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

Lighting basics

In this section, we will see how to place lights and how to adjust some important values.

Placing lights

In Unreal Engine 4, lights can be placed in two different ways. Through the modes tab or by right-clicking in the level:

  • Modes tab: In the Modes tab, go to the place tab (Shift + 1) and go to the Lights section. From there you can drag and drop various lights.

  • Right-clicking: Right-click in viewport and in Place Actor you can select your light.

Once a light is added to the level, you can use the transform tool (W to move, E to rotate) to change the position and rotation of your selected light.

Tip

Since Directional Light casts light from an infinite source, updating their location has no effect.

Various lights

Unreal Engine 4 features four different types of light Actors. They are:

  • Directional Light: Simulates light from a source that is infinitely far away. Since all shadows cast by this light will be parallel, this is the ideal choice for simulating sunlight.

  • Spot Light: Emits...

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