Embedding UE4 into VS C++ application

Development Pipeline & Plugins
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1

Hello,

For a academic/scientific software project we try to embed UE 4.8.1 into an existing VS 2013 C++ application.

General goal:
Our C++ application provides the UI and all complex mathematical algorithms. UE4 should handle the visualization part, which is called from our UI. Users should be able to preselect their own uproject files and start the visualization with a button-press event.

We already checked the documentation, the answerhub, and the forum but could not find clear answers to the following questions:

  1. What is the recommended way to embed the UE4 framework into a Microsoft VS 2013 C++ software project?
    Which compiling options are important if we add the UE4 project file (UE4.sln) to our VS project?

  2. We need to control the game visualization process/main engine loop using our C++ application, which means interrupting and continuing the game presentation at specific time points. What is the recommended way to realize that. Should we write own control classes derived from the UE4 main engine loop class to control the visualization process?

We would really appreciate if somebody could share their experiences with us.
Thank you.

2

I read an article that might be able to help you out.

The article mentions active timers, but indicates that you can listen in on passive ticks, this might be able to help you out with what you are doing.

3

Thank you very much for the link and your help.
Unfortunately we encountered a much bigger problem. Based on this comment from the staff using the Engine in standalone application is not recommended right now.