Hi everyone,

I'm a complete beginner with Unreal Engine and currently learning level design and blocking out. I'm using Unreal Engine 5.6.1.

I want to learn a proper workflow from the beginning instead of developing bad habits that I have to fix later. When creating boxes and other geometry with the Modeling Tools, what is the usual professional workflow for collision? AI told me about changing the collision mode to "Use Complex Collision As Simple". I started blocking out this way but after some time i tried to snap two objects together via vertex snapping but there i had the problem that this was not possible because of the collision setting (at least ai said so).

I have enough with ai answers so i m asking you and i m very glad about every advice you can give to me!

Not a pro here but I’ve been doing solo game dev for a bit.

From my experience it depends on what you want and how detailed you want to get.
Generally when doing a blockout, the shapes are pretty simple, so often you can just use simple collision or add a simple box collider and that will be fine.
But also if the level isn’t too large and you are using something that will get replaced anyway then you can just use complex as simple.

Basically with the blockout you want the level to play as close to the end product as possible, even if it doesn’t look like it.
So if your performance is really bad it’s going to affect the gameplay experience…so generally I try and keep collision as simple as possible.

TLDR; if it’s going to get replaced it probably doesn’t matter too much, but you want to make sure your game performs well, so keeping collision as simple as possible is always good

My plan is to do a part of a town and i want to work on it for one month. I wont do assets that will replace the blockout - i just want to practice and get into unreal engine. What settings do you use when you talk about simple collision ? Sry i m a total beginner so i m not sure what you are talking about :D

When you are editing an asset, you can add simple collision shaped like Box colliders and Capsule colliders. Those are very simple shapes and so are performance friendly.
You can also just add simple Boxes/cubes to your scene and those should have collision on them already

In a professional setting, I’ve only used blockouts about half the time. The other half was with final or nearly final assets. You could totally use some assets from an asset store. Just make sure that your workflow lets you create and make changes quickly.

Additionally I’d suggest trying out making four smaller spaces, one each week, instead of one large one over a month. You’re going to get a lot more experience that way, and going back to a level you worked on an then put down for a while helps you have a bit more of a fresh approach to it.

Thanks for the advice!

That's the kind of weird advice that AI gives. Using complex collision as simple will probably solve your immediate problem, but it isn't a good answer.

You can look at the collision of meshes in the editor. There, you can auto generate simple collision based on some ruleset that makes it more or less accurate, or you can manually place simple shapes for collision. Generally that is what you should be doing.

thanks for the answer! do i have to do this with every object or can i set a rule that gives my cubes that simple collision automatically?

this is the box collider you were talking about right ?

By not asking AI every 5 minutes.

thanks for the great advice!