Entities
Entities are the building blocks of your level design and include everything from characters and weapons to environmental objects and triggers. In order to create a dynamic and interactive environment, you'll need to place them in the map, and then transform them to your desired specifications. This section will cover these techniques in detail, as well as provide an overview of the most commonly used entity types.
Entity
An entity is any object that can be placed into a level, such as a camera, static mesh, or player start location. Entities support 3D transformations such as translation, rotation, and scaling. They can be created (spawned) and destroyed through gameplay code.
In C++, idEntity is the base class of all entities.
EntityDefs
When customizing your game, you'll likely want to modify various entities. This might include changing the properties of a weapon's projectile or adjusting the size of an AI character. To make these entity changes, you'll need to access the entity decl, which can be found in the entityDef root folder within the Asset Browser.
The entityDef contains all of the properties related to the entity archetype. To modify an entity, simply select it from the entityDef folder to open the Decl Editor. From there, you can adjust properties and access inherited decls such as particle effects or audio.
After placing an entity in your level, you might want to customize that instance’s appearance or behavior.
By selecting the entity within the level, you can access the Entity Inspector to modify various properties about the instance of entity in the map.