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by WhiteOwlEd 1006 days ago
Data scientist here who spent a couple of years working with Unreal (to produce high end data visualizations). Here are my thoughts

> Blueprints suck! Not really. Think of Blueprints like python. Its good for routing and keeping track of things at a high level. Think of C++ as handling things at a lower level.

> I heard you need to start with blueprints. Not really. After going through the basic tutorial that Unreal Sensei has on YouTube (https://youtu.be/gQmiqmxJMtA?si=TqBiiIe12M5hiCda) , it is better to do a mix of blueprints and C++ if you have any programming background.

> I don't know what to use for the IDE. I used Rider for Unreal Engine and it has good integration into Unreal Engine.

> So when do you use C++? When I was doing data vis of census data, I needed a way to load in 10,000 data points into memory. The "out of the box" tools for Unreal didn't support this, so custom C++ was the way to go.

> But really, if I just want to get started with Unreal and want official tutorials, where do I go?

After going through Unreal Sensei, I looked at at https://dev.epicgames.com/community/unreal-engine/getting-st..., there are a ton of tutorials there for game developers.

Also, a year ago I put together an online course that looked at how to ramp up on Unreal Engine. The course ("Data Visualization in the Metaverse") is ideal if you already have a programming background. I put the course out on YouTube for free (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKH3Xg62luIgPaB4fiFuT...) and happy to answer any questions about it.

2 comments

>Data scientist here who spent a couple of years working with Unreal (to produce high end data visualizations) That sounds amazing, could you share some of your visualizations?
> I don't know what to use for the IDE. I used Rider for Unreal Engine and it has good integration into Unreal Engine.

Don't forget Visual Assist! It's more flexible, is faster, uses less memory, works on uncompilable code, etc. (I work on it.)