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

Editor Utility Blueprint

Editor Utility Blueprint is a type of Blueprint that is executed only in the Unreal Editor. You can use them to manipulate Assets in the content browser and Actors in the level.

There is also Editor Utility Widget, which is a UMG widget that we can use to create panels for the Unreal Editor with new functionalities.

We can create Editor Utility Blueprint and Editor Utility Widget by accessing the Editor Utilities submenu in the Asset creation menu:

Figure 19.29 – Menu options to create Editor Utility Blueprints

Right-click on the EventGraph of an Editor Utility Blueprint and look in the Editor Scripting category to get an idea of the functions available to script the Editor:

Figure 19.30 – The Editor Scripting category and subcategories

The functions created in an Editor Utility Blueprint will appear in the Script Actions submenu when you right-click an Asset or an Actor in the level....