Epic senior designer Nick Donaldson schooled us on some of the intricacies of Unreal’s new VR Editor, modifying a pre-built demo scene using the Oculus Rift and Touch controller in the Epic booth at GDC.
The Unreal VR Editor announced just last month is available today on GitHub for everyone to use for free on both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift (providing you have Touch controllers). But we wanted to see a pro at work, so we asked Nick Donaldson, who’s been working on VR projects like the editor itself, Bullet Train and Showdown, to strap into the Rift and show us how quickly you can create while in VR.
Donaldson showed us that movement in the Editor could be done one of two way. You can ‘grab the world’ by extending your hands and gripping the second Touch trigger, thereby moving the scene around you, or teleport directly to where you want to go.
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Manipulating objects and making them larger or smaller, and even making the entire scene larger or smaller so you can get a better view was as simple as pinching and zooming with the lasers beaming out of the the controllers. Developers will notice that a full set of gizmos are available so you can fine tune assets in the scene just like in the desktop version. A ‘snap-to’ mode isn’t available yet, but Donaldson clearly didn’t have any trouble fitting pieces just right on the first go.
We’ll be publishing a full hands-on piece in the coming days, so check back for a full run down on our experience with Unreal Editor for VR.