Unreal Possibilities

In my previous dev updates, I had talked about how I implemented a grid based movement system in the Top Down template. Now that we got that out of the way, I decided to tackle the issue with the default camera system in the Top Down template. Since I needed the camera to smoothly move to focus on the active character, it was kind of troublesome to use the default cameras as they were each attached to their corresponding characters. So I got rid of them. And now I have a new RTS style camera in place of it. Now this allows me to smoothly move the focus between the cameras depending on the game state. I'll just give a brief overview of the features that I've implemented. First of all, I created a separate blueprint for the new camera. At the most basic level, it needs to move freely anywhere along the map. So I mapped the WASD keys to move the camera along the forward/backward and lateral directions. I'll probably add mouse based movement as well in the near future. All...

Unreal Engine Tips: How to use Keyboard Inputs when Input Mode is set to UI Only

I had recently migrated some of the HUD workflow from Prototype Menu System to Tower Defense Starter Kit. While going through the HUD blueprints, I noticed that the Input Mode was being set to Game and UI when activating the Pause Menu. Since I didn't want the player to have the option to interact with the game outside of the menu in this state, I went ahead and changed it to UI Only, only to find out that the Escape button could no longer be used to quit the Pause Menu (in spite of it being set to Execute when Paused). It turns out that setting the Input Mode to UI Only also prevents us from interacting with the UI using keyboard. At first, it seemed like I'd have to revert it back to Set Input Mode Game & UI. But further inspection led to a workaround to tackle the issue: Handling the keyboard input directly through the widget itself instead of the player controller. The first step is to ensure that the widget can be focused. We can do this by setting its IsFocusable ...

Unreal Engine Tutorial: Create Circular Ring Material without Textures

Hi, welcome back for another tutorial. It's been quite a while since I put up a tutorial as I've been busy working on toolkits for the Marketplace. One of my earlier tutorials [link: Unit Selection Decals for RTS Games ] had focused on how to create ring materials using textures, as well as using them to display unit selection decals for RTS games. However, a drawback associated with using textures was that it prevented the user from changing the inner & outer radius of the ring. And during prototyping stages of a product, it's far better to implement structures that can be changed easily from within the engine so that you don't have to create a new asset from an external package every time you need to test out a new idea. I've found this approach quite useful while working on my own products. Hence, this tutorial focuses on creating a ring material that can be adjusted both from within the material editor as well as dynamically at runtime. Alright before...

Translate

Powered by Blogger

UDK, Unreal Engine, Unreal Technology are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc