The version of Unreal Engine we will be using for this book is Unreal Engine 4.11.0. You may use any 4.11.# engine version as long as your version number exists within the 4.11 family. If you have already installed Unreal Engine 4.11 you can skip this section and jump straight to Creating your first project. First things first, you need to sign up as an Unreal Engine developer. Navigate to https://www.unrealengine.com in your browser and select the GET UNREAL option located in the top right-hand corner of the web page.

This will then redirect you to the login/sign-up page for a UE account. If you do not have an account, follow the steps presented in the page to create one. This account will integrate you into the Unreal Development community. Through this account you can get Unreal Engine news, updates, and developer support.

Once this is done you will be directed to the downloads page, choose the OS that you will be developing on (MAC, Windows) and you should see the download begin for an Epic Games Launcher installer. The Epic Game Launcher is the portal for all Unreal Engine versions and you will use this application to install, manage, and launch the engine version you wish to use.

Once the Epic Games Launcher has been successfully installed, run it and it will prompt you to log in with the account credentials you previously set up with Epic. If everything has gone according to plan you should be presented with the Unreal Engine launcher. From the launcher you will need to navigate to the Unreal Engine tab located in the top left-hand side of the window. From here you can see News, Learning Resources, and Marketplace Content for the engine. I advise you to take your time to explore each of the options available to you, however we will be focusing on the Library section.

By selecting the Library element on the list on the left-hand side of the window you will be presented with any currently installed engines as well as any Unreal projects you have already created. There will be an Add Versions button near the top of the window.

Pressing this button will present you with a light-colored engine node, click the drop-down arrow next to the engine version number and be sure to select 4.11.0. Once this is done, hit Install. The launcher will now handle downloading and installing your new engine version!

While the engine is installing I would strongly suggest you spend some time exploring https://www.unrealengine.com. The website is a great place to find video tutorials, learning resources, and the Unreal Engine Wiki. You do not need to utilize these resources to follow this book, however the content they have provided is very informative and will definitely help you on your journey to becoming a proficient Unreal Engine developer. Once the engine has been installed, hit Launch and you are ready to go!

It is now time for the famous Hello World, but this time it will be Hello Unreal. With your engine version launched you will be presented with the Unreal Project Browser. This browser features two tabs, Projects and New Project, select New Project. The first thing you can see in this tab is a large selection of icons under two more tabs, Blueprint and C++. We will be selecting the Blueprint tab and we will be creating a Blank project, your selection should appear as follows:

Under this section you will see three dropdown boxes titled Desktop / Console, Maximum Quality, and With Starter Content. We will leave these as they are for now but this is where you can swap your target platform for the project, change the graphics quality, and whether or not you would like to use the starter content provided by Epic. Below these options you will see fields to populate the directory where you wish to create the project and what the name of the project will be. We shall title this project Hello Unreal. Once this is done, click the green Create Project button and the engine will finally launch.

Welcome to the Unreal Engine User Interface! It can be a bit overwhelming at first but, fear not, all will be explained. By the end of this book you will be very familiar with the layout and workings of this engine view. Now, for the sake of brevity, I will hand your Unreal education over to the Epic team for a short moment. In the top right-hand corner of the window next to the name of the project you should see a grey academia cap flashing green.

Clicking this cap will start a short tutorial that will familiarize you with the engine's layouts and panels. I am leaving this up to Unreal as the introductory tutorials are succinct and efficient at bringing you up to scratch with the editor layout and camera controls. This gives us more time to get to the juicy learning!

Once you have completed this introductory tutorial you will be guided to the tutorial home panel. Here you will be able to find a list of simple tutorials that will help familiarize you with the different features of the engine, could you please complete the two tutorials under the Basics category. Feel free to utilize the other tutorials during the course of the book. I will likely be covering almost all of the topics covered in the tutorials but they may prove useful as an additional learning resource. Now that Epic has taught you how to view its engine, it is now time to teach you how to use the engine!