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

Blueprint Editor shortcuts

In the Blueprint Editor, we are going to work with variables a lot, so let's start with the shortcuts related to variables.

When you drag a variable from the My Blueprint panel and drop it in EventGraph, a submenu appears for you to choose either the GET or SET nodes. However, there are shortcuts to create GET and SET nodes. If you hold the Ctrl key and drag a variable to the graph, then the editor will create a GET node. To create a SET node, hold the Alt key and drag a variable to the graph. The following screenshot shows the GET and SET nodes:

Figure 15.1 – Shortcuts to create GET and SET nodes

There is another way to create GET and SET nodes. If you drag a variable and drop it on a compatible pin of another node, then the editor will create a GET or SET node depending on the parameter type.

The following screenshot shows an example of the Score variable being dropped on an input parameter pin. If the pin is...