We will explore the UE4 editor here. We'll start with the controls since it is important to know how to navigate in Unreal.
If you've never used a 3D editor before, the controls can be quite hard to learn. These are the basic navigation controls while in edit mode:
- Use the arrow keys to move around in the scene
- Press Page Up or Page Down to go up and down vertically
- Left mouse click + drag it left or right to change the direction you are facing
- Left mouse click + drag it up or down to dolly (move the camera forward and backward, same as pressing up/down arrow keys)
- Right mouse click + drag to change the direction you are facing
- Middle mouse click + drag to pan the view
- Right mouse click and the W, A, S, and D keys to move around the scene
Click on the Play button in the bar at the top, as shown in the following screenshot. This will launch the play mode.
Once you click on the Play button, the controls change. In play mode, the controls are as follows:
- The W, A, S, and D keys for movement
- The left or right arrow keys to look toward the left and right, respectively
- The mouse's motion to change the direction in which you look
- The Esc key to exit play mode and return to edit mode
What I suggest you do at this point is try to add a bunch of shapes and objects into the scene and try to color them with different materials.
Adding objects to the scene is as easy as dragging and dropping them in from the Content Browser tab. The Content Browser tab appears, by default, docked at the left-hand side of the window. If it isn't seen, simply select Window and navigate to Content Browser in order to make it appear.
Make sure that the Content Browser is visible in order to add objects to your level
Next, select the Props folder on the left-hand side of the Content Browser.
Drag and drop things from the Content Browser into your game world
To resize an object, press R on your keyboard. The manipulators around the object will appear as boxes, which denotes resize mode.
Press R on your keyboard to resize an object
In order to change the material that is used to paint the object, simply drag and drop a new material from the Content Browser window inside the Materials folder.
Drag and drop a material from the Content Browser's Materials folder to color things with a new color
Materials are like paints. You can coat an object with any material you want by simply dragging and dropping the material you desire onto the object you desire it to be coated on. Materials are only skin-deep: they don't change the other properties of an object (such as weight).