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

Creating the target Blueprint

We now have a Cylinder in the world, as well as the Material we want to apply to the Cylinder when it is shot. The final piece of the interaction is the game logic that evaluates that the Cylinder has been hit, and then changes the Material on the Cylinder to our new red Material. In order to create this behavior and add it to our Cylinder, we have to create a Blueprint. There are multiple ways of creating a Blueprint, but to save a couple of steps, we can create the Blueprint and directly attach it to the Cylinder we created in a single click. To do so, make sure you have the CylinderTarget object selected in the World Outliner panel, and click on the blue Blueprint/Add Script button at the top of the Details panel. You will then see a Select Path window.

For this project, we are storing all our Blueprints in the Blueprints folder, which is inside...