conversation about this with someone I met on set,
who told me that I didn't need to learn programming.
WHAT? And he also told me UE was free.
WHAT??? As soon as I heard that,
I downloaded Unreal Engine and from the launcher I was led to their educational website.
On this website, there were tons of courses.
I signed up and started a course called "Your first hour in Unreal Engine"
Well they named that wrong because it was more like 4 hours I spent on that course
re-watching multiple times to copy exactly what the tutor was doing.
Self-hate : Dumbass
This website has been updated along with UE5 and it's now called the developer community.
You can showcase your work and even post your own tutorials.
So after spending a few weeks grasping the basics,
I was able to create a basic world with a sky, sun, clouds, ground
even stuff like fog and light rays.
I also could animate a camera and make a simple sequence using sequencer.
The beginner courses really helped me get a sense of the basic concepts of Unreal as well as 3D in general.
Metahuman was released soon after I did these courses and I fiddled around with it for a while.
Watched a lot of tutorials on it and managed to use my wife's iphone
to link my face to the metahuman face.
Self-dread : Oh my god
So I could make a lip sync video.
I think I enjoyed this lip syncing thing a bit too much.
And then in May, Unreal Engine 5 was released.
Along with the Demo project.
At the time, there was a flood of new content
that either showed them playing with the Demo or making something original using the new Engine.
So I hopped on the bandwagon and made this small environment using Megascan assets.
I still didn't really know what I was doing at this point
but there was something deeply satisfying about having an idea
then figuring out how to realize it in 3D.
It was kind of like in filmmaking, when you get all the grinding done in pre-production,
then you get to finally step on set and see your idea happen in real life.
Only in a virtual space, you are less reliant on other people and their time, not to mention money.
By this time I was posting what I was doing regularly on Youtube.
I didn't really see my channel going anywhere
but making videos and sharing was a natural thing for me so I just kept doing it
Then I made a video about how to start learning Unreal
because someone asked me about it and that got a wee bit of attention.
So afterwards, I took things a little bit more seriously.
Uploading to Youtube acted as a motivator for me to learn new things in Unreal Engine.
Although it was the other way around before.
One of my Korean viewers.
Korean ajussi : 오! 한국사람?
Let me know that Epic Games Korea was holding a competition called the Nanite challenge.
And I decided to give it a go. Because why not.
I really liked the tumbler they were offering for all participants.
Then unexpectedly, I won third place!
And I got an Xbox!
PS4 Owner : Not a Playstation
I didn't think I was going to win anything, I was literally in it for the tumbler.
Well and maybe the Playstation.
They kindly gave me the tumbler as well. Thank you!
After that I grew a bit more confident.
I made a cave environment I always wanted to try.
It was a big challenge for me at the time.
I posted a video showing the process with narration.
And this video is probably the best performing one in my channel so far.
Someone asked me to sell this project on Gumroad so I put it up for 5 bucks.
I thought I was purely uploading it for that one guy when I did.
But surprisingly more people have bought that project which really wasn't my expectation.
Do you see the recurring theme in this video?
I talk to someone, or they tell me something, I then go do something with it,
and I get something new out of it.
Could be an opportunity, idea, something I didn't know or even some coffee money.
Then I make a video about THAT new thing and it cycles all over again.
Although my viewership isn't that big,
the comments in my videos have been a huge inspiration for making more stuff and posting videos about it.
When I made that cave scene, I started learning about different rendering methods
and getting really good looking images and sequences out of Unreal.
Learning about rendering from the documentation and tutorials really gave me a boost in my understanding.
Mostly because I had to learn the related jargons and concepts in the process as well.
Because I was focused on getting things looking good,
I was learning more about using materials and how the system worked.
In my FPV drone video I did for the Nanite challenge,
I really wanted to have some moving fog in the scene.
At the time, the task seemed way too complex for me and I had to choose where to focus my time so I gave up.
Later down the line, I made a Skyrim themed environment, and I revisited the idea of fog.
Eventually I learned various methods of making fog and how to make them move.
I posted a full tutorial about it recently, check it out if you are interested.
I went to an art school. Before I did video,
making art and setting up gallery spaces was kind of my thing.
Self-cruelty : Who cares?
I figured since I could do stuff in Unreal Engine now,
I could make a virtual gallery.
I found a lot of people were already doing it and there were even online templates for artists.
I wanted to make my custom one that looked good and felt a bit more real.
So that's the latest thing I've been working on.
It's already been a year and I still feel like a noob.
Insecurity : Noob!
I see so many talented people online
that it's really hard not to feel like a
.......
....... noob
Distrust : You noob!
(Making peace in a civil way)
But I am trying to use that negative energy of envy and self doubt
to feed off of those geniuses and learn a thing or two from their work.
I am still very unsure on which direction I should focus my learning either.
Whether to steer more towards the Virtual production side
like I had originally wanted to,
or learn more about making better environments.
I would really appreciate any advice that you might have.
But I'm really glad I decided have a go at all this.
It's been a pack full of surprises around every corner
and a constant source of positive energy.
I've met a lot of kind and knowledgeable people online doing this,
including you guys who are watching this right now.
I would like to think that I've helped out a few people along the way as well.
Not only have I learned to use this particular software
but I've learned a lot of other things.
Like managing my time, interacting better with people, coming up with ideas, writing.
I don't know where this road will take me next
but what is important for me right now is that I'm excited for what's to come.
Hope that gives you some inspiration to start learning Unreal if you haven't already,
check out this video that describes how to start your own journey.