Unreal Engine 4 Virtual Reality Projects: Build immersive, real-world VR applications using UE4, C++, and Unreal Blueprints

Book Description

Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) is a powerful tool for developing VR games and applications. With its visual scripting language, Blueprints, and built-in support for all major VR headsets, it’s a perfect tool for designers, artists, and engineers who want to bring their VR visions to life. This book will guide you step-by-step through a series of projects that cover essential concepts and techniques for VR development in UE4.

You will begin by learning how to think about (and design for) VR, before proceeding to set up a development environment. You’ll focus on a series of practical projects, taking you through essential VR concepts. Through these exercises, you’ll learn how to set up UE4 projects that run effectively in VR, build player locomotion schemes, and use hand controllers to interact with the virtual environment. You’ll then create user interfaces in 3D space, use the editor’s VR mode to build environments directly in VR, and profile and optimize the worlds you’ve built. Finally, you’ll explore more advanced topics, such as displaying stereo media in VR, networking in Unreal, and using plugins to extend the engine.

By the end of this book, you will have gained a solid understanding of why the relevant tools and techniques work as they do, so you can use the techniques and concepts learned here as a springboard for further learning and exploration in VR projects.

What you will learn

• Understand design principles and concepts for building VR applications
• Set up your development environment with Unreal Blueprints and C++
• Create a player character with several locomotion schemes
• Evaluate and solve performance problems in VR to maintain high frame rates
• Display mono and stereo videos in VR
• Extend Unreal Engine’s capabilities using various plugins

Who this book is for

This virtual reality book is for anyone interested in learning how to develop virtual reality games and applications using UE4. While developers new to UE4 will benefit from the hands-on projects covered in a step-by-step manner, both new and experienced developers will learn crucial principles and techniques for VR development in UE4.

Table of Contents

1. Thinking in VR
2. Setting up your Development Environment
3. Hello World: Your First VR Project
4. Getting Around the Virtual World
5. Interacting with the Virtual World – Part I
6. Interacting with the Virtual World – Part II
7. Creating User Interfaces in VR
8. Building the World and Optimizing for VR
9. Displaying Media in VR
10. Creating a Multiplayer Experience in VR
11. Taking VR Further: Extending Unreal Engine
12. Where to Go from Here
13. A: Useful Mind Hacks
14. B: Research and Further Reading