Building the Control Room – The Origins of Cage Tools
Coming from a Blender background, I’ve always relied on custom add-ons to streamline day-to-day operations. When I finally shifted my primary focus to Unreal Engine, I knew I needed a similar ‘home base’, a central toolkit to manage the complex pipelines of my studio, Cage Interactive.
The Philosophy: A Dashboard for Development
I didn’t want to dig through content browsers or detail panels for routine tasks. I wanted a control panel. As shown in the early UI prototype, I organized the plugin into a tabbed interface representing the core pillars of my game, MegaDome:
- Time & Atmospherics: Rapid iteration on lighting and weather.
- Logistics (Vehicles & Characters): Quick access to spawning and tweaking game agents.
- World Building: Tools for managing city structures and level assets.
What’s Next?
While I am currently reworking the UI to be even more robust, this widget serves as the foundation. Future updates will expand into Quest Management and Ability Systems, turning Cage Tools into the universal backbone of my development workflow.”- Operations: One-click solutions for build, cook, and packaging tasks.
Current Status
The interface is currently a working prototype. The active module (seen above) handles Time of Day, allowing for instant switching between ‘Dawn’ and ‘Night’ states or fine-tuning the exact time via slider.