UDK: Viewport Options

Before we get to actually working with the program, it’s probably best that we learn a bit more about the interface - in particular, things to do with the viewports (that we’ll be using very commonly) such as the viewport options.
The first option we’ll look at is the viewport type. You can click on the big letter (either P, S, F or T) to change the viewport type between Perspective, Side, Front and Top (the letter will change as you cycle through). Being able to change this allows you to not only have multiple viewports of the same type if you so need to for some tasks, but also just to easily re-position the viewports if you so wish.
Next is the realtime option (the icon is a joystick). If you load up one of the example maps (Open->ExampleMap), you’ll find that it contains many components including animations. When you enable realtime in a viewport – animations will play in the viewport and any changes you make (for example while you’re translating an object) will instantly change (in realtime!).
After that we have the various viewing modes, they are as follows:
Brush Wireframe – Wireframe (pretty much the outline) with brushes
Wireframe – Much like brush wireframe however will not allow brush selection
Unlit – No lighting
Lit – Full Lighting
Lighting Only – Lighting indicated in gradients


There are also some more viewing modes, however I’d suggest not worrying about them for now. The next option we are interested in is the icon with the big G – this is game view. It does various things and emulates pre-processor effects as to give a view as you might see things in-game.
The last option we are interested in, is the camera movement speed (the icon that looks like a cup partially filled with water). You can click this to cycle round different speeds from very slow to very fast. Personally I like having this one click from the slowest most of the time.


Back to UDK