RoveSoSimulator Organization

This document aims to give an overview of where things are stored and edited for RoveSoSimulator.

System/Version Notice

We are currently on Unreal Engine 5.6.1.
We have several additions;

• RoveComm - MRDT Library needed to send information to autonomy. Packets and Such.
• UE4CMake; thirdparty download, for compiling RoveComm in an Unreal friendly way
• Sentry; thirdparty download, bug/crash reports
• ChaosVehicles - Unreal Engine Plugin used for the rover. Designed for full on cars, but still flexible for things like motor bikes. Much harder to get information on, but still Unreal-supplied.

What to edit with Unreal Editor vs. IDE

Programming with Unreal Engine is done in two main “regions”; the editor itself, and your Coding environment of choice.
The latter is for the C++ work, which is generally the easiest for anything logic based, and should contain most actual logic for assets.
The former contains most other things, including

• visible, movable, and/or physics-interactable meshes
• UI Layouts (but not there logic…for the most part. Transition in progress)
• Materials (textures, colors)
• Sets of Assets; Levels and blueprints.
  • Levels are just the “world” played in. They are functionally weird blueprints.
  • Blueprints are a broad category, but are generally a way of combining assets with other assets and/or setting up logic without C++ files. Examples;
    • Actor; Something placed or spawned in a world. Aka, part of a level thats not a single asset (single asset would be, say, a static mesh).
    • Pawn; Actor that a player controls.
    • RoverVehiclePawn; a custom blueprint, which connects to a c++ class, and derives from a ChaosVehicles pawn.
    • Actor Component; “reusable component that can be added to any actor”
    • Other niche examples from a list; ARActor, AmbientSound, BaseTransformGizmo, CameraRig_Crane, ChaosCacheManager
• Input Assets (for now, not long?)

Currently, most logic is in the C++, but some, especially for the arm, is still primarily if not entirely blueprint.
Also, blueprints contain the instances of the C++ assets, so to modify some characteristics such as the weight of an individual rover, it is often easiest to find the property in the blueprint. Custom properties in the C++ need to be exposed to the blueprint, but many values are edited in the blueprint specifically, since the values are part of the components of the blueprint.

Editing any individual asset type is its own tutorial (that may or may not be written), especially for Sketetal Meshes and Physics Assets.

Organization, In the Unreal Editor (.uassets); /Content/

In the Unreal Editor, the Content Browser is used to access folders and files and assets.
Most if not all Unreal Editor content is in the /Content/ Directory.
It is not currently particularly organized, but each directory is fairly self explanitory. A few notes;

• AncientContent and Fab are for specific maps and are very big. AncientContent should not be downloaded unless you specifically choose to get it, but I’m not entirely sure thats working.
• MRDTModels contains more than the usual directories; it currently contains the rovers, arms, arm testing assets, autonomy testing objects, and some other nonsense.
  There are actually more directories than /Content/, as you can see in the Content Browser, but the others are…
• the custom c++ classes, which just open in an IDE,
• plugin c++ classes, like for sentry, and
• Assets from the engine, from which about everything else derives If you need any of these, it will probably be the custom c++ classes for one of many routes to making one, or some assets from the Engine.

Organization, In Visual Studio and Similar (C++ files); /Source/

The C++ files are mainly in the /Source/ directoy, viewed in an IDE or file browser. The only file not in the Private or Public directories that you are likely to edit is the .Build.cs, which is for plugins and such.
The Categories of the Private/Public Directories are

• Components - Not sure. RoveComm and Procedual Generation Stuff. Also the Map.
• Core - Game assets (Game Instance, player controller, Input manager) and Parent Classes (general rover, general arm)
• RoveComm - RoveComm Stuff. Wrappers.
• Rovers - Individual Rovers, so Athena and Talos and such, but not the general rover stuff
• UI - Menus and stuff
• Widgets - More UI stuff

Organization, in a File Directories (All the Files)

In a File browser, there are many directories. The .stuff I will not discuss.

• Binaries is compiled stuff
• Intermediate is used for compiled/ing stuff
• Build - Idk
• Config - Most things in the project settings area of the Unreal Editor
• Content - The assets. Primarily .uassets, primarily for Unreal Editor
• Installers - Used to Package the game for steam and such
• PackagedGame - See above. Location for that data.
• Plugins - Exactly what it sounds like. Not the Unreal Engine supplied plugins, however, but truely third party ones like sentry.
• Resources - Idk. May be plugins, a little.
• Saved - Logs, Autosaves, some other stuff. For reference, often deleted with Binaries and Intermediate to facilitate a high level reload.
• Source - C++ files and all that. Also holds the RoveComm github copy. There is also a .uproject. This contains other unreal information.