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

Using the UFUNCTION macro

The UFUNCTION macro can be placed above the line of standard C++ function declarations. As with the UPROPERTY macro, UFUNCTION also has its specifiers and metadata to interpret the use of the functions.

The UFUNCTION syntax

Let’s first check out the UFUNCTION syntax:

UFUNCTION([specifier1, specifier2, …], [meta(key1=value,   key2=value2, … )]ReturnType FunctionName([param1, param2, …]) [const];

Let’s break it down:

  • The square brackets are used to indicate that the enclosed content is optional
  • The ellipsis means that you can include more items
  • The metadata keys are only valid in the editor, not for any game logic

The following example demonstrates how to mark the GetHealthPoints() function to be a UFUNCTION macro with a displayname value of Get HP:

UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, Category="Player Avatar",  Meta=(DisplayName="Get HP"))
int GetHealthPoints...