UnrealEd User Guide

Document Summary: Guide to using the Unreal Editor.

Document Changelog: Created; maintained over time.

Introduction

UnrealEd is a suite of tools for working with content in the Unreal Engine. At the core, it is used for level design; but contained within are editors and browsers for importing and manipulating content for your game project.

This document describes the major features of UnrealEd, and guides you on how to use more specific features.

General Package System

Importing your art into the Unreal Engine 3 Editor is a simple process. Those familiar with previous incarnations of the Unreal Editor will find some significant changes in the representation of content. There is now a new type of browser called the Generic Browser which replaces both the old browsers, allowing you to deal with both lots of asset package information in one place. In a package you will probably find meshes, materials, and textures. Users familiar with Unreal may again be surprised at this point: content such as meshes and textures are now stored in a single package.

Terminology

For a complete glossary of Unreal Engine3 terms, including Levels and Actors, see the Glossary page.

Using UnrealEd

Opening the Editor

To open Unreal Ed, locate the appropriate executable (.exe) for your game project in the Binaries directory, and run it with the editor parameter.

As an example, the ExampleGame project has a compiled executable called LTCG-ExampleGame.exe in the Binaries directory. To run the editor for ExampleGame, run the following command:

LTCG-ExampleGame editor

Creating a Level

For an introduction on creating a simple level, see the Creating Levels page.

UnrealEd Overview

Editor Layout

Menu Bar

File

Edit

View

Brush

Build

Tools

Help

Tool Bar

For more information about the Tool Bar, see the Editor Tool Bar page.

Viewports

For a guide to the different View Modes in UnrealEd, see the View Modes page.

For a guide to the different Show Flags in UnrealEd, see the Show Flags page.

Browsers

Generic Browser

For a guide to the features and fields in the new generic browser, see the Generic Browser Reference page.

Actor Class Browser

For a guide to browsing different Actor classes in UnrealEd, see the Actors Browser Reference page.

Groups Browser

For a guide to managing Actors in UnrealEd, see the Groups Browser Reference page.

Level Browser

For a guide to browsing a World of Levels in UnrealEd, see the Level Browser Reference page.

Referenced Assets Browser

For a guide to browsing the assets being referenced in UnrealEd, see the Referenced Assets Browser Reference page.

Primitive Stats Browser

For a guide to browsing primitive statistics (for optimization and measuring performance) in UnrealEd, see the Primitive Stats Browser Reference page.

Dynamic Shadow Stats Browser

For a guide to browsing dynamic shadow statistics (for optimization and measuring performance) in UnrealEd, see the Dynamic Shadow Stats Browser Reference page.

Scene Manager

For a guide to managing Actors in a Level in UnrealEd, see the Scene Manager Reference page.

Content Tags

For a guide to tagging assets in UnrealEd, see the Content Tags Browser page.

Task Browser

The Task Browser allows you to connect to a task database to browse tasks and mark them as complete. See the Task Browser page for more information.

Log

Editors

Common Features

Property Window

The Property Window, used in many places in various editors, is where variables exposed by script can be edited. For objects with an abundance of variables, the Property Window now comes with a search feature, as shown below.

NOTE: The Actor Lock button will only appear when the Property Window is displaying the properties for an Actor.

When a search string is entered or Show only modified is enabled, the tree will automatically expand to show you the appropriate properties. Expand and collapse are disabled in this mode.

The options menu now contains all items that were previously on the toolbar and two options (Show All Windows and Show Only Modified) that were in the main editor frame.

To remove the search string, either delete it in the text control or click the red X button.

EditCondition is now more generally supported. In an UnrealScript class (.uc) file, simply add something similar to the following:

var() int DistanceFieldScaleFactor<EditCondition=bUseDistanceFieldAlpha>;

The EditCondition must reference a boolean value and will only be enabled when that boolean is true. In the property window, it will look like the following

Levels

For information on how to use the Level Editor, see the Level Editor User Guide page.

For information on how to use the Terrain Editor, see the Terrain Editor User Guide^? page.

Effects

For information on how to use the Particle Editor (Cascade), see the Particle Editor User Guide page.

Models

For information on how to use the Static Mesh Editor, see the Static Mesh Editor User Guide page.

Materials

For information on how to use the Materials Editor, see the Materials Editor User Guide page.

For information on how to use the Material Instance Editor, see the Material Instance Editor User Guide page.

Animations

For information on how to use the Animation Set Editor, see the AnimSet Editor User Guide page.

For information on how to use the Animation Tree Editor, see the AnimTree Editor User Guide page.

Physics

For information on how to use the Physics Authoring Tool (PhAT), see the Physics Editor User Guide page.

Audio

For information on how to use the Sound Cue Editor, see the Sound Cue Editor Editor User Guide page.

Post Process

For information on how to use the Post Process Editor, see the Post Process Editor User Guide page.

Cinematics and Keyframing

For information on how to use Matinee, see the Matinee User Guide page.

Scripting

For information on how to use Kismet, see the Kismet User Guide page.

User Interface

For information on how to use the UI Editor, including the Docking Editor, Style Editor, and Skin Editor, see the UI Editor User Guide page.

UnrealEd Controls

Mouse Controls

For a list of mouse controls see the Editor Buttons page.

Keyboard Controls

For a list of keyboard controls see the Editor Buttons page.

Hot Keys

For summary of how to bind editor hotkeys and create new editor hotkey commands, see the Editor Hotkeys page.

Play in Editor

To learn how to use the in-editor gameplay feature, see the Play in Editor User Guide page.

Realtime Update

To learn How to control a console from the editor, see the Realtime Update page.

Source Control Integration

For an overview of Source Control Integration into UnrealEd, see the SCC Integration page.