UI3 Get Started

Get started with the UI3 in your own project.

Go through all of the steps to make the interface work with your project.

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The video tutorials are accompanying this documentation. Not every setting is mentioned in them. For advanced or seldomly used options check the documentation.

The UI3 should now be in your VAULT. Now you can create the demo project.

Updates are free. You can re-download the demo projects as often as you want, and in any available engine version.

UI3 on the Marketplace

Make sure you are using the desired engine version! You can create as many versions of the Demo Project as you want. Most of the times it is ok to upgrade to a higher engine version later on (4.26 to 4.27). But you will never be able to go down an engine version (5.1 to 5.0).

Occasionally Epic makes changes to the underlying code. An error will occur when upgrading from 5.0 to 5.1 for example. Epic has changed the way text input widgets are formatted. So best to use the version of the UI3 that matches your projects engine version.

• create a new level in the demo project
• or migrate the UI3 to your project.

If you decide to migrate, you can

• Migrate the entire demo project by right clicking the main folder ArchVizUI_V3
• only migrate the UI folder.

You need to select the Content folder in the other project as the target.

Do not just copy the folder from one project to another using Windows Explorer! Using UI3 made for 5.0 in 5.1, or worse 4.27, will not work.

Message: Some selected assets don't have a corresponding content root in the destination.
/SunPosition

If you cannot move when playing the app then you most likely haven't copied this file to the new project.

Note: Epic is replacing the DefaultInput.ini file. This will be obsolete soon

Place a Blocking Volume under the player start so the player doesn't fall through the floor in case the level geometry isn't loaded yet.

You have to set a few things in the Project Settings depending on what kind of lighting you are going to use. The image shows the most common settings for the use of ray tracing.

Unreal has a very good online documentation. Be careful what you change in the project settings. The link below should get you additional help if needed.

These settings are stored in the /Config folder of your project. Rename that folder to /Config.old to reset the settings if your project crashes on loading. A new folder will be created with the most basic settings.

Setting Up Your Project | Unreal Documentation

You can add additional volumes and give them a higher priority. Settings in volumes with higher priority will overwrite settings in volumes with lower priority.

The settings in the image cover the ray-tracing of the scene for Unreal Engine 4.26.

Unreal 5 uses Lumen for reflections, shadows and ambient occlusion. Translucency is the only feature that may still look better with ray-tracing. You need to enable virtual shadow maps and hardware ray-tracing for Lumen in the project settings.

• SDotUI3_GameModeKeyboard for keyboard and mouse control. Optional mouse only controls available.
• SDotUI3_GameModeTouch for touch screen support.
• SDotUI3_GameModeGamepad for using an XBOX gamepad or other controllers.
• SDotUI3_GameModeVR for VR projects with a 3D interface in front of the player. VIVE and Oculus Touch controllers are set to be used.

This will set the Character and Game Controller blueprints for the current scene. Click the link below for more details about the different game modes.

For Static Lighting I recommend these Lightmass settings:

• Static Lighting Level Scale = 0.75
• Indirect Lighting Quality = 1.25
• Num indirect lighting bounces = 5
• Num sky light bounces = 3

More details about Game Modes

Persistent Level

You need at least one level for each scene. This level is commonly called the Persistent Level. I like to have just the player start and some volumes like the default Post Process Volume and a Lightmass Importance Volume in it.

Sub Levels

You can add sub levels to the persistent level. They can group actors (furniture, building, details) and make working in the scene easier. They are either

• Streaming from within the UI (blue dot next to it)
• Always loaded (no blue dot)

Scenarios

Finally there are [Lighting] Scenario levels which can hold the entire lighting information for all other levels. This allows different lighting types for baked scenes. They can also used for layout variations.

Read more about the Info Map in the next chapter.

You can put a floor plan into it for a reference when assembling the scene. The floor plan needs to be black on white background.

Rotate the floorplan with the standard transform Z-rotation to align it with the walls. Then use the scale value in the Floorplan Settings to scale it. Finally move it so it matches the walls as exactly as possible while fine tuning the scale value.

Info Map - interface Design