Book Image

Blueprints Visual Scripting for Unreal Engine 5 - Third Edition

By : Marcos Romero, Brenden Sewell
5 (1)
Book Image

Blueprints Visual Scripting for Unreal Engine 5 - Third Edition

5 (1)
By: Marcos Romero, Brenden Sewell

Overview of this book

Unreal Engine's Blueprint visual scripting system enables designers to script their games and programmers to create base elements that can be extended by designers. With this book, you'll explore all the features of the Blueprint Editor, along with expert tips, shortcuts, and best practices. The book guides you through using variables, macros, and functions, and helps you learn about object-oriented programming (OOP). You'll discover the Gameplay Framework and advance to learning how Blueprint Communication allows one Blueprint to access information from another Blueprint. Later chapters focus on building a fully functional game step by step. 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 book demonstrates how to use arrays, maps, enums, and vector operations and introduces the elements needed for VR game development. In the final chapters, you’ll learn how to implement procedural generation and create a product configurator. By the end of this book, you'll have learned how to build a fully functional game and have the skills required to develop an entertaining experience for your audience.
Table of Contents (28 chapters)
1
Part 1: Blueprint Fundamentals
6
Part 2: Developing a Game
11
Part 3: Enhancing the Game
16
Part 4: Advanced Blueprints
21
Part 5: Extra Tools

Setting up the enemy actor to navigate

Until now, our targets have been represented by basic cylinder geometry. This worked well for prototyping a non-responsive target that is only present as an aiming challenge for the player. However, an enemy that will move around and present a threat to the player will need a recognizable appearance that will at least indicate its direction of travel to the player. Fortunately for us, Epic has created a freely available asset package for Unreal Engine that we can use to add a humanoid model to our game – one that is suitable for our new enemy type.

In the following sections, we will learn how to import an asset package from the Marketplace, expand the play area, use a navigation mesh, and create the AI assets used by the enemies.

Importing from the Marketplace

First, we'll step out of the Unreal Engine Editor and focus on the Epic Games Launcher.

Follow these steps to import a free asset package from the Marketplace:

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