Introduction to Unreal Engine 4
This is a powerful game development engine
Unreal Engine (Unreal Engine /UE) is a game engine created by EpicGames, and UE4 is its fourth major version. Although UE 5 has been released, it is only released. UE4 is currently the most widely used and stable Unreal Engine. Unreal Engine claims to be "the most powerful real-time 3D creation platform", "the most advanced real-time 3D creation platform", and it is actually true.
UE4 can create games on various platforms, including PC, host, mobile and Web. The game engine that is not the same as UE4 is Unity3D (u3d). In the past ten to a few years, u3d has been very popular, and it also accounts for a large part of the game development market. There are more than 2 million games based on u3d development. However, in recent years, UE4 has caught up and surpassed it. After the release of UE5, the performance of Unreal Engine was beyond the reach of its opponents.
Compared with U3D, UE4's main advantages are excellent screen display, good lighting and physical effects, simple visualization programming, complete plug-ins, good support for peripherals such as VR and handles, and various game templates. At present, our common popular games based on UE4 are the familiar "PUBG Mobile", "Fortnite", "Peace Elite", "Unreal Conquest", "Death by Daylight", "Endless Sword" and so on. Popular games developed based on U3D include "Glory of the King" and "Heartstone".
After continuous improvement, UE4 is not only a palace-level game engine, but also brings unlimited creative freedom and unprecedented control to professionals from all walks of life. Based on UE4, game developers can develop games, film and television creators can perform film and television production, architects can perform architectural design, car manufacturers can build models, urban planning industries can build three-dimensional simulation cities, and various factories can perform Pipeline simulation, etc. In short, all industries that can use 3D simulation expression and virtual environment simulation can use UE4 for model expression, scene construction, and dynamic simulation.
UE4 is inseparable from its successful business strategy because of its powerful functions and huge user scale. First of all, UE4 is open source worldwide. Anyone can get its source code by registering an EpicGames official website account. How can it not be powerful if it integrates the wisdom of global developers and creators; second is UE4’s marketing method. EpicGames charges UE4 by : After the game is released, the part with revenue greater than US$1 million will be charged 5%, which means that if the revenue is less than US$1 million, there is no need to pay. In this way, a visualization of ordinary construction, planning, automotive and other industries Project revenue generally does not reach 1 million US dollars, so most users belong to "white prostitution." In addition, in order to lower the barriers to entry and attract beginners, UE4 has released a lot of teaching documents and videos on its official website, making it easy for game development enthusiasts to get started.
Finally, let's talk about what role we can play in the UE4 development process, what kind of person is suitable for what position. First of all, game development cannot be done by one person or even a team. A large-scale game development requires the cooperation of people with different functions. Aside from planning and marketing, let's talk about who the technical team needs. The first is the direction of 3D modeling. Whether it is a game project or other projects such as architecture, modeling is an important process. Models such as characters, terrain, and buildings are the elements of the game scene, so modeling is an important part of a UE4 project . Modelers need to be proficient in basic software such as 3dsmax and PS, and those with higher requirements also need to master zbrush and substance painter. Then there is the art. The tasks include model optimization, dynamic objects, scrolls, character moves, design and implementation of particle effects. There are programmers, including the writing of functional functions, the realization of the front-end interface, the interaction of the Internet of Things and the development of peripheral tools. Each of the above directions can be subdivided. It can be said that as long as you are interested, you can always find your place in UE4.
Whether you are a working staff, a student or an amateur, learning UE4 is definitely an interesting and meaningful thing.