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Blocks Environment#

The Blocks environment is available in the folder Unreal/Environments/Blocks and is designed to be lightweight in size. That means its very basic but fast. Below are quick steps to get Blocks environment up and running.

Windows#

  1. Ensure you have installed Unreal and built AutonomySim.
  2. Navigate to folder AutonomySim\Unreal\Environments\Blocks, double click on Blocks.sln file to open in Visual Studio. By default, this project is configured for Visual Studio 2019. However, if you want to generate this project for Visual Studio 2022, go to 'Edit->Editor Preferences->Source Code' inside the Unreal Editor and select 'Visual Studio 2022' for the 'Source Code Editor' setting.
  3. Make sure Blocks project is the startup project, build configuration is set to DebugGame_Editor and Win64. Hit F5 to run.
  4. Press the Play button in Unreal Editor and you will see something like in below video. Also see how to use AutonomySim.

Changing Code and Rebuilding#

For Windows, you can just change the code in Visual Studio, press F5 and re-run. There are few batch files available in folder AutonomySim\Unreal\Environments\Blocks that lets you sync code, clean etc.

Linux#

  1. Make sure you have built the Unreal Engine and AutonomySim.
  2. Navigate to your UnrealEngine repo folder and run Engine/Binaries/Linux/UE4Editor which will start Unreal Editor.
  3. On first start you might not see any projects in UE4 editor. Click on Projects tab, Browse button and then navigate to AutonomySim/Unreal/Environments/Blocks/Blocks.uproject.
  4. If you get prompted for incompatible version and conversion, select In-place conversion which is usually under "More" options. If you get prompted for missing modules, make sure to select No so you don't exit.
  5. Finally, when prompted with building AutonomySim, select Yes. Now it might take a while so go get some coffee :).
  6. Press the Play button in Unreal Editor and you will see something like in below video. Also see how to use AutonomySim.

Blocks Demo Video

Changing Code and Rebuilding#

For Linux, make code changes in AutonomyLib or Unreal/Plugins folder and then run ./build.sh to rebuild. This step also copies the build output to Blocks sample project. You can then follow above steps again to re-run.

Chosing Your Vehicle: Car or Multirotor#

By default AutonomySim spawns multirotor. You can easily change this to car and use all of AutonomySim goodies. Please see using car guide.

FAQ#

I see warnings about like _BuitData file is missing#

These are intermediate files and you can safely ignore it.