Levels and Geometry in Unreal Engine 5

Name: Levels and Geometry in Unreal Engine 5
Author: Ken Geary

Exploring game levels, templates, and creating landscapes.

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Course: On-Demand

Hello, in this lesson, we will learn how to work with Levels in Unreal Engine. Levels in Unreal Engine are the scenes within your project. They can be used in two ways. You can save versions of your level you are working on. For instance, you may start with a base level that all your level will build off of or save a different level name as you build more complexity into your level. If your current level is having issues or the file itself gets corrupted, you have the chance to load in the previous level and not start all over. The second and most used function of Levels is for the game or project to progress from one level to another. An example with a game is the first level is usually easy to navigate and complete, then an end action or teleportation action happens that takes you to the next level. You may have heard the term boss level. That's usually the final level in the game where the enemy or enemies are toughest to fight off, but when completed, you win the game. We will start with the new project that will have assets to build two simple levels and use a Third Person template to easily travel around the levels. Start a new project. We will select GAMES and the Third Person template, and we will also select a Starter Content option. Open a folder you wanna save the game into, then name your project. We will name this project Levels. Click Create. Let's start this first level by creating two folders. Open the Content Drawer, then inside the Content folder, I'm gonna right-click, make new folder. We'll name this Maps, this is where we will save our levels. We'll create another folder. Right-click, New Folder. We will call this one Blueprints. Now we'll select File, Save Current Level As, navigate to our Maps folder, we'll name this Level1. It's very important to make note of how this level is typed out, we'll be using this later. Click Save. While we are here, we'll prepare for what we'll need for later in this lesson. Open Content Drawer, open the Maps folder, select Level1 and press Ctrl + W on Windows or Command + W on Mac to make a duplicate level. Rename this level to Level2. Now we will decorate our current level as an outdoor area. We'll start by deleting the surrounding walls. Open the Content Drawer, navigate to this StarterContent folder, then open the Props folder, drag a bush into the level, then drag a rock into the level. Select the bush, and to make copies or instances, press a W key, then hold the Alt key while clicking and dragging. An instance is an exact copy that we can move, rotate and scale to make it look different. If we edit anyone at a brushes, such as removing half of the polygons, instances will update to reflect that change. Make several more bushes and rescale them for variety. Duplicate the rock several times, scale a few in width and make more of a rock wall. I'm decorating to guide the character to have to run around the platform to get to the stairs. Spend a few moments to make your level. This is a good time to save your level. Click the save disc icon. Let's play the level and see what happens. First, we're gonna move our character, or we're near the rocks is the better starting point. Again, I'm gonna save my level then I'm gonna click Play. Remember to click in the Viewport to start play. The idea of this level is to navigate up to the stairs and we'll eventually put a portal at the end. Also, we can fall off the platform if we go too far. Press the Esc key to stop the game. Press the 1 key to bookmark back to where you started. Part of Level design is keeping your character from falling off your level and keep from getting stuck, as well as blocking them from places you don't want them to go pass. To do that, we use what is called colliders, which are invisible shapes around your actors that block the character from going pass. There are also colliders that let you pass but trigger an action in the Blueprint's Visual Scripting system when a character enters the collider volume. Let's replace the outer walls with Blocking Volumes. Click Create, then Volumes and then look for Blocking Volume. This will add a wireframe cube to your scene. We're gonna move it to the side and we're gonna scale it, and make it the shape of the wall we had there before. It doesn't have to be exact, we're just gonna use this to prevent a character from falling off. Once again, hold down the Alt key, click and drag to make a copy or duplicate. I'm dragging this to the other side. I'm gonna drag one to the middle, hit the E key to rotate, I'm gonna rotate 90 degrees, and move this piece to the back, then Alt, click and drag, and I'll move this piece forward, and that we'll have a wall colliders, Play the level again and let's see if we can keep from falling off the edge. So now the colliders seem to be working. However, we can still run through the bushes and the rocks. Esc to stop. And we're gonna fix the rocks and the bushes. In the World Outliner, select any bush and right-click and select Edit. This brings up another editor window. You will see that each type of editor window will look a little different. We won't go too deep into this editor, but we'll add one useful function and that is adding a collision shape to my actor. You could add the simpler shape, such as a box, and keep in mind, in Level design that lesses more. The more detailed any shape is in Unreal Engine, the more it can affect the performance of your game. We don't care in this design if the character can pass through some of the branches, but we want at least collide with the trunk. So we'll select Collision and Add Box Simplified. You'll see a green box outline. Use the R key to scale, make it tall and thin. The Viewport in the editor works the same as in your main Viewport. This looks good enough, so click Save, and we'll exit the editor. We'll play the level again. Notice now, we do collide with the bushes, and every bush has a collider because we made an instance of them and we didn't have to go in and individually setup collisions for each one. This is a big time saving feature. Yet the rocks still need to be fixed. So select any rock, right-click, Edit. And we're gonna do the same thing, except under the Collision menu, we need a little more complex of a collider because of the shape of the rock. And we have different degrees of precision to use. We're gonna go to the Auto Convex Collision. This will automatically figure out how to wrap the rock with the least amount of polygons. We go over to the Menu, this is Convex Decomp. We'll leave the defaults and we'll click Apply. Now you can see, this rock is wrapped around by a wireframe mesh and this is our collider, and has a lot more detail than a box. We'll click Save, exit, Play our scene once more. And now I can't get pass the rocks with the other colliders on them. We'll hit Esc. We did a lot of editing, so we're gonna go to the Content Drawer and select Save All, then SAVE SELECTED.

Beginner Provider : Ken Geary 6 Lessons · 40m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Urdu, Chinese

Course Description

In these lessons, you will learn what a level is, and how to “teleport” between levels in your game using some basic blueprints. You will also explore the third- and first-person templates, create and edit a landscape, and add water effects to the landscape.

All games contain multiple levels, usually starting with a basic, easy level to get a feel for the game, then progressively “jumping” to levels with increased complexity. You’ll learn how to create a “portal” style blueprint to allow a third-person character to jump to another level and return back using some basic blueprints. The first-person template puts the virtual game camera around the eye level of the player, while the third-person template has the camera following above a mannequin character that can run and jump around the level and even go up stairs.

You’ll also create a landscape for a level using the landscape editor, and add a material to the landscape, sculpt hills and mountains, and “paint” foliage on the landscape that follows the contours of the hills. Then you’ll finish off your landscape by adding an ocean, lake, and river using the water effects.

What You'll Learn

Understand what a level is and how to teleport between levels in a game
Develop and apply basic blueprints to create a portal-style level jump and return
Explore the first-person and third-person templates and how each positions the game camera
Create and edit a landscape using the landscape editor, sculpting hills and mountains
Apply a material to the landscape and paint foliage that follows the contours of the hills
Add water effects to the landscape, including an ocean, lake, and river

Key Takeaways

Games typically contain multiple levels that progress from a basic, easy level to levels of increasing complexity.
Basic blueprints can be used to build a portal-style mechanic that lets a third-person character jump to another level and return.
The first-person template places the camera around the player's eye level, while the third-person template follows above a mannequin character that can run, jump, and go up stairs.
The landscape editor lets you create a landscape, add a material, sculpt hills and mountains, and paint foliage along the hills' contours.
Water effects can be used to add an ocean, lake, and river to finish a landscape.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn in this course?

You will learn what a level is and how to teleport between levels using basic blueprints, explore the first- and third-person templates, and create and edit a landscape with materials, sculpted hills and mountains, painted foliage, and water effects such as an ocean, lake, and river.

What is the difference between the first-person and third-person templates covered here?

The first-person template puts the virtual game camera around the eye level of the player, while the third-person template has the camera following above a mannequin character that can run and jump around the level and even go up stairs.

What topics do the lessons cover?

The lessons cover working with levels (Parts 1 and 2), the first-person template, the third-person template, creating and working with landscapes, and creating and working with water effects.

What skills does this course relate to?

It relates to skills including Abstraction Layers, Level Editor, Tutorials, Unreal Blueprint, Unreal Development Kit, and Unreal Engine.

How are levels typically structured in a game according to this course?

All games contain multiple levels, usually starting with a basic, easy level to get a feel for the game, then progressively jumping to levels with increased complexity.