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

Exploring State Machines

A State Machine in the AnimGraph allows you to organize the animation into a series of states. To exemplify this, we will create a State Machine with two states: idle and moving.

We need to define Transition Rules to control the transition from one state to another.

Follow these steps to create the State Machine:

  1. Remove the other animation nodes and leave only the Output Pose node in the AnimGraph.
  2. Right-click on the AnimGraph, search for state machine, and select Add New State Machine…:

Figure 17.18 – Adding a State Machine

  1. Rename the State Machine to Char States. You can rename it in the Details panel. Connect the white icon of the State Machine to the white icon of the Output Pose node:

Figure 17.19 – Connecting the State Machine to the Output Pose node

  1. Double-click on the Char States node to edit the State Machine. Then, right-click on the graph and...