Compiling Unreal 4 on Linux went smoothly enough. It took like an hour? No biggie. It really is a beast though; current folder size is 66 GB. Better have a large harddrive (and a fat internet connection, which I do not have, so I transferred it on a big USB key from a place that does). The Linux download (Git) contains symlinks, so a normal USB stick won’t work (FAT filesystem…).
After compiling a gazillion shaders, the editor opened to a familiar enough view; a 3D viewport surrounded by all the usual stuff. It’s very easy to make a default first-person environment appear and drop into the game to shoot balls at physics cubes.
The editor comes with good documentation and help features. If you’ve made levels / games before, it will feel familiar. Scripting is done with nodes, as in Cryengine etc, which is a little dumb for my taste (I prefer code) but it’ll do. Stuff like changing the gun fire sound is easy enough if you know where to look; again, if you’ve ever done this sort of thing, you’ll find your way around.
In the node editor (Blueprint) you’ll quickly notice, if you open the first person character actor, things like touch input or VR stuff. Not surprising. Very much overkill if you come from FPS modding.
Default visuals are nothing special; you need to look close to notice things like shadows coloured in complementary colours relative to your light source (as it should be).
It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, though, I can’t really describe it any other way. This engine was made for first person shooters, and it’s pretty obvious. Checking stuff out gave me a feeling of happiness and at-homeness. Like taking a sip of whiskey or something. Feeling all right.
This will do. It’s the biggest hammer around, and it feels good. Imagine someone cracking a big smile.
Yeah, this’ll work.
Harharhar.