Unreal Editor Interface

This introduction to the Unreal Engine interface describes the most common buttons, panels, and toolbars you’ll interact with in the Unreal Editor. In this page, you’ll learn more about what they do and how you can use them. While some of these elements are generally the same across various parts of the engine, you should spend some time getting familiar with their general purpose and functionality, especially if you are new to developing projects with Unreal Engine. You can also follow links throughout this page for a deeper dive into how you can use them.

When you open the engine for the first time, the Level Editor opens. This provides the core creation functionality to the Unreal Editor and is used for designing and constructing levels and environments. It is where you’ll spend most of your time developing content for your project. There are different editors in Unreal Engine used for different purposes. 

Once your project opens, you will see the following layout, keeping in mind that what’s in the level will differ depending on the project you open. For this example, we are using the First Person template.

Menu Bar

Each editor in Unreal Engine has a menu bar that is located in the top-left of the editor window (Windows), or at the top-left of the display (macOS). Some of the menus, such as File, Window, and Help, are present in all editor windows, not just the Level Editor. Some other menus are specific to their own editors.

Main Toolbar

The Main Toolbar contains shortcuts to some of the most used tools and commands in Unreal Editor. It is divided into the following areas:

Viewport Toolbar

The Viewport Toolbar can be used to accomplish a number of tasks when building levels. It is located at the top of the Level Viewport, and its settings and tools are grouped into the following categories:

To learn more about this toolbar, read the Viewport Toolbar documentation.

Level Viewport

The Level Viewport displays the contents of the level that is currently loaded. When opening a project in Unreal Engine, the project's default level is loaded For example, if you open the First or Third Person Template project, you’ll see a gray box area (like the one pictured below) with some physics objects, floors, walls, and ramps.

The Level Viewport is where you can view and edit the contents of your Level, whether it's a game environment, a product visualization, or something else.

The Level Viewport can generally display the contents of the Level in two different ways:

• Perspective is a 3D view you can navigate to see the contents of the viewport from different angles.

• Orthographic is a 2D view that looks towards a specific direction (top, down, left, right, front, back). This creates a view where the distance from the object doesn’t affect size or provide a sense of depth.

Perspective view	Top view	Right side view

The Viewport Type can be changed between Default Viewport and Cinematic Viewport. Default Viewport displays gizmos and icons in the level like Camera actors, Collision Components, and the World Grid.

Additionally, you can change the View Mode of your viewport by pressing the Lit button in the top-right corner of the viewport. Lit is the default view mode used for real-time applications in the Perspective view, where you can preview your scene with normally rendered lighting. If you select another View Mode, this button will be titled after that. So, if you have already selected one of the Orthographic views (Top, Front, Left, and so on), the button might say Wireframe in your viewport as that is the default View Mode for the Orthographic view. If you press it, and select Lit, you will see your environment fully lit again in any view mode.

You can use the Scalability options to change the visual fidelity of which your level is being previewed. By clicking the Performance and Scalability button and clicking Viewport Scalability, you can change to a different scalability group. 

Low option	High option	Cinematic option

To learn more about the scalability options, see the Scalability Reference page.  

Navigating the Viewport

Let’s explore your Level! To control the viewport camera, the perspective through which you view the Level, press and hold the Right Mouse Button (RMB) anywhere in the viewport. While holding down RMB, you can use the W, A, S, and D keys to fly through the scene. You can fly up and down with the E and Q keys.

Releasing RMB and holding down the Left Mouse Button (LMB) can be used along with dragging the mouse to move the camera forward, backward, and rotate it left or right. This provides an alternative method for navigating the environment with greater precision.

Clicking on an object in the Level with the LMB selects the object. Selected objects can be manipulated using the Transform Tool gizmos in the viewport. Gizmos are a set of on-screen handles used to move, rotate, or scale the object along specific axes, activated based on the transform tool you select. You can activate the Translate tool by pressing W, the Rotation tool by pressing E, and the Scale tool by pressing R. Alternatively, you can use the Toolbar located at the top-right of the Viewport to switch between Transform tools.

Once you have selected a tool, you can manipulate the object using the gizmo’s axes. With the Translate or Scale tools, you can also drag from the center of the gizmo to adjust all axes simultaneously. This is particularly useful for uniformly scaling an object without disproportionately affecting any single axis.

The viewport will have snapping enabled by default for every way of transforming your object. You can turn these off or change their snapping values by using the individual settings on the top-left side of the viewport.

For more information on how to navigate a level, see the Viewport Controls page.

Content Drawer and Content Browser

The Content Browser is a file explorer for your project where you can organize all the assets that make up your project. These assets can include Blueprints, Geometry (static and skeletal), textures, materials, and so on.

The Content Drawer, located in the bottom-left corner of the Unreal Editor, opens a special instance of the Content Browser that automatically minimizes when it loses focus (that is, when you click away from it). To keep it open, click the Dock in Layout button in the top-right corner of the Content Drawer. This creates a new instance of the Content Browser, but you can still open a new Content Drawer. You can also open a Content Drawer by holding down CTRL key and pressing the Space key.

Bottom Toolbar

The Bottom Toolbar contains shortcuts and settings to various elements of the Unreal Editor. Depending on the Editor you are in (like the Viewport Editor), some of these options might not be available.

Outliner

The Outliner panel displays a hierarchical view of all content in your level. It is located in the upper-right corner of the Unreal Editor window. You can have up to four different Outliners, each with its own column layout and filter configuration.

You can hide or reveal objects by clicking their associated Eye button. Accessing an object’s context menu can be done by right-clicking that object in the Outliner. You can then perform additional, actor-specific operations from that menu.

To keep your levels organized, you can create, move, and delete content folders. Folders can be used to group objects in your level together. 

Details Panel

When you select an actor in the Level Viewport or the Outliner, the Details panel will show the settings and properties that affect the actor you selected. By default, it is located on the right side of the Unreal Editor window, under the Outliner panel.

As shown in the image above:

You can filter the actor’s properties to view and change by selecting a specific Component at the top of the Details panel. You can lock the current selection into the Details panel, which you can use to highlight other objects while keeping the Details panel locked on the first object.