Unreal Engine Physics Essentials

Gain practical knowledge of mathematical and physics concepts in order to design and develop an awesome game world using Unreal Engine 4

About This Book

• Use the Physics Asset Tool within Unreal Engine 4 to develop game physics objects for your game world
• Explore the Collision mechanics within Unreal Engine 4 to create advanced, real-world physics
• A step-by-step guide to implementing the Physics concepts involved in Unreal Engine 4 to create a working Vehicle Blueprint

Who This Book Is For

This book is intended for beginner to intermediate users of Epic Games Unreal Engine 4 who want to learn more about how to implement physics within their game-world.
No matter what your knowledge base of Unreal Engine 4 is, this book contains valuable information on blueprint scripting, collision generation, materials, and the Physical Asset Tool (PhAT) for all users to create better games.

What You Will Learn

• Get to know basic to intermediate topics in mathematics and physics
• Create assets using the Physics Asset Tool (PhAT) in Unreal Engine 4
• Develop Collision Hulls, which are necessary to take advantage of Unreal Engine 4 s physics and collision events
• Use constraints to create advanced physics-based assets for your game-world
• Working knowledge of physics bodies, physics damping, and friction within Unreal Engine 4
• Develop physical materials to recreate real-world friction for substances such as glass and ice
• Create a working vehicle blueprint from scratch using assets provided by Unreal Engine 4
• Gain knowledge about implementing advanced physics in Unreal Engine 4 using C++ programming

In Detail

Unreal Engine 4 is one of the leading game development tools used by both AAA and independent developers alike to create breathe-taking games. One of the key features of this tool is the use of Physics to create a believable game-world for players to explore.

This book gives readers practical insight into the mathematical and physics principles necessary to properly implement physics within Unreal Engine 4.

Discover how to manipulate physics within Unreal Engine 4 by learning basic real-world mathematical and physics concepts that assist in the implementation of physics-based objects in your game world. Then, you ll be introduced to PhAT (Physics Asset Tool) within Unreal Engine 4 to learn more about developing game physics objects for your game world.

Next, dive into Unreal Engine 4 s collision generation, physical materials, blueprints, constraints, and more to get hands-on experience with the tools provided by Epic to create real-world physics in Unreal Engine 4. Lastly, you will create a working Vehicle Blueprint that uses all the concepts covered in this book, as well as covering advanced physics-based topics.

Devin Sherry is the principal technical designer at People Can Fly in Poland, having worked on Outriders and Outriders: Worldslayer using Unreal Engine 4. Before that, he worked on Aquanox: Deep Descent as a technical designer at the Digital Arrow studio in Serbia. With a decade of experience ranging from the Unreal Developers' Kit to the newly released Unreal Engine 5, Devin is passionate about creating memorable experiences for players and bringing game mechanics to life.

Katax Emperore was born in January 1974. Since his childhood days, he has loved board games, science magazines, comic books, and graffiti painting. Katax was introduced to the IT world when he got his first game platform, Fire Attack from the Game & Watch series by Nintendo, back in the 80's. While spending hours on it, he became curious about the process of creating games. As a teenager, Katax owned Amiga 500 by Commodore on which he played hundreds of games. However, one stuck with him: Shadow of the Beast by Psygnosis. He was enamored by the quality of the graphics, music, and FX sounds involved in the game. Katax realized that he would like to learn to create such games, and this was the first step. Today, he can design and develop any game on various web pages and platforms alike. The Amiga platform created a high-quality gaming experience supported by an advanced hardware architecture that was way ahead of its time. It was a high-profile computer with real stereo sound supported by the advanced Direct Memory Access technology for multiprocessing. On this platform, Katax learned many aspects of programming, multitasking, DMA, interactive applications, IO port mappings, graphic design, and 3D. When Microsoft introduced Windows 98, he got serious about programming, 3D, and graphic design, which led him to base his education, and later his career, in the IT industry. Around this time, Katax experienced a live performance of a digital visual art improvisation over music known as a VJ performance. He was influenced by Jimi Hendrix, and he adopted his style of improvising each track on a live stage. His style involves visualizing forms, colors, and brightness of images and videos by playing live visual transitions over each pixel on the screen. Katax believes that it's necessary for each game designer/developer to be a part of some art movement or activity because it helps you in your career, both technically and spiritually. Katax' favorite bands/artists include Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Hawkwind, and Jimi Hendrix.