Learning Unreal Engine 4

Learning Unreal Engine

Currently the free student accounts for Lynda.com are not available, so for now I will be following along with a tutorial series on Youtube from the channel: Virtus Learning Hub

So far I have been introduced to the basic UI elements as well as creating some simple geometry within the editor. Below I have given an overview of the elements I have learnt so far.

The UI and basic features

Much like any other 3d Modeling software, there are three main methods of manipulating geometry within the editor.  These are:

• Translate: Let’s you move an object in a given direction.
• Rotate: Let’s you rotate an object along one of its axis.
• Scale: Let’s you resize a selected object. 

These transformations are based around the X, Y and Z axis. In 3D modeling, X is used to determine height, Y pertains to length and Z is for depth. So if I wanted to scale an object in Unreal Engine 4, I could do so along any of the three axis.

See the example below of a cone object that I have scaled along only the Y Axis. Notice how distorted the shape has become!

Snapping

The editor also allows you to enable “snapping” for each of the transformations. For example If I wanted to move an object in the scene by only increments of 10, I could enable the translate tool’s snap feature for precise object placement.

Likewise I can enable snapping for rotation and scale transformations! See below how I have rotated the box accurately by 45 degrees. I believe this will prove to be useful when it comes to composing game levels later on!

The World Outliner

It was to my delight that I was introduced to the world outliner panel. Much like the Outliner in Autodesk Maya, or the Layer Explorer in 3DS Max, this window lets you organise the elements of your scene into folders.

 

As someone who has worked on large scale scenes before I cannot begin to describe how helpful it is to be given the option to categorise elements of a project.

For me the biggest benefit this offers is that (if you have been keeping things organised) you can quickly locate any element within your scene with a simply click of a button. Without this feature you would have to navigate the viewport and manually locate any object you would want to edit. This can be especially problematic when working in larger scenes, where you can be dealing with literally millions of polygons resulting in the viewport becoming a mess.

The world outliner also lets you turn off certain elements in the scene. So for example, I could organise all my lights into a folder and then toggle that folder on and off to keep the viewport easier to navigate. Or I could decide to place all objects sharing the same material in their own folder and have them be easily selectable later on if I wished.

I feel like I am more in control of my projects when I am able to break a scene down into elements like this, so it’s great to be given the option to do so. This may be an obvious inclusion but its importance can’t be overstated. It will be a key feature for me in order to stay organised and manage my projects. 

The content Browser

This is the chief organisation tool used in Unreal Editor 4. You can create, import, view and edit content assets here. It also provides the ability to manage the various assets of your game project. So far I haven’t had much experience with it yet, but I believe this will be one of the more important features of Unreal Engine 4.

The Modes Panel

This contains a selection of various tools used within the editor. You can place new geometry into the viewport from here or create new lights and edit terrain. Each mode is organised into a specific tab, such as “lights” or “geometry editing”. For the next few videos in the tutorial series I will be using these features to create some custom geometry within the editor.

Creating my first geometry mesh in Unreal Engine 4

So far I have used simple transformation tools found in the Edit Geometry tab to turn a regular cube into a more complex shape. I made use of the extrude tool and weld vertices as well as a cylinder set to subtraction mode to create the object. I come from a 3D modeling background so this wasn’t anything too challenging.

I am interested to see whether there are more complex transformations you can apply to geometry. I wasn’t aware the software had an in built 3D modeling element, so I am not sure if creating geometry like this will merely serve the purpose of blocking in a level to help with things like collisions. Either way I am excited to find out, and will continue to document my learning journey!