A specific question about UE4 - help needed

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hi everyone,

I am new to game development. I don’t know any programming languages. I have made several websites in HTML back in the day and made 2-3 large projects
with a nifty tool called RPG maker and GameMaker. I also made 2 maps for Unreal Tournament a VERY long time ago.

Now I wanted to start making my own games for about 12 years now but because game development is so scary and intimidating I never really took the jump.
I don’t want to be scared/intimidated anymore and just want to try to make my game 1 little step at a time. So I have a little question about the capabilities
of the Unreal engine 4.

My overall Project that I want to make is a Voxel “cube” based game. No, this is not going to be another minecraft clone. It will be a game very similar
to games like; Cube World, Staxel, Metaworld and Summer Dawn/Life Love Farm.

Now I have already read that voxel worlds can be a pain in the *** to create in UE4, but the features I want/need aren’t exactly like most voxel generators
that are made. All I want is to be able to have a Map Editor in UE4 that allows me to sculpt a landscape in my own way. No procedurally generated maps, no
infinite maps.

Just a (massive)plain of cubes, where I can set my own sizes for the cubes. They need to be in single color (like cube world) and I need to be able to make my own
Hills, Mountains, beaches, caves, rivers, lakes ect. by hand. This way I’m making a world like you would have in most RPG games. I could then decide where I want to
create towns, cities, dungeons, forests, bandit camps etc.

I would also like to note that I don’t expect to be able to mine blocks in the world (not at the moment anyway, maybe at a much later date). I do hope to be able to build in the game like Rust/ARK.
So I have 3 questions about this all;
**

  1. Is it possible to have something like described above in UE4?

  2. where would I be able to find/get/buy the Voxel “cube” map editor that I want/need?

  3. Would UE4 be my best bet as an game engine for a open-world, action RPG, Voxel based game ? **

I would also like people to know that I’m not thinking about this project as easy. I’m trying to learn UE4 every day and I’m also searching and learning
about C++ programming and using Blueprint. I’m dedicated and open to learn new things and eventually make my dream game for people to enjoy.

I hope people can help me out with the beginning issues I’m having at the moment. By making smaller game projects I’m trying to learn as much as I can before
I will Start on my larger Project but I need to know if my project is doable and will run smoothly before sinking in so much time in UE4, blueprint and C++

I would like to thank everyone that takes the time reading this, I really need the help.

2

Hey, welcome to the forum.

Alright let’s get started!

  1. In theory, yes it is possible to have a system like this in UE4. The best way to do it is to create a cube mesh in a 3D Application that snaps to the desired grid in UE4 (10, 16, etc.). After that you’d have to import it to UE4 and generate a whole mass of them (through static mesh instancing I suppose).

The thing is, I feel like the concept in general is rather inefficient and impractical. Considering you don’t want to world to be procedural generated, you’d have to do all the work by hand. If you generate say 2000 cubes, but you need 4000 that’s another 2000 that needs to be created, you’ll have to line it up

perfectly to the edge of the other. You could write an algorithm, but that would just create infinite worlds which you don’t want. You’re much better off creating a few base cube mesh and doing everything by hand. Don’t generate large bodies of cubes that can be scaled. Instead make modular

environments.

Trust me when I say, have a grid of cubes that you can extend and scale sounds really simple, but it isn’t. Considering you want your world to include multiple fixed points, you’re better off taking control of every single little piece rather than limiting yourself to whatever your 2000x2000 cube blanket will

allow.

  1. Check the UE4 marketplace.

  2. That’s on you. You really have to try it out and see if YOU can work with it well. For me, UE4 is great. But, I know my abilities and my skills. I don’t know yours, so I couldn’t say.

3

Jason, Thank you for your reply.

The basic idea that I had/wanted was that it would be pretty much the same as any other build-in landscaping tool that comes with the engine. With UE4 you can simply use brushes to create hills and mountains and such, but they are all smooth and not a
fixed size. What I would like to get is the same idea but instead of the smooth terrain I would get voxels when sculpting hills or mountains with a fixed voxel size.

placing each cube/voxel by hand on a grid will take forever when you are hoping to make a open world game, think skyrim with the landscape made in voxels. Being able to simply use a brush to “paint” on voxelized hills or mountains will be much more efficient, I believe.

There is a program out there for Minecraft called Worldpainter. It is basically the same thing that I hope to have in UE4 only it’s made for Minecraft and the cubes have a fixed size for that same reason. here is a video showing (roughly) the process that I mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5J3q5_SPIw#t=04m57s

Also, about the Marketplace. I have looked on there before I made this thread and there is absolutely nothing on there about Voxels/Cubes/Map editor etc. All searches are coming back blank.

4

Ah! So you want a sculptor!

Come to think of it, I believe you can “paint” with meshes.

You should check that option out. Use a cube mesh and paint away, see if that could work.

If not, its definitely possible, but you’d probably need to use extensive amounts of blueprints or do a lot of C++ work.

5

Thank you Jason, I will certainlty look this up on Youtube and the UE4 documentation, maybe I can find something about this. So you are saying that this should basically allow me to “sculpt” using a 3D model of a cube as a brush? So I could place hills, mountains and create caves and riverbeds by using this technique?

I Will dig deep into this (no pun intended) and see if it works. Like I said in my OP, I don’t have any knowledge of programming in C++ so that’s a black zone for me at the moment. Maybe if I really need C++ to help me on this matter I could ask an experienced coder on these forums to give me a nudge in the right direction.

I’ll come back to you about the whole mesh brush thing. If other people have suggestions or ideas about how to get this landschape thing working, please let me know.

6

It’s more of a quick fix to be honest. It’s mainly used for vegetation, so you get make a forest in a view minutes. It might work out well for you though.

Hopefully it’s what you’re looking for.

If you have any other questions feel free to contact me.

Good luck,

7

unfortunatly after many attempts and trying to look up tutorials about it, it didn;t work. This is only used for “painting” on vegetation on a landscape like bushes, grass, flowers etc. Ive tried to make it work with a mesh shaped as a cube (3D model) and it didn’t work. So, my problem still excitst and I really need this going if I were to make my game, cant place objects, create quests and drop in some monsters without a world…

I’ve also tried to contact the creator of Cubiquity (a plugin) but it seems like it’s a trend of developers to not respond to questions about their own created products. So I cant go forwards on that aswell, so I’m a bit stuck atm.

If someone here has made a voxel world in unreal 4 that can be shaped as they please (in any detail) without interference of procedural generation, could you please explain to me how this was done? It’s the bane of my existence.

8

Honestly, you’re best option is to create it yourself using blueprints or just play around with the source code.