ArchVizUI User Guide Pt.1

STEP 1: Open the project ArchVizUI and migrate the interface to your project. Make sure your target project is closed.

• navigate to the folder ArchVizUI
• Right click onto the folder and choose "Migrate" from the menu.
• Confirm the "Asset list" (ok)
• As target choose the Content folder of your (new) project. Make sure you use the content folder and not any other folder.

This will copy all necessary items.

STEP 2: Copy the file DefaultInput.ini from the "Config" folder of the ArchVizUI project into your project's "Config" folder.

These are the input settings for controller and keyboard. if you cannot move around this file is most likely missing.

STEP 3 (optional): You have to enable global clip planes in the project settings if you want to use planar reflections for mirrors. To do so open the project settings, select Rendering and tick the box for 'Support global clip plane for Planar Reflections'.

STEP 4: Place a player start into your persistent level. Place a simple blocking volume under the player start and align it with the floor. This prevents the player from falling through the floor while the game streams in the sub- levels.

In the Game Mode section choose SDotGameMode from the list of GameMode Overrides.

NOTE: Sometimes the SDotGameMode doesn't get migrated with the other files. If that happens just migrate it separately again.

STEP 6: The last step is to place the actor called "BP_SDot_Locatormap" into your main persistent level. See further down how to do that. Then add all the supporting actors like the BP_SDotAssetGroup to the scene.

Press "Play" in the editor window to simulate the run-time build and test what you added at any time after you placed the BP_SDot_Locatormap.

The loading time will be a bit longer when you start the project for the first time. So always run the project at least once before showing it to the client. Even better: have a quick run through the project to load all assets.

The BP_SDotLocatorMap needs to be in a level that has its streaming method set to "always loaded".

Floors: Add one array element per building floor.

• 'Floorplan': a black on white texture showing the layout of the floor.
• 'Floor Name' is currently not used.
• 'Height Offset' is the relative z value from the ground floor (array 0)

You will need black and white drawings of all floors for the player location tracking to work. I recommend a size of about 2000 px width or height. It doesn't have to be a power of 2

Any texture that is used in the UI needs to have the correct settings applied. Import the image then double click it to open the texture browser:

• Compression Settings: "UserInterface2D (RGBA)
• Texture Group: "UI"

Check out the next section for a quick introduction on how to work with arrays.

Once you added the drawings you will see it inside your level.

• 'Floorplan Rotation' will rotate the floorplan in the world.
• 'Floorplan Opacity' can help with the appearance in the editor.

First use Floorplan Rotation to rotate the drawing and then use the transform gizmo to move and scale the drawing so it fits the building walls. Do NOT rotate the blueprint actor manually with the transform gizmo.

Location Groups help you organize the teleport locations. They can be either floor levels or other group names (eg: apartment 01, outside).

You need at least one location group.

• use + to add new elements
• use the > arrows to expand or contract sections
• reorder array elements by clicking at the 10 little dots and then dragging it to a new position.
• You can also copy and paste the content of arrays by right clicking on the line that says "(x) Array elements"

Arrays always start with index 0. There can be arrays within arrays. This might look a bit confusing when you are not used to work with them.

> 'Asset Mat Group' - master array

> '0' - master array element 1
. > Asset - sub array for master array 1
. '0' - asset 1
. '1' - asset 2
. > Material - sub array for master array 1
. '0' - Material 1
. '1' - Material 2

> '1' - master array element 2
. > Asset - sub array for master array 2
. '0' - asset 1
. '1' - asset 2

UI Logos: The office and client logos will be displayed in the footer next to the client logo while the project logo will be displayed in the header next to the project name.

Object Swaps allow the user to choose between different static meshes. Read more further down this tutorial.

• 'Use Colour Schemes': weather to use this feature.
• 'Use Material Swaps': weather to use this feature.
• 'Use Object Swaps': weather to use this feature.
• 'Scheme Default: this scheme will load at the beginning.

'Colour Scheme': add an array element per scheme.

• 'CS_Preview': add a texture (400*400px display size)
• 'CS_Name': name of the scheme.

Other uses can be furniture layout changes. This allows the furniture assets to remain static and improves the visual quality compared to dynamic furniture.

• 'Use Scenarios': weather to use this feature.
• 'Default Scenario': will be loaded at the beginning as the default scenario.

  'Lighting Scenario': add one array element per scenario.

• 'LS_Preview': a screenshot of your lighting or another texture (display size 400*256px)
• 'LS_Name': the name displayed for the scenario
• 'LS_StreamingLevel': the (exact) name of the scenario sub level.

There are 3 generic preview images in the ArchVizUI/UI folder.

TIP: If you decide to only use one scenario level then add the level to the list of streaming levels in the Project Settings (further up). Then un-tick the box for 'Use Scenarios' to avoid having a feature with only one choice.

• 'Enable World Travel': weather to use this feature

  'Worlds' array: add one element per world to travel to

• 'World Preview': add a square preview texture
• 'World_Name': the display name of the world
• 'World_PersistentLevel': the name of the persistent level to travel to

• 'Enable Sequence Player': Weather to use this feature

  'Sequences' Array: add an array element per movie sequence

• 'SequencePreview': add a preview material. Use an instance of the M_UI_Video material (folder UI/Materials) and replace the texture. This will give you the film strip effect.
• 'SequenceName': add the display name of the movie
• 'Sequence': add the sequence from the content browser

• 'Walking Speed': the speed while the player is in walk mode
• 'Flying Min Speed': the initial speed when the drone starts flying
• 'Flying Max Speed': the maximum speed the drone can fly
• 'Flying Acceleration Mpl': A factor that in or decreases the acceleration
• 'Flying Deceleration': how fast the drone is breaking

• UIColour Set Used': the active colour set for the UI.

  UIColour Set

  each array element represents a UI Colour set. You can choose from the 6 preset color sets or create a new one. You can also copy and paste one of the sets into a new array and modify it.

• 'TextColour': foreground colour in the main (center) part of the UI.
• 'FocusColour': element in game controller focus.
• 'BackgroundColour': background of the main UI area. Alpha = Transparency.
• 'FrameTextColour': foreground colour of header and footer.
• 'FrameColour': background colour in header and footer. Alpha = Transparency.
• 'BorderColour': line colour between UI elements.

All main menu icons used in the UI are listed here. You can replace an icon with your own design or any of the spare ones in the UI/Icons folder. Sometimes it is useful to change the icons. If you use the scenario feature for layout scenarios then the sun icon would be inappropriate and should be something like the couch or the fridge instead.

The icon texture needs to be black on white (no alpha) and square.

This is purely cosmetic. Do not remove or add an icon and do not change the order of the icons here.