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Unreal Engine Game Development Cookbook

By : John P. Doran
Book Image

Unreal Engine Game Development Cookbook

By: John P. Doran

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Unreal Engine Game Development Cookbook
John P. Doran
Oct, 2015 | 326 pages
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Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Unreal Engine Game Development Cookbook
Unreal Engine Game Development Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Acquainted with the UE4 Interface
Getting Acquainted with the UE4 Interface
Introduction
Installing UE4 and folder structure
UI overview
Navigating the viewport
The Content Browser overview
Importing your own content
2
Level Design – Building Out Levels or Greyboxing
Level Design – Building Out Levels or Greyboxing
Introduction
Building a room
Building out a level
Applying materials to geometry brushes
Converting brushes to static meshes or volumes
3
Creating Quality Interior Environments
Creating Quality Interior Environments
Introduction
Placing static meshes
Placing a particle system
Using Groups
Meshing an example map
Adding life to static meshes
4
Building the Great Outdoors – Exterior Environments
Building the Great Outdoors – Exterior Environments
Introduction
Creating a landscape
Building an exterior level using the Sculpt mode
Creating rivers with the Flatten tool
Placing trees and rocks using the Foliage tool
Streaming levels
5
Lights, Camera, Action – Cinematics
Lights, Camera, Action – Cinematics
Introduction
An introduction to Matinee
Creating an opening cutscene
Playing a Matinee via Blueprints
Preventing a player from moving via cinematic mode
6
Lighting and Shadows
Lighting and Shadows
Introduction
Lighting overview – learning the types of lights
Adding moveable lights – flashlight, part 1
Creating a Day/Night cycle
7
Art Pipeline – Working with Materials
Art Pipeline – Working with Materials
Introduction
Creating a custom material
Creating a mirror material
Using Textures and normal maps with Materials
Creating glowing materials with static emissive lighting
Seeing through walls
8
Blueprint Scripting – Level Effects
Blueprint Scripting – Level Effects
Introduction
Building a flickering light
Converting from Level to Class Blueprints
Using Trigger Volumes – opening a door using Matinee
Adding to an existing Blueprint – flashlight, part 2
Creating a Health/Damage system, part 1 – taking damage
9
C++ Programming – Gameplay
C++ Programming – Gameplay
Introduction
Setting up your development environment
Displaying text during runtime
Networking 101 – creating collectables with networking
Saving or loading games and keyboard input with C++
Creating custom blueprint nodes
10
User Interface
User Interface
Introduction
Creating a Health/Damage system, part 2 – creating a healthbar
Dynamic enemy healthbars
Creating a main menu
Animating a menu
11
Publishing and Deployment
Publishing and Deployment
Introduction
Packaging your project
Creating an installer for Windows
Index
Index

Adding life to static meshes

Though it is nice having a level with a lot of static meshes (this is by default), they don't move at all (hence, they are called static). Static meshes are used for efficiency's sake, but there comes a time where you want the player to be able to interact with those objects, such as moving crates or shooting at things.

Getting ready

This recipe assumes that you have the example project and the level I provided (MeshingAnExampleMap) opened.

How to do it…

With that in mind, let's learn how we can breathe some life into our static meshes:

  1. Select a static mesh inside your level, such as the SM_Chair object we have placed in the fireplace.

  2. Once selected, go to the Details tab and under Physics, check Simulate Physics.

  3. Once finished, go in and play the game.

At this point, if you run into the chair or shoot at the object, they will react correctly, according to physics.

Note

You may also want to make a static mesh movable for something such as moving platforms and the like...

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