The Official, Full-Color Guide to Developing Interactive Visualizations, Animations, and Renderings with Unreal Engine 4 Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) was created to develop video games, but it has gone viral among architecture, science, engineering, and medical visualization communities. UE4’s stunning visual quality, cutting-edge toolset, unbeatable price (free!), and unprecedented ease of use redefines the state of the art and has turned the gaming, film, and visualization industries on their heads. Unreal Engine 4 for Design Visualization delivers the knowledge visualization professionals need to leverage UE4’s immense power. World-class UE4 expert Tom Shannon introduces Unreal Engine 4’s components and technical concepts, mentoring you through the entire process of building outstanding visualization content–all with realistic, carefully documented, step-by-step sample projects. Shannon answers the questions most often asked about UE4 visualization, addressing issues ranging from data import and processing to lighting, advanced materials, and rendering. He reveals important ways in which UE4 works differently from traditional rendering systems, even when it uses similar terminology. Throughout, he writes from the perspective of visualization professionals in architecture, engineering, or science–not gaming. Understand UE4’s components and development environment Master UE4’s pipeline from source data to delivered application Recognize and adapt to the differences between UE4 and traditional visualization and rendering techniques Achieve staggering realism with UE4’s Physically Based Rendering (PBR) Materials, Lighting, and Post-Processing pipelines Create production-ready Materials with the interactive real-time Material Editor Quickly set up projects, import massive datasets, and populate worlds with accurate visualization data Develop bright, warm lighting for architectural visualizations Create pre-rendered animations with Sequencer Use Blueprints Visual Scripting to create complex interactions without writing a single line of code Work with (and around) UE4’s limitations and leveraging its advantages to achieve your vision All UE4 project files and 3ds Max source files, plus additional resources and links, are available at the book's companion website.

Discover the methods and techniques required for creating immersive design visualization for industry. This book proposes ways for industry-oriented design visualization from scratch. This includes fundamentals of creative and immersive technology; tools and techniques for architectural visualization; design visualization with Autodesk Maya; PBR integration; and texturing, material design, and integration into UE4 for immersive design visualization. You’ll to dive into design and visualization, from planning to execution. You will start with the basics, such as an introduction to design visualization as well as to the software you will be using. You will next learn to create assets such as virtual worlds and texturing, and integrate them with Unreal Engine 4. Finally, there is a capstone project for you to make your own immersive visualization scene. By the end of the book you’ll be able to create assets for use in industries such as game development, entertainment, architecture, design engineering, and digital education. What You Will Learn Gain the fundamentals of immersive design visualization Master design visualization with Autodesk Maya Study interactive visualization with UE4 Create your immersive design portfolio Who This Book Is For Beginning-intermediate learners from the fields of animation, visual art, and computer graphics as well as design visualization, game technology, and virtual reality integration.

This is the eBook of the printed book and may not include any media, website access codes, or print supplements that may come packaged with the bound book. “With his YouTube channel, Mitch’s VR Lab, Mitch has helped thousands of people understand the foundations of locomotion and interaction mechanics with clear and concise UE4 videos. I’m thrilled that he has taken the time to bring all his knowledge and experience in working with Unreal Engine and Virtual Reality to the Unreal® Engine VR Cookbook.... Mitch is uniquely qualified to share this book with the world.” —Luis Cataldi, Unreal Engine Education, Epic Games, Inc. For game developers and visualization specialists, VR is the next amazing frontier to conquer—and Unreal Engine 4 is the ideal platform to conquer it with. Unreal ® Engine VR Cookbook is your complete, authoritative guide to building stunning experiences on any Unreal Engine 4-compatible VR hardware. Renowned VR developer and instructor Mitch McCaffrey brings together best practices, common interaction paradigms, specific guidance on implementing these paradigms in Unreal Engine, and practical guidance on choosing the right approaches for your project. McCaffrey’s tested “recipes” contain step-by-step instructions, while empowering you with concise explanations of the underlying theory and math. Whether you’re creating first-person shooters or relaxation simulators, the techniques McCaffrey explains help you get immediate results, as you gain “big picture” knowledge and master nuances that will help you succeed with any genre or project. Understand basic VR concepts and terminology Implement VR logic with Blueprint visual scripting Create basic VR projects with Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Gear VR, Google VR, PSVR, and other environments Recognize and manage differences between seated and standing VR experiences Set up trace interactions and teleportation Work with UMG and 2D UIs Implement character inverse kinematics (IK) for head and hands Define effective motion controller interaction Help users avoid motion sickness Optimize VR applications Explore the VR editor, community resources, and more If you’re ready to master VR on Unreal Engine 4, this is the practical resource you’ve been searching for! Register your product at informit.com/register for convenient access to downloads, updates, and corrections as they become available.

The key problem with VR development is understanding how to set up a project and running it on your desktop or mobile VR device. With this book, you will not only learn the specifics of virtual reality development in Unreal but also build immersive and fun VR projects that can be experienced on your VR devices.

Build optimized, efficient, and real-time applications that are production-ready using Unreal Engine's Material Editor Key FeaturesCreate stunning visual effects for 3D games and high-quality graphicsDesign efficient Shaders for mobile platforms without sacrificing their realismDiscover what goes into the structure of Shaders and why lighting works the way it doesBook Description Unreal Engine 4 is a powerful game engine, one which has seen a recent boost in widespread adoption thanks to its ease of use and the powerful rendering pipeline that it packs. Seeing as how it's relatively easy to create stunning presentations and visuals, Unreal has quickly become a strong contender in industries where this kind of software had been previously denied entry. With that in mind, this book aims to help you get the most out of Unreal Engine 4 - from creating awe-inspiring graphics to delivering optimized experiences to your users. This is possible thanks to a mixture of hands-on experience with real materials and the theory behind them. You will immediately know how to create that material that you want to display, and you'll also end up with the knowledge that will let you know how to control it. All of this will be done without losing sight of two key components of any real-time application - optimization, and efficiency. The materials that you create will be light and efficient, and they will vary depending on your target platform. You'll know which techniques can be used in any kind of device and which ones should be kept to high-end machines, giving you the confidence to tackle any material-related task that you can imagine. Hop onboard and discover how! What you will learnMaster Unreal Engine's rendering pipeline for developing real-time graphicsUse physically based rendering (PBR) for building materials and lighting solutionsBuild optimized materials for games targeting multiple platformsUnderstand Unreal Engine's node and functions for creating desirable effectsDesign and build production-ready shadersExplore Unreal Engine's Material Editor for building complex materials and texturesWho this book is for This book is for developers who want to create their first Shaders in Unreal Engine 4 or wish to take their game to a whole new level by adding professional post-processing effects. A solid understanding of Unreal is required to get the most from this book.

Create assets for history-based games. This book covers the fundamental principles required to understand and create architectural visualizations of historical locations using digital tools. You will explore aspects of 3D design visualization and VR integration using industry-preferred software. Some of the most popular video games in recent years have historical settings (Age of Empires, Call of Duty, etc.). Creating these games requires creating historically accurate game assets. You will use Blender to create VR-ready assets by modeling and unwrapping them. And you will use Substance Painter to texture the assets that you create. You will also learn how to use the Quixel Megascans library to acquire and implement physically accurate materials in the scenes. Finally, you will import the assets into Unreal Engine 4 and recreate a VR integrated heritage that can be explored in real time. Using VR technology and game engines, you can digitally recreate historical settings for games. What You Will Learn Create high-quality, optimized models suitable for any 3D game engine Master the techniques of texturing assets using Substance Painter and Quixel Megascans Keep assets historically accurate Integrate assets with the game engine Create visualizations with Unreal Engine 4 Who Is This Book For Game developers with some experience who are eager to get into VR-based games

A tutorial packed with practical examples and screenshots to help you become an expert in architectural visualization using Unity.This book is written for students and professional architects who know how to model buildings in 3D and have a need to turn their design into an interactive model, even if you have never used Unity before. Experience with visualization and programming will be helpful, but is not required to follow along. You will learn all the basics throughout with the help of step-by-step examples. The majority of the examples work fine in any recent version of the Unity software, on Windows or Mac, but occasionally features of the Pro version are required.