I like that. We do something semi-similar at Optimizely, where we have all go-to-market employees walk through the ticket answering process with our Technical Support Engineers. Makes the customer demands feel very real, and gives other parts of the org ideas for discrete improvements.
Precisely. Although, they're a little naïve if they think that's a realistic alternative. The transit system is horrific, having used it for 3.5 years. We're largely in this mess because the transit system is such a mess.
I'm surprised the article didn't also mention the congestion issues at SFO. The departures deck is a mess now that all Lyft/Uber riders are directed there for pick-up.
Basically that it isn't all "tender and delicious meat," i.e. the good stuff. You have to have the bone (a way to generate revenue) with the meat (the fun content for users) before you can cook and serve it (continue to support it).
Aw, that makes me sad. I've been telling myself I'm going to get into the VR scene and dive in with Oculus. I was hoping it would be a dev-friendly environment.
I've heard (and experienced) great things about Unreal Engine 4 with HTC Vive. I have a couple friends using it for an independent study at Uni. It's great fun, and the Vive and its controllers are honestly excellent pieces of hardware.
Anyone have some recommended tutorials on how to get started working with Unreal Engine? I've done some googling, but curious what the HN community has done/suggests.
I watched it before starting my last semester in college with 0 Unreal Engine experience. I was able to create a game which got an award for our senior capstone showcase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z1RVBELKAU
You'll have to check the comments often to see what broke (and fixes pasted in an unformatted textbox!) Don't just download all of the videos, there's important context considering some of those are from the initial release.
I taught myself the basics by picking apart the sample projects in the learn tab of the launcher. Specifically I started with a top down template (c++) for my own project and then looked at how the strategygame sample worked, gradually porting features across to my own project and adjusting as needed. I think a lot of people do something similar with ShooterGame, since that's a really simple multiplayer shooter and also gives you an idea of how to structure things for network replication. I had even heard that the Ark: Survival Evolved binary was actually still called ShooterGame, but I don't know how accurate that is.
The UnrealEngine youtube channel is also fantastic, and their training streams are very good. The documentation is OK, but you're better off reading the source most of the time for anything lower level - the headers are generally pretty well commented.
I have been working on a side project for over a year now in UE4, and my suggestion is this:
1. Just dive in, it is definitely one of those applications where you dont learn many things other than by doing them.
2. Read the documentation, forums, and answers section. You can see what other people struggle with and try to avoid it.
3. Video tutorials. Sometimes they suck, but sometimes they show you that one blueprint thing, etc, and it makes a big difference.
4. Marketplace and starter content. I love the starter content and the marketplace because I dissect them to see how they did it so I can do it my way.
5. Finally, I highly suggest you review and read all you can about gamedev pipelines. If you dont understand your workflow you are going to have a mess thats hard to manage. Ive forked my project 5 times before finally starting over from scratch and it was a good feeling to strip the project back to bare essentials.
It all depends on what you want to do as well. Im interested in VR MMO backend infrastructure and netcode (prediction, etc) so what Im looking at might be different than you are.
Just my few cents. Now if only I could get my hands on a Vive...
Also there are many video tutorials if you look on Youtube.
Many samples included in Unreal 'kit' that is downloadable, which help get you started also.
I learned much of the basic things in about couple of days using their tutorials and quick start. Then spend ~1 week to learn advanced stuff and dig through undocumented features. I'm now able to build functional drone simulator is pretty cool looking world :). Sure, there are tons of videos but they are pain to watch than just reading a doc with screenshots.
