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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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€22.99 €25.99
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.6 (18 Ratings)
eBook Apr 2019 632 pages 1st Edition
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€22.99 €25.99
Paperback
€32.99
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Renews at €18.99p/m
Arrow left icon
Profile Icon Kevin Mack Profile Icon Robert Ruud
Arrow right icon
€22.99 €25.99
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.6 (18 Ratings)
eBook Apr 2019 632 pages 1st Edition
eBook
€22.99 €25.99
Paperback
€32.99
Subscription
Free Trial
Renews at €18.99p/m
eBook
€22.99 €25.99
Paperback
€32.99
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Renews at €18.99p/m

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Unreal Engine 4 Virtual Reality Projects

Chapter 1. Thinking in VR

"All reality is virtual.That's a strong statement, and it's not obvious if you haven't thought about it before, so I'll say it again—the reality we experience is a construct in our minds, based on highly incomplete data. It generally matches the real world well, which isn't surprising, evolutionarily speaking, but it's not a literal reflection of reality—it's just an inference of the most probable state of the world, given what we know at any one time."Michael Abrash, Chief Scientist at Oculus

"The most important thing about a technology is how it changes people."Jaron Lanier, founder of VPL research, VR pioneer, and interdisciplinary scientist at Microsoft Research

Welcome to the virtual world. (It's bigger on the inside.)

In this book, we're going to explore the process of creating VR applications, games, and experiences using Unreal Engine 4. We'll spend some time looking at what VR is and what we can do to design effectively for the medium, and then, from there, we'll move on to demonstrate these concepts in depth using the Unreal Engine to craft VR projects that illustrate and explore these techniques and ideas.

Every chapter will revolve around a hands-on project, beginning with basics such as setting up your development environment and creating your first test applications in VR, and moving on from there into increasingly in-depth explorations of what you can do in VR and how you can use Unreal Engine 4 to do it. In each project, we'll walk you through the process of building a project that demonstrates a specific topic in VR and explain the methods used and, in some cases, demonstrate a few alternatives. It's important to us, as you build these projects, that you come away not just knowing how to do the things we describe, but also why we do them this way, so you can use what you've learned as a launchpad to plan and execute your own work.

In this first chapter, we'll look at what VR is and a few of the many ways it's currently used in a wide range of fields. We'll talk about the two most important concepts in VR: immersion and presence, and how understanding what these are and how they work will help you to make better experiences for your users. We'll lay out a collection of best practices for developing immersive and engaging VR experiences, and talk about some of the unique challenges posed by VR development. Finally, we'll pull this knowledge together and dig into a method for planning and executing a VR project's design. 

In brief, this chapter is going to take us through the following topics:

  • What is virtual reality?
  • What can we do in VR?
  • Immersion and presence
  • Best practices for VR
  • Planning your VR project
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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 : 9781789133882
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Product Details

Publication date : Apr 30, 2019
Length: 632 pages
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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.
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Rohit Aug 08, 2022
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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.
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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.
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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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