Your first dungeon

Set up a complete, themed dungeon in about five minutes. Everything you need ships with Dungeon Architect: you pick a builder, a flow graph and a theme, and click Build.

You’ll need: Dungeon Architect enabled in your project (Installation).

1. Add a dungeon

1. Create a new level: File > New Level, pick Empty Level and click Create.

   

2. Dungeon Architect’s samples live in the plugin’s content, which the Content Browser hides at first. Click the settings icon at the top right of the Content Browser and, under Show, tick Engine Content and Plugin Content.

   

3. Go to Plugins > Dungeon Architect > Showcase > Common > Blueprints > Lighting.

   

   Drag BP_Lighting_Indoor into the level. The empty level lights up.

   

   Note

   BP_Lighting_Indoor is only a lighting preset: one Blueprint actor holding a directional light, a sky light, a sky atmosphere, exponential height fog and a post process with the exposure set for dark interiors, the same setup the samples use. Open it to see the values, or swap in your own lighting later. Start from an Empty Level rather than the Basic one, which brings its own sun and exposure.

4. Add the dungeon: click the Add button on the main toolbar (the cube with a plus), then Dungeon Architect > Dungeon.

   

2. Pick the builder, theme and flow graph

1. Select the Dungeon actor in the Outliner.

   

2. In the Details panel, under Dungeon, set Builder Class to Cell Flow.

   

3. Next to Themes, click + to add an entry.

   

4. Open the new entry’s dropdown, type foundry and pick T_Foundry_Theme.

   

5. Under Cell Flow Config, open the Cell Flow dropdown, type foundry and pick CellFlow_Graph_Foundry. This is the flow graph: the rules the builder follows to lay out rooms and paths.

   

6. Still under Cell Flow Config, tick Instanced. The meshes are batched into instances instead of one actor each, so the dungeon builds much faster and the level runs faster.

   Note

   Leave Instanced off when you need each mesh as its own actor, e.g. breakable walls, or gameplay code that finds walls by actor or tag.

Leave Grid Size at its default, 400, 400, 200. It matches both themes in this guide.

3. Build

Scroll up the Details panel and click Build Dungeon.

Note

If you still see an empty level like this, look around. The dungeon may have been built behind you.

Fly into a room to see it dressed by the Foundry theme.

Every room, stair and doorway comes from the same layout.

Want a different layout? Click Randomize Seed, then Build Dungeon again. Every seed gives a new layout that still follows the same flow graph.

4. Give it a new look

Your layout stays exactly the same. Only the art changes.

1. Open the Themes entry’s dropdown, type goth and pick T_GothicVampire.
2. Click Build Dungeon again.

The rooms, stairs and doorways are where they were. Only the art changed.

What you just did

The Cell Flow builder generated the layout: rooms, paths, stairs and where the doors go. It marked every spot that needs art with a marker (wall, floor, door…). The theme then decided what to place on each marker. Swapping the theme swapped the art and left the layout untouched. See How It Works for the full picture.

Next

• How theming works: see how a theme turns markers into art.
• Change the layout: Cell Flow.