Book Image

Unreal Engine 5 Game Development with C++ Scripting

By : ZHENYU GEORGE LI
Book Image

Unreal Engine 5 Game Development with C++ Scripting

By: ZHENYU GEORGE LI

Overview of this book

Unreal Engine is one of the most popular and accessible game engines in the industry, creating multiple job opportunities. Owing to C++ scripting's high performance, advanced algorithms, and engineering maintenance, it has become the industry standard for developing commercial games. However, C++ scripting can be overwhelming for anyone without a programming background. Unreal Engine 5 Game Development with C++ Scripting will help you master C++ and get a head start on your game development journey. You’ll start by creating an Unreal Engine C++ project from the shooter template and then move on to building the C++ project and the C++ code inside the Visual Studio editor. You’ll be introduced to the fundamental C++ syntax and essential object-oriented programming concepts. For a holistic understanding of game development, you’ll also uncover various aspects of the game, including character creation, player input and character control, gameplay, collision detection, UI, networking, and packaging a completed multiplayer game. By the end of this book, you’ll be well-equipped to create professional, high-quality games using Unreal Engine 5 with C++, and will have built a solid foundation for more advanced C++ programming and game development technologies.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1 – Getting Started with Unreal C++ Scripting
6
Part 2 – C++ Scripting for Unreal Engine
12
Part 3: Making a Complete Multiplayer Game

Exploring the C++ program structure

In C++, programs execute code line by line, with each statement typically terminated by a semicolon. A collection of code lines that perform specific tasks can be grouped as a function, enclosed by a pair of curly braces, with the function having a name followed by a set of parentheses.

For example, the main.cpp file we created in Chapter 2 has two statement lines of code – the two lines of code are enclosed within a pair of curly braces, and the grouped block of code’s function name is main (see Figure 3.2).

Figure 3.2 – The main.cpp code sample

Figure 3.2 – The main.cpp code sample

C++ source programs generally follow the same program structure:

  • #include statements at the beginning of the program, which allow this program to access the C++ system library and other C++ source program functionalities. #include statements are special statements that don’t end with a semicolon.

Note

The C++ system library is...