Match Resources Efficiently to the Project
Now that I have had a look at Unreal Engine I had a look at
Unreal Engine I went on their website and had a look at the feature that are available
in Unreal Engine 4, here are the features that were listed on their website (https://www.unrealengine.com/unreal-engine-4
)
DirectX 11 & 12 Rendering Features
Unreal Engine 4 supports advanced DirectX 11 & 12
rendering features such as full-scene HDR reflections, thousands of dynamic
lights per scene, artist-programmable tessellation and displacement,
physically-based shading and materials, IES lighting profiles and much more.
Cascade Visual Effects
The Cascade VFX editor provides the tools needed to create
detailed fire, smoke, snow, dust, dirt, rubble and more. Cascade's pipelined
includes fast, low-cost GPU particle simulation and a collision system that
interacts with the depth buffer. Millions of dynamic particles can receive and
emit light within a scene, and you can control all kinds of particle
properties, including size, color, density, falloff and bounciness.
New Material Pipeline
Unreal Engine 4's new material pipeline makes use of
physically-based shading to give you unprecedented control over the look and
feel of characters and objects. Quickly create a wide range of surfaces that
hold up visually under close examination. Layer materials and fine-tune values
at the pixel level to achieve any kind of style you desire.
Blueprint Visual Scripting
Bring your creative visions to life in-game with Blueprint
visual scripting. Blueprints enable anyone to rapidly prototype and build
playable content without touching a line of code. Use Blueprints to author
level, object and gameplay behaviors, modify user interface, adjust input
controls and so much more.
Live Blueprint Debugging
Blueprint visual scripting comes with a built-in debugger
you can use to interactively visualize gameplay flow and inspect property
values while testing your game. Freeze the game at any time and audit its state
by setting breakpoints on individual nodes in your Blueprint graphs. Step
through actions and events, make changes as you like, and have fun optimizing
your game on the fly.
Content Browser
Use Unreal Engine 4's Content Browser to import, organize,
search, tag, filter and modify terabytes of game assets within the Unreal
Editor. Real-time animated thumbnail previews can easily be changed and saved
with the handy screenshot function. Create any type of asset collection to be
used for individual work or shared with other developers.
Persona Animation
Use the Persona animation toolset to edit skeletons,
skeletal meshes and sockets, animation Blueprints and more. This multi-purpose
tool enables you to preview animation sequences and morph targets, and also set
up animation blend spaces and montages. You can also modify physics and
collision properties for skeletal mesh actors using the Physics Asset editing
tool (PhAT).
Matinee Cinematics
Unreal Engine 4's Matinee cinematic toolset provides
director-level control over cut scenes, dynamic gameplay sequences and movies.
With a look and feel similar to non-linear editors used for video editing,
Matinee enables you to set up action within your scenes down to the finest
detail, animate scene properties over time, and produce awesome filmic moments.
Terrain & Foliage
Create large, open world environments with the Landscape
system, which paves the way for terrains that are orders of magnitude larger
than what have been previously possible thanks to its powerful LOD system and
efficient memory use. Customize huge, outdoor worlds using the foliage tool
by quickly painting or erasing all sorts of terrain components.
Post-Process Effects
Unreal Engine 4's post-processing features enable you to
gracefully adjust the look and feel of scenes. Filmic effects at your
fingertips include ambient cubemaps, ambient occlusion, bloom, color
grading, depth of field, eye adaptation, lens flares, light shafts, temporal
anti-aliasing and tone mapping, just to name a few.
Full Source Code Access
With C++ source code for all of Unreal Engine 4, you can
customize and extend Unreal Editor tools and Unreal Engine subsystems,
including physics, audio, online, animation, rendering as well as Slate UI.
With complete control over engine and gameplay code, you get everything so you
can build anything.
Professional Source Control
Unreal Engine 4 supports full C++ source code access via
GitHub for subscription members with clear version documentation and tracking.
In addition, both Perforce version control and Apache Subversion
support are available to developers with custom license terms. No matter your
team size, you can easily coordinate development and design efforts with others
through UE4's versioning infrastructure.
C++ Code View
Unreal Engine 4 Code View saves time by allowing you to
browse C++ functions directly on game characters and objects and jump straight
to source code lines in Microsoft Visual Studio to make changes.
Hot Reload Function
Make updates to your gameplay code while the game is running
using Unreal Engine 4's popular Hot Reload feature. This tool allows you to
edit C++ code and see those changes reflected immediately in-game without ever
pausing gameplay.
Simulate & Immersive Views
Quickly debug and update gameplay behaviors as they happen
through Simulate Mode, which lets you run game logic in the editor viewport and
inspect AI as characters perform actions. View your game in full screen within
the editing environment with Immersive View, which allows you to complete
iterations on gameplay changes without added UI clutter or distractions.
Instant Game Preview
Update your game and use Instant Game Preview to instantly
spawn a player and play anywhere in-game without waiting for files to save.
Possess & Eject Features
The Possess and Eject features allow you to play your game
in-editor to easily “eject” from the player’s perspective at any time and take
control of the camera to inspect anything that may not be behaving properly.
Artificial Intelligence
Give AI-controlled characters increased spatial awareness of
the world around them and enable them to make smarter movements with Unreal
Engine 4’s gameplay framework and artificial intelligence system. Dynamic
navigation mesh updates in real time as you move objects for optimal pathing at
all times.
Audio
Use Unreal Engine 4's Sound Cue Editor to build the audio
pipeline and define audio playback for your game.
Leading Middleware Integrations
The premier Unreal Engine 4 Integrated Partner Program
provides integrations with more than a dozen industry-leading middleware
technologies, including NVIDIA PhysX, Autodesk Gameware, Enlighten, Umbra,
Oculus VR and other software libraries.
I have read over these features and they all seem very
advanced, I am not really experienced with a whole lot of them at this
particular time however over time I look forward to developing new skills while
learning how to use these features and hopefully I’ll implement some of them
into my project.