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

Adding movement

Now that we have a target that responds to the player shooting, we can add some sort of challenge to start making our project feel like a game. A simple way to do this is to add some movement to our target. To accomplish this, we first have to declare that our target Actor is an object that is intended to move, and then we need to set up logic within the Blueprint that manages how it moves. Our goal is to make the target Cylinder move back and forth across our Level.

Changing the Actor's Mobility and Collision settings

To allow our target to move, we first have to change the Actor's Mobility setting to Moveable. This allows an object to be manipulated while playing the game. From the main Editor view...