Engine Features Preview 2/13/2015

We’re excited to share a few of the new features now available on the branch on GitHub. To be able to try out these new features, you will need to download the source code for the branch and build the Engine yourself. For more information about how to build the Engine from source code, please see page. The branch on GitHub is constantly being updated and is not quality tested so it may be potentially unstable. We do not recommend using the branch for project development. If you wish to wait, these features will be made available to all in an upcoming official release.
**Engine News
**
New Features

New: Blueprintable Components
Create your own component types using Blueprint scripting! You can save these components and reuse them on any actor!

Click “Add Component”, then select “New Blueprint Script Component…” right at the top. You can do on actors in your level, from inside any Actor Class Blueprint, and even from the Content Browser’s “New Blueprint…” window.

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Choose a **Parent Class **for your new component. “Scene Components” have a 3D position within the actor, but “Actor Components” only have scripting logic. Unless you need a location for something, choose “Actor Component” for your base class. Afterwards, you’ll be prompted to save your new component as an asset.

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Here is the fun part – writing Blueprint script code for your new component. In example, we rotate the component’s owner (the actor) around the yaw axis every single frame using the Tick event. We named component “Spinner” because it spins actors around!

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Now, you can** drop the component onto any actor** in your scene and they will start rotating when the game begins. Yay, reusable modular functionality!

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You can also drop it into any normal actor class Blueprint. Your new components can always be found in the “Add Component” menu (under the “Custom” category), and also in the Content Browser.

New: Automatic Asset Importing!
Importing meshes, sounds and textures has never been easier. Simply save your source art files under your project’s Content folder, and the editor will automatically import the new files, ready to be used in UE4!
If you update these files from an external application, the editor will detect that and automatically reimport your content! makes iterating on game content much faster.

Automatic Asset Importing

is turned on by default, but you can toggle it using the “Monitor Content Directories” in the “Loading & Saving” section of editor preferences.

New: HTML5 Platform Fully Supported! (WebGL)

You can now package and** run your game in a web browser** using the version of Unreal Engine installed through the Launcher.

Simply install the Emscripten SDK, restart the editor and launcher, then use the Launch drop down to select a web browser!

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Your game may take a while to prepare for HTML5, especially the first time, as assets and code are optimized for the web browser.

Note: You will only be able to target HTML5 from Windows, and not Mac, for the time being.

Additionally, Firefox is the suggested browser for development, although the other standard browsers work well for Shipping builds.

New: Android Development from Mac

The Mac version of Unreal Engine now fully supports Android development!

You will need Java for MacOS and the Android SDK (which can be installed using the TADP installer in Engine/Extras/Android).
After installing, either restart the editor, or set paths to the SDK in the new Android SDK section in Project Settings.

Awesome! The automatic importing is quite interesting! We’re currently using a separate /work_files/ folder that is outside of the game project. will make it much easier to manage as it’s a lot closer together on disk. Love it!

I just wanted to say the 4.7.7 is looking pretty good! It certainly seems a lot more stable than an of the previous versions.

Automatic Asset Importing, what can I say, is fantastic!!! is awesome news.

Just please, make sure that it is not buggy and it doesn’t automatically detects most of the times but not always, because that would make it actually counterproductive.

Woah, the Automatic Asset Importing sounds great. Will there be away to specify import settings such as for FBX options?

Also, will work well with Perforce?

Great news!

I’m excited to hear about the new BP Components, I’m a big fan of reusability and modularity!

Would update, per , allow inherited components to be editable?

Automatic Import and BP Components are great thx guys! Makes things easier

Hey, will these features be included in 4.7?

[=;221778]
Hey, will these features be included in 4.7?
[/]

They are already available in the 4.7 preview, so yes.

Will there be a forum for html5 in development discussion when 4.7 is released? Will unreal benefit from what firefox is doing with its vr nighlty build? Or can oculus support be done within html5?

Wow just played around with HTML5. Builds are smaller than i expected and ran pretty well, Is it possible for content to be zipped on export and decompressed in browser or is that a limitation of the browser?

Very cool stuff can’t wait :slight_smile:

The automatic asset importing was something I greatly missed in my entry days, having switched from Unity. But now I’m not sure I’m even going to use it at all, I found having separate work folders with only the “final” asset being imported into the content folder to be beneficial.

So if I have a mesh with materials already set on it, and I modify that mesh in maya then save, the engine will automatically show the changes with the materials still present? If so then that is awesome!

I really hope you’re not going to leave these “nuclear” backgrounds for buttons. Green one for “add component” (and used in many other places) and blue one for “Edit blueprint”. It doesn’t fit UI at all, it works like red cape for bull. Everytime I look at new editor, it draws my attention. It cries for attention. These backgrounds attack user like GIFs on websites from 90’s.

As much I love new functionality, I hate backgrounds. We don’t need, it very easy to find all functions. No need to highlight it with extremely colors.
It would be a relief, if you’d simply remove these colored backgrounds :slight_smile:

just built from the today to check out HTML5 :slight_smile:

editor launch button: HTML5 - No Devices Found

package from editor menu

Missing UE4Game binary.
You may have to build the UE4 project with your IDE. Alternatively, build using UnrealBuildTool with the commandline:
UE4Game <Platform> <Configuration>

:frowning:

edit:
adding code to a pure blueprint project allows it to be packaged from the menu

other edit:
i get between 1 and 5 fps, slightly disappointing
http://teglegrecords.free.fr/ue4/html5test.html

[=;221699]
Automatic Asset Importing, what can I say, is fantastic!!! is awesome news.

Just please, make sure that it is not buggy and it doesn’t automatically detects most of the times but not always, because that would make it actually counterproductive.
[/]

Windows itself provides an API to get a list of Disk-Changes(changed files/Folders, was it deleted? modified? added?) since your last call. allows to detect changes very efficiently and accurate. I am pretty sure, they used for the Windows-Implementation.
I’d be surprised if other platforms do not offer a similar API.

[=tegleg;222493]

other edit:
i get between 1 and 5 fps, slightly disappointing
http://teglegrecords.free.fr/ue4/html5test.html
[/]

I get around 20-50 fps, mostly between 30-40 fps.

[=tegleg;222493]
just built from the today to check out HTML5 :slight_smile:

editor launch button: HTML5 - No Devices Found

package from editor menu

Missing UE4Game binary.
You may have to build the UE4 project with your IDE. Alternatively, build using UnrealBuildTool with the commandline:
UE4Game <Platform> <Configuration>

:frowning:

edit:
adding code to a pure blueprint project allows it to be packaged from the menu

other edit:
i get between 1 and 5 fps, slightly disappointing
http://teglegrecords.free.fr/ue4/html5test.html
[/]

I get about 30 fps on my work laptop.
And capped at 60 fps on my regular computer.

Both on Opera (which is more or less chrome now)

8 fps on firefox 35.0.1, capped 60 fps on Chrome 40.0.2214.111 m. Weird.

interesting…
thanks for trying it and reporting back everyone.

just tried chrome and i get ~25 fps, the same as in editor.
1-5 fps in firefox.

so

[]
Firefox is the suggested browser for development
[/]

is nonsense