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

Storing values in variables

A variable is a programming concept. It consists of an identifier that points to a memory location where a value can be stored. For example, a character in a game may have variables to store the value of its health, its speed, and the quantity of ammunition.

A Blueprint can have many variables of various types. The variables of a Blueprint are listed on the My Blueprint panel. Clicking the + button in the VARIABLES category creates a variable:

Figure 2.1 – Creating a variable

The type of a variable defines the content that a variable can store. Blueprint is a strongly typed language. This means that you must define the variable type when creating the variable, and this type cannot be modified during program execution.

When you create a variable, its attributes are displayed in the Details panel. The first attribute of a variable is its name, and the second attribute is its type. The various types are as follows:

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