Bước sang thế hệ console thứ 8, Unreal Engine 4 có thể nói đang là bộ engine phổ biến nhất hiện nay khi nó không những chỉ được sử dụng để xây dựng rất nhiều tựa game lớn nhỏ khác nhau còn đóng vai trò cốt lõi trong những dự án về kiến trúc, dựng hình hay làm phim. Mới đây hãng phát triển Unreal Engine 4 – Epic Games vừa tiếp tục giới thiệu một sản phẩm mới rất đáng chú ý, đó là ứng dụng thực tế ảo vào việc thiết kế môi trường 3D.

Nếu từng xem qua Iron Man hay những bộ phim viễn tưởng Hollywood, chắc hẳn các bạn đều nhận thấy rằng trong tương lai con người thường thao tác với những hình chiếu lập thể bằng chính đôi bàn tay của mình một cách hết sức trực quan thay vì ngồi lì trên máy tính và click chuột liên miên. Những gì mà Epic Games mới giới thiệu gần đây cũng gần giống như vậy, có điều người sử dụng vẫn cần phải thao tác thông qua kính thực tế ảo cùng hai chiếc điều khiển đặc biệt thuộc bộ sản phẩm HTC Vive.

Để có cái nhìn cụ thể hơn, mời các bạn cùng theo dõi đoạn demo ngắn của bộ công cụ xây dựng dựa trên Unreal Engine 4 này ở phía dưới.

Một ưu điểm dễ nhận thấy nhất của công cụ này so với kiểu thiết kế truyền thống, đó là nhà phát triển có thể quan sát những gì mà mình sẽ tạo ra trong thời gian thực, từ đó kiểm tra kích thước, tỉ lệ, sự cân đối của các vật thể hay tương quan của chúng với môi trường xung quanh dễ dàng hơn rất nhiều. Bên cạnh đó như đoạn demo trên đã trình diễn, các hiệu ứng ánh sáng, đổ bóng cũng được bộ công cụ mô phỏng ngay khi mô hình được đưa vào game.

Đội ngũ phát triển tại Epic Games cho biết những thông tin chi tiết về công cụ dựng hình thực tế ảo này, bao gồm cả ngày ra mắt sẽ được tiết lộ thêm tại sự kiện dành cho giới công nghệ GDC 2016 dự tính diễn ra vào ngày 16/3.

Q: What is the ARK Dev Kit?

A: The ARK Dev Kit is a simplified version of the Unreal Engine 4 Editor specifically compiled to streamline the process of creating Mods & Maps for the Unreal Engine 4 game ARK: Survival Evolved, and to upload them directly to Steam Workshop for other users to download and play.

Q: What can I create with the ARK Dev Kit?

A: While the ARK Dev Kit does not provide access to the ARK C++ game source code, it does contain all of our editable source art for the game, as well as our editable maps and blueprint classes. Thanks to the power of Unreal Engine 4’s Blueprint system, even without C++ you can modify and extend quite a lot of the game functionality, including new items, weapons, AI Behavior Trees, structures, and all kinds of gameplay classes & game logic. You can focus on creating a beautiful new environment for the game, or extend the core game classes via Blueprint to add a whole new game mode and new mechanics. Over time we’ll detail how to create more complex game modes here on the Forum, and provide more examples on how to do so!

Q: Where do I get the ARK Dev Kit?

A: You can download the ARK Dev Kit Content via the “Tools” section of the Steam Client. You also need an Unreal Engine 4 account to download the UE4 Editor Executables via GitHub @ https://github.com/StudioWildcard1/Ark-Dev-Kit (you must be logged in with your UE4 account via GitHub to access this URL), as detailed via the “Getting Started” process below.

Q: Where can I get help with the ARK Dev Kit?

A: Right here on this “ARK: Survival Evolved” Modding forum! Mmoderators from the Dev Team will do our best to help you with any questions or technical issues you might have, and we encourage you to read up on the general Unreal Engine 4 documentation at www.unrealengine.com.

Now onto how to create & upload your first Mod using the ARK Dev Kit!

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Note: we now have a Video Tutorial that goes through this process!

To Play a Mod or Custom Map

To download mods or maps, simply goto ARK’s Steam Workshop page and click “Subscribe” on the item you’d like to get.

Then in-game while playing ARK, you’ll automatically see the name of that map or mod appear in the “Host / Local Play” menu, potentially after a brief delay while the content downloads in the background. If the mod has been updated, you can also manually refresh all your installed mods via the “Update Mods” button.

You can then either play locally or host an online game with it. Alternatively, you can simply join an online server that is playing a custom Workshop map (indicated by the “Custom ARK / Map Name” fields on the Session List), and it will automatically download before you connect to the game — in this case, you’ll see an on-screen progress indication of how the download is progressing.

Creating a Mod or Custom Map

To create your own maps or mods, you’ll need to download the “ARK Dev Kit” from the Tools section of your Steam Client, and also sign-up for Unreal Engine 4 at www.unrealengine.com.

After downloading and installing the ARK Dev Kit Tool from Steam, you’ll need to download our custom Unreal Engine 4 Editor executable from GitHub here: https://github.com/StudioWildcard1/Ark-Dev-Kit (you must already be logged into GitHub with your UE4 credentials otherwise this will appear to be a 404; it’s free so sign-up at www.unrealengine.com then try the link again!).

You’ll want to either download the ZIP, or “check out” that repository into the root directory of your ARK Dev Kit installation. Extract it such that UE4Editor.exe, UE4Editor-Cmd.exe, and all of the Editor DLL’s end up here:

ARK Dev KitEngineBinariesWin64UE4Editor.exe

ARK Dev KitEngineBinariesWin64UE4Editor-Cmd.exe

Don’t worry, if you don’t extract or check out the repository to the correct location, then you can just copy the contents of EngineBinariesWin64 to that exact location afterwards anyway.

Once you’ve got the editor executables placed there, run “[Your Steam Library Path]steamappscommonARKDevKitARKDevKit.bat”, and the ARK Dev Kit Editor will proceed to load. It can take a long time to start up the first time as it needs to compile shaders and cache the game media, you may be looking at waiting times up to 30 minutes for the first run.

When the editor is loaded, you will be in a test map and you can click the “Play” button on the editor toolbar to start playing, or open “MapsTheIslandSubmapsTheIsland.umap” to explore the full ARK Island. Alternatively you can open “ModsDinoArenaDinoArena.umap” to see how a simple cookable mod is put together.

Full documentation for the Unreal Engine 4 Editor used in ARK can be found here: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest…ine/index.html

Cook & Upload to Steam Workshop

When you’re ready to create & deploy your own map to Steam Workshop, here’s the basic process:

Make sure your map and ANY new content that it utilizes (blueprints, art assets, any new assets) are located in “ContentModsYourModName”.

Then click the “Cook & Upload to Steam” button on the Editor Toolbar:

In the dialog which appears appears, you’ll see your Mod listed, if it’s in the “ContentModsYourModName” folder (otherwise it won’t show up — it has to be in a Mods subfolder!). Choose your Mod, and then click “Cook”. The first time you cook your Mod, the Editor needs to compile a lot of shaders, so it might take a long time (i.e. 30 minutes or more). However, subsequent cooks will be much faster as the compiled shaders are cached to disk.

(Note: Cooking your Mod will actually cook it for both Windows and Mac/Linux platforms, for cross-platform online compatibility!)

After cooking is finished, enter a Title and Description for your Mod, choose a preview image and initial Workshop Visibility state, and then click “Upload” to Steam Workshop. You’ll be asked for your Steam Credentials (don’t worry, we don’t store them), and then the process will connect to Steam and attempt to upload your content to the Workshop. You’ll get a basic progress indicator so you know how things are going during the upload process.

After the upload is finished, you can click the “View Item on Steam Workshop” button to adjust your item’s presentation on the website.

To update your content in the future, simply Cook and Upload again!

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We’ll have more tutorials in the upcoming days about how the specific features of ARK level design are put together, but for now, feel free to explore and modify “TheIsland” map to poke around at how things work, including the stream sublevels and the zone area spawners. Remember, when designing levels you may wish to start small and simple, and then gradually scale up.

If you have any questions about the Mod Tools, feel free to post on this Forum. We encourage intrepid mod makers to help each other out here, the more the community can collaborate to build exciting new content, the better it’s going to be. Stay tuned to our Steam page, Twitter feed, and here for more information on upcoming ARK modding news, including a major initiative to mobilize the mod community that will be announced soon!

Have fun and happy modding!

– Drake and the Studio Wildcard Team