I’ve been playing with UE4 now since it came out. Love the new features and the fact it runs on Mac OS now.
Unfortunately it looks like Epic has epically failed to deliver on educational resources for creating in game UI’s and Main Menu’s. From poking around online the most I’ve bee able to figure out is that UE4 no longer officially supports Scale Form and does not have it built in any longer. I’ve heard of something called “Slate UI” but youtube and google searches have yielded nothing.
Slate: Slate is what Epic used to create the UE4 editor, there’s a few tutorials on the wiki here. (Under S). It’s more application oriented, so it might not be appropriate for a game, depending on the game. It’s pretty complex, but there’s a few people here who’ve got experience with it, so you can always ask questions.
Canvas: Canvas is the basic system which allows you to draw elements on the HUD. Rama’s got a great big tutorial over here. I haven’t seen anything particularly amazing from it, but it seems like a passable option for a basic HUD.
External: You can also try and get an external system working in UE4. Coherent UI is a popular HTML5 based interface system that’s apparently coming to UE4 in just a few days. It’s already a popular option for Unity3d and Cryengine, so it may be worth a crack.
There might be a few other external options, but Coherent UI’s the one I’ve heard the most about.
Imo Canvas and BPs are enough for the 99% of games.
If you download the Content Examples from the Launcher > Marketplace, there is a map within named Blueprint_HUD that has all the assets needed for a basic HUD.
We have heard your requests for more documentation and tutorials regarding the usage of Slate for in-game purposes. While there is some documentation, we have heard from many sources that tutorials and better demonstrations of practical usage would help clear up the confusion and allow you to work with the system better. I can confirm that the Documentation team here at Epic is well aware of the issue and is already hard at work generating content on this and aims to get it out soon. In the meantime, the Content Examples and Wiki Tutorials should help get you started while we prepare more documentation and tutorials for you guys.
So basically Scaleform will not be an option in the future and currently there is no solid workflow for UI creation is what I am gathering. This is kind of a nightmare.
Scaleform IS an option http://gameware.autodesk.com/scaleform/unreal
There’s a lot of samples how to use Slate(First person shooter sample and strategy game sample). And the starting point for canvas usage is the first person template.
Seems you can still buy it from Autodesk to use with UE4, but the licensing is completely unreasonable. From the sounds of it, they want you to buy a Scaleform license not only for each individual platform you intend to release on, but also for every game you make with it.
Beyond the improved Slate documentation on its way (thanks for the update, Wes!), this issue was addressed in the second podcast (in response to a question I posed). There are plans underway for a visual UE4 GUI editor, and it is a priority, but no general time frame as of yet.
I saw those prices as well. It’s possible they plan to announce pricing similar to Unity’s version (which is still $150 to $350 for PC development), but we’ll have to wait and see.
There have been plenty of discussions on the built-in UI functionalities, as well as on Coherent UI, and we’ve put the three of them (Canvas, Slate, Coherent UI) on the table, analysed the pros and cons and wrote the results down, hopefully you will find the read helpful.
We are literally getting ready to send the Beta of our plugin to all who have subscribed, and with your help and feedback we’ll try to make it even better and more user-friendly.
Can you please tell us whats the limitation in the Trial version of Coherent UI?
EDIT: Two things i noticed in the table posted in this blog post.
1: In Authoring Language under UE4 Canvas you have C++ and under UE4 Slate UI you have C++, some Blueprint support. Shouldn’t this be opposite? UE4 Canvas has Blueprint support while Slate UI doesnt have any Blueprint support.
2: In Visual Tools available you have None in UE4 Canvas and None, Blueprint editor? in UE4 Slate UI. Again, shouldn’t this be opposite? Blueprint HUD uses Canvas and Slate has no Blueprint support.
Please note am still using 4.0.1 and am waiting for the official release of 4.1.
Why doesn’t someone use the source and make a usable UI solution? Just an idea. Then put it on the marketplace or something. or is the marketplace only for Epic content still?
Were using full BP for our UI and it works just fine. But if you guys really want a new solution ask a few developers and see if you can get a few people working on one.
You are right, the missing Blueprint on Canvas was a mistake, for Slate what I meant is that there is a “SlateComponentWrappers” plugin by Epic that tries to add some BP support.
What I meant here is WYSIWYG editors - Blueprints are visual programming but still programming - you can’t really edit the UI visually (dragging, anchoring, animating etc.). I fixed the title of the row to be more clear.
The Coherent UI trial is fully-featured, there are no functional limitations. It is a 30-day free trial and has an embedded watermark, meaning it is not allowed to be used for commercial release.
P.S. We just released the Beta plugin for Unreal Engine 4. Those of you who have subscribed can check your e-mails for the download link If you haven’t done so yet and want to give it a shot, please sign up here: http://goo.gl/eB1N9C
(because I was hoping not to have to spend extra on UI)
But if you guys really want a new solution ask a few developers and see if you can get a few people working on one.