So far my experience in Unreal Engine 4 has primarily been blueprinting. It is a visual programming language that is very user friendly and approachable for people who might not have much programming experience. That isn't to say you don't need to know how to program to use blueprinting. Although blueprints cover your bases as far as syntax and command compatibility, you still need to think like a programmer. You need to keep in mind the order of functions, logic, math, casting and every other staple any other language would require. Where blueprinting shines in my opinion though is in its simplification of the learning process.

Learning a new programming language and how it can be used within a game engine can be an extremely intimidating step. Unreal blueprints let you dive in and start fitting functions together like a sort of puzzle where all the pieces are somewhere in the box, you just need to find them and figure out where to place them. Transitioning to a completely text based programming workflow can seem very daunting at first, but after several years of developing games via blueprint and practicing various different programming languages in school, I think I'm ready to begin dipping my toes in and utilizing what I've learned in a more practical way. Starting by learning C++ for Unreal Engine.   

Why learn C++ if I can do just about anything I want in blueprints anyway? Well both blueprinting and C++ have their strengths and weaknesses. The general consensus I've gathered from my research is its in my best interest to learn how to combine both. Blueprinting seems to be the favorite for rapid prototyping and getting things done quickly when there is a blueprint ready way to do something. C++ seems to be the favorite for iteration and more easily adjusting code that you know is going to need lots of tweaks and changes. I can easily see why this would be the case. Blueprints (especially large complex ones) can start to get messy, unwieldy, and difficult to read. I often spend a lot of my programing time moving nodes around and untangling wires so that their flow is readable and I don't get lost myself. I find jumping between sections of written code to be a much easier task when trying to suss out logic issues and mistakes.

So this is where my journey into C++ for unreal begins. If anyone has any experiences they wish to share on the subject, or any tips/tricks/suggestions, I'd love to hear them. What do you think about blueprints? Were there any resources that made learning C++ for unreal easier for you? Let me know! 

Getting back into practicing animation for fun (On top of all the other things I have on my plate). I'll post an update to this once its more fleshed out. 

This one was quite fun. Played around with a more organic style and I feel like I captured the style that Last Oasis has been going for. I have a long way to go but I definitely feel like I improved a little bit here. 

Yet another Last Oasis themed idea. If anything, being part of that community does a great job of giving me ideas and motivation to visualize them. For this one I took the general mechanical design of the walkers in the game, and scaled them down to fit on a wind surfer. Using wind power to surf the dunes sounds like a great time.  Also, this picture took me about half the time of the rest. I don't know if my drawing is getting any better, but I'm definitely getting faster and more accustomed to using the pen. 

Spending time chatting with the community of Last Oasis has become a great way to spend my free time lately. Yesterday we discusses the possibility of adding instruments into the game and that got me thinking about the kind of instruments that might be available in the world the game takes place in. It is similar to a pirate game, in which people build ships and traverse the desert sea, which immediately brought to mind a hurdygurdy, one of my favorite instruments. Seeing how unique everything else is in the game though made me feel like an instrument made for the game should be equally unique. Not only unique, but simplistic, rugged, and durable. Eventually I settled on modifying a Hurdy Gurdy into a pinharp. This I would imagine is an instrument that although may not sound as good, could survive a pretty good beating.  

Day 2 I took my drawing from yesterday and turned him around as a template for an idea I had while chatting with the community of a game I'm interested in. Last Oasis, its a cool upcoming survival game themed around very interesting wood and wind powered walker vehicles. Based on the mechanical designs of Strandbeests. I felt like this would be a fun addition to the game. 

I recently got a new laptop/tablet to be able to practice 2D art and sculpting with a pen. I am still getting used to it, but my goal is to draw something new every couple days. I'll be collecting them here, to hopefully watch myself improve over time.

This is the first human I've drawn in about 5 years. I never considered myself any good at drawing so this took me a lot longer than it probably should. I really do enjoy the ability to make as many layers as I want of chicken scratch before refining the shapes and lines on a new one.