Installation

Unzip the package into the Plugins directory of your game. To add it as an engine plugin you will need to unzip the module into the plugin directory under where you installed UE4.

How to use this Plugin

Check out the video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t3A4YZM6ks

In the plugin description you can see the screenshots made after putting WfcActorWithBlueprint (Content/Demo) into the scene and pressing button "Generate in Editor" in the WfcActorWithBlueprint details panel. For the demo content it's not recommended to change "Ground", "Floor Border", "Air Border" and "Voxel Size" values.

Content

• two custom classes:

1. WfcActor - the main class to set up your generator.
2. WfcVoxel - extended Static Mesh Component with additional properties.

• demo content

Demo

First check out the demo Blueprint where everything is already set up. You have to enable "Show plugin content" for the content browser and open WfcLevelGenerator Content -> Demo -> WfcActorWithBlueprint

With the example Blueprint you can generate the level right away. To do that just press the button "Generate in Editor"!

Inside this Blueprint you can find:

1. "Generator" properties of WfcActor:
   • "X", "Y", "Z" are the dimensions of the generated level.
   • "Ground" is set to the name of WfcVoxel which will be used for the whole 0 floor. Empty field means no restrictions. In the example it's set to "solid".
   • "Floor Border" - restriction for the 1 floor edges (only for 1 voxel from the border). Empty field means no restrictions. In the example it's set to "floor".
   • "Air Border" - restriction for all floors except 0 and 1 (only for 1 voxel from the border) and for the whole top floor. Empty field means no restrictions. In the example it's set to "empty".
   • "Voxel Size" is the size of your mesh side. It is set to 200 which is the size of the mesh used in example.
   • "Last Seed" shows you the seed used to generate the last level. Save it and use in "Seed" field to recreate you level.
   • "Seed" field should be empty most of the time unless you want to recreate the level you generated earlier.
   • "Shadow Material" is used to replace the Element 0 material. It is used only to show the connected meshes (hints) in Blueprint. Don't set it if you don't want to see connected meshes.
   • "Generate in Play Mode" - select it to see interactive level generation after you press the Play button
2. WfcActor contains a set of WfcVoxels (based on UStaticMeshComponent class), each of them has additional properties split in 2 groups: 2a. "WfcVoxel" properties:
   • "Weight" helps to adjust the frequiency of the mesh in level, has to be >= 1.
   • "X/Y/Z Plus/Minus Direction" is the number of connector used at this direction.
   • "X/Y Plus/Minus Direction Symmetry" has 3 values:
     • "Connects to Itself" means that this connector is symmetric.
     • "Straight" connects only with "Flipped" with the same number and vice versa.
   • "Z Plus/Minus Direction Symmetry" has 5 values:
     • "Any Rotation" is self explanatory.
     • "Rotate Times" means that this voxel connects in this direction only when it's rotated T times. For example when first WfcVoxel has "Z Plus Symmetry" = "Rotate One Time" and second - "Z Minus Symmetry" = "Rotate Three Times" that means that the first one has to be rotated twice to match be connected to the second one. 2b. "WfcVoxel Restrictions" properties:
   • "X/Y/Z Plus/Minus Excluded" - names of other WfcVoxels (neighbors) that you don't want to be connected to this one in this direction, even if their connectors match.

You may play with these properties to see how they effect the result of the generator.

Setting up your new Blueprint

1. Place "WfcActor" to your level
2. Press "Blueprint/Add Script", select the name.
3. Open Blueprint editor. Change the settings (see 4-8). For the settings description check the "Demo" section of this Readme.
4. Set "Shadow Material" for the root object (if you want to see the shadows). You may use "shadow" material from the "Demo" content.
5. Set dimensions and other settings of WfcActor in "Generator" properties tab.
6. Add "WfcVoxel" components to the DefaultSceneRoot.
7. Set up weights, connectors and excluded neighbors.
8. Do not set any mesh to the WfcVoxel if you want it to be empty (air for example).
9. In Unreal Editor (NOT in Blueprint editor) press "Generate in Editor" to generate your level.
10. The set of new actors will be spawned each containing the mesh you've set up earlier.
11. You can clean them with button "Clean Generated". Or save "Last Seed" if you want to generate the same level later.
12. To generate the same level again - paste your saved seed into "Seed" property and press "Generate in Editor".
13. If you want to see interactive generation you have to set "Generate in Play Mode" and press play button.

Contact

If you have any Questions, Comments, Bug reports or feature requests for this plugin, or you wish to contact me you can and should email me - yv.ivan@gmail.com