Book Image

Unreal Engine 4.X By Example

By : Benjamin Carnall
Book Image

Unreal Engine 4.X By Example

By: Benjamin Carnall

Overview of this book

With Unreal Engine 4 being made free to use, for any keen game developer it is quickly becoming the most popular game engine in today’s development industry. The engine offers a rich feature set that can be customized and built upon through the use of C++. This book will cover how to work with Unreal Engine’s tool set all the way from the basics of the editor and the visual scripting system blueprint to the in-depth low-level creation of content using C++. This book will provide you with the skills you need to create feature-rich, captivating, and refined game titles with Unreal Engine 4. This book will take you through the creation of four unique game projects, designed so that you will be ready to apply the engine’s rich development capabilities. You will learn not only to take advantage of the visual tools of the engine, but also the vast and powerful programming feature set of Unreal Engine 4.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Unreal Engine 4.X By Example
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Preface

Unreal Engine 4 is a cutting-edge game development engine that has revolutionized the way developers pay for engine licenses. Instead of forking out millions of dollars to access this first class engine, developers can use it completely free of charge, until they find themselves with a profitable product on their hands.

Unreal Engine 4 provides a rich AAA development toolset with cutting-edge technical features to anyone who is keen to develop great games. The engine has been developed in C++, and not only are we able to leverage the power of C++ for our projects, but we also have access to the entire engine source! This book will start you on your journey toward mastering UE4's toolset and becoming a proficient C++ UE4 developer!

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introduction to Unreal Engine 4, takes you through the installation of UE4, creating new UE4 projects, and an introductory overview of the main engine editor.

Chapter 2, Blueprints and Barrels – Your First Game, introduces you to the world of Blueprint Visual Scripting. You will leverage the Blueprint system of UE4 to create your first UE4 game project, called Barrel Hopper.

Chapter 3, Advanced Blueprint, Animation, and Sound, covers some of the more advanced Blueprint concepts, and it also concludes the development of the Barrel Hopper project by showing you how to include animation and sound in your projects.

Chapter 4, Unreal Engine, C++, and You, introduces you to the concepts and syntax that will be encountered when working with C++ and Unreal Engine 4.

Chapter 5, Upgrade Activated – Making Bounty Dash with C++, will expand on your knowledge of C++ with UE4, by taking you through the development of a purely C++ implemented game project!

Chapter 6, Power Ups for Your Character, Power Ups for the User, guides you in creating a UE4 C++ plugin, and it also introduces you to some advanced UE4 C++ concepts. This chapter concludes the development of Bounty Dash!

Chapter 7, Boss Mode Activated – Unreal Robots, will introduce you to UE4's extensive AI toolset by taking you through the creation of the Boss Mode game project.

Chapter 8, Advanced AI and Unreal Rendering, covers some of the advanced concepts of UE4's AI system; it will also introduce you to UE4's material editor and rendering system!

Chapter 9, Creating a Networked Shooter, breaks down and explains all the networking systems included in UE4. This chapter will have you create your own networked First Person Shooter, which you will be able to play over LAN with your friends.

Chapter 10, Goodbyes and Thank yous, will show you how to package your project for distribution and testing, and it also covers a brief summary of what has been learned before concluding the book!

What you need for this book

  • Processor: Quad-core Intel or AMD, 2.5 GHz or faster

  • Memory: 8 GB RAM

  • Video Card: DirectX 11 compatible graphics card Unreal Engine 4.10.*

Who this book is for

Unreal Engine by Example was written for keen developers who wished to learn how to fully utilize Unreal Engine 4 to make awesome and engrossing game titles. Whether you are brand new to game development or a seasoned expert, you will be able to make use of this engine with C++. Experience in both C++ and other game engines is preferred before embarking on the Unreal by Example journey; but with a little external research into the basics of C++ programming, this book can make a complete game development novice into an Unreal Engine developer!

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "It is now time for the famous Hello World."

A block of code is set as follows:

#include "BMBossCharacter.h"
#include "BehaviorTree/BlackboardComponent.h"
#include "BehaviorTree/BehaviorTree.h"

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Then create a new Blackboard asset from the same category."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Reader feedback

Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it helps us develop titles that you will really get the most out of.

To send us general feedback, simply e-mail , and mention the book's title in the subject of your message.

If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide at www.packtpub.com/authors.

Customer support

Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.

Downloading the example code

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

  1. Log in or register to our website using your e-mail address and password.

  2. Hover the mouse pointer on the SUPPORT tab at the top.

  3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.

  4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box.

  5. Select the book for which you're looking to download the code files.

  6. Choose from the drop-down menu where you purchased this book from.

  7. Click on Code Download.

You can also download the code files by clicking on the Code Files button on the book's webpage at the Packt Publishing website. This page can be accessed by entering the book's name in the Search box. Please note that you need to be logged in to your Packt account.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

  • WinRAR / 7-Zip for Windows

  • Zipeg / iZip / UnRarX for Mac

  • 7-Zip / PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Unreal-Engine-4X-By-Example. We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Downloading the color images of this book

We also provide you with a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. The color images will help you better understand the changes in the output. You can download this file from https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/UnrealEngine4XByExample_ColoredImages.pdf.

Errata

Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you could report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded to our website or added to any list of existing errata under the Errata section of that title.

To view the previously submitted errata, go to https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/support and enter the name of the book in the search field. The required information will appear under the Errata section.

Piracy

Piracy of copyrighted material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.

Please contact us at with a link to the suspected pirated material.

We appreciate your help in protecting our authors and our ability to bring you valuable content.

Questions

If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at , and we will do our best to address the problem.