After installing the UAV Toolbox for Unreal, how do I install the MATLAB plugins for Unreal Engine?

I installed the UAV Toolbox Interface for Unreal Engine Projects and the directions on the page indicate that there should be some plugins available that I will need to make available to my Unreal Engine to be able to start up. After scanning my MATLAB directory for the specified plugins, I get no results. I am unable to open any of my Unreal projects because these plugins are unavailable. How do I get these plugins?

UAV Toolbox interface for Unreal Engine Projects:
https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/80275-uav-toolbox-interface-for-unreal-engine-projects

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

A helpful overall guide for installing the UAV Toolbox Interface for Unreal Engine Projects can be found at the following link:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/releases/R2023a/uav/ug/install-support-package-for-customizing-scenes.html

If you are not able to install or find these plugins, you can follow these steps:

Software Requirements:

Each version of MATLAB is tied to a specific version of the Unreal Engine and Microsoft Visual Studio. Make sure that you are using the correct version of the Unreal Engine and Visual Studio for your version of MATLAB. The required versions for each can be found at the following link:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/releases/R2023a/uav/ug/3d-visualization-engine-requirements.html

Option 1 (MATLAB Setup Command):

After installing all the necessary software, run the following command in your MATLAB Command Window where “DestFldr” is the folder where you would like the Unreal project files to go, such as "C:\Project":

>> sim3d.utils.copyExampleSim3dProject(DestFldr);

The documentation for this command is linked below, which explains that it copies the plugins to your Epic Games® installation folder:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/releases/R2023a/uav/ref/copyexamplesim3dproject.html

Option 2 (Adding Plugins Manually):

The plugins are installed to the support package root directory, which defaults to “C:\ProgramData\MATLAB\SupportPackages\R2023a”. If the support package directory is not there, you can find it by running the following command in your MATLAB Command Window:

>> installDir = matlabshared.supportpkg.getSupportPackageRoot

The plugins should be found at “<supportPackageRoot>\toolbox\shared\sim3dprojects\spkg\plugins”. If it is at the default location, it would be located at “C:\ProgramData\MATLAB\SupportPackages\R2023a\toolbox\shared\sim3dprojects\spkg\plugins”.

There should be three folders in there, “mw_simulation”, “mw_uav”, and “rr_materials”. All these folders have a folder inside of them corresponding to a plugin you need, which are “MathWorksSimulation”, “MathWorksUAVContent”, and “RoadRunnerMaterials” respectively. These are the plugin folders.

If your project cannot locate the support package plugins, you should copy the plugins to either the Unreal plugin folder or the Unreal project folder.

Unreal Plugin Folder:

The Unreal plugin folder should be located at “C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_4.27\Engine\Plugins\MathWorks” and you can put the three plugin folders mentioned above into this folder. The Unreal engine should automatically load the plugins it finds in there.

Unreal Project Folder:

If putting it into the Unreal project folder, create a “Plugins” folder in the project folder and put the plugin folders into it. The Unreal engine should automatically load the plugins it finds in there.

In either case, after installing them, make sure the plugins are enabled through the “Edit > Plugins” menu option.