Automotive Instrument Cluster Prototype in Unreal Engine 4

Introduction

A few weeks back a few people at our office in Wroclaw (Poland) started working on an Instrument Cluster prototype using Unity. As soon as they were able to show the initial results of their work I decided to try and do the same thing in my free time but in Unreal Engine.

Both Unity and Unreal Engine are real-time 3D engines known mostly in the gaming industry. However, it looks like both engines are expanding and are being used in other fields too (architecture, film & television, live events, etc.).

From Unreal Engine’s official website:

Unreal Engine is the world’s most open and advanced real-time 3D creation platform. Continuously evolving to serve not only its original purpose as a state-of-the-art games engine, today it gives creators across industries the freedom and control to deliver cutting-edge content, interactive experiences, and immersive virtual worlds.

Assumptions

At the very beginning of this project, I didn’t know how much time I would have to work on it and how many people would get involved along the way. I had to make few assumptions for Unreal Cluster to make it a bit more… real:

• the prototype should be based on the assets taken from the given design (see Fig. 1)
• features are more important than visuals
• do not bother with the performance so much at this stage
• run on PC and a mobile device (as an Android App)
• no code, just blueprints (visual scripting system)

Fig. 1 — initial design prepared by my colleagues (Dariusz Frączyk and Michał Jasiński)

No code?

Unreal Engine offers three main ways of working with your projects. You can use C++ (Unreal Engine is written in C++ itself), Unreal Engine’s visual scripting language called “blueprints” or… both!

Fig. 2 — blueprint example

Obviously, each strategy has it’s own advantages and disadvantages but it’s a standard practice to use both. C++ and blueprints work great together, for example, your blueprint class can inherit from your C++ class.

Why have I chosen to use only blueprints for my project then? The answer is pretty simple — I wanted to make it easier for Technical Artists and Designers at our company to contribute to the project. I also wanted to see how fast I can prototype such a thing without any coding and also to show other people what can be done in Unreal without using C++ directly.

Results

After about 2 weeks of work with some help from Tomasz Synowski (thanks once again mate!), I was able to accomplish most of my goals. Unreal Cluster runs on my laptop and Nvidia Shield tablet with solid 60FPS. Almost all the features are there and, personally, I think it looks pretty similar to the initial design even though one of my goals was to not focus on the visuals too much. It’s too dark for sure but hey — it can be fixed pretty easily. The only missing feature is navigation — right now it is just a pre-recorded video.

Fig. 3— instrument cluster implemented in Unreal Engine 4

Fig. 4— instrument cluster implemented in Unreal Engine 4

If you want to see Unreal Cluster in action please check the video below:

Some people keep asking if there is a 2D mode in UE4 and how I was able to work with such design in this engine. Well… I used 2D assets in 3D space. The screenshot below should make it easier for you to understand how everything is layered down.

Fig. 5–2D assets in 3D space

Outro

If you are interested in such content and would like to know more then please let me know. There is a chance I will create a series of blog posts based on this project to present it in more detail.

Thanks for reading!