UDK – Part 2. Playing Around

Posted by Ironspike on May 10, 2010 in General | 1 comment

Now that a few weeks have went by, I managed to do a little playing around with the UDK. First, I have to say this software is out of this world!

I have some good news and bad news. The good news is this tool provides just about everything you need to create some really awesome stuff in a 3D environment.

The bad news is, if your looking to make a fully functional game all by yourself, it will take years!

With that out of the way, let’s move on into my analysis of the software. Most of my experience with software was always OTJ. I’d just install it and start working with it and a lot of functionality was intuitive. In my experience the UDK is not that way. If it wasn’t for books and online tutorials then I’d still be totally lost.

Take for example this interface:

It can be overbearing.

So, for the first week I started watching and duplicating what I seen in these videos: http://download.udk.com/tutorials/using-udk/user_interface.zip

There are 34 videos that cover nothing but  the UI. However, upon completing the videos I still was lost on some aspects. It is because all of those videos just barely scratched the surface of the Unreal.

I went ahead and bought the following book off of Amazon:

Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume I: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal Engine 3

This book is huge! However, don’t let the size fool you. It’s a step by step guide to level creating and it’s pretty good. However, for the more advanced stuff you’ll be forced to buy volume 2 and 3. There is one issue I had with the book. The UDK is updated monthly and is evolving as it does. The book references way to access functions and assets that no longer exist in the UDK. So, I spent time trying to figure out processes on my own.

I will say, that is good thing in a way because it forced me to learn the UDK.

The biggest pointer I can give out is just create levels. The UI is weird and hard to get used too and the best to over come this is just constantly create levels.

I’m not sure what my path is with this tool but either way it has been quite intriguing on my journey.

I’ll post some level updates and videos in the near future.