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

Interacting with the menu

The VR template has a menu system that is activated by pressing the Menu button on the motion controller. The menu system is implemented by the Menu Blueprint and the WidgetMenu Blueprint. Both Blueprints are in the Content > VRTemplate > Blueprints folder.

The events of VRPawn that deal with the menu are InputAction MenuToggleLeft and InputAction MenuToggleRight, which are triggered by the Menu button of the motion controllers. The Menu button is used to show and hide the menu.

The next screenshot shows the InputAction MenuToggleRight event that executes the Toggle Menu function of VRPawn:

Figure 16.28 – The InputAction MenuToggleRight event

The Toggle Menu function checks whether the menu is active. In this case, it calls the Close Menu function of the Menu Blueprint. If the menu is not active, it spawns an instance of the Menu Blueprint:

Figure 16.29 – The Toggle Menu function

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