VR Integrated Heritage Recreation : Using Blender and Unreal Engine 4

Create assets for history-based games. This book covers the fundamental principles required to understand and create architectural visualizations of historical locations using digital tools. You will explore aspects of 3D design visualization and VR integration using industry-preferred software. Some of the most popular video games in recent years have historical settings (Age of Empires, Call of Duty, etc.). Creating these games requires creating historically accurate game assets. You will use Blender to create VR-ready assets by modeling and unwrapping them. And you will use Substance Painter to texture the assets that you create. You will also learn how to use the Quixel Megascans library to acquire and implement physically accurate materials in the scenes. Finally, you will import the assets into Unreal Engine 4 and recreate a VR integrated heritage that can be explored in real time. Using VR technology and game engines, you can digitally recreate historical settings for games. What You Will Learn Create high-quality, optimized models suitable for any 3D game engine Master the techniques of texturing assets using Substance Painter and Quixel Megascans Keep assets historically accurate Integrate assets with the game engine Create visualizations with Unreal Engine 4 Who Is This Book For Game developers with some experience who are eager to get into VR-based games Table of Contents 5 About the Author 8 About the Technical Reviewer 9 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction 11 Chapter 1: Introduction 13 Re-Creating History Using Computer Graphics 14 Virtual Reality (VR) Integration 16 Topics Covered 18 Chapter 2: Introduction to the Software 20 Blender 20 Substance Painter 21 Quixel Megascans and Bridge 22 Unreal Engine 4 23 Chapter 3: Acquiring Resources for the Project 25 Sources for Textures 25 Sources for 3D Models 26 Collecting References 27 Creating a Basic Plan 29 Chapter 4: Design Visualization 32 Basics of Blender 32 Basics of Substance Painter 35 Blocking Out the Scene 36 Blocking Out the Main Temple in Blender 37 Blocking Out Additional Structures 86 Chapter 5: 3D Design Visualization 94 Detailing the Temple 94 Modeling Additional Assets 115 Detailing the Other Assets 134 Chapter 6: Unwrapping the Models 141 Unwrapping the Temple 142 Chapter 7: Texturing Assets Using Substance Painter 161 Exporting Assets to Substance Painter 161 Texturing the Larger Structures 178 Texturing the Remaining Assets Using Smart Materials 213 Chapter 8: Creating Foliage 220 Creating Grass 220 Creating Trees 225 Chapter 9: Working on Unreal Engine 4 237 Creating Lightmap UVs 241 Exporting Models from Blender 247 Exporting Textures from Substance Painter 249 Chapter 10: Importing into Unreal Engine 4 252 Import Settings 252 Exploring the Properties Editor 257 Build Settings in Detail 261 Editing Collisions 263 Chapter 11: Material Setup in Unreal Engine 4 266 Simple Material Setup 266 Complex Material Setup 280 Working with Master and Instance Materials 290 Chapter 12: Integration with VR 292 Setting Up Visual Studio 292 Sculpting the Landscape 309 Creating the Landscape Material 317 Importing and Using Foliage 325 Index 329