Introduction to UDK

For the first week, We looked at the first steps to making a level in UDK (Unreal Development Kit). 

To start off a level, I need to make some walls, a floor and a ceiling. To do this I can use the Cube Brush. 

This will allow me to make a cube, all that needs to be done to make this a wall is to set the dimensions, then Add some mass into it. This is done by clicking the CSG Add Button on the UDK toolbar. 

When you add some mass to the brush, you are left with a Addative mass, which in the case of making my level, it is now a wall. This is what the wall looks like once it has been made:

The blue and white checkered pattern on the wall shows that the wall has not material or textures on it. This is the default theme for all newly created addative masses.

Do the same procedure for some more walls, and make some horizontal ones to create a floor and cieling and then you have a room. This is my first room in UDK:

Another technique I learned this week was that there are ways of creating multiple walls that use very little space to store them. This technique is very important as this will make the game run more smoothly as there is less memory used to run the level. This technique is done by converting a created mass into a static mesh. A static mesh will allow me to duplicate a single wall to make multiple walls. This is done by right-clicking on the edge of a created mass and selecting convert > To Static Mesh:

Now the wall has been turned into a static mesh, we can now select it from the Content browser.

Click and dragthe newly created static mesh into the Perspective view and then we can move the wall into place to create a room very quickly and efficiently. This is a very important technique to use if I will be making duplicated of any objects in my game.