Cesium for Unreal: The World in 3D

Jonathan introduces viewers to the revolutionary world of Cesium for Unreal Engine, a plugin that brings geospatial elements and real-world landscapes into virtual world creation. This engaging tutorial provides a first look into how architects, designers, and even virtual tourists can utilise the vast capabilities of Unreal Engine and the Cesium plugin to create, study, and explore photorealistic 3D environments on their computers.

Starting off, Jonathan guides viewers through the process of downloading Unreal Engine and the Cesium plugin, emphasizing their availability for both Mac and Windows platforms free of charge. As he navigates the installation and setup, the episode smoothly transitions into a live demonstration of how to import real-world geographic locations into a virtual Unreal Engine project. Using London as an example, Jonathan showcases how to bring the Tower of London into a digital landscape, emphasising the ease of travel from London to New York in a virtual sense, exploring landmarks, and understanding the context for architectural design without leaving one's desk.

The episode isn't just a step-by-step guide; it's a journey that captivates the power of real-time rendering and virtual exploration. Through the tutorial, Jonathan illustrates the potential of Cesium for Unreal to transform the way we perceive world building and geographical visualisation in digital platforms.

Key Takeaways:
Cesium for Unreal is a powerful tool that integrates geospatial data into virtual world creation, accessible for free on both Mac and Windows.
Unreal Engine, coupled with Cesium, allows designers, architects, and hobbyists to virtually explore and contextualise real-world environments.
Real-time navigation and exploration of famous world cities like London and New York are possible with detailed 3D rendering within the plugin.
Jonathan exemplifies how virtual tourism and design studies can be conducted from anywhere in the world, showcasing the Tower of London and New York's cityscape.

Notable Quotes:
"The Cesium plugin empowers you to develop and basically look at real-world environments. And it's amazing in that you can have the entire world in your computer."
"I guarantee that when you first load in Cesium you will spend a few minutes like I did, just exploring the world where you land."
"Even if you're not an architect, a designer, and you're just wanting to explore as a virtual tourist, I think this plugin is pretty amazing."
"We've got the whole world inside our computer here, and basically, this is connected to the Internet, so it just downloads the tiles that you require as needed."
"What a great way for me to kind of get a bit of a feel for the context and understand some of the things that I want to have a look at and visit."

Timestamp Summary
0:00:09 Introduction to the video and the Cesium plugin for Unreal Engine
0:01:06 Overview of the capabilities of the Cesium plugin
0:02:34 Steps to download and install the Cesium plugin for Unreal Engine
0:03:57 Signing in to Cesium and adding a Cesium sun sky
0:04:31 Connecting Cesium to Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles
0:06:05 Adding geolocation to the project
0:06:58 Exploring the virtual world in London using the Cesium plugin
0:09:26 Adding visual effects such as volumetric clouds and fog
0:10:43 Tips for creating animations with Cesium
0:11:36 Exploring the 3D model of the world in Unreal Engine
0:12:14 Benefits of using the 3D model for architecture and design
0:13:05 Adjusting settings for faster loading
0:13:49 Viewing the model in full screen mode
0:14:25 Transporting to New York for a virtual tour
0:15:12 Unreal Engine's complexity and potential
0:15:43 Conclusion and future exploration of Unreal Engine

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Credits
Music: Vlog No Copyright Music

#unrealengine5 #cesium #3dworld

[jonathanreevescad]

I was blown away by Cesium for Unreal Engine and really enjoyed exploring the World in 3D. Please let me know if you found this helpful and I will plan to make some more Unreal tutorial in the future !

[SuperSurreal]

Thank you so much for this!! 🙌 Fantastic video! 💯

[merancapeman]

Getting started with learning Unreal and this seems super complicated, but if I can do things like this or utilize this for game development, it'll definitely be worth it. Thanks for the video!

[JaesonFinn]

So much easier than ripping from Google Earth. Thanks!

[Jeffgrigsby]

Good Stuff Bro, thanks for sharing your Knowledge base. That makes you awesome in my book.

[screenapple]

How do you remove unwanted buildings for gaming purpose, race car purpose, architecture design purpose, stadium reconstruction purpose, etc?

[mathiaspreislerschdt]

Would love a video on importing my own models!

[snook-official]

Thanks for the walk through. I have a few questions if you don't mind.

Do you know if there's anyway to store a part of the map so it can be used offline?
Is there anyway of exporting areas as a 3D model so they can be worked on and enhanced i.e. in Blender?
Also, have you tried rendering a sequence out? and if so, does it render without showing unloaded tiles?

Reason for asking, we're working on a music video where we zoom down from outside of the planet and fly around to different locations, this will be done with a lot of edits, passing through clouds etc, so we'll have different models set up for each shot. It would be good if we could use this to create 3D models of different areas of the world, i.e. the Himalayas, cities etc.. if we could create models, we could enhance things like adding in realistic trees and water and replace specific buildings with more detailed models.

[cottagekeeper]

Wow! I may have missed this were you on a Mac or windows machine?

[thibaultdecaluwe]

Hello Jonathan !

May I request you a video on how to add "realistic context" in Vectorworks ?

I m thinking about PointCloud tutorial ? How to export the context in Cesium for exemple ?

I am very interrested to add context to build in tone and more local in my architecture study with Vectorwoks !

Thank you for your videos !

[jaekyunglee]

Wow. Is it possible to put my own building design into this cesium world?

[djcybercorgi]

I wish you had shown the video from the perspective of someone on the ground!

do i have to use google cloud and start a subscription with credit card as i used to do before? or is it directly via their own api now?

[townsend]

I dont get the hight of the buildings, they are just flat... how can I solve?

[justinedomingo]

is possible to add a moving cars and make the city alive?

[gakidomo]

A dumb question, can i import a whole city map of Japan?

[eduardvandijk]

It does absolutely nothing in 5.3.2.
Do we need a Google API token thinghy nowadays perhaps?