Before this task, I had no previous experience with Unreal Engine. I had played games that used Unreal Engine, obviously, but never once used it myself.
Therefore, this task was about getting used to the interface and controls of Unreal Engine, whilst familiarising myself with its capabilities.
I opened up the First Person template and began experimenting. At first, the controls felt really weird to me and not natural at all, unlike Maya’s. However, once I had used them for 10 minutes, I was much more accustomed to them and I could now move the camera at will.
I instantly went to the content browser and searched for materials I could start putting on anything and everything. I found this quite easily and learnt that the starter content in the browser has a lot of useful materials, amongst other things such as HDRI’s.
The outliner is a useful overview of what is in your scene. This includes objects, lighting – anything that is in the scene. As seen above, you can add folders to keep it even more organised.
The details panel is where all of the information of an object is displayed. Once you click on an object, you can look at the details panel to view information such as its transform and the material that is attached to it. This was useful to discover as it also allows you to change the scale or position of something using precise inputs, rather than using your mouse in the viewport.
The final aspect of Unreal Engine that i explored during this task was the Place Actors panel. This allows you to place anything in the scene from cubes to light sources.
Overall, my first time using Unreal Engine was a positive one. I got familiar with the controls and now understand the basic features of the program.