UDK Basics - Getting Started Tutorial - Beginner Level

NOTE: This was made with Nov. 2010 version of UDK, not the Nov. 2012 as some have mistaken.

Also, for those of you having trouble getting the gun and HUD to appear, go to view, then world properties and find the "game type" and "game type for pie" properties. Try each game type. I believe the one you are looking for is utgame. The defaults for these options have changed in the time since I made this video

Hi Everybody,
First video tutorial, going to start a tutorial series over the next few months (update 01/23/2012: Haven't been making other tutorials because I got an industry job just after making this. I apologize and will hopefully be making more soon. I am also starting a website based around tutorials soon, so keep an eye on this video and I will tell you when its ready). Any feedback or requests for tutorials would be great. I know about a lot of areas of UDK short of scripting. So just let me know and I will keep a list and go through it over time.

So, this tutorial covers all of the basics for the beginners. It goes into how to navigate, create brushes and lights, place static meshes, and explains a bit about what UDK is doing in the background so that you not only know how to use all of these tools, but understand a little bit about how they work.

Anyways, hope this is helpful!

Sorry about so many ums.

Download UDK:

Further Documentation:

Also check out my blogs or website:

Imgur link of the Volumes menu to highlight the location of UTKillZVolume in the volumes menu of UDK:

[gregbrown]

you, sir, deserve a medal. this is one of the best tutorials for anything i have ever seen.

[mytherindezhrak]

This tutorial is pretty great. Covers a lot of things that I wanted to know in one place - and it still holds up, being 7 years old.

[CymricGamez]

I really hope you make more videos. This is a great starting tutorial, and you are much more thorough than many of the tutorials that I've seen.

[NicePasta]

OH MY GOD. THANK YOU
This was the most simple beginner tutorial ever, and I needed it.

[BlackIceDds]

One of the few in-depth and interesting tutorials out there for beginners, nice job. More tutorials would be great; subbed.

[LiberatedMind]

Most intuitive game development software I've ever used in my life! I swear most 2D creation suites are more complicated than this beauty :)

[Comradbren]

awesome tutorial, ive wanted to get this program for quite some time and when i did, i opened it up and was in shock by how many functions there were; thank you so much for helping me understand what all this crazyness!

[ViperStarFilms]

The "Um"s were a little annoying, but complaining about stupid things aside, this tutorial was really helpful, thank you.

[googlematt]

Neat tip 2: if you hold the "alt" key before clicking and dragging, it will make a copy of that object, including all of its properties.

Hope that answers your question

[DARKSHADEDX]

Thankyou very much for this tutorial, I still have a lot to learn, but most of the other tutorials were outdated, this was fantastic, I learnt a lot and actually came away understanding how things work.

Also, you gained a subscriber :3

[googlematt]

if you scroll your mouse over all the rebuild buttons you will see what they do, one is rebuild paths. but what i usually do whenever it has a rebuild message is just to rebuild all (unless you have a massive scene with lots of lights, because rebuild all will rebuild lighting as well). The one that looks like a little cube and a light-bulb in the same icon is rebuild all, just click that and let it run. Then run the game again. Hope this helps :)

[googlematt]

somebody else had the same issue, try this:

"by default you should spawn with a gun. you could have inventory disabled on accident.

got to View>World Properties>World Info>WorldInfo>No Default Inventory

if no default inventory is checked, then that means you will have nothing in your inventory at the start. one way to test this kind of thing is to go to the actors tab (the area where you got a light from) and find a weapon factory (i think its named that, not in front of UDK at the moment)."

[googlematt]

@dmarzak are you clicking on a particular axis and then dragging. you must have the object selected, be in translate mode (the one with arrows, space bar to toggle between manipulation tools), and then hover the mouse over one of the 3 axis, when it highlights yellow, you can click and drag along that axis. just make sure you have the object selected first (just click on it).

Neat tip: if you hold shift before you click and drag (and continue holding shift) your camera will move with it

[googlematt]

@bobfred94 by default you should spawn with a gun. you could have inventory disabled on accident.

got to View>World Properties>World Info>WorldInfo>No Default Inventory

if no default inventory is checked, then that means you will have nothing in your inventory at the start. one way to test this kind of thing is to go to the actors tab (the area where you got a light from) and find a weapon factory (i think its named that, not in front of UDK at the moment).

[googlematt]

If you are starting a blank map and you don't see the square, then go to the little dropdown arrow at the top left of your viewport (Left of the "P"). Then go to Show>Reset to Defaults. For future reference, many options in that "Show" menu have shortcuts that are mapped to individual keys. In this case the "B" key hides the Builder Brush (the red box).

[googlematt]

Well, it's essentially running the engine (game) and an entire suite of different tools, so naturally it takes up more resources than a game. One thing that may help it run a little better is to turn off "realtime". It is the little joystick icon at the top of each viewport.

[googlematt]

Hey thanks man. It is about a year and a half old, but I think it all still holds up

[googlematt]

Glad that I could help! I wish I had this video when I was in college :P

[chargerwr]

I haven't spent a lot of time in UDK yet, but I was able to do all of the things in this video in the newest version. So I don't think it is too outdated.

[googlematt]

Nope, there are many assets (mostly from UT3) that are included with UDK. However, when installing, you must check the Sample Content option for it to unpack the example assets. It doesn't include every UT3 asset, but a good amount to get you familiarized with how some aspects of the engine work. Especially look at a lot of the materials that are included because they are great reference.