Hi, I’m trying to learn how to use the blueprint system and honestly it’s kicking my butt. I’m not understanding everything it’s saying to do. I can follow the tutorials just fine but knowing what I’m doing is a completely different subject. To clear this up real quick. I’m a complete beginner to making games. I don’t know how to program or anything honestly. I found out about Unreal engine 4 about 2 weeks ago i guess and I started out with the tutorial on making the house which was fun. I completed it and did very well in my opinion. But then I decided that maybe I should learn how to use the blueprint system before going any farther. As of now I still don’t feel like I’ve learned anything. So I guess my question is. Where did you guys/gals start learning how to do this? How did you learn it(as in did you watch tutorials and take notes or did you just follow along and do the tutorial as they did it)? Because I have the motivation to learn because I’ve wanted to do this almost all my life I just don’t know how to start to achieve it.
Nobody???
It’s different for everyone, but I learn the most by trying to accomplish actual goals. I learned about animation blueprints by trying to script animations, I learned about projectiles by trying to make a character fire bullets, I learned about UMG widgets by trying to make a menu. I had no idea how to do any of those things when I started, but by setting (simple) goals, it narrowed down the fields I needed to research.
However, the very first thing I did was watch every blueprint tutorial Epic has put on youtube. After that, I decided to make a simple Pac-Man game. I tackled it one mechanic at a time. For example, I started with movement. How do I make PacMan move? So I looked up tutorials on movement and inputs, and I also referenced the built in project templates to see how movement was done. Then I wanted to learn how to kill an enemy on contact, and that’s when I discovered overlap events, etc.
The idea is, you’ll never get a full understanding of everything you’ll ever need to know about blueprints at once, but if you set a goal for yourself to accomplish 1 simple thing, you’ll learn things along the way that can later be applied to other things, either through tutorials or by experience, or occasionally, simply by accident. Hope that helps.
Really does help. Thank you for your comment. When you said you watched every blueprint tutorial, did you just watch it or did you follow along with what they were doing?
I just watched them at first, but I went back to them repeatedly. Once I knew what it was that I wanted to accomplish, I would directly apply the lessons to my own project in my own way.
Ok, thank you.
You can start studying programming logic, what is an algorithm, variables, etc because all those subjects are there inside the blueprints, you can start with simple things, like what is an event? what it does? where should i use it? What is a function? What is a class? Try to study concepts instead of try to follow tutorials, because like you said, if you follow a tutorial that you don’t know what is that about you are doing nothing.
So studying things like that will give you a much better understanding about the blueprint. If you know what is an event, what is a variable, the tutorials will help you to know where you can find it inside the blueprint, so will be easier.
So those are my suggestions, if you still have doubt feel free to ask again =)
I would also add to start by defining a simple task. For example: “I want to make a light switch that turns on a light.” Then get a rough idea of how you think the action should go.
- Player clicks on light switch
- Light turns on.
- Player clicks switch again
- Light turns off.
Then use that list to try and visualize what you will need to accomplish it:
- A Switch
- A Light
- Boolean for switch state
- Boolean for light state
- Means of communicating between two objects.
Keep refining this down until you have a pretty clear idea of what needs to be done. Knowing what you are actually trying to accomplish, in detail, is the largest part of the battle.
Thanks, just found this, very helpful because I was looking for a good way to figure this stuff out too! 
Hello!
I think truly the best way is to simply play around with some of the Blueprints and see which ones suit you best.
You’ll sometimes find guides or material online which do not match the blueprints you have, based on your version.
Also, you’ll find Blueprints with the same name are different depending on the version.
I.e. Set View with Target Blend has different properties in 4.14 than earlier versions like 4.11…
If you haven’t yet, do use the Timeline nodes as they are absolutely wonderful for float variable programming.
Best of luck to you,