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

Creating Blueprint Splines

A Spline is a special mathematical function used to define curves. A Blueprint Spline component can be used to define a path to move Actors in the level. We can also get locations along the path to place instances. We can edit the spline in the Level Editor by adding, translating, and rotating spline points.

The next screenshot shows three common functions of the Spline component:

Figure 19.16 – Some functions of the Spline component

Here is a description of the functions:

  • Get Spline Length: This function returns a Float value with the length of the Spline.
  • Get Location at Distance Along Spline: This function receives Distance as an input parameter and returns the location found in the Spline. Coordinate Space can be Local (relative) or World.
  • Get Rotation at Distance Along Spline: The same idea as the previous function, but it returns the rotation.

We will create a Blueprint named BP_SplinePlacement...