Dev Log 10 - The Exclusive Content Continues!

Hello Patrons! The exclusive content rollout continues. It’s been a busy week, and the momentum is continuing to build up!

For a short list of updates, check out the Patreon Vault’s Update Log. Don’t forget to check this every Friday for the latest updates.

C++ From Beginner to Unreal continues to grow, and about half of Section 1 is now up. We’re just getting started though, as most of this is setup and getting familiar with IDEs and your first program. The real theory starts next week. You may have noticed that there’s a Gold Tier video in that course as well. It’s taking a look at Visual Studio 2026, and while it’s not strictly necessary, it’s a nicer experience than 2022 and have some marked improvements, including having C++20 as the default version of the language. We’ll be getting into modern C++ in the course, so that’s a plus, though we’ll also be discussing how to change the language version inside the IDE too. So the course will have Gold Tier videos throughout, but Silver Tier Patrons will still learn the important things they need to know to be a C++ game developer. The Gold Tier videos in the course will contain some extras that are nice to have… in some cases really nice to have. The next Gold Tier video in the course is at the end of Section 1, where I'll go through the process of enabling GitHub Copilot in VS.

Now, I don’t want you to be using AI assistants as a crutch or a replacement for your learning, but modern programmers should know how to use AI assistants effectively and understand what it is they can expect from the AI as a developer. I myself use AI assistant for various coding tasks, and they have enhanced my productivity a great deal, but I believe that is because I already know what I’m doing and have the knowledge base to recognize good AI-generated code, and I understand how to talk to the AI to get it to course correct or improve when I see flaws, problems, imperfections, and all-out hallucinations.

Today, AI assistants are just part of the development process and we’re going to see that developers are using them more and more as part of their daily toolset, much like we use IDEs and calculators and coffee machines and thermostats. Whenever someone complains that AI is useless and cannot code properly, I always see that they are approaching the assistant with the wrong perspectives and expectations.

So the content in the C++ From Beginner to Unreal course that involves the AI assistant will be Gold Tier exclusive when it pops up, because you don’t technically need it to learn C++, but for those who want to be a bit more propelled in their dev process, they can access that content via the Gold Tier.

On the topic of AI assistants, I’ve been playing with the idea of a mini series for some time now on how to use them effectively in game development. I’ve used AI assistants to generate code – in some cases code I would not have been able to come up with myself without much time and difficulty – and I’ve gotten to know the process quite well. If you feel like this is something you’d like to see me cover, let me know in the comments. I know AI is still a bit of a polarizing topic and people tend to have strong feelings in favor of or against it, but it’s no secret that AI will be a part of development going forward and the best way to not get swallowed up by this tidal wave is to hop on a surf board and learn to ride it.

In other news, the Ragdoll Physics Assets mini series got its second video, and we’re making Physics Assets from scratch. This was a cool one, and I look forward to introducing ragdoll to enemy death in future courses. This mini series will be a handy place to point to for making those Physics Assets and configuring them properly.

Enhanced Input Gems is growing as well. I’ve got more of those videos coming, including some more spicy ones that will be reserved for the Gold Tier. I’ll be getting a bit into the more interesting Input Triggers, as well as making some custom Input Triggers with C++. Those will continue to roll out in the coming weeks.

YouTube got a new short, basically a mini-version of the Substrate tutorial, so that’s up if you want to check it out. I’m open to ideas for more shorts, as those are generally easier and quicker to make.

Finally, I’ve recorded my impressions of 5.7 and particularly the gamified tutorial level they created. I recorded these in Part 1 and Part 2. Overall I thought it was pretty cool. I ran into a bug with Discord in Part 1 – while the Game Overlay was on, I couldn’t right-click and some things in 5.7 were broken. So my first impressions were a bit disappointing, which is why I made a Part 2 after I fixed the issue so I could walk through the entire level properly. So check those videos out if you’re interested in seeing what I think about that.

That’s about it for now! I’m continuing to work on the next big series (alongside the C++ course, which is coming along nicely) and I’ll talk a bit more about new content as I get closer to releasing it. I’ll say this: it’s a topic that lots of people have asked for, it’s a newer feature in the engine, I haven't covered it yet, and it’ll be most likely replacing the way we’ve been doing something for a while now. More on that later.

Happy Dev’ing, my friends,

Stephen