Real-Time Main Menu

Introduction

In this workshop, we are going to attempt to create a real-time main menu using Unreal Engine and Photoshop. For this, we are going to be in a third-person template.

We are going to start by duplicating the main menu blueprints. With this new content we have created, we need to make a new folder in the base content of Unreal and select and drag our current progress over. The folder can be named something like ‘Main_Menu’.

We have to get a map from the third person folder to also accompany this new folder.

We need to open the main menu HUD and navigate to the event graph at the top. Using the blueprints, drag off from event ‘BeginPlay’ and select a widget. Select the drop-down on the class, and use the main menu widget. From here we have to drag off and type in ‘add to view’. Plug the last two together as so;

Make sure to select compile after doing any work here.

Open the new main menu widget we have created and set the resolution to 1080p HDTV

For the sake of this workshop, we are going to be using button place holders to test the menu.

We need to add a sequencer to the folder and drag it into a new tab at the bottom;

From here, we can create a camera for different perspectives. This camera should just come in by default when using the sequencer, and can be found here:

On the right there is a details panel, here we can select the drop down menu on ‘filmback’ and it is recommended to use 16.9 DSLR

Also adjust the lens settings beneath to 30mm.

Sequencers usually only have one shot per sequencer. Now we need to repeat the process but at a different angle. Duplicating this does not copy the same settings.

Adding a sequencer called ‘Main_Menu Director’ allows us to call in other previous shots into the sequencer tab. This will compile the sequences into one continuous shot.

In the sequencer, we can right click to add a fade track and position it on the timeline. This makes it so when the shots rotate, there is no more sudden and abrupt change of camera angle.

We can add multiple of these throughout the timeline in time for each new shot, at the beginning of each shot.

conclusion

The purpose of this quick workshop was to demonstrate how we could create a real-time live main menu for a video game. I think this workshop was pretty educational on Unreal Engine, however I’m not sure if it will come in useful anytime soon.