Learn to design and build Virtual Reality experiences, applications, and games in Unreal Engine 4 through a series of practical, hands-on projects that teach you to create controllable avatars, user interfaces, and more.
Key Features
- 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
Book 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.
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
Who this book is 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.
Table of Contents
- Thinking in VR
- Setting up your Development Environment
- Hello World: Your First VR Project
- Getting Around the Virtual World
- Interacting with the Virtual World - Part I
- Interacting with the Virtual World - Part II
- Creating User Interfaces in VR
- Building the World and Optimizing for VR
- Displaying Media in VR
- Creating a Multiplayer Experience in VR
- Taking VR Further: Extending Unreal Engine
- Where to Go from Here
- A: Useful Mind Hacks
- B: Research and Further Reading
Kevin Mack is a co-founder of Manic Machine, a Los Angeles-based development studio specializing in VR and virtual production development using Unreal Engine. Manic Machine designs and builds games in VR and provides development services to clients and partners in the film and visual effects industries. Prior to this, he co-founded WhiteMoon Dreams, which developed traditional and VR games and experiences. Earlier work includes design on the Medal of Honor series for EA, Fear Effect series for Kronos Digital Entertainment, and several titles for Disney Interactive. Kevin holds a BFA in film production from New York University and an MFA in film directing from the American Film Institute.
Robert Ruud is a co-founder of Manic Machine, where he focuses primarily on the design and development of Manic Machine's proprietary tech and gameplay experiences. Prior to this, he spent six years at Whitemoon Dreams, where he designed and engineered gameplay for the successfully kickstarted game, Warmachine: Tactics, which was one of the first games to be released to market using Unreal Engine 4, and where he also led the design exploration for the company's location-based VR experiences. Robert holds a BA in philosophy from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where his studies focused on cognitive science and philosophy of the mind.
