Game Development with Unreal Engine 5 Volume 1: Design Phase

✍ Scribed by Tiow Wee Tan

• Publisher: Apress
• Year: 2024
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 423
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Dive into the heart of game development with Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), the latest revolution in creating immersive and visually stunning game worlds. Crafted to encourage your imaginative and inventive skills, Volume 1 of this two-part guide stands as a crucial tool in your journey towards developing incredible video games with UE5 and serves as a transition into the programming dimensions of game creation with C++ featured in Volume 2.

Blending artistic mastery with technical prowess, you’ll journey from the basics of UE5’s environment to creating expansive landscapes with procedural content generation and combining materials for lifelike terrains. Discover the power of Quixel Bridge and Megascans to bring realistic textures and models into your projects, and master Nanite for rendering complex scenes with cinematic fidelity.

You’ll also learn to create dynamic lighting and shadow effects with Lumen, enrich your game’s atmosphere with sophisticated particle systems using Niagara. Then integrate characters and adversaries into our worlds, making them come alive with interactive elements. From designing large open landscapes to implementing advanced visual effects, Game Development with UE 5, Volume 1 is your gateway to elevating the visual appeal and interactive experience of your game.

What You Will Learn

• Sculpt vast, open worlds with UE5's advanced landscape tools and Heightmaps.
• Construct highly detailed environments with Nanite, achieving unparalleled visual quality without sacrificing performance.
• Introduce dynamic global illumination with Lumen, crafting stunning lighting and shadow effects that respond to changes in the game world in real-time.
• Implement Real-Time Virtual Textures to significantly enhance texture streaming efficiency in large-scale environments.
• Use Procedural Content Graph to populate your game worlds with dynamic, lifelike vegetation that adds depth and realism to your landscapes.
• Explore Niagara's powerful visual effects system to create complex and captivating effects that elevate the aesthetic appeal of your game.

Who This Book Is For

Game developers who want to learn how to use Unreal Engine 5 would benefit from this book.

✦ Table of Contents

Table of Contents
About the Author
About the Technical Reviewer
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Getting Started with  Unreal Engine 5
What Is Unreal Engine 5?
The Benefits of Unreal Engine 5
Expanding Horizons
Realistic Visuals
Reimagining Possibilities
Procedural Foliage: Unreal’s Solution
Unleashing Visual Fidelity
Unleashing Creativity
Elevating Control
Chaos Unleased
Empowering Sound Designers
Setting Up the Development Environment
Installing Unreal Engine 5 and Dependencies
Installing Visual Studio Community 2022 and Dependencies
Other Preparations
Prepare New Project
Run on Low-Quality Mode
Show Engine Content
Summary
Chapter 2: From Heightmap to Large Open-World Landscape
Set Up a New Level
Prepare the Heightmap
Convert EXR to PNG with GIMP
Create Landscape from Heightmap
Ensure Correct Scale from Perspective
Convert to World Partition
Save the Level Before Conversion
The Conversion
World Partition Editor
World Partition Runtime Settings
Summary
Chapter 3: Auto-Blend Landscape Materials
Material Setup
Attach Material to Landscape
Auto-Blending Height-Based Materials
Important Nodes to Look Into
Named Reroute Declaration Node
Constant Node
Constant3Vector Node As RGB Color
Create a Material Parameter from a Node
Material Layer Blend (Standard) Node
Set Material Attributes Node
The Design of Materials
Top Material
Middle Layer Material
Bottom Layer Materials
Height Position for Individual Pixel
Bottom Half Layer Material
Top Half Layer Material
The First Material Result
Visualize the Result
Improvement with Slope Attribute
Adding Slope Attribute in Material Design
Visualize the Result with Slope Consideration
Summary
Chapter 4: Revitalizing Visuals: Asset Import and Procedural Creation
Quixel Bridge and Megascans
Asset ID
Surface (Texture) Assets
Asset Download
Asset Integration
3D Assets and 3D Plants
Nanite
Import and Enable Nanite on 3D Geometry Assets
To Enable Nanite on Static Mesh
Visual Improvement on AutoBlend_Height_MAT Landscape Material
General_Template_MF
Set Up the Texture Samplers for Properties
Improve Texture Tiling Sampler
Incorporate UV_Variation into General_Template_MF
Complete the AutoBlend_Height_MAT Landscape Material
Procedural Content Generation (PCG)
Set Up the PCG Volume
Important PCG Nodes to Look Into
Input Node
Surface Sampler
Point Filter
Transform Points
Projection
Normal to Density
Density Filter
Self-Pruning
Bounds Modifier
Difference
Static Mesh Spawner
Force Regen
Design of Content Volume PCG Graph
Procedural Generate Large Rocks
Procedural Generate Gravel Stones
Procedural Generate Vegetations
Final Visualization Result
Summary
Chapter 5: Enhancing Visual Realism with Runtime Virtual Textures and Material Blending
Runtime Virtual Texture
Color Map in RVT
Increase Framework and Optimization with RVT
World Height in RVT
Material Blending and RVT in UE5
Set Up an RVT Asset in UE5
RVT Volume
The Setup of RVT Volume
Set RVT Volumes Inside Landscape Partitions
RVT Output in Material Editor
Set Up RVT Output Node
See the Result on the RVT Assets
Material Blend with RVT Assets
Additional Logic to This Duplicated Material (RVT)
Asset’s Original Materials
Landscape’s Color RVT
Create an Alpha for the Blending
Final Material Output and Result
Put Them Altogether
Summary
Chapter 6: Mastering Lumen Global Illumination in Unreal Engine 5
How Lumen Works
Enabling and Configuring Lumen
Evaluating Lumen’s Lighting Effects
Preparation Tasks
Procedural Content Generated Cave
Set Animate Emissive Materials
The Workflow of Importing the Model in UE5
Placing the Asset in the Level
The Influence from Lumen
Import Macrovirus and Set Its Emissive Effects
Lumen in Post-Processing Effects
Settings of the Post-Processing Volume
Lumen Effects Inside and Outside Post-Processing Volume
Summary
Chapter 7: Harnessing the Power of Niagara: Practical Examples in Unreal Engine 5
Getting Started with Niagara
Creating First Particle Effect
Learning the Basics of Particle Systems
Rename Emitter
Enable an Emitter’s Local Space
Result of Enabled/Disabled Local Space
Sim Target
Emitter Update: Loop Duration and Spawn Rate
Modifying Particle Emission: From Continuous Flow to Burst Effect
Adjusting Particle Burst Frequency
Customizing Particle Visuals with Material Swaps in UE’s Niagara System
Harnessing the Power of Niagara #1: Smoke from Landing Spaceship
Import and Set Up the Spaceship
Set Up Material for the Smoke Niagara System
Set Up the SmokeFromLandingShip Niagara System
Initialize Particles
Shape Location
Add Velocity
Gravity Force
Drag Value
Acceleration Force
Color
Scale Sprite Size
Sprite Renderer
Placement of the SmokeFromLandingShip Niagara System
Harnessing the Power of Niagara #2: Spiral Effects on Magical Ball
Import and Set Up the Magical Ball
Initialize Particle
Rotate Around Point
Disable the Shape Location
Add Velocity
Scale Sprite Size
Gravity Force
Drag
Scale Color
Sprite Renderer
Spiral in Action
Bring In the Magical Ball
Bring In the Niagara System Particle Effect
Attaching Niagara Particles
Harnessing the Power of Niagara #3: Dust Storm
Set Up Materials for the Dust-Rock Emitter
Set Up the Dust-Storm Niagara System
Initialize Particles
Shape Location
Add Velocity
Scale Sprite Size
Disable Gravity Force
Drag
Wind Force
Scale Color
Curl Noise Force
Sprite Renderer
Add Another Emitter
Initial Settings for Smoke Storm
Initialize Particle for Smoke Storm
Shape Location for Smoke_Storm
Add Velocity for the Smoke Storm
Disable Gravity and Drag Modules for Smoke_Storm
Sprite Rotation Rate for Smoke_Storm
Scale Sprite Size for Smoke_Storm
Scale Color for Smoke_Storm
Sprite Renderer for Smoke_Storm
Placement of the Dust_Storm Niagara System
Summary
Bringing Worlds to Life: Concluding the Design Phase
Index