Book Image

Unreal Engine 4 Virtual Reality Projects

By : Kevin Mack, Robert Ruud
Book Image

Unreal Engine 4 Virtual Reality Projects

By: Kevin Mack, Robert Ruud

Overview of this book

Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) is a powerful tool for developing VR games and applications. With its visual scripting language, Blueprint, and built-in support for all major VR headsets, it's a perfect tool for designers, artists, and engineers to realize their visions in VR. This book will guide you step-by-step through a series of projects that teach essential concepts and techniques for VR development in UE4. You will begin by learning how to think about (and design for) VR and then proceed to set up a development environment. A series of practical projects follows, taking you through essential VR concepts. Through these exercises, you'll learn how to set up UE4 projects that run effectively in VR, how to build player locomotion schemes, and how to use hand controllers to interact with the world. You'll then move on to create user interfaces in 3D space, use the editor's VR mode to build environments directly in VR, and profile/optimize worlds you've built. Finally, you'll explore more advanced topics, such as displaying stereo media in VR, networking in Unreal, and using plugins to extend the engine. Throughout, this book focuses on creating a deeper understanding of why the relevant tools and techniques work as they do, so you can use the techniques and concepts learned here as a springboard for further learning and exploration in VR.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Title Page
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
12
Where to Go from Here
Index

Setting up for C++ development


This section is entirely optional. None of the projects in this book will require you to develop in C++, but we will occasionally highlight items in native code for those interested in going deeper. If you don't anticipate working in code, or if pages of code give you the screaming heebie-jeebies, it's completely fine to jump over this section and the one that follows it.

Note

It's absolutely not required to use C++ when developing in Unreal. The Blueprint visual scripting language is incredibly expressive, and there isn't much that it can't do. Most applications, including pretty advanced projects, can be built entirely in Blueprint. Many new Unreal users see the C++ support and worry that they'll have to learn the language to use the engine. You don't. (If you are interested in learning C++ though, this can be a great way to do it.)

Still here? Excellent. The first thing you'll need if you plan to develop in C++ is an editor and compiler with which to build...