Unreal Engine Virtual Reality Quick Start Guide: Design and Develop immersive virtual reality experiences with Unreal Engine 4

✍ Scribed by Jessica Plowman

• Publisher: Packt Publishing Ltd
• Year: 2019
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 175
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Unreal Engine 4 for virtual reality game design, development, User Experience design techniques and Blueprint programming to create virtual reality gameplay for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, PSVR, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets.

Key Features

• Build VR games from scratch with the power of Unreal Engine 4
• Learn User Experience design practices to take your VR game to the next level
• Understand the best practices to creating art for games on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PSVR

Book Description

With the ability to put players directly in the game, virtual reality gives users the chance to experience digital worlds directly. Nevertheless, many designers are unsure where to start when working with this amazing technology.

With this book, you will learn user experience design processes and create immersive gameplay experiences designed for entertainment and player comfort. Using the power of Unreal Engine 4’s Blueprint visual scripting language, you will build player interaction and locomotion systems from scratch and use these flexible systems to create a sample game, as well as develop functional 2D and 3D user interfaces for players to interact with. And also learn the best practices for creating game art for virtual reality. Finally, you will learn how to test your application with your target audience and finalize your game for distribution.

By the end of this book, you will have the knowledge to be able to make the leap from traditional game development to creating immersive virtual reality experiences using Unreal Engine 4.

What you will learn

• Understand how to get started with VR development in Unreal Engine 4
• Design and create interaction and locomotion systems from scratch
• Plan and program a sample game for VR
• Understand how VR affects user experience and user interfaces
• Discuss what is needed to create optimized art for VR
• Test your game with users and prepare for distribution

Who this book is for

The audience for this book is intermediate or advanced users of Unreal Engine 4 but who have not begun working with VR technology. These users are familiar with the game engine and have an interest in VR technology. They are just beginning to explore the VR features that the game engine has to offer.

✦ Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Dedication
About Packt
Contributors
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Introducing VR Technology in Unreal Engine 4
Why use Unreal Engine 4 for VR?
What types of VR Technology are available to developers?
Room-scale VR
Seated VR
Mobile VR
Pros and cons of popular VR headsets
HTC Vive
Minimum hardware requirements
Oculus Rift + Touch
Minimum hardware requirements
Windows Mixed Reality headset
Minimum hardware requirements
Samsung Gear VR
Limitations of VR
Introducing our sample project – Server 17
Summary
Chapter 2: Locomotion, Design, and Starting Our Project
The Human-Centered Design process
Choosing our locomotion method
Natural locomotion
Artificial locomotion
Cockpit locomotion 
Physical locomotion
Setting up new game files in UE4
Project setup
Creating our custom Game Mode
Creating a GameState
Creating a custom PlayerPawn
Programming our custom PlayerPawn
Summary
Chapter 3:Exploring Riveting Gameplay in Virtual Reality
What does VR bring to video games?
Popular gameplay mechanics
Shooter experiences
Action/adventure experiences
Vehicle experiences
Physics-based experiences
Puzzle experiences
Rhythm experiences
Educational experiences
Designing the gameplay for Server 17
Adding the hand functionality
Building the teleportation
The server – Building the puzzle box
Building the first tool station
Building the Timer
Summary
Chapter 4:User Interface and User Experience inside VR
What is UX design?
User interfaces in VR
Designing the UI elements for Server 17
Displaying the level timer
Redesigning the tool experience
Summary
Chapter 5:Creating Optimized Game Art for VR in UE4
Performance is key
Artistic limitations in VR
Static and skeletal mesh limitations
Material limitations
Lighting limitations
Visual Effects (VFX) limitations
Performance-boosting techniques
Static and skeletal mesh techniques
Material techniques
Lighting techniques
Visual effects techniques
Measuring ingame performance
Summary
Chapter 6:Finalizing Our VR Game and Next Steps
The importance of game testing
Collecting testing data
Usability testing 
Card sorting
Expert review
Preparing for distribution
Summary
Other Books You May Enjoy
Index