Book Image

Unreal Engine 4 Game Development Essentials

By : Satheesh PV, Satheesh P.V
Book Image

Unreal Engine 4 Game Development Essentials

By: Satheesh PV, Satheesh P.V

Overview of this book

Unreal Engine 4 is a complete suite of game development tools that gives you power to develop your game and seamlessly deploy it to iOS and Android devices. It can be used for the development of simple 2D games or even stunning high-end visuals. Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability and is a tool used by many game developers today. This book will introduce you to the most popular game development tool called Unreal Engine 4 with hands-on instructions for building stunning video games. You will begin by creating a new project or prototype by learning the essentials of Unreal Engine by getting familiar with the UI and Content Browser. Next, we'll import a sample asset from Autodesk 3ds max and learn more about Material Editor. After that we will learn more about Post Process. From there we will continue to learn more about Blueprints, Lights, UMG, C++ and more.

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Unreal Engine 4 Game Development Essentials
Satheesh PV | Satheesh P.V
Feb, 2016 | 266 pages
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Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Unreal Engine 4 Game Development Essentials
Unreal Engine 4 Game Development Essentials
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
About the Reviewer
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Introduction to Unreal Engine 4
Introduction to Unreal Engine 4
Unreal Engine 4 download
Getting familiar with Unreal Engine
BSP
Default starting level, splash screen, and game icon
Summary
2
Importing Assets
Importing Assets
Creating asset in a DCC application
Creating collision meshes
Simple shapes
Auto convex collision
Materials
LOD
Exporting and importing
Summary
3
Materials
Materials
Material user interface
Common material expressions
Summary
4
Post Process
Post Process
Adding Post Process
Summary
5
Lights
Lights
Lighting basics
Lightmass Global Illumination
Summary
6
Blueprints
Blueprints
Different Blueprint types
Getting familiar with the Blueprint user interface
Blueprint graph types
Blueprint node references
Creating our first Blueprint class
Destroying our Blueprint Actor after some seconds
Spawning our Blueprint class in Level Blueprint
Summary
7
Matinee
Matinee
Creating a new Matinee
Summary
8
Unreal Motion Graphics
Unreal Motion Graphics
Setting up a project
Assigning our HUD to Character
Creating floating health bars
Summary
9
Particles
Particles
Cascade particle editor
Creating a simple particle system
Playing particle in Blueprints
Summary
10
Introduction to Unreal C++
Introduction to Unreal C++
Setting up Visual Studio 2015
Creating a C++ project
C++ to Blueprint
Summary
11
Packaging Project
Packaging Project
Recap
Packaging the project
Summary
References
Index
Index

Material user interface

Now that we know what a Material is and what it does, let's take a look at the user interface of Material graph.

Toolbar

The Toolbar panel contains various buttons that help to preview graph nodes, remove isolated nodes, Material stats, and so on. Let's take a look at what these buttons do:

  • Save: Applies the changes you made to the Material and saves the asset

  • Find in CB: Navigates and selects this Material in Content Browser

  • Apply: Applies the changes to the Material. Note that this will not save the Material

  • Search: Searches for Material expressions or comments

  • Home: Navigates to and selects the main canvas node

  • Clean Up: Removes unconnected nodes

  • Connectors: Shows or hides unconnected pins

  • Live Preview: Toggles a real-time update of preview material

  • Live Nodes: Toggles a real-time update of graph nodes

  • Live Update: Recompiles a shader for every node in the graph

  • Stats: Toggles Material stats and compilation errors

  • Mobile Stats: Same as stats but for mobile

Live...

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