Recent presentations on AI, Water, Landmass, Niagara, and Hair and Fur released

Daniel Kayser
If you follow Unreal Engine on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, you might already know that a new set of presentation videos has been rolling out over the past two months. 

From Unreal Engine AI with Behavior Trees, Diving Into the Depths of Water as a Feature in Unreal Engine 4.26, Building Worlds with Landmass, and Simulating Large Crowds In Niagara to Hair at a Strand Level, our evangelism team has been working hard to highlight a variety of new features that showcase Unreal Engine’s exciting capabilities.

In case you've missed them within the channels listed above, here's a recap of these recent presentations:
 

Unreal Engine AI with Behavior Trees

In this presentation, Epic's Paulo Souza uses Unreal Engine's built-in AI features to build smart enemy behaviors for a game with stealth-like mechanics.

By relying on the Gameplay Framework in Unreal, we're able to quickly create convincing AI using Behavior Trees. Behavior Trees are great for creating complex AI that can be presented in a way that is easy to understand and debug. We also make our AI react to sight and hearing senses using the AI Perception system, but also adapt our Behavior Tree decision tree as well.

In the end, we use the Environment Query System to allow our AI to be aware of the world geometry before deciding the next move, making it look way smarter than it actually is.
 

Diving Into the Depths of Water as a Feature in Unreal Engine 4.26

Exploring the amazing new water capabilities introduced in Unreal Engine 4.26. Epic Games’ Sjoerd de Jong walks you through the basics of setting up an ocean, a lake, and a river. Then, he dives into more advanced features and possibilities that showcase how you can tap into the water rendering through other parts of the engine by making objects float on waves, cutting holes into the water surface, and more.
 

Building Worlds with Landmass | Unreal Engine

The Landmass plugin is a new, Blueprint-driven way to procedurally and non-destructively edit a landscape in Unreal Engine. This feature, along with the recently introduced Landscape Layers, makes editing game worlds much easier, and allows developers to build and iterate quicker. In this presentation by Epic's Arran Langmead, we explain how these tools function and how to build your own landmass brushes to create a range of awesome environments.
 

Simulating Large Crowds In Niagara | Unreal Engine

Displaying thousands of characters on-screen in real-time has always been a challenge - until now. Unreal Engine's Niagara visual effects system opens up doors to go far beyond what was previously thought possible and this presentation by Epic's Joseph Azzam showcases how you can utilize the power and versatility of Niagara to create massive crowds in real-time, and simulate a million units! 

Plus, learn how to make the most out of Niagara's new features to create "smart mesh particles" that can replace basic AI, allowing you to display an enormous amount of characters on-screen simultaneously.
 

Hair at a Strand Level | Grooming your creations in Unreal Engine

Unreal Engine 4.26 introduced a new way of rendering hair onto characters - taking a huge step towards closing the gap between real time and film quality. In this presentation by Epic Evangelist Mario Palmero, you'll be guided through the incredibly easy process of having your groom imported, setting different kinds of groom, creating a variety of materials, binding the hair to a skeletal mesh, setting up the physics simulation, and configuring the scalability system so it will transition between a set of options, from strands to solid meshes.

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Stay up to date on future content, including all-new presentations on Rapid Concept Prototyping and Control Rig, by following Unreal Engine on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

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