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Unreal Engine 4 Virtual Reality Projects
Unreal Engine 4 Virtual Reality Projects

Unreal Engine 4 Virtual Reality Projects: Build immersive, real-world VR applications using UE4, C++, and Unreal Blueprints

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Profile Icon Kevin Mack Profile Icon Robert Ruud
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Unreal Engine 4 Virtual Reality Projects

Chapter 2. Setting Up Your Development Environment

The goalof this chapter is to get you set up to develop in Unreal Engine. Even if you've already installed and started working in the engine, you may still find it worthwhile to take a look through this chapter, as there are a few details of the installation process that might be useful to you.

We're also going to take a look at the Epic Games launcher. It's easy to get into the habit of looking at it just as a way of updating the engine and launching projects, but there's a huge collection of useful resources for learning and development there too. It would be a mistake to ignore them.

For those planning to develop for mobile VR on Oculus Go or Samsung Gear, we'll walk you through the process of setting up the Android SDK and setting up a project for deployment to the device, and finally for those interested in C++ development, we'll show you how to set up Visual Studio 2017 for use with Unreal and for those interested in working on the bleeding...

Prerequisite – VR hardware


If you're planning to develop for desktop VR hardware, such as the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, we're going to assume here that you've already set up your headset and ensured that it's working. If you haven't, now's a good time. Head on over to https://www.vive.com/eu/setup/ or https://www.oculus.com/setup/, and run through the guided installation and setup operations there.

Remember that your VR headset driver software, Oculus Home or Steam VR, needs to be running when you use the headset.

If you're going to be developing for mobile standalone VR, your setup process will involve a few other steps, which we'll walk you through after we get Unreal Engine installed. We do recommend even for those developing for mobile VR that you have a desktop VR headset available as well. It dramatically speeds up debugging to be able to launch your software right into the headset without having to cook it and deploy it to the device every time. It's not required, but you will find it...

Setting up Unreal Engine


If you're going to develop VR applications using Unreal Engine, the first thing you'll need, of course, is the engine. Let's walk through the process of setting it up.

What it costs

A natural question to start with when considering Unreal Engine is what it costs. The news here is good. Unreal Engine is free to download and use, and if you use it commercially, the terms are reasonable.

When you download the engine, you'll be asked to agree to one of two license agreements, depending on what you're going to be using it for. If you're a game developer and you make a game or application using Unreal and sell it, you'll pay a 5% royalty on gross sales over $3,000 per calendar quarter. If you don't sell your game or app, or it earns less than that per quarter, Unreal is free to use.

 

If you're using Unreal for something that isn't intended to be sold to the public (training simulations, architectural visualization, or anything else), Unreal is entirely free under the terms...

Setting up for mobile VR


Mobile VR headsets such as Samsung Gear and Oculus Go are separate devices from your PC, so you can't simply launch into a VR preview the way you can with a desktop headset. Instead, you need to package the project and deploy it to the device so you can run it directly on the headset. You'll have to set up a few things to make this possible.

Creating or joining an Oculus developer organization

First, if you're going to develop for Oculus-based mobile VR platforms, you need to register with Oculus as a developer. We're assuming here that you've already created an account with Oculus since you would have needed to do this to use the headset at all. If you haven't yet done so, do that first and log in.

Now, navigate to https://dashboard.oculus.com/organizations/create/ and run through the steps to register as a developer. If you're joining an existing organization instead of creating your own, contact its administrator to be added to the list of registered developers.

Setting...

Using the Epic Games launcher


Before we go too much further, let's take a look at the Epic Games launcher—there's a ton of useful material here, and this should be a starting place for much of your learning. It's worth it to take some time to look around and see what resources are available to you. It's easy to overlook these resources, but if you get used to understanding where you can learn and find information when you need it, you'll get much further, much faster.

The launcher's Unreal Engine tab is broken into four major sections:

  • Unreal Engine
  • Learn
  • Marketplace
  • Library

Let's take a look at each of them.

The Unreal Engine Tab

The Unreal Engine tab displays featured content and projects, which are definitely worth exploring, but they'll become more relevant to you as you use the engine longer. As a new user, pay particular attention to that row of icons right under the main banner. These are valuable resources:

The Unreal Engine tab as of Unreal 4.22

  • The News link is a great way to keep up with...

Setting up for C++ development


This section is entirely optional. None of the projects in this book will require you to develop in C++, but we will occasionally highlight items in native code for those interested in going deeper. If you don't anticipate working in code, or if pages of code give you the screaming heebie-jeebies, it's completely fine to jump over this section and the one that follows it.

Note

It's absolutely not required to use C++ when developing in Unreal. The Blueprint visual scripting language is incredibly expressive, and there isn't much that it can't do. Most applications, including pretty advanced projects, can be built entirely in Blueprint. Many new Unreal users see the C++ support and worry that they'll have to learn the language to use the engine. You don't. (If you are interested in learning C++ though, this can be a great way to do it.)

Still here? Excellent. The first thing you'll need if you plan to develop in C++ is an editor and compiler with which to build...

Building Unreal from source code


Note

You absolutely do not need to download source code and build the engine from scratch for almost anything you'll realistically be doing with it. This section is included here so that you have the freedom to make engine changes if you ever need to, but you can safely skip this. It's rare even for professional developers to work from the bleeding edge source.

This next section is even more optional than the previous. You'll only ever need to do this if you intend to modify the behavior of the engine itself, or if you want to work with a feature that's so new that it hasn't yet been bundled into one of the releases. That's another part of the beauty of this engine though—if you really need it to do something it doesn't already do, you can make the changes yourself. Also, if you make changes that improve the engine or might be useful to other developers, you can use GitHub to contribute your changes to Epic. Lots of developers do, and the net effect of it is...

Additional useful tools


Before we move on from this chapter, let's take a quick moment to talk about other tools you may want to set up to work with Unreal. None of these will be required by the projects in this book, but they're worth knowing about, so you need to know where to look when you need them.

A good robust text editor

Notepad just isn't going to cut it when you need to edit large text files or replace a lot of text in a file. We recommend that you set up a dedicated text editor for this purpose. Here are a few options:

  • Visual Studio Code (https://code.visualstudio.com/) is a powerful, lightweight text editor that supports lots of languages and contains a number of useful text-editing tools. It's free.
  • Sublime Text (https://www.sublimetext.com/) is a highly customizable editor with tons of custom integrations for various languages. It is $80, with a free trial.
  • Atom (https://atom.io/) is a relatively new editor made by GitHub that supports tons of additional package installers for just...

Summary


In this chapter, we installed the Unreal Engine and learned about the various options we have available to us when setting it up. We created and launched a simple test project to verify that everything was working. Additionally, for those developing for mobile VR, we learned how to set up the required drivers and software development kits, and set up a mobile test project that we deployed to our device.

Along the way, we learned how to use the Epic Games launcher—not just as a way of keeping engine versions up to date and launching projects, but also as a vital learning and support resource. Through our exploration of the launcher, we learned how to get answers to questions from the Community tab and where to find documentation and video tutorials from the Learn tab. We explored the incredibly useful Content Examples project and looked at other projects we can use to explore specific topics in the engine. We saw that the Marketplace offers a huge range of free and paid content that...

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Key benefits

  • Learn about effective VR design and develop virtual reality games and applications for every VR platform
  • Build essential features for VR such as player locomotion and interaction, 3D user interfaces, and 360 media players
  • Learn about multiplayer networking and how to extend the engine using plugins and asset packs

Description

Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) is a powerful tool for developing VR games and applications. With its visual scripting language, Blueprint, and built-in support for all major VR headsets, it's a perfect tool for designers, artists, and engineers to realize their visions in VR. This book will guide you step-by-step through a series of projects that teach essential concepts and techniques for VR development in UE4. You will begin by learning how to think about (and design for) VR and then proceed to set up a development environment. A series of practical projects follows, taking you through essential VR concepts. Through these exercises, you'll learn how to set up UE4 projects that run effectively in VR, how to build player locomotion schemes, and how to use hand controllers to interact with the world. You'll then move on to create user interfaces in 3D space, use the editor's VR mode to build environments directly in VR, and profile/optimize worlds you've built. Finally, you'll explore more advanced topics, such as displaying stereo media in VR, networking in Unreal, and using plugins to extend the engine. Throughout, this book focuses on creating a deeper understanding of why the relevant tools and techniques work as they do, so you can use the techniques and concepts learned here as a springboard for further learning and exploration in VR.

Who is this book for?

This book is for anyone interested in learning to develop Virtual Reality games and applications using UE4. Developers new to UE4 will benefit from hands-on projects that guide readers through clearly-explained steps, while both new and experienced developers will learn crucial principles and techniques for VR development in UE4.

What you will learn

  • Understand design principles and concepts for building VR applications
  • Set up your development environment with Unreal Blueprints and C++
  • Create a player character with several locomotion schemes
  • Evaluate and solve performance problems in VR to maintain high frame rates
  • Display mono and stereo videos in VR
  • Extend Unreal Engine s capabilities using various plugins

Product Details

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Publication date : Apr 30, 2019
Length: 632 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789132878
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Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789132878
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Tools :

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Table of Contents

12 Chapters
Thinking in VR Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Setting Up Your Development Environment Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Hello World - Your First VR Project Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Getting Around the Virtual World Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Interacting with the Virtual World - Part I Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Interacting with the Virtual World - Part II Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating User Interfaces in VR Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Building the World and Optimizing for VR Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Displaying Media in VR Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating a Multiplayer Experience in VR Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Taking VR Further - Extending Unreal Engine Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Where to Go from Here Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.6
(18 Ratings)
5 star 83.3%
4 star 0%
3 star 11.1%
2 star 0%
1 star 5.6%
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Jonona Jun 29, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I am about halfway through this book so far, and already it has propelled my knowledge farther than other resources. Just the thorough discussion of locomotion by itself justifies the cost of the book. The true value though is found in the way the authors take the time to explain why things are being done, not just how. A lot of books become obsolete rather quickly because UE4 changes so fast. But this book's philosophy of explaining why things are done will make it useful long after the engine version changes. It doesn't depend on outside tools, just sticks to the engine.The verdict: Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Rohit Aug 08, 2022
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This is a very great book. I got to know a lot from this. Thank But I have a question*Is this also for Oculus quest 2?*
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P. Rerksanant Feb 11, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
More details and cleary, easy to follow and understand.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Dino Feb 15, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
A fantastic book. Very clear and easy to follow, gives a great introduction to developing VR in Unreal and at the same time introduces lots of the fundamentals of Blueprint design in general. the authors also focus on good coding practice.The only negative point I have is that on the front cover it mentions C++ but the book is almost totally focussed on Blueprint coding, so if you specifically want to learn C++ coding for Unreal you would need another book.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
cybereality Feb 06, 2021
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book right here is gold for anyone wanting to get into virtual reality development with Unreal. There is not a lot of handholding, you are expected to understand the basics of using Unreal to get the most out of the book. Rather than trying to explain programming fundamentals or UE4 basic functionality, the authors instead jump straight into actual VR development. That said, they do show how to setup your development environment at the start, but this is mostly for completeness. The book is about VR specifically, which is great because there are already tons of resources for general development that are not repeated here.Contained in the text a 11 chapters, each building upon each other for how to work with VR in the context of Unreal Engine. We learn about thinking in VR and the established concepts, setting up the dev environment, using a basic VR template and exporting for mobile VR. Navigation and moving around. Interacting with your hands. User interface considerations and solutions. Building in VR. Playing media, including 360 and stereo 3D video. Multiplayer, and more. I’d consider this quite a complete survey and I’m happy the authors stuck to VR only and did not dilute the text with general information.So overall, I’d consider this book a big success. If you’re looking to get into VR with Unreal Engine, this is the ticket. It is well explained, not confusing at all, and does cover the most essential aspects of creating for virtual reality. Mack and Ruud also spend a good amount of time explaining certain considerations you need to do with respect to VR, such as special locomotion methods to avoid sickness, as well as the performance limits of mobile VR hardware. This is an almost flawless execution and should not be missed.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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