ArcGIS Maps SDK for Unreal Engine 5 | Setting up a global scene

April 15, 2021 ESRI posted a blog showcasing the new Ue5 plugin of ArcGIS Maps SDK for Ue5:
www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/prod...
This is a technical demonstration of using ArcGIS Maps SDK inside Unreal Engine 5.
This tutorial starts with ArcGIS already installed. To learn how to install the plugin: developers.arcgis.com/unreal-...
To follow along with this tutorial you will need to sign up for an early access account with ESRI and ArcGIS as well as an ArcGIS developer account. These are free to set up and are used to test the plugin in its beta version.
earlyadopter.esri.com/key/Arc...
A detailed overview of the plugin and documentation used to create this technical tutorial can be found here:
developers.arcgis.com/unreal-...
The ArcGIS tile sets links for the layers used in the NYC demo are listed below:
01 - New York Transit Frequency
tiles.arcgis.com/tiles/nGt4Qx...
02 - New York Industrial Areas
tiles.arcgis.com/tiles/nGt4Qx...
03 - New York Population Density
tiles.arcgis.com/tiles/4yjifS...
04 - New York Buildings
tiles.arcgis.com/tiles/P3ePLM...
Thank you for taking the time to watch this tutorial/overview, I hope you find it useful for your projects. This workflow is very exciting as using GIS data within game engines in combination with AI could be useful in helping solve real world problems with virtual simulations using digital twins.
I will continue to explore this plugin and post updates to my experiments and findings. To learn more about ESRI check out the link below:
www.esri.com/en-us/home

[@JonathanWinbush]

Man this is soooooo cool I can't wait to try this out!

[@LoganPinney]

Thanks Winbush!! Really opens up a lot of avenues not just for gaming but for real life simulation work! Anyone who uses maps regularly will love this new plugin!

[@ajk_]

Thank you so much for demonstrating this.

[@LoganPinney]

My pleasure! Glad it helped you out - it is a rather technical set up but really great to see the applications of this!

[@eyefisher]

Awesome stuff! Thanks Logan! Hope they have El Paso, 'cause our news promos are about to get lit!

[@LoganPinney]

Thanks Eric!! It is super fun to use and would be really helpful for broadcast companies to incorporate!

[@JaydenX]

Yes this was very helpful thank you. I was looking for a 3D earth and this is exactly it

[@LoganPinney]

Awesome glad you found it useful!!

[@JaydenX]

@@LoganPinney Im looking forward to seeing how to use chaos in this.

[@mahatma1989]

Check out Cesium for Unreal Engine too. They have similar features.

[@walishayaan4056]

It would be cool if you could perform some wind simulation over the terrain, could be very useful. Great tutorial!

[@questioneverythingalways820]

You can

[@walisyed4625]

@@questioneverythingalways820 how can you?

[@JoshPurple]

AWESOME 🏆🏆🏆!! This is fantastic! Thank You so MUCH 😁!

[@LoganPinney]

Glad you like it! It is rather technical and a bit of a process - I hope in the future it will be even more stream lined.

[@marcosportolopes]

excellent man you are the best , thx for this info

[@LoganPinney]

You are more than welcome! Glad you found it helpful.

[@enthuesd]

Spectacular thank you

[@LoganPinney]

Glad you enjoyed it! This video is getting a bit dated and many more new ways to integrate GIS into Ue! Thanks for checking it out.

[@juliancrespi8536]

Thank you for this Logan! Have you tried creating a camera from scratch and adding something like a spring arm component? (having some trouble with that kind of thing)

[@LoganPinney]

Hi Julian! I have just done some basic camera work. No real need to create a spring arm camera set up - that is more for if you plan on walking around or moving a player character around the scene. The idea I had was more of "global" view with further away camera. Perhaps just try to create a short cinematic within sequencer. Have you tried that?

[@linhmac0222]

Hi Logan! Thank you so much for this helpful tutorial!! I wonder is there anyway we can apply real life textures onto the buildings?

[@LoganPinney]

Hi Linh! Hope you are well :)) Good question - I have not looked into that but I did see an example on their website that had geo with semi realistic textures (they didn't look very high fidelity so I am wondering if it was google image data or the like?)

[@ahmadridhwan19]

Thanks! Great tutorial you've made. Just a quick question. How did you manage to get the tile sets links of NY from ArcGIS? Say if I want the tile sets of other areas, how can I get or generate them?

[@LoganPinney]

Thanks Ridhwan! I got the tile sets off the ArcGIS developer page where they have written documentation. I suspect a subscription to ESRI gives you all the tile sets you could want! I have only used the samples sets provided.

[@wachaoochannel9912]

Hello Logan! What a great tutorial! I want to ask can we create a lod setting for the 3d models layer. Cause i think when we add 3d models layer with texture and more triangle it will make the fps instantly drop.

[@LoganPinney]

Thanks for checking it out. Good question. I am not aware of how to do that but I think with nanite enabled on the mesh it will do it for you automatically? Worth testing!

[@mariavillanueva4782]

Great tutorial. If I can ask you a question, does this allow for the ArcGis camera to be attached to a first or third person controller?

[@LoganPinney]

Excellent question!! That could be set up and of course you could also just create cinematics with your own cameras to render out various sequence shots.

[@uavisionx]

Fantastic video, can you please share your thoughts on this vs Cesium? which solution do you think it better overall in terms of features and ease of use? also not sure if this was mentioned in the video, is this is totally free compared to Cesium being subscription based for commercial use? Thank you!

[@LoganPinney]

Thanks for checking it out! Seems like some either love it or hate it :p Happy you are the former! Sorry, I cannot advise, I have not used Cesium therefore I am in no position to offer you any opinion or comparison. This set up is free, there is a subscription if you would like access to the full data sets. I wonder which is best?? If you do test out both paid version pls do come back and let me know your thoughts here so other potential users may benefit from your anecdotal experience. Cheers!

[@Ready-Assets]

Noice . Thanks

[@LoganPinney]

Glad you enjoyed ti!

[@evChay]

Hey, great video! How are you rotating the camera viewport. I can't seem to find it in the UE5 documentation.

[@evChay]

I'm trying to roll the camera. Seems that you can. forums.unrealengine.com/t/how-to-roll-the-viewport-view/226455

[@LoganPinney]

Thanks for watching. I am holding down the right mouse button or holding down the middle mouse button and using WASD to move around. Takes some practice but eventually it will become 2nd nature.

[@davethenerd42]

It looks like you've added a lot of steps that wasn't in the original tutorial as far as setting up the initial scene. Did the tutorial not have enough detail originally or did you just add more for your own preferences. I'm pretty new to both ArcGIS and UE.

[@LoganPinney]

I was following the tutorial and trying to help make it more detailed for others to follow along with easier. Some found it helpful others did not lol. If you want to follow the documentation here is the link: developers.arcgis.com/unreal-engine/get-started/

[@4dstuduo]

Nice Tutorial Buddy. I could not understand from where you got Layer source url?

[@LoganPinney]

I need to redo this one and explain a few things better, like that :p Look for an update soon!

[@federicodellisanti8302]

Hi Logan! But if i would take some parts of London or Italy for examples, where i find it? Thanks a lot!

[@LoganPinney]

I believe you need an ESRI subscription to have access to all the data of various parts of the world. I am just using the free examples they provide.

[@Mayrazamora]

I'm struggling with the layers. I could see layer 03 - New York Population Density at first, but later I couldn't see layer 03 or the 3d buildings

[@LoganPinney]

Could have to do with the opacity/alpha of each layer or how far your camera is from the meshs?

[@GOLDYUNGE]

How can we get high quality or at leat hq textured model of real world cities? With clean streets no trees just the street layout with the models

[@LoganPinney]

Good question - unsure and have not tried that. You should ask that question on the ArcGIS forum and perhaps someone from the dev team can directly answer you. Best of luck with it!

[@timurradman3999]

How do you get the data of a particular city? Are they purchasable or is there a free library for it?

[@LoganPinney]

Subscription.

[@HumbleHerman]

WHen I zoom around in Google Earth Pro, a lot of buildings, towns, etc that I'd like to bring into UE5 are simply flat, with no 3d features at all. Does this access better data (everywhere) and give you 3d meshes wherever you go, or most places?

[@LoganPinney]

I have had the same issue with my city...simply too small for google to care to get all the 3D data...someday!

[@siddharthvarshney1710]

Seems like there are a few differences between ArcGIS for UE5 and this tutorial, but easy enough to navigate and set it all up like you have :) I was wondering, do you know how to enable textures for the buildings? The blank white 3D objects are a bit jarring so if you had any solution, I would be grateful if you could share it! And just a suggestion - why not make a complete tutorial from scratch, installing UE5 to creating an Esri/ArcGIS account to creating the world as shown here up to representing live data on a fully detailed (textured) 3D city - I know for sure a lot of people would benefit from an end-to-end demo application tutorial :)

[@LoganPinney]

Thanks for taking the time to leave me great feedback! There are a few ways to add textures to the buildings. I am shocked by the lack of tutorials covering this material and topic. If I am able to find time I will create at least some texturing tutorials. It has been a minute since I have used this plugin, and with 5.2 around the corner, more potential changes may occur that break this workflow. Time will tell, check back in a few months and we shall see if I am do a follow up to this in 5.2 with a collection of issues and questions from this video (and comments) addressed. Cheers! If you are looking to learn Unreal from the ground up, I am a mentor at CG Spectrum and have helped dozens achieve their goals and dreams using Unreal Engine. Take a look and see if it might be right for you?

[@sethwhite8597]

For some reason, when I hit create the only item that pops up in my outliner is ArcGISMapActor, no pawn or map view. I wasn't able to get the earth view as you did, I'm guessing this is why. Any advice? Thank you for the tutorial by the way.

[@LoganPinney]

Hmm not sure why that is happening. You can also create those actors right from the place menu by searching for them. Hope you found this helpful! Thanks for watching.

[@SharvariNagraj]

I am facing the exact same issue, did you find any way out?

[@gridhellsing]

Same issue here

[@uuganbayarboldbaatar3078]

hi. show this message after the installing plugin and restart unreal. the following modules are missing or built with a different enigine version: ArcGISmapsSDK ArcGISmapsSDKEditor ArcGISSamples Would you like to rebuild them now? i have an ArcGIS 2022 pls help me. Thank you

[@LoganPinney]

Hello, are you certain you have the current plugin installed in your project?? Best idea is to go to the ArcGIS website and double check you have the correct plugins and project set up.

[@user-od4wm5cj6g]

Can you demo how to use the "Create Arc GISPolygon Builder from Polygon" node in blueprint?

[@LoganPinney]

Unfortunately I do not have the capacity to demo that workflow - it has been a while since I have focused on GIS. I suggest asking on the forums.

[@sherazahmed9]

Hello man. Nice tutorial but I'm facing two issues. First one that ArcGis mapviewer and ArcGis Pawn isn't showing on my PC. I'm using Unreal engine 5. And Secondly Earth globe isn't showing too. Can you help me because I needed it as soon as possible for my fyp.

[@LoganPinney]

They are not showing in your outliner? You can always add them manually yourself from the create drop down. Have you checked the scale of your earth or your position in the world? You may need to jack up your camera speed to 8x and 100x multiplier to fly around to find your earth. If you are still having issues then I suggest following close with the documentation as well as posting to the ArcGIS forum.

[@TheLuckyDanes]

Is it possible to remove certain buildings? And if so how would that be possible?

[@LoganPinney]

Yes it is possible. Since it is data driven you can set up functionality within materials to hide and show data given certain settings. For example there is a demo video on their website that shows them setting up all buildings made after 2007 in orange so you can see all new construction. I am sure you could access data points on material instances and then set those opacity to 0 to effectively choose which buildings you want to hide. You will have to look further on the ArcGIS documentation and demos.

[@32bart10]

How do we get the building Data that actually looks like the real buildings that is shown on the website and on the preview instead of the cubes?

[@Metrolonx]

Id love to know as well.

[@LoganPinney]

I believe you need to inquire with ESRI and most likely will need to get a subscription to go beyond the free version developer demo. Best of luck! You can also email/post on the ArcGIS forum the have a good support group there.

[@JaydenX]

How are you making the Source Layer Maps and 3D buildings? I cannot seem to find the sources to create other citys.

[@LoganPinney]

The source layers were directly from the ESRI database. I have a developer account, if you have a paid membership I am sure they have other cities available.

[@JaydenX]

@@LoganPinney ah! Makes sense. I spent hours in the manual to try and find out how

[@JaydenX]

@@LoganPinney thanks

[@LoganPinney]

Glad to hear you got it working Jayden!

[@GamerPro-nw5lf]

does that mean that with this program it is possible to take the map of a real city and put it inside the Unreal Engine? So being able to put a real google earth city inside your games? Would it be possible to place the map of the city of Fortaleza, Brazil, inside Unreal Engine 4 and 5 so that I can later create my game in this engine using this program?

[@LoganPinney]

Yes! All of those things are possible! You need to get an account with ESRI to have access to that data.

[@sangzualadragneel8184]

Should this work on 5.3 version? Most of the settings layout and the institution in the website are not available like 'Large world'...Mine doesn't load anything

[@LoganPinney]

I have not tested this for some time. I believe it likely has some updates. Check with the official website for more information.

[@sangzualadragneel8184]

@@LoganPinney Just found out thr large world is automatically enable but loading the basemap still is hit and miss for me. Sometimes it loads and other times nothing happens.Anyway nice content, I'm looking at ur other videos for ueg

[@sangzualadragneel8184]

Also the thing I've noticed is that only the ArcGIS actor is created ,no pawn or map

[@haniissa1990]

i can use it as a map? is it live like google map or you copy the earth in your pc?

[@LoganPinney]

It is not live link, you will need to look into ESRI and ArcGIS subscriptions for more data.

[@rahulbhardwaj3694]

Hi bro . I am getting a blue globe ,When i hit play only then i can see some details. Anyone who knows a fix please help

[@LoganPinney]

Hmmmm never had this, you sure your camera is not VERY VERY far away?

[@KylePanuncillon01]

I tried installing it in UE5 but it's not showing in my plugins.

[@LoganPinney]

Double check you have the current version, I have not tested this in 5.1 or 5.2 so I cannot confirm if it is up to date for them.

[@joaojeronimo1309]

I´m curious, what is (was) the specs of the PC in this video? Thank you, it's my 6th time (almost) watching this video at diferent moments.

[@LoganPinney]

Hello! It was recorded on a high end 3D work station with a 3090 and AMD 36 core threadripper,128gb ram. I made the investment, although it was not cheap, worth every penny to not be held up by hardware limitations. More room for experimentation and creativity! I'm sorry, this is a rather difficult tutorial to follow as it is quite technical. If you use this + their documentation on the website, you will succeed!!

[@joaojeronimo1309]

@@LoganPinney okay I see, quite a big investment for sure! Do you think a 16 core you be good? Btw I watched it that many times because I really like the concept hahah

[@omaralrejaib8725]

can you please make a tutorial about the installation? I've literally spent 5 hours trying to download ArcGIS and it wouldn't show on the plugins! not a single tutorial exist and I gave up honestly

[@LoganPinney]

Oh man Omar, ok I will - I actually had that as part of the video initially but thought it was too basic and it made the tutorial longer. I will add this to my list of tutorials to make. Cheers.

[@Fikarblackproject]

bro, my globe just a bluee, how to get the map? thanks

[@LoganPinney]

Make sure you have the material and data layers set up correctly?

[@cgivfxshortfilm408]

❤

[@LoganPinney]

hope it helped!

[@firstnamelastname4685]

How to add the colors and texture to the building?

[@LoganPinney]

Please see the ArcGIS website for details on getting textures and colors. Their are rules you can use with data to colorize the data sets based around statistics (age built of building for example). This is all documented for you by them. Cheers!

[@ebeahimebrahimmohamed9014]

Did all world make 3d or no I want the all map world 3d

[@LoganPinney]

It would require a vast amount of layer sources and data to create the entire world. I have not tested this nor plan to. If this is something you are curious about doing then I suggest contacting ESRI directly to see if they can help you with a visualization solution. Not sure this is able to achieve that.

[@differentman2575]

How can I make third person with this data I need some video to learning this Sorry I'm not good in English language

[@LoganPinney]

This is not really designed or set up to be used for a 3rd person in the way you'd like. I suggest grabbing the free Matrix city demo project as that is probably closer to what you are looking for.

[@differentman2575]

@@LoganPinney thanks 👍🙏🏼

[@s.r.spianist3267]

Can you tell us How to setup and install it in unreal engine 5

[@LoganPinney]

developers.arcgis.com/unreal-engine/get-started/

[@juanpolanco9678]

HELLO LOGAN, HOW I CAN PUT A LOCAL DATASET?

[@LoganPinney]

That part I have yet to figure out as I am very new to using ESRI tools. If i figure it out, I will do a follow up video.

[@maytwinmedia]

Hi is it possible to make a realistic game with this? 😊

[@LoganPinney]

Yes it is possible. You'd need textures and to bake them down on the mesh as well as do some optimizations. It will not be super high quality but for a flight game would be great! It is well beyond the scope of this video.

[@BEST_LUL]

Pog.

[@LoganPinney]

😂 thanks BEST🙏

[@skyacaniadev2229]

4:23 how did you do that?

[@LoganPinney]

That is a cut from one position in the editor to one very far out. You can increase your camera speed (8) and multiplier speed (x100+) and pull back to get the full world view which you see is at 4:23. I cut out the part where I was slowly pulling out, then changing camera speeds and pulling out more then re adjusting again...just a waste of time to a viewer so that is why the jump in positions. Thanks for watching!

[@skyacaniadev2229]

@@LoganPinney I tried both but it is still too slow. Then I found that you can enable zoom based on distance option.

[@ebeahimebrahimmohamed9014]

Can i make it in another city as egypt

[@LoganPinney]

Not certain but I think you need to be a member with esri or have access to those particular data sets. Check their forum and website for more detailed information on setting this up. The idea is that this will be usable for visualization all around the globe but not all locations have up to date data or data at all.

[@ebeahimebrahimmohamed9014]

@@LoganPinney can i make any cith in cad mapper or any maper 3d ?

[@Goad_and_Crook]

How can I contract your services? Do you have a site, what are your rates?

[@LoganPinney]

Hi Matthew, I am currently booked to capacity and typically have more work than I can take via word of mouth. Hoping to make some time to get my site completed and launched so I can begin to take inquires or help outsource work to other Ue artists.

[@nokander]

I don't see much improvement when compared to Cesium World Terrain with OSM Buildings or Google 3D Earth. All of these can be imported to UE 5.x quite easily. Textures for buildings and road & bridge structures I would be willing to pay for.

[@LoganPinney]

I enjoy the latest Cesium OSM set up more than this now. At the time of this recording, that was not out.

[@JhonPitre]

take the real color of the maps ?

[@user-mn2vb6rd5f]

Yes, you can

[@LoganPinney]

You can overlay diffuse texture maps of real world images - detail is questionable and depending on where you get the data. Let me know if it works for you!

[@LoganPinney]

link to any places you have used to get the textures?

[@JhonPitre]

@@LoganPinney I don;t have the texure, can you tell me please how is possible to apply the textures wiht good resolution, i mean not blurred, some texure more clean

[@JhonPitre]

@@user-mn2vb6rd5f with.a good resolution ?

[@Tryfieldanimas]

[@LoganPinney]

Hope it helped you!

[@Tryfieldanimas]

@@LoganPinney yes, very much, thanks you ;)

[@grchmusic]

asmr

[@LoganPinney]

lol :p ok...

[@frankp3118]

I must be brain dead cause I couldn’t follow at all

[@LoganPinney]

Perhaps following along with the documentation would be more your style? Tried to make it as simple as possible. developers.arcgis.com/unreal-engine/get-started/

[@yantingye1677]

oh,it is too much steps🥵

[@LoganPinney]

Yea I know it is not a 'ONE, TWO, DONE!' process. Sorry, wish it was, does takes some time and patience to set up.

[@Valk-Kilmer]

FAR too complex and confusing. Jesus wept these developers need to understand we don't have time for absolute nonsense and not all of us live in NYC or are trained pilots who know longitude and latitude. Blender has apps where you put in your ZIP code, import and done. Feels like I need to be a bloody mathematical genius or engineer to become a digital artist.

[@LoganPinney]

Follow the directions in the documentation. Perhaps that is a better pace for your learning? developers.arcgis.com/unreal-engine/get-started/ Or perhaps this workflow is not for you if you found this too complicated. As you mentioned, Blender has an app so then use that if you know how to?

[@s.r.spianist3267]

Can you tell us How to setup and install it in unreal engine 5

[@LoganPinney]

developers.arcgis.com/unreal-engine/get-started/

[@s.r.spianist3267]

Can you tell us How to setup and install it in unreal engine 5

[@LoganPinney]

developers.arcgis.com/unreal-engine/get-started/

[@s.r.spianist3267]

Can you tell us How to setup and install it in unreal engine 5

[@LoganPinney]

developers.arcgis.com/unreal-engine/get-started/

[@s.r.spianist3267]

Can you tell us How to setup and install it in unreal engine 5

[@LoganPinney]

developers.arcgis.com/unreal-engine/get-started/

[@s.r.spianist3267]

Can you tell us How to setup and install it in unreal engine 5

[@LoganPinney]

developers.arcgis.com/unreal-engine/get-started/

[@s.r.spianist3267]

Can you tell us How to setup and install it in unreal engine 5

[@LoganPinney]

developers.arcgis.com/unreal-engine/get-started/

[@s.r.spianist3267]

Can you tell us How to setup and install it in unreal engine 5

[@klownking4835]

I tried Google and that helped. No need to thank me buddy 😉

[@LoganPinney]

developers.arcgis.com/unreal-engine/get-started/

[@s.r.spianist3267]

@@klownking4835 thank you I will definitely try it very soon 😁😁

[@s.r.spianist3267]

@@LoganPinney I follows every instruction but noting happened I couldn't download this plugin in unreal engine

[@LoganPinney]

@@s.r.spianist3267 sorry you are having a tough time getting this to work. Please contact ESRI for further help as aside from the website documentation and this video I have no other information. Best of luck