Book Image

Unreal Engine 4 Game Development Quick Start Guide

By : Rachel Cordone
Book Image

Unreal Engine 4 Game Development Quick Start Guide

By: Rachel Cordone

Overview of this book

Unreal Engine is a popular game engine used by developers for building high-end 2D and 3D games. This book is a practical guide designed to help you get started with Unreal Engine 4 and confidently develop interactive games. You’ll begin with a quick introduction to the Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) ecosystem. Next, you’ll learn how to create Blueprints and C++ code to define your game's functionality. As you progress, you’ll cover the core systems of UE4 such as Unreal Motion Graphics (UMG), Animation Blueprints, and behaviour trees to further build on your game development knowledge. The concluding chapters will then help you learn how to use replication to create multiplayer games. By the end of this book, you will be well-versed with UE4 and have developed the skills you need to use the framework for developing and deploying robust and intuitive games.

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Table of Contents (10 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Get in touch
Free Chapter
1
Introduction to Unreal Engine 4
Introduction to Unreal Engine 4
Downloading the UE
The Unreal editor
Editor preferences
Installing and using plugins
Adding marketplace items to your project
Summary
2
Programming Using Blueprints
Programming Using Blueprints
The Blueprint window
Time for action
Summary
3
Adding C++ to a Blueprint Project
Adding C++ to a Blueprint Project
Technical requirements
Creating C++ classes in UE4
Using C++ variables in Blueprint
Using C++ functions in Blueprint
Using events in C++
Summary
4
Creating HUDs and Menus Using UMG
Creating HUDs and Menus Using UMG
The Widget Blueprint window
Setting up an interactive menu
Widget set nodes
Variable binding
Adding widgets to other widgets
Summary
5
Animation Blueprints
Animation Blueprints
Creating the attachment
Animation retargeting
Adding a weapon Equip control
Summary
6
AI with Behavior Tree and Blackboard
AI with Behavior Tree and Blackboard
Creating a simple AI
Behavior Trees
Creating a Behavior Tree task
Summary
7
Multiplayer Games
Multiplayer Games
The client–server model
Replication
Summary
8
Optimization, Testing, and Packaging
Optimization, Testing, and Packaging
Optimization
The Profiler
Blueprint Nativization
Debugging in UE4
Packing a project
Summary
9
Another Book You May Enjoy
Another Book You May Enjoy
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Debugging in UE4

There's an old joke in programming that everyone just logs to the console to debug, and while print nodes in Blueprint and UE_Log statements in C++ are very useful for that, we should still know what other tools are available to us for debugging.

We've seen a bit of that with the behavior tree back in Chapter 6, AI with the Behavior Tree and Blackboard, where the tree highlighted which branches were currently running.

Regular Blueprints and animation Blueprints will also show what's currently being run. If we open the ThirdPersonCharacter Blueprint and go to the Event Graph's InputAction Equip node, when we run the game, we'll see the graph window outlined in orange with the word SIMULATING in the top right.

When we scroll the mouse wheel to toggle our weapon, we'll see the connecting line in the InputAction pulse red:

This can be...

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