Intro and Philosophy #

History #

• visual based complete toolset
• level centric
• started from level editor
• other tools added-on level editor, and then it called as engine

UE1 (1997/1999) #

• Called as UnrealEd1, UnrealEd2
• BSP Brush focused
• Engine struct was formulated
  • Actors, Viewport, Camera controls, toolbar…
  • Lighting rendered in viewport
• Event/Tag scripted
• Subtractive world (Skybox)

UE2 (2002) #

• Meshes added
  • BSP-Mesh hybrid workflow
• Event/Tag scripted
• Subtractive world (Skybox)
• used Ctrl+S to subtract (prevent spam)

UE3 (2006) #

• Visual scripting (Kismet) added
• sub-editors added
  • Matinee, Cascade, Material editor, etc
• Additive world (no Skybox)
• UE4’s structure was almost completed

UE4 (2014) #

• Blueprint added
• UI revamp
• 2nd generation sub-editors and tools
  • Matinee and Cascade are replaced
  • Sequencer, Sound cue editor, etc
  • Unified interface with blueprint

UE5 (2022) #

• Reinforced sub-editors and open world support
  • Chaos, AFPA, World Partition, etc

Schematic-Schematic #

All required tools and sub-editors are part of the editor and engine.

• for same team, same style, same logic
• to work together seamlessly

WYSIWYG

• fully visual
• not text based scripting/programming
  • not only for programmers
  • speed up world production
    • posititate experimentation, qualty, diversity

Schematic Overview #

Full size (4MB)

Placable Actors excluding 3D #

• Audio Actors
• Emitter Actors
  • Cascade particle or Niagara particle
• Reflection Captures
  • Sphere, Box, Planar
• Light Actors
  • Point, Rectangular, Spot, Directional, Sky
  • Static, Stationary, Dynamic(Movable)
• Volumes
  • Represent Area of something or somewhat, somehow
  • Geometry Editing available
• BP Actors
  • Used for both Gameplay and Workflow (not only for programmers)
• Gameplay/Other
  • Trigger, Maker, Spawn(e.g. player start), Decal, etc

Placable 3D Actors #

• Static Meshes
  • without some exceptions(e.g. vertex shader), theres no change like bone animation
  • HLOD : composit meshes into one, so that reduce drawcall
  • Instanced Static Meshes : Batching meshes to render
  • Splines : revole/deform static mesh
• Skeletal Meshes
  • Meshes with bone
• Geometry
  • Geometry Editing available
  • Binary Space Partition (BSP)
  • almost deprecated
• Procedural Mesh
  • available with plugin
  • generated at runtime
• Foliage
  • Foliage Tool
    • automatically batched
  • Grass
    • automatically generated by landscape material layer
    • uses landscape’s lighting (good for performance)
  • Procedural Foliage
    • experimental
    • automatically generated in foliage volume
    • foliage type (imitate real nature)
• Geometry Collections
  • Chaos Destructibles
• Landscapes
  • Layer, Components, Gizmos, Visibility, Painting, Sculpting, etc
  • Landscape Splines
  • Landmass Plugin
    • Landscape Brushes
• Skies
  • Static mesh and Material
  • new : Physical based Sky Atmosphere

3D Tools #

• Import
• Modeling Tools
  • Sculpting Tools
• UV Tools
• Mesh Simplification
  • can be used for generating LOD

Controls the Level #

• World Properties
• Level Blueprint
  • Timeline
  • good for simple animations(changes)
• Variants Manager
  • can assign any property
  • ce on console to test
• Sequencer
  • used for movie or cutscene
  • can handle almost kind of values
  • Sequence Template

Rebuilding #

• Lighting
  • Lightmass Importance Volume
    • Lightmaps
    • Volumetric Lightmaps
  • Precomputed Visibility
• HLOD
• Reflection Captures
• Navmesh
  • Navmsh Agent
  • “Build Paths”
  • Runtime Navmesh (not pre-built)

Sub-Level #

For #

• great for co-work
• Devide by location
• Devide by actor type
• Light Scenarios
  • set different lights in individual sublevels

How to load #

• Blueprint (LoadStreamLevel)
  • also code
• Volumes
• Always Loaded
• World Composition
  • load automatically by instigator’s distance (x and y, but not z)
  • good for open world

Performance #

• Stats
  • since UE2
  • type stat [command] in console
  • e.g. scenerendering, none, game, physics, FPS, unit
• GPU Profiler
  • Ctrl + Shift + , or Profile GPU to open
• Statistics Panel
  • good for performance optimizing
• View Modes
  • can check complexity
• Cull/Max Draw Distance
• Scalability
• World Detail
  • since UE1 or UE2
  • can tag visual effects with rate

Advice #

• Multi user editing is available with editor server

  • without source controls

• Level organization

  • Important actor standards
    • Editor Billdboard Scale
  • Outliner
    • since UE4 (not familiar with old devs)
  • Groups
    • Ctrl Shift G
    • doesn’t affect on rendering and outliner (not batch)
  • Layers
    • actually not layer
    • one actor can be contained in multiple layers
    • useful for selecting
  • Selection tools
    • right clikc on actor for a lot of options
    • Ctrl + B open mesh in content browser
      • asset action
    • can select in Statistics Panel too

• Level cleanliness

  • Rotation and scale
  • Grid and snapping
    • can customize snap unit
    • Brackets(snap unit in/decrease) are good shortcut for preventing movement mistake
  • Shadows/Collision

• Landscapes

  • LOD and Collision
  • Component setting
  • Material complexity change and Shared Sampler
  • Distance Fading scale/textures
  • Hard blends

• Foliage

  • Foliage Assets
  • Range and Shadow
    • removing shadow is recommended
    • reducing rendering range is recommended
  • Lower position material trick
    • cognitive trick
  • Slope material trick

• Painting Tools

  • it’s material tricks

• Questions

  • is light mass volume needed in raytrace?
    • not need in fully dynamic lights
    • but raytrace is not every-solution
  • co-working on sublevel
    • sublevel can share same transform