Book Image

Blueprints Visual Scripting for Unreal Engine - Second Edition

By : Marcos Romero, Brenden Sewell
Book Image

Blueprints Visual Scripting for Unreal Engine - Second Edition

By: Marcos Romero, Brenden Sewell

Overview of this book

Blueprints is the visual scripting system in Unreal Engine that enables programmers to create baseline systems and can be extended by designers. This book helps you explore all the features of the Blueprint Editor and guides you through using Variables, Macros, and Functions. You’ll also learn about object-oriented programming (OOP) and discover the Gameplay Framework. In addition to this, you’ll learn how Blueprint Communication allows one Blueprint to access information from another Blueprint. Later chapters will focus on building a fully functional game using a step-by-step approach. You’ll start with a basic first-person shooter (FPS) template, and each chapter will build on the prototype to create an increasingly complex and robust game experience. You’ll then progress from creating basic shooting mechanics to more complex systems, such as user interface elements and intelligent enemy behavior. The skills you will develop using Blueprints can also be employed in other gaming genres. In the concluding chapters, the book demonstrates how to use arrays, maps, enums, and vector operations. Finally, you’ll learn how to build a basic VR game. By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to build a fully functional game and will have the skills required to develop an entertaining experience for your audience.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Blueprint Fundamentals
6
Section 2: Developing a Game
11
Section 3: Enhancing the Game
16
Section 4: Advanced Blueprints

OOP concepts

Let's learn about some elementary concepts of OOP, such as classes, instances, and inheritance. These concepts will help you learn about various elements of Blueprints Visual Scripting.

Classes

Many real-world objects can be classified by the same type, even though they are unique. As a very simple example, we can think of a person class. In this class, we can have attributes such as name and height, and Actions such as move and eat. Using the person class, we can create several objects of this class. Each object represents a person with different values in their name and height attributes.

When we create a Blueprint, we are creating a new class that can be used to create objects in the Unreal Engine. As...