I’ve spent a lot of time and effort learning web development techniques, a lot of time learning 3D modeling, and a lot of time but still less than the other things learning about video editing. I’m kind of at the point now where I’m comfortable doing any of these things — maybe not well, but I can approximate any of them — and now I’m contemplating becoming uncomfortable by starting with Unreal Engine.

I am not interested in game development any longer. That ship has sailed, gotten into international waters, and has been torpedoed, spat upon, and weight down so it sinks to the bottom as quickly as possible. Instead, I’m looking at UE as a 3D production set. Several TV shows and movies have been employing sets created in UE that are then displayed on a massive wrap-around screen system so that actors can perform before them in real time. The Mandalorian did it. Star Trek does it. The benefit is that artists can create the backdrops, the cameras can sync with the display to control the motion of what’s on the screen, and actors can get more of a sense that they are where they’re supposed to be, replacing the absolute nothing that a chromakeyed background provides.

For me, I’m looking at UE as more of a compositional tool. Right now, I’m using Blender to compose scenes and it’s perfectly capable of doing this; in fact, it has a compositor tab which can handle layers, depth mapping, and other aspects of putting together a final render. So technically I don’t need UE to do this, but then again, why not? Learning how to use different tools to accomplish the same task is never a bad idea. Non-technically, though, I have a few 3D assets in my FAB library that will only work with UE; I can’t get them out of the Unreal ecosystem for use in Blender, so I guess that’s two check-marks in the “learn UE” column.

The only “don’t learn UE” checkmark (aside from “starting from scratch”) is “how”. I’ve scouted around for comprehensive beginner tutorials and have found content ranging from “just OK” to “WTF is this?”. Of course all free content on YouTube is going to have been made more for the brand promotion of the creator than for actual usability by a student, and considering UE’s place in the entertainment ecosystem, paid tutorials can get pretty pricy.

One aspect that’s worries me is that UE is a game engine and as such will require a not-so-insignificant amount of game development knowledge, or that information that I can find is/will be centered on using the platform to, you know, create games and will be heavy on the game dev jargon and concepts. I’m going to have to learn as much of that as necessary in order to get a handle on the basics of the app, even though I won’t be doing anything with that knowledge afterwards. I would hope that during this process I don’t get annoyed by such a necessary detour, but I know me, and I know that I’m worried about exactly that.