Book Image

Learning Unreal Engine Game Development

By : Joanna Lee
Book Image

Learning Unreal Engine Game Development

By: Joanna Lee

Overview of this book

Unreal Engine 4 is a powerful game development engine that provides rich functionalities to create 2D and 3D games across multiple platforms. Many people know what a game is and they play games every day, but how many of them know how to create a game? Unreal Engine technology powers hundreds of games, and thousands of individuals have built careers and companies around skills developed using this engine. Learning Unreal Engine 4 Game Development starts with small, simple game ideas and playable projects that you can actually finish. The book first teaches you the basics of using Unreal Engine to create a simple game level. Then, you'll learn how to add details such as actors, animation, effects, and so on to the game. The complexity will increase over the chapters and the examples chosen will help you learn a wide variety of game development techniques. This book aims to equip you with the confidence and skills to design and build your own games using Unreal Engine 4. By the end of this book, you'll have learnt about the entire Unreal suite and know how to successfully create fun, simple games.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Learning Unreal Engine Game Development
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Adding light to a level


To help us see the level better, it is time to learn how to illuminate the level. To mimic ambient light from the sun, we will use Directional Light for the level.

In the same way as adding a BSP Box brush, we will go to Modes Window | Lights | Directional Light. Click and drag Directional Light into the Viewport window. The following screenshot zooms in on the Modes window, showing that the Directional Light item can be created by dragging it into the viewport:

For now, let's place the light just slightly above the BSP Box brush as shown in the following screenshot:

Useful tip – positioning objects in a level

To position an object in a level, we use the Transform tool to move objects in the x, y, and z directions. Select the object and press the W key to display the Transform tool. Three arrows will appear to extrude from the object. Click and hold the red arrow to move the object along the x axis, the green arrow to move it along the y axis, and the blue arrow to it...