In this article by Katax Emperor and Devin Sherry, author of the book Unreal Engine Physics Essentials, we will discuss and evaluate the basic 3D physics and mathematics concepts in an effort to gain a basic understanding of Unreal Engine 4 physics and real-world physics. To start with, we will discuss the units of measurement, what they are, and how they are used in Unreal Engine 4. In addition, we will cover the following topics:

• The scientific notation
• 2D and 3D coordinate systems
• Scalars and vectors
• Newton’s laws or Newtonian physics concepts
• Forces and energy

For the purpose of this chapter, we will want to open Unreal Engine 4 and create a simple project using the First Person template by following these steps.

(For more resources related to this topic, see here.)

Launching Unreal Engine 4

When we first open Unreal Engine 4, we will see the Unreal Engine Launcher, which contains a News tab, a Learn tab, a Marketplace tab, and a Library tab. As the first title suggests, the News tab provides you with the latest news from Epic Games, ranging from Marketplace Content releases to Unreal Dev Grant winners, Twitch Stream Recaps, and so on. The Learn tab provides you with numerous resources to learn more about Unreal Engine 4, such as Written Documentation, Video Tutorials, Community Wikis, Sample Game Projects, and Community Contributions. The Marketplace tab allows you to purchase content, such as FX, Weapons Packs, Blueprint Scripts, Environmental Assets, and so on, from the community and Epic Games. Lastly, the Library tab is where you can download the newest versions of Unreal Engine 4, open previously created projects, and manage your project files.

Let’s start by first launching the Unreal Engine Launcher and choosing Launch from the Library tab, as seen in the following image:

For the sake of consistency, we will use the latest version of the editor. At the time of writing this book, the version is 4.7.6. Next, we will select the New Project tab that appears at the top of the window, select the First Person project template with Starter Content, and name the project Unreal_PhyProject:

Summary

In this article we had an an overview of Unreal Engine 4 and how to launch Unreal Engine 4.

Resources for Article:

Further resources on this subject:

• Exploring and Interacting with Materials using Blueprints [article]
• Unreal Development Toolkit: Level Design HQ [article]
• Configuration and Handy Tweaks for UDK [article]