[Question for Epic] Any Plans for Android TV?

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Hey Epic Games Staff,

Are there any plans for Android TV support in Unreal Engine 4?

For those of you unaware or uninformed about Android TV here are some links. :slight_smile:

http://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/06/25/android-tv-nvidia-tegra/

2

Isn’t Android TV same as…Android?

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I guess i should have clarified.

Will there be android TV Specific features in Unreal 4?

4

The engine currently detects com.google.android.tv system feature on startup and forces landscape. We are always looking at new feature support. Was there any particular feature you had in mind to add to the roadmap?

5

Oops sorry - I let this slip by my watch - My bad.

Will there be analytic integration in unreal engine 4? Stuff such as Heat maps showing where people have walked the most, died the most, as well as where they get stuck. etc.

I know that Google has this as well as third party applications. I would particularly like heat map support for games on Android.

That said - Could this be some sort of Framework integrated into UE4 that can be deployed via HTML5?

Here is what I am talking about -

6

That’s game specific and Google does not track 3d positions (web != game).
It wouldn’t be hard to make it yourself though.

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Not really game specific. You could apply analytics to an large scale MMORPG like WoW or an FPS like Halo 4. Even games like Candy Crush and the like have Analytic support.
Heat maps are just an example and something I would like to see.

9

Hi Chris,

UE4 really needs full support for Android TV. Forcing to landscape is simply not enough and the games don’t get properly get added to the Android TV launcher.
It would be good to add new items in the Android packaging section for all the items that need to be properly set in the AndroidManifest.xml and res folder items.

These are all well described here:

These items include:

  1. uses-feature for android.software.leanback along with proper intent-filter for android.intent.category.LEANBACK_LAUNCHER
  2. uses-feature for android.hardware.touchscreen
  3. uses-feature for android.hardware.gamepad
  4. Application flag for isGame=true
  5. TV @banner definition for image @ 320x180
  6. Activity style for android:theme="@style/Theme.Leanback" (This would require you adding leanback support library jar file to package)
    http://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v17/leanback/package-summary.html

It would also be great to see another manifest list for uses-feature to support other device specific hardware features without using the mysterious and undocumented manifest override txt files that are very limited. Seems like hacking the AndroidBuildTool deploy .cs files are the extent to what developers need to do today.

Needless to say, Unity now has all this built into their Android packaging section and I would really like to see this included in the next UE4 v4.10.5 or v4.11.0 releases.

Thanks

10

Hi seanpaultaylor,

I’ll add this to the to-do list. 4.12 is a possibility, but this can be done as a plugin so backward support is possible. The manifest modifications can be done with APL and so can the leanback jar inclusion.

11

What happened with this?

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Ping on this.
@Chris_Babcock Is this already implemented? can you share any docs?

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Any update about Google TV/Android TV support?
How can we add LEANBACK_LAUNCHER correctly to mainfest file?
source:
Create and run a TV app | Android Developers