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

Understanding the game program structure

A typical and simple game program usually has three phases – game initialization, game loop, and game end – and Unreal Engine handles these internally.

Unreal Engine offers a range of programming interfaces, including base classes, APIs, and systems, empowering developers to create highly immersive and interactive games. Leveraging these interfaces, developers write C++ code that integrates their custom functionality into the game.

The following flowchart illustrates the fundamental game flow and should give you an idea about writing game code for functional modules:

Figure 4.4 – Game program structure

Figure 4.4 – Game program structure

Let’s take a look at some of these ideas:

  • Game initialization happens when a game program starts. All the initialization tasks, such as setting the display mode, loading required contents, spawning game objects, and so on, are done during this phase.
  • Game loop is the main...