Blueprints Visual Scripting for Unreal Engine 5

Unleash the true power of Blueprints to create impressive games and applications in UE5, 3rd Edition

Marcos Romero, Brenden Sewell

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781801818698
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming in C++
• Index: Computer Science

Explore the faster way to build games using UE5 Blueprints using this practical guide with key images printed in color

Key Features

• Design a fully functional game in UE5 without writing a single line of code
• Implement visual scripting to develop gameplay mechanics, UI, visual effects, VR, and artificial intelligence
• Deploy your game on multiple platforms and share it with the world

Book Description

Unreal Engine's Blueprint visual scripting system enables designers to script their games and programmers to create base elements that can be extended by designers. With this book, you'll explore all the features of the Blueprint Editor, along with expert tips, shortcuts, and best practices.The book guides you through using variables, macros, and functions, and helps you learn about object-oriented programming (OOP). You'll discover the Gameplay Framework and advance to learning how Blueprint Communication allows one Blueprint to access information from another Blueprint. Later chapters focus on building a fully functional game step by step. You'll start with a basic first-person shooter (FPS) template, and each chapter will build on the prototype to create an increasingly complex and robust game experience. You'll then progress from creating basic shooting mechanics to more complex systems such as user interface elements and intelligent enemy behavior. The book demonstrates how to use arrays, maps, enums, and vector operations and introduces the elements needed for VR game development. In the final chapters, you'll learn how to implement procedural generation and create a product configurator.By the end of this book, you'll have learned how to build a fully functional game and have the skills required to develop an entertaining experience for your audience.

What you will learn

• Understand programming concepts in Blueprints
• Create prototypes and iterate new game mechanics rapidly
• Build user interface elements and interactive menus
• Use advanced Blueprint nodes to manage the complexity of a game
• Explore all the features of the Blueprint editor, such as the Components tab, Viewport, and Event Graph
• Get to grips with OOP concepts and explore the Gameplay Framework
• Work with virtual reality development in UE Blueprint
• Implement procedural generation and create a product configurator

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone interested in developing games or applications with UE5. Although basic knowledge of Windows OS is required, experience in programming or UE5 is not necessary.

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Part 1: Blueprint Fundamentals

This part will explore the basic building blocks of Blueprints. You will gain a solid understanding of how Blueprints work and will be able to start creating your own games.

This part comprises the following chapters:

• Chapter 1, Exploring the Blueprint Editor
• Chapter 2, Programming with Blueprints
• Chapter 3, Object-Oriented Programming and the Gameplay Framework
• Chapter 4, Understanding Blueprint Communication

Chapter 1: Exploring the Blueprint Editor

Welcome to the amazing world of game development with Unreal Engine 5. In this book, we will learn how to develop games in Unreal Engine using the Blueprints Visual Scripting language, which was created by Epic Games for Unreal Engine.

The first step that is needed before we can learn about Blueprints is to prepare our development environment. Unreal Engine is free to download. We will learn how to install Unreal Engine 5 and create a new project. After that, we will learn about some of the basic concepts of Blueprints and explore each panel of the Blueprint Editor.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Installing Unreal Engine
• Creating new projects and using templates
• Blueprints Visual Scripting
• The Blueprint Class Editor interface
• Adding Components to a Blueprint

Installing Unreal Engine

To use Unreal Engine, you must first install the Epic Games Launcher:

1. Access the website at https://www.unrealengine.com.
2. Register and download the Epic Games Launcher.
3. Install and start the launcher.
4. Click the Unreal Engine tab on the left-hand side.
5. Click on the Library tab that appears at the top of the screen.
6. Click the + button next to ENGINE VERSIONS to add a version of Unreal Engine to the launcher. You can use the newest version available.
7. Click the Install button. The launcher will start downloading the files needed for installation and may take a long time to complete.
8. Click the Launch button to start an already installed version. It is possible to have multiple versions of Unreal Engine installed on the same machine – you simply set one of them as the current version. The Launch button at the top right of the launcher will start the current version.

Figure 1.1 – Launching Unreal Engine

The Blueprint Visual Scripting system is already a well established and stable technology. This book uses version 5.0.0, but the examples created in this book should work without problems in later versions.

Creating new projects and using templates

After starting up Unreal Engine Editor, the Unreal Project Browser will appear. The Recent Projects box on the top left is used to open existing projects and the other boxes on the left are categories of templates used to create a new project. The following screenshot shows the templates of the Games category.

Figure 1.2 – Templates under the Games category

Templates are basic containers with some key files and a level that provide a basic starting point for different types of projects. They are useful for rapid prototyping or to learn the basic mechanics of a specific type of project. The use of templates is optional. All templates can be simply recreated in the blank template. The following are descriptions of each template in the Games category:

• First Person: For games with a first-person perspective. This template features a player character represented by a pair of arms equipped with a gun that fires a simple sphere projectile. The character can be moved around the level using a keyboard, controller, or virtual joystick on a touch device.
• Handheld AR: For augmented reality applications for Android and iOS devices. This template features runtime logic for toggling AR mode on and off, along with some example code for hit detection and light estimation handling.
• Third Person: Contains a playable character with a camera that follows it. The camera is positioned behind and slightly above the character. The character has walking, running, and jumping animations and can be moved around the level using a keyboard, controller, or virtual joystick on a touch device.
• Top Down: Contains a character controlled by a mouse with a camera at a great distance above it. The player's character is controlled using a mouse or touchscreen to click on the required destination and uses the naviga...