Developing Environments

This article was loosely based on the information here.

An Unreal project needs to be packaged before it can be distributed. This process produces the engine executables and bundles up all of the assets that are needed for the client to start up the engine by itself without starting it from the editor or Visual Studio.

This process will compile the C++ code for Holodeck and “cook” the .uasset files (including blueprints!) into one large .pak file, and create the directory structure needed.

Adding HoloOcean Worlds

The finished package will only contain the worlds (called “levels” in the editor) that are added into the project. The holoocean repo only contains the example level. You can create new worlds by simply making a new level in unreal engine editor. See the Unreal Engine documentation for more information.

Note

Because the other packaged worlds distributed with HoloOcean contain purchased assets, they are only available to official BYU FRoStLab members. Others will have to develop their own worlds in the holoocean repo.

Cooking Content

When you are running holodeck-engine from Visual Studio, you may need to cook the content to “refresh” the assets, levels, and blueprints that holodeck-engine reads.

From Unreal Editor:

Platforms ➡ Windows/Linux ➡ Cook Content

Packaging holodeck-engine

From Unreal Editor:

  1. Platforms ➡ Windows/Linux ➡ Package Project

../_images/package-project.png

  1. Select an output folder

    I usually pick “dist” inside the root of the holodeck-engine repo

Place in install directory

In order to be able to call holodeck.make(), you will need to place the packaged engine in Package Installation Location.

Make sure the version in the path matches the output of the holdoeck.util.get_holodeck_version command.

  1. Copy contents of dist folder into the package path found above.

    + worlds
|--+ PackageName
    |-- config.json
    |-- WorldName-ScenarioName.json
    |--+ Linux (output from dist folder)
        | UE5 build output

  2. Copy configurations from holodeck-configs following the file structure above.

    IMPORTANT The config.json file is written for Linux, and must be edited to work in windows. Edit the platform and path fields to the following:

    "platform": "windows"

    "path": "WindowsNoEditor/Holodeck/Binaries/Win64/Holodeck.exe"

Note on creating environment objects and Sonar:

Sonar simulation relies upon the collision mesh for objects when generating the octree. If the collision mesh of an object is coarser than the visual mesh then the representation of that object in a sonar image will be inaccurate. This issue can be addressed for the objects by using the Unreal Engine editor and setting the “Collision Complexity” option in the details section of the static mesh editor to “use complex collision as simple”.