All right, welcome back everyone in the last few videos we've taken a look at our overall game design we've figured out some character or player metrics that we are happy with. We are ready to go about grey boxing a level and grey boxing is done in Unreal Engine four using geometry now we're not talking mathematical equations here we're talking about geometric shapes. So before we get started, I wanted to take a quick overview as to what geometry in Unreal Engine four is all about in why we use it in the gray boxing process. Okay, so first of all, here's an outline of what we're going to be covering in this relatively brief slideshow presentation. It's going to start off with an overview so geometry is short for geo geo metric brushes, geometric brush are simply tools used to sculpt the gaming world. In Unreal Engine four, there are two distinct brush types that we will explore.

There's an additive brush type that adds shapes to our world. And then there's a subtractive brush type that subtracts shape from the world. brushes come in different shapes. Now the purpose of using geometry and Unreal Engine four is to rapidly prototype a level. The idea is that you want to build a level quickly to get the scale and flow of a level down. On the left you see a prototype level in Unreal Engine using geometry so simple geometric shapes to kind of get the size and feel for how level layout is all set up.

Only once that is determined the size and scale of things and the flow of things. Do you want to transition from this prototype over on the left hand Inside to this finalized look over on the right hand side. Why is that? Well, the reason is, is this picture on the right takes a lot of time and effort to get looking that beautiful. You don't want to create something this beautiful, and then suddenly realize that the whole scale of your level is way off. It's either way too small or way too big.

So what you do is you gray box a level using simple geometric shapes to get the scale and flow down first. And only once you're happy with that, do you transition it over to this finalized look? So we mentioned that geometry comes in different brush shapes. So in Unreal Engine four, you've got access to a box shape, a cone shape, cylinder sphere curves, their linear stair and spiral stair. We talked about the two different types of brushes and you're kind of seeing that in action in this slide right here. There's an additive brush that will add geometry that's this purple right here with A subtractive brush.

So there is a subtractive brush, which is in pink right here, overlapping this additive brush. So here you're seeing it in more of a full view. This is the wireframe view of what you're seeing over on the left right here. So in Unreal Engine four, where do we access geometry? Well, in the upper left hand corner of your engine, you will find the Modes panel. And there are five different tabs across the top, the leftmost one being placement mode.

Along the left hand side, you've got some tabs that you can select, and you have one for geometry. This is where you could find your different geometry brushes. Once you've got a brush in your level, you can actually fine tune its shape in something known as geometry edit mode, which we will explore a little bit later. That is the rightmost tab of our Modes panel. When you are in this sorry geometry Edit Mode there are things that you can change such as the the face, the line or the vertices that is the flat side the edge or the corner layman's terms for you all with any of these jam geometric brushes. Again we'll explore more that later.

So various terms to remember here as it relates to gray boxing and geometry. So gray boxing is nothing more than a rapid build out of a level using geometric shapes. additive brushes adds geometry shapes through our world. subtractive brushes subtract from the world. face is the flat side of a geometric shape line is the edge in a vertices is simply the corner of a geometric shape. That will actually do it all for this one.

We are ready to go about gray boxing our level. We will see you all in the next one.