You just downloaded Unreal Engine 4 and you’re searching for a short guide in English just to give a fast look to the engine… so this page is for you! If you want a complete course, for a knowledge slower but bolder, give a look to the lessons page.
After you downloaded the engine on the official site, completely free, create a new empty project, if you prefer you can also select a non-empty one.
The first moves on the engine
The Viewport contains all in-game objects. To zoom in the Viewport move the mouse wheel. You can move holding the right mouse button and pressing WASD or QE keys.
Space is oriented with the XYZ axis. You will move in these directions:
- X: right and left (AD keys)
- Y: forth and back (WS keys)
- Z: up and down (QE keys)
To place a new actor drag and drop it from the schedule “Modes”.
You can do different operations on the actor:
- Move (W): change its position in the level.
- Rotate (E): change its rotation.
- Scale (R): change the original shape.
To actually see the object material you need to place some lights. We’ll deal with lights in another lesson, for now, you can simply place one and build lighting. If you prefer, you can also select a pre-compiled level, in this way lights won’t be a problem.
The same actions of place, translate, rotate and scale can be performed on the details page, more precisely.
The rotations along axis take those names:
- Z: Yaw.
- X: Roll.
- Y: Pitch.
For this fast-look of the Unreal Engine 4 Engine it’s all!