I am new to Unreal engine. I have some very general questions so can I approach my project in the right way before digging in. First, I thought it may be helpful if I say what I plan to create so that my questions make more sense.
Background
I am looking to create a custom “whole thing” (I am not sure if this is an object or a world).
The “whole thing” should be a large (think the size of a world) and is comprised of several “things” that can be viewed individually or together. The “things” should be further divided into “sub-things”. The thing is therefore not remotely round (or flat). The things are fixed and stationary.
One should be able to go along a certain path viewing the object (the “whole thing”, or “thing”, or “sub-thing”, etc in a certain, premade, order). The path should have points/ stations into it, where there are “stops” , like a guided tour, and at these points one should be able to view in more detail the subparts, and attached text, images, and videos.
One should also be able to freely move around the thing (the “whole thing”, or “thing”, or “sub-thing”).
As for the view. There is not a player character, but only the first player view. One should be able to view the object, the worlds, and its parts and subparts with:
- different degrees of transparency (from solid, via semi-transparent, to transparent (outline only), to invisible. The changes are either following a set path or a freely chosen one (can I give the user the possibility to toggle between different views by themselves?). The user should therefore be able to determine and also freely choose which parts have what level of transparency. Thus, in one view a portion of a “thing” may obscure another portion of the “thing” that is behind it, but if the first portion has more transparency the second portion becomes visible (think that a house is obscuring a bush behind it and if one makes the house transparent one can see the bush).
- different amount of zoom (and view the points/ stations). This would lead to that one is zooming out and looking at a large part or zooming in on a smaller part in more detail.
- different amounts of range of view. This means that if one is looking at a house, the rest of the world becomes increasingly fuzzy, to the point where it is barely visible.
These three views should be operating independently or together with each other, so that zoom is combined with fuzziness or transparency. The view should be both following a premade one or a freely chosen one.
Question
I am not sure how to approach this, I would appreciate your help. I have only found flat and round worlds. Is it possible to create fully custom-shaped worlds or, perhaps, should I create the thing (the “whole thing”, or “thing”, or “sub-thing”) in Blender/Unreal engine and import it as a free-floating object?
(As can be seen, in background, I want to be able to work on the thing using some features, on the “whole thing” or in parts of it:
view (transparency, zoom, range of view), and have a set path (sort of like a guided tour with stops) and the user should also be able to freely move around and use these features.)