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Disguise User Guide

UE Project Setup

This topic covers the steps needed for configuring an Unreal Engine scene for use with RenderStream.

Unreal Engine (UE) is a third-party game engine that can be used to create 3D scenes. Unreal Engine projects can be adapted such that they create RenderStream output streams using Disguise’s UE plugin. This plugin contains several components that enable both camera based mappings with tracking as well as non-camera based (2D) mappings (e.g. direct).

Plugins

  • In order to communicate with Disguise, Unreal Engine requires the installation of a plugin on the render node.

  • The RenderStream pre-packaged plugins for Unreal Engine are available in the Disguise RenderStream-UE GitHub.

  • For the most up to date plugin, you can compile the plugin from source code. Or download the latest installer here.

  • Place the plugin in this UE location on the render node: PROJECT_ROOT/Plugins/RenderStream-UE.

  • When adding a plugin to a UE/project, it is important that it is placed in the correct location and that the folder containing the plugin files is named correctly otherwise you may encounter unexpected errors.

Setup Unreal Engine Project

  1. Launch the Unreal Engine Editor.
  2. Create a new Game > Blank, or Film > Blank project with default settings and ensure it is saved in: C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\RenderStream Projects or D:\RenderStream Projects if using rx hardware or a second media drive.
  3. Open the project folder in Windows Explorer and create a new folder with the name, Plugins.
  4. Place the RenderStream plugin in the Plugins folder.
  5. Restart Unreal Engine.
  6. Search for Camera in the Place Actors panel.
  7. Drag and drop a new Camera into the scene.
  8. Optionally, position the Camera Actor accordingly.
  9. Click the Add Component button from the Camera Actor’s Details panel and add a RenderStream Channel Definition.
  10. The name of the Channel in Designer will be the name of the camera actor, so name the camera accordingly.
  11. The setting Default Visibility defines whether the camera will see most actors in the scene. RS Channel Defintion
  12. [Optional] Click the ‘Show Advanced’ dropdown arrow underneath Default Visibility and set the advanced render flags accord to your needs.
  13. [Optional] Force the visibility of select Actors within the Camera’s Channel Definition (useful for splitting content between the front and backplsrc/assets/images/renderstream/rschannel-def.pngates):
    • If you are using r18, add the “Render Stream Channel Visibility” component to your selected Actor/s from the Details panel. Then, set the visibility of the Actor per-channel definition created in the previous steps.
    • If you are using a version of Designer later than r18, the “RenderStream Channel Visibility” component has been removed. To change the visibility of a component, add your selected Actor/s to the visibility sets by clicking the ’+’ button on the set, and then selecting the Actor/s from the dropdown of the newly added element. If you wish to add multiple Actors to a visibility set at the same time, lock the current selection into the Details panel, select the Actors you wish to add either from within the scene or the Inspector panel, right-click the visibility set you wish to add the Actors to, and select “Add from Selection“.
  14. [Optional] To make Unreal Engine run at full speed when out of focus go to Edit → Editor Preferences and untick “Use Less CPU when in Background” (search “cpu”).
  15. Save the project.
  16. Close Unreal Engine.

Useful Unreal Engine information

Unreal Engine has several methods for saving a project. When making changes to a project for use with RenderStream, it is best to close the project before attempting to start a workload. This will prompt you to save all changes to your project. If your Unreal Engine project is not saved correctly, you may experience unexpected behaviour.

Status Monitoring

A helpful feature of the RenderStream plugin is the ability to show the status of the plugin in a widget

Here is how to setup the blueprint in the Unreal Engine project and add a status widget to the display:

  1. Add a ‘Create Widget’ block.
  2. Change class to RenderStream Status Widget.
  3. Connect to an Add to Viewport block by dragging off the return value of the status widget.

Note that a key difference between a blank Games project and a blank Film project is the way that project maanges the skybox. A Games project has an auto-updating skybox relative to the sunlight (directional light) for a day/night cycle, but a film project has a refresh material button for updating the skybox relative to the sunlight.