Unreal Engine 5
Created by Austin Phan, Spring '23
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This chatbot was trained on the UE5 portion of the wiki. This is an experimental chatbot, and we may incorporate more of the wiki's corpus into a chatbot in the future. The chatbot was trained using Chatfast.
Overview
The successor to Unreal Engine 4, Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) is Epic Games' latest update to the game development suite which so many use to develop their games for a multitude of platforms. It now carries better support for the latest consoles, but more importantly for this wiki, contains updated support for VR/AR/MR uses. UE5 includes everything you need out of the box as a standard game developer, but you'll need to install a few extra things in order to get development with the Meta Quest 2 working.
UE5 brings improved 3D texture visuals, landscaping, and lighting while not sacrificing performance. It's able to provide real time lighting and texture effects, which can be helpful for developers, being able to see changes without needing to recompile or rebuild.
UE5 Contains support for Meta/Oculus, Vive, and Windows Mixed reality devices as well as many more!
System Requirements
Operating System
Windows 10 64-bit version 1909 revision .1350 or higher, or versions 2004 and 20H2 revision .789 or higher.
Processor
Quad-core Intel or AMD, 2.5 GHz or faster
Memory
8 GB RAM
Graphics Card
DirectX 11 or 12 compatible graphics card (I had issues with newer AMD-Based Cards and VR, so beware!)
RHI Version
DirectX 11: Latest drivers
DirectX 12: Latest drivers
Vulkan: AMD (21.11.3+) and NVIDIA (496.76+)
Cost
Unreal Engine 5 is free!
A 5% royalty is charged when a game developed in Unreal Engine 5 earns over $1,000,000.
Setup for Quest 2 Development (UE 5.1)
Unreal Engine Setup
Begin by downloading the Epic Games Launcher here. The Epic Games Launcher is where you'll be able to manage UE5 and its projects, as well as browse the asset library and samples.
Sign into Epic Games. You can use a personal account! Once signed in, you should be able to see "Unreal Engine" on the sidebar.
On the top menu bar, you'll see 5 options: News, Samples, Marketplace, Library, and TwinMotion. Select Library.
Here, you'll be able to download Unreal Engine 5. If there's not already an install button, the '+' button next to the engine-versions section will allow you to install a new version of Unreal Engine 5. Simply install the version you want to install (I used 5.1.1 for my project).
Once installed, you're done with this section! Proceed onto the next setup instructions.
Oculus Link Setup
To view your creation in a VR headset, you can do it one of two ways: you can use live VR preview in UE5, or package a .apk file, which you can load on your headset using SideQuest (installation instructions here). If you plan to do the latter, skip to 'Android Studio Setup'.
Go to this website and download software for Quest 2.
Follow the instructions to install the software. Additionally, if unprompted to setup a device, go to the devices tab, and setup Oculus Link (wired recommended) for your Quest 2.
Android Studio Setup
Android Studio and its SDKs are required for UE5 in order to package a program for the Quest 2. Follow the installation instructions below.
Begin by visiting this site. You may need to accept some terms and conditions. You'll want to install the currently supported version for UE5, which is Android Studio 4.0.
Follow the default instructions for Android Studio, and leave default components checked. Once installed, start up Android studio. It'll ask you to import settings. Do not do so. You can use standard settings for setup. Android studio should now bring you to the "Welcome to Android Studio" window. It looks like this:
In the bottom right, select configure, then select SDK manager.
Select SDK Tools, and ensure the "show package details" checkbox is checked off in the bottom right corner.
Navigate down to Android SDK Command Line Tools. Ensure that version 8.0 is installed. If it is not, select it, press apply, and follow through with the install process.
Once finished you'll need to setup the tools for UE5. Navigate to your UE5 Install directory (default is C:/Program Files/Epic Games/UE_5.0).
Navigate to Engine/Extras/Android.
Inside this directory, locate the SetupAndroid script appropriate for your operating system. SetupAndroid.bat is for Windows, SetupAndroid.command is for Mac, and SetupAndroid.sh is for Linux.
Open your operating system's SetupAndroid script in a text editor (like notepad or VSCode). Locate the line specifying the variable SDKMANAGERPATH.
In SetupAndroid.bat this line reads as follows:
set SDKMANAGER=%STUDIO_SDK_PATH%\cmdline-tools\latest\bin\sdkmanager.bat
Replace \latest\ with \8.0\
Save and close the file.
Open up command prompt, and type 'adb'. If the command is not recognized, you may have to set your PATH Environment Variables. Search up Environment variables, select environment variables. It should open up a new window. Double-click 'Path' to edit it. You may have to scroll down in order to find it. Press new, and input this path as your variable (if you changed the location of Android studio's install, this will differ).
C:\Users\<Windows Username>\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\platform-tools
Once done, you may need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect. Once you re-enter, typing 'adb' in command prompt should yield a help menu with command parameters.
To see if your Quest 2 is communicating correctly with your computer (Quest 2 needs to be setup with a developer account, more info here):
Plug in your Quest 2 to your computer, press allow for file access.
Open a command prompt window, and type 'adb devices' to show all connected Android Devices. If not already started, adb will start a server for connections.
Return to your Quest 2. You should have recieved another prompt for USB debugging, press allow.
Type 'adb devices' again in command prompt. Your Quest's respective serial number should show up now. If not authorized, you'll need to authorize access in the headset (a prompt should appear with your computer's RSA fingerprint).
Android Studio is set up for Quest 2 and Unreal Engine 5!
Visual Studio Setup (Required if you plan to write code)
UE5's in-engine editor is pretty comprehensive. However, if you want to look at, edit, and add code, you'll need to install Visual Studio.
First, visit this site here, and download Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition.
Start the install process. When it asks you what workloads to select, make sure you select:
.NET desktop development
Desktop development with C++
Universal Windows Platform development
Game development with C++
Once installed, you should be all set!
Basics of UE5 & Trying Out The VR Template
Open up Unreal Engine 5 from the Epic Games Launcher. You should be presented with an initial menu that looks like this:
Go ahead and select the 'Virtual Reality' Template. Specify where you want to save the project, the name of the project, and then press create. You may include the starter content, should you want some extra things to play around with. The first time load may take a while; be patient!
You'll be placed in this world, which you can try out in VR! But first, some basics.
Movement Controls (external mouse strongly recommended):
W,A,S,D - while holding right click on mouse, this will move the camera like forward, left, backwards, and right, respectively.
While holding right click, moving the mouse around will move the camera.
You can change your edit modes with the mode dropdown in the upper left corner, next to the save button. Choose selection mode.
More information about other modes can be found here.
Using selection mode, you can select objects in the game, and edit their properties. The details bar in the right hand side will give you more information on a selected item. Try to move items about using the properties tab in the details.
Entering VR
You can enter this world in VR in two ways:
Enter using live preview, where your computer runs the simulation and sends data to your quest via a cable or air link.
This works best if you have a computer with good graphical computing power.
Don't need to package code every time and load it onto the headset via SideQuest.
Enter on the Quest headset locally, by loading a .apk onto the headset and running it on the headset.
This works best if you have a computer which can't power the complex graphics involved in VR.
You'll need to package the code every time into a .apk file and load it onto the headset via SideQuest.
For Live Preview:
Connect your Quest 2 to your computer. You should open the Oculus app, since you'll be using Oculus Link for this.
Enter Oculus link. You'll find this in the quick settings section in your headset. You should be brought to another UI similar to this:
Take off your headset, and open return to Unreal. In the top menu, you should see this set of buttons:
Go ahead and select the 3 dots next to the platform dropdown to enable VR mode.
Go ahead and select VR Preview. The world will now load onto your headset! You can move around, shoot the guns, and pick up objects.
If VR preview is grayed out, ensure that:
Your Quest is powered on.
Your Quest is connected to your computer.
Oculus link is running, and that it recognizes your Quest (check the 'devices' tab).
Your Quest is running Oculus link.
OpenXR is enabled on your world. To check, go to Edit > Plugins > Search OpenXR.
If the world is not loading on your Quest, or there are issues with it loading, your graphics card may not be compatible. I ran into issues with a newer-generation AMD Radeon Card. Nvidia cards seem to work fine. You may have to resort to running locally on Quest.
For Running Locally on Quest:
For running locally on Quest, you'll need SideQuest to load the .apk generated by UE5 onto your Quest.
On the top of the editor, you'll see this menu. You'll be using the 'Platforms' dropdown. Go ahead and select it.
Go ahead and select 'Android', and ensure the settings are in ASTC. You can choose development. Then, press package project, select where you'd like to store the .apk, and wait for Unreal to Package your project to be run. Load the .apk via SideQuest (instructions here), and load your project from the quest locally. You're free to try it out!