What Is Unreal Engine?

If you’re interested in the games industry, you’ve likely heard of Epic Games and Unreal Engine 5 (UE5). Unreal Engine 5 is a game engine used by developers at AAA game studios, university students, and indies. Its flexibility, low barrier to entry, and ease of use have earned it a place in the games industry and other industries that require powerful VFX tools.

Using Unreal Engine, it’s possible to create immersive environments with realistic physics and visuals. This makes it the tool of choice for creating simulations, animations, and architectural visualizations.

Learning Unreal Engine development opens the door to a career in game design and provides opportunities for architects, filmmakers, and aerospace engineers to make realistic interactive experiences. In this guide, we’ll explore its key features and benefits and discuss its popularity in a variety of industries. We’ll also look at some options for learning Unreal Engine so you can build your skill set or break into a new career.

Understanding Unreal Engine

Epic Games developed Unreal Engine as a tool to help developers build interactive virtual environments with outstanding visuals. The current version, UE5, includes many new features to support high-quality graphics rendered in real time.

Since Unreal Engine is a game engine, performance is a priority. It includes features such as temporal super-resolution to ensure users can enjoy high-fidelity graphics, even if they have limited processing power. 

However, the software isn’t just used for game development. It’s also used to create visualizations, training simulations, and animations and CGI for movies and TV shows. In these scenarios, where interactivity isn’t as much of a priority, Unreal Engine’s physics and graphics capabilities truly shine.

Another important feature is its pricing model. Epic Games wants as many people as possible to use it, so it designed the licensing structure around this. Anyone can download and use the engine for free to develop their own games and interactive experiences. 

If your business uses Unreal Engine for commercial purposes and generates more than $1 million in revenue per year, but you won’t be selling the games or applications you make with it, you might need to buy a license. 

For instance, an architectural firm could use Unreal Engine to create highly detailed, interactive 3D models of buildings or developments. These models allow potential clients to experience virtual walkthroughs of the designs. While the firm isn’t selling the models as games, they are using Unreal Engine for commercial purposes, as it directly supports their revenue-generating business activities. If the firm is generating over $1 million annually from these types of projects, it would likely need to purchase an Unreal Engine license, as per the licensing terms for commercial usage. 

Game and software developers who sell their work will have to pay a royalty of 5% on any earnings after the lifetime revenue of the product exceeds $1 million USD.

This pricing structure makes the barrier to getting started with Unreal Engine low and has helped it become one of the most popular game development engines among large studios and independents.

Key Features of Unreal Engine

Unreal Engine’s features go far beyond those of a simple game engine. The tool includes numerous features to help designers and developers make realistic and immersive experiences. Some key functionalities of Unreal Engine include:

• Lumen lighting. Create realistic scenes with real-time, dynamic lighting. Game designers and animators use Lumen to add an extra touch of realism to their creations.
• Sophisticated graphics tools. Build models, animations, and games with a high degree of visual fidelity, thanks to Nanite’s cutting-edge micropolygon geometry system, which allows artists to create highly detailed and complex assets with millions, or even billions, of polygons, without sacrificing performance.  Take advantage of other sophisticated graphics features, including virtual shadow maps, which improve the accuracy of shadows in complex scenes, and temporal superresolution, which enhances image quality by using multiple frames to create high-resolution graphics, even on lower-powered machines.
• Powerful animation tools. The UE5 character and animation toolkit helps designers pose, animate, and adjust characters quickly, reducing the time it takes to create lifelike animations.
• Advanced physics and AI. Build realistic simulations or create interactive environments using built-in physics and AI features. These features remove the need to reinvent the wheel when creating interactive objects.
• Open-world game development tools. Gamers love to explore, and building large worlds is easy with Unreal Engine’s World Partition system, which helps teams collaborate on world-building and reduces the resource requirements for running large maps.
• Integration with powerful third-party tools. Large teams working on sophisticated games and applications need powerful tools for source control, which helps manage and track changes to the codebase, ensuring that multiple team members can collaborate efficiently without overwriting each other’s work. Unreal Engine integrates seamlessly with Helix Core, a powerful version control application that tracks and manages changes to 3D assets, source code, and other important files.
• Blueprint visual scripting. Create game prototypes, entire games, and interactive scenarios without writing a single line of code. The visual scripting interface empowers anyone to create games, even if they’re not a programmer.
• Cross-platform development. Build applications and games for PCs, mobile devices, consoles, and VR devices using one tool. Unreal Engine reduces the time and effort required to build for multiple platforms.
• MetaHuman Creator/virtual production. Anyone can create high-fidelity digital humans with MetaHuman Creator. This cloud-based application provides several starting characters for designers to work with, and skilled graphics artists can create custom meshes ready to animate and use in games, simulations, and films.

The engine is under continuous development, and innovative new features are added regularly. Epic Games provides detailed documentation of its features, and this Unreal Engine course is a great place to learn all the skills you need to be an effective game developer.

Careers That Use Unreal Engine

Professionals in a variety of industries make use of Unreal Engine to bring their visions to life. Some examples include:

• Game development. Unreal Engine is a popular tool among AAA and Indie developers. Examples of games made using the engine include Fortnite, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, and Borderlands, as well as indie classics, such as Stray, Lost Soul Aside, and The Pathless. The flexibility of this game engine makes it possible to tell incredible stories, whether you’re an independent developer or a company with vast resources.
• 3D artists and animators. Disney uses Unreal Engine to produce assets and content for games, animations, and films. The powerful tools for lighting and rigging and the ability to integrate easily with other animation and modeling suites enable animators and artists to get more work done faster.
• Architects and designers. The relatively simple learning curve of Unreal Engine enables architects and designers to get started quickly, building immersive 3D models of their projects. Using UE5, architects can go beyond still images and bring people into a virtual world where they can see how their designs look and feel.
• Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) developers. Unreal Engine supports more than just 3D animations. Designers and developers can bring an extra level of realism to their ideas using VR and AR tools. The engine makes it easy to build for iOS and Android, taking the friction out of building AR games, simulations, and training applications.
• Film and media professionals. CGI scenes from The Mandalorian and Rogue One were made using Unreal Engine. The tool’s lighting, sequencing, rigging, and mesh animation systems make it possible to create realistic, vibrant images and animations quickly and efficiently.

If you work in any of the above industries or another industry where simulations or visualizations would be useful, learning Unreal Engine could be an effective way to differentiate yourself from other job applicants. It’s a skill that can be applied in a range of settings and benefit many companies, large or small.

Why Learning Unreal Engine Can Boost Your Career

Because Unreal Engine is used by many industries, there’s demand for people with experience coding, using, and modeling for this engine across all sectors. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, demand for special effects artists and animators is expected to grow by around 4% between 2023 and 2033. Software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers are in even greater demand, with projected job growth of 17% over the same period.

Whether your career aspirations are to build your own startup, freelance as a 3D artist, or work for a major games developer, aerospace company, animation studio, or architectural firm, Unreal Engine expertise will be invaluable. 

The popularity of this software is undeniable. Architects such as Gensler, HOK, and Foster + Partners use Unreal Engine as part of their workflow. On the Steam games marketplace, you’ll find more than 14,000 games developed using some version of the tool. Those with UE5 expertise will find their skills are very much in demand.

How to Learn Unreal Engine on Udemy

Taking a Udemy course on Unreal Engine is an ideal way to kickstart your career. We offer courses covering all skill levels, from beginner to advanced.

Consider the following courses to get up to speed with Unreal Engine 4 and 5 while working on real projects:

• Unreal Engine 5 C++ Developer: Learn C++ & Make Video Games: Created in collaboration with Epic Games, this course teaches C++ basics while making your first 5 video games in Unreal.
• Unreal 5 Stealth Combat: Make Stealth Games in UE5 Blueprint: In this course you will build your own 3rd person stealth combat game, complete playable map, alarm hazards, obstacles, enemies & more!
• Unreal Engine 5: Action Adventure Game Development Course: This a great alternative for learners who want to create video games without using C++. Here you’ll learn the ins and outs of Unreal’s blueprint system to create a fully playable level.
• Unreal Engine 5 C++ Multiplayer: Make An Online Co-op Game: Once you’ve mastered the basics of C++, this course is a great next step. Here you’ll learn intermediate C++ and the latest UE5 tech to make your own online multiplayer adventure games.

Our courses offer hands-on learning opportunities, allowing you to build real projects for your portfolio.

Unreal Engine 4 has low resource requirements, so it can run well even on slightly older hardware. We provide several courses in UE4, and the skills learned also apply to Unreal Engine 5. We also offer courses dedicated to UE5 that cover the latest features, so you can start learning in-demand skills right away. 

Learn Unreal Engine 5 With Udemy 

Unreal Engine has become far more than a simple tool. It’s shaping the future of the games, filmmaking, virtual and augmented reality, and simulations industries.

If you’re looking for a tool that can bring your ideas to life in digital form, Unreal Engine is the answer. Learning UE4 and UE5 can open the doors to exciting career opportunities in a variety of industries. We can get you up to speed with these technologies through enjoyable, practical courses with immediate real-world applications. Explore Udemy’s Unreal Engine courses to start learning today.