Hi,

i recently started to get familiar with blender and unreal engine 4 and i am really interested in developing a game step by step.

So for the beginning, i decided to make a simple space flight szene. I made a model of a spaceship in blender and a space skybox for UE4 and now iam trying to figure out how i could create a cockpit for this spaceship.

i will try my best to express and explain.... :unsure:

• Do i have to create a cockpit into my 3d-model and set the camera in ue4 into the cockpit (so the cockpit is really detailed all the time and resource-intensive)

• Or do i have to create a seperate 3d model of a cockpit and use this as my first person view, so i dont have to have always a full detailed, full visible cockpit within my 3d model (performance)

• Other opportunities ?

I just dont know whats the best or the usual way is, to achieve this.

i hope someone can help me, becaue i couldnt find anything regarding this.

thanks in advance for any input !

Make your cockpit of multiple 3d models (static mesh) and position the camera within. E.g. A model for the yoke, throttles, gauges, dials, radio etc.
Using many different models allows the engine to better handle culling and rendering. Rather than making all the details of your cockpit components vertices, use the features of the renderer to their best, e.g. bump and normal mapping, world offsets and similar. Use high resolution textures to compensate for low poly parts of the cockpit. This will also allow you to move individual parts e.g. if the user turns the yoke to roll.
This should help with performance.
If it doesn't break out the built in graphics and engine profilers and run them against your game to find bottlenecks.
Hope this helps!

do you want a slewable cockpit camera view? IE you you want to be able to look around inside the cockpit?

for a slewable view, you need a 3 model of the cockpit interior as part of the scene. for a non-slewable view, a 2d UI is sufficient. the 2d UI can be a pre-renderd cockpit view, or just a HUD, or whatever you want.

if you don't need slewable but want the stick to move etc, use a combo of 2D UI for the static parts and 3d meshes for the parts that move.

yes, i thought before about that... !

Like in Elite Dangerous "Click"

sorry for the stupid question, because english isn't my native language.. what do you mean with "a 3 model of the cockpit interior as a part of the scene" ? :unsure:

I would try to implement a 3d cockpit (front view, upper view and both side views) in my spaceship and set up the player view/camera nicely in it.

Additionally i could set up a mouse button (Middle mouse) to enable free view in my cockpit.

i think this is fun trying to implement and would give a cool feeling like in Elite.

hi,

yes, got that ! , makes sense to me ^_^

i am following a space game (Infinity) for many years now and found this concept art on twitter today.

So i model the whole cockpit as a seperat mesh and tie it on my spaceship. I also could just model the complete ship and mark the cockpit elements to seperate it from the whole mesh i think.

well, i hope i express myself not to confusing :wink:

i also started a new shipmodel because the first i have done in blender does not fit for reasons of design in my vision but i really like it for my first try ever !

For practise to implement a cockpit, i will build a new, cleaner and easier ship design. it just makes so much fun but one thing i really dont like is UV Mapping :wacko:

Does anyone have experience in using allegorithmics substance painter and designer ? Does it help to get texturing easier done ? they seem to be really fun and powerfull and iam really interested in both and learning how to use them.

I discovered a new hobby !

greetings !

ok, many thanks for all your help !

i'll try it :)

greetings