This unit explains volumes in Unreal and how to use them. Volumes are used to bend the rules of the natural Unreal environment to create such things as water, lava, and slime. This unit starts with a simple discussion of the concepts behind volumes and explains how they are designed to work by giving some simple examples of how to use them in your Unreal levels. Next, you then learn about volume properties, focusing on the PhysicsVolumes. From there, the discussion branch off to show how fluids are created and how you can use the FluidSurfaceInfo Actor to crate a wavy, fluid-like surface for your liquid volumes. Finally, you see how to use volumes to simulate the effect of a climbable ladder in the game.

In this unit, we will look at the lights available in the Unreal and how you can use them in your projects. This unit discusses how the Unreal Engine uses light and crates dark and light areas in your maps. The properties available to control the look and behavior of lights are covered as well as special effects that can be applied to your lights. From there, lighting workflow and the importance of rebuilding lights are explained.

Also, you learn how light affects a variety of surfaces in Unreal, including world geometry Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG), static meshes, Movers, terrain, and more. Advanced lighting effects are also covered, such as using ambient lighting, how other Actors can emit light, and how to use TriggerLight, which is dynamic light that can be animated to create a variety of effects. In addition, this unit discusses projectors and hwo to use them in your maps. The discussion closes with a discussion of some common lighting pitfalls for beginners, trick of the trade tips.

Material can be thought of as coating of paint applied to the surfaced of objects in your levels. Materials provide a specific look for your surfaces, whether they are made of wood, plastic, steel, or concrete. Material can be divided into three separate categories: textures, shaders, and modifiers. A texture supplies the color for your object, like applying an image across the surfaces effects. A shader uses texture to create a kind of surface effect, such as reflectivity or specularity, which is how light create highlight on the of surface. A modifier is a component that applies some sort of action or process to a texture, such as a TextPanner, which pans the texture in a specific direction, or a TextRotator, which rotate the texture.

In this hand on activity, you take an in-depth look at materials and how they are made. You learn how texture can import into Unreal, how to create shaders, and how to apply modifiers to create powerful materials for you levels. This unit begins with a discussion of texture and explains some considerations for generating your own textures.

Interactive Elements

In this unit, you will expand on the level you created in Hanger project, by adding elements that players can interact with, including elevators, jump ads, and teleporters. The unit begins with a simple overview of each element, and then goes into more details on the parameter for controlling them. Next is a discussion of how to create a complex a complex elevator with custom doors, camera vibration upon activation, and a texture that displays the elevator’s current position. Finally, you learn how to create jump pads and teleporters to send your players to new location on the map. These game elements are simple to incorporate into you level and can add realism and excitement to your levels.

Advanced Design Techniques

Creating Particles Effects

Nearly every game tries to replicate a real-world effect from a natural environment. Fire, smoke, rain, waterfalls, and a myriad other effects are all elements that can be used to enhance realism during gameplay. In many games, you also find special effects that go outside the realm of reality, such as teleportation effects, magical sparks, and more. To achieve these effects, you use what are known as particles.

Particles are added into Unreal levels through Emitter Actors. In this unit, you learn about the practical use of particle and the emitter types use to create particle effect in the Unreal. Keep in mind, however, that rather than coverall the available properties of particles and the Emitter Actor at once, the properties are discussed as they become relevant during the design and discussion. The properties specific to each emitter type, however, are discussed in the section corresponding to each type.

The Karma Physic Engine

In this unit, we will discuss how to create animations in Unreal that are based on the laws of physics. Such animations are often called dynamic simulation, meaning that they’re driven by outside forces such as gravity, wind, or the force of an explosion. A part from the many other features of the Unreal engine discussed in previous lectures, the Unreal engine also contains a powerful physic engine that makes it possible for animation such as bouncing objects or complex collisions to be calculated in real time.

Advance Bot/ AI Navigation

After creating your map, you’ll probably want to play against artificial intelligence (AI) controlled bots. Unfortunately, this process isn’t automatic. Bots don’t automatically know how to navigate your map or find secretly placed power-ups. To help the bots, you designate points in your map that the bots can follow. If some places can be accessed only by jumping or double jumping, you need to further specify these points so that the bots know how to access those areas as well. After specifying these points throughout the level, UnrealEd uses the points to calculate the best way for bots to navigate between them. In the end, you’ll have an inter-locking networking of lines connecting the various points. Essentially, this network specifics where a bot can navigate. The goal, of course, is to create enough points so that the entire map is accessible to the bots. Although this task can be tedious for large maps, seeing a bot navigate intelligently through your map is an extremely rewarding experience. This unit demonstrates how these networks are created, along with some important considerations a level designer mush remember when creating navigation points for a level.

Depending on time, I will add more advance topic to the course. Dan