The Essential Guide to Unreal Engine Analytics

It’s 2023, and Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are quickly becoming everyday accessible technologies. And it seems certain that this trend will continue. However, building truly immersive 3D experiences goes beyond coding and graphics. To get the most out of your 3D worlds, it’s imperative to harness the power of 3D analytics or, in this case, Unreal Engine Analytics. So, welcome to your essential guide. Here, we’ll ask “What are Unreal Engine analytics?”, “How are they different from google analytics?”, and “How do I add analytics to my Unreal-generated worlds?” All excellent questions, but before we get to that…

What is Unreal Engine?

Unreal Engine made its debut in 1998 with the first-person shooter game, Unreal. Since then, it’s gone on to become one of the world’s most successful and widely used 3D computer graphics game engines. An open-source engine, Unreal has now extended its reach into the world of mixed reality (MR). Its many optimised features allow developers to create immersive experiences of the highest quality. From filmmaking to developing AAA game titles, or crafting photorealistic images, Unreal Engine is one of the markets most robust and sophisticated platforms for crafting 3D environments for extended reality (XR).

What are Unreal Engine Analytics?

Unreal Engine analytics refers to the process of gathering and analysing data within Unreal Engine-created XR environments. By capturing a raft of different metrics, interactions, and tracking users’ overall behaviour, you’ll be able to gain incredibly valuable insights. These insights will give you a detailed understanding of the performance of your projects and how users are engaging with them. From there, you’ll have all the information you need to refine, and optimise your experiences. And with Metalitix working in tandem with your XR environments for all your mixed reality analytics needs, you’ll never miss a beat.

What’s the Difference Between 2D and 3D Analytics?

It’s very straightforward. Traditionally, analytics have been taken from various platforms such as Google, Facebook, Mailchimp, to name a few. Because the behaviours these platforms measure are all taken from a 2D screen, we call them 2D analytics. 3D analytics, however, come from immersive Extended Reality environments. They’re used to gain valuable insights from places like AR platforms, VR experiences, the metaverse, and other forms of digitally created 3D environments.

Because of things like movement, depth, and numerous interactive elements, tracking data in these 3D environments is a much more complex undertaking. Or rather, it used to be. You can now find applications designed specifically for such metric tracking. Applications like Metalitix.

One of the great advantages that 3D analytics have over their 2D counterparts is how much more detailed and, frankly, useful they are. Traditional analytics track stats such as clicks, impressions, sessions, page views, and conversion, among others. These are useful for sure, but they also have their limitations. On the other hand, 3D analytics are tracking things that are impossible to measure on a 2D screen. Things like user movements (heat maps), interaction with virtual objects, and even gaze tracking can play a valuable role in your Unreal Engine analytics tracking. Using such metrics, you can optimise your 3D worlds without the guesswork.

Adding 3D Analytics into Your Unreal Engine Projects

Metalitix is a versatile and customisable analytics platform that’s perfect for simplifying the optimisation of your Unreal Engine creations. Getting started is straightforward and takes just a few simple steps.

Step 1:

Create your Metalitix account

Step 2:

Create a new Unreal Engine project: Creating your project is simple too. This will serve as the hub for all your analytics data, keeping data management and analysis quick and easy.

Step 3:

Whitelist your domains: It’s important to configure your domain whitelist so that only those from expected origins are logging into your project.

Step 4:

Upload your Unreal Engine project: Upload your Unreal Engine project so that Metalitix is configured to gather the appropriate analytics. You’ll also have to instantiate the Metalitix Logger.

For further assistance, check out our getting started and Unreal Engine specific how-to guides.

And that’s all it takes. Now you can start collecting analytics from your Unreal Analytics projects. See, we said it was simple.

Streamline 3D Environments Using Unreal Engine Analytics

Using Metalitix for 3D analytics will provide you with valuable insights, helping you to truly understand your users’ behaviour. That way, you’ll craft experiences you can be proud of. Still unsure? Below we’ve listed just a few of the ways Metalitix can help you take your creations to the next level.

Identify popular areas:

With Metalitix, you can easily identify the most visited sections of your Unreal Engine scenes. Insights into your users’ movements will help you identify where to add interactive elements and improve your map.

Streamline user flow:

If your environment has any bottlenecks or areas that users are struggling with, these will be identified. That way, you can refine navigation and improve the overall user experience.

Personalisation:

By assessing individual user preferences, you can create tailored, bespoke experiences, making for a more engaging environment for your users.

Test and refine:

Continuous testing and refinement means you can evaluate the effectiveness of any changes you’ve mate. By leveraging real data, you can continually fine-tune and improve your experiences based on user behaviour and feedback.

Harnessing Unreal Engine analytics is the only way to truly understand your users. Once you do this, you’ll create captivating worlds to entertain and inspire.