Mastering Unreal Engine 4.X

Muhammad A.Moniem

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781785883569
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Digital Media
• Index: Computer Science

Take your game development skills to the next level with one of the best engines on the market

About This Book

• Build an entire AAA game level throughout the book
• Take your C++ scripting skills to the next level and use them extensively to build the game
• An advanced practical guide with a tutorial style approach that will help you make the best of Unreal engine 4

Who This Book Is For

This book is for game developers who have a basic knowledge of Unreal Engine and C++ scripting knowledge. If you want to take the leap from a casual game developer to a full-fledged professional game developer with Unreal Engine 4, this is the book for you.

What You Will Learn

• Script your player controls in C++
• Build a superb and engaging level with advanced design techniques
• Program AI with C++
• Use Cascade to add life to your games
• Use custom shaders and advanced shading techniques to make things pretty
• Implement an awesome UI in the game
• Control gameplay using data tables

In Detail

Unreal Engine 4 has garnered a lot of attention in the gaming world because of its new and improved graphics and rendering engine, the physics simulator, particle generator, and more. This book is the ideal guide to help you leverage all these features to create state-of-the-art games that capture the eye of your audience.

Inside we'll explain advanced shaders and effects techniques and how you can implement them in your games. You'll create custom lighting effects, use the physics simulator to add that extra edge to your games, and create customized game environments that look visually stunning using the rendering technique. You'll find out how to use the new rendering engine efficiently, add amazing post-processing effects, and use data tables to create data-driven gameplay that is engaging and exciting.

By the end of this book, you will be able to create professional games with stunning graphics using Unreal Engine 4!

Style and approach

An advanced guide that will take you to the next level of developing games with Unreal engine with illustrative examples that will make you confident of creating customized professional level games on your won.

Mastering Unreal Engine 4.X

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Table of Contents

Mastering Unreal Engine 4.X

Credits

About the Author

Acknowledgments

About the Reviewer

www.PacktPub.com

eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Preparing for a Big Project

Overview of the game

Creating a C++ project

The project settings

The editor settings

Mapping the inputs

Migrating assets

Using MarketPlace assets

Retargeting animations

Summary

2. Setting Up Your Warrior

The code project

Creating the C++ class

Editing and adding code

The Gladiator header (.h) file

The Gladiator source (.cpp) file

The includes

The constructor

BeginPlay

SetupPlayerInputComponent

Jump

StopJumping

OnAttack

OnPostAttack

OnChangeWeapon

TurnAtRate

LookUpAtRate

OnSetPlayerController

OnChangeHealthByAmount

MoveForward

MoveRight

Compiling the code

Animation assets

Adding sockets to the skeleton

Creating the blend space

The animation blueprint

Building the blueprint

Adding the blueprint to the GameMode

Summary

3. Designing Your Playground

The art of level design

Placing assets into the world

Using brushes to enhance level design

Adding lights to the level

Building lightmaps for a level

Creating water surfaces

Player Start

The navigation mesh

Summary

4. The Road to Thinkable AI

The overall idea

The AI assets

Behavior Tree

BTTask

BTService

Blackboard

The animation blueprint

Building the C++ logic

EnemyAIController

EnemyAIController.h

EnemyAIController.cpp

Enemy

Enemy.h

Enemy.cpp

Building the behavior tree

Creating the blueprint

Adding notifies

What else?

Summary

5. Adding Collectables

The idea behind collectables

The base class

PickupBase.h

PickupBase.cpp

The coin class

CoinPickup.h

CoinPickup.cpp

Making it collectable

Building the blueprint

Going forward

Summary

6. The Magic of Particles

The particles editor

Toolbar

The viewport panel

The emitters panel

The details panel

Particle system

Thumbnail

LOD

Bounds

Delay

Macro UV

Occlusion

Materials

The particle emitter

Particle

Cascade

Particle modules

Cascade

Curve Editor

Interpolation modes

Organizing curves

Adding curves to the graph

Removing curves from the graph

Organizing the curve editor with tabs

Spawning particles

Changing parameters at runtime

Summary

7. Enhancing the Visual Quality

The lightmass

The Swarm Agent

The ambient occlusion

AO settings

Lightmass settings

World Settings

Importance volume settings

The post process project settings

The post process volume

The properties

The available effects

Reflection Capture

Reflection Capture actors

The fog effects

Atmospheric Fog

Adding it

Exponential Height Fog

Adding it

Summary

8. Cinematics and In-Game Cutscenes

Matinee actor (cinematic actor)

Matinee Editor

Groups

Tracks

Bellz cinematic

The animated fog

Color

Animating exponential height fog

Saving the cinematic as video

Summary

9. Implementing the Game UI

UMG as Unreal's UI system

The game UI widget

UMG Designer

The Toggle mode

Palette

The hierarchy

Animations

Canvas

The Details panel

Constructing the UI

Adding animations to the UI

Connecting the UI with the game logic

What else?

Summary

10. Save the Game Progress

Building the SaveGame class

Saving and loading game data in C++

The *.sav file

Saving and loading game data in blueprints

Summary

11. Controlling Gameplay via Data Tables

Data table sheets

Creating the data table asset

Creating a data structure

Blueprint data structure

C++ data structure

GameDataTables.h

GameDataTables.cpp

Reading from data tables

Reading data through C++

Reading through blueprints

Summary

12. Ear Candy

Importing audio files

Sound assets

Dialogue Voice

Dialogue Wave

Media sound wave

Reverb effect

Sound attenuation

Sound Class

Sound cue

Sound mixes

Sound cue editor

Audio volumes

Playing sound effects

Summary

13. Profiling the Game Performance

The blueprint debugger

The Collision Analyzer

The console

The FPS charts

The view modes and visualizers

The GPU visualizer

The Device Manager

Device Profiles

Summary

14. Packaging the Game

Preparing the project for building

Packaging settings

Maps & Modes settings

Description settings

Platform settings

Adding different screens

Packaging the game

Cooking the content

Project Launcher and DLCs

Packaging a release

Packaging a patch or DLC

Summary

Index

Mastering Unreal Engine 4.X

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: June 2016

Production reference: 1240616

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78588-356-9

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author

Muhammad A.Moniem

Reviewer

Moritz Wundke

Commissioning Editor

Amarabha Banerjee

Acquisition Editor

Larissa Pinto

Content Development Editor

Divij Kotian

Technical Editor

Mrunal M. Chavan

Anushree Arun Tendulkar

Copy Editor

Safis Editing

Project Coordinator

Ritika Manoj

Proofreader

Safis Editing

Indexer

Hemangini Bari

Production Coor...

Table of contents

• Mastering Unreal Engine 4.X