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

Direct Blueprint Communication

Direct Blueprint Communication is a simple method of communication between Blueprints/Actors. It is used by creating an object reference variable that stores a reference to another Actor/Blueprint. Then, we can call Actions using this object reference variable as the Target input parameter of these Actions.

As an example, let's create a Blueprint called BP_LightSwitch. The BP_LightSwitch Blueprint has an object reference variable of the Point Light type that references a Point Light placed in the Level. When the player overlaps the BP_LightSwitch Blueprint on the Level, it toggles the visibility of the Point Light.

To create the Blueprint, follow these steps:

  1. Open any existing project that you created that contains starter content or create one if you want.
  2. Click on the Content Drawer button to open Content Browser, then click the Add button and select Blueprint Class.
  3. On the next screen, choose Actor as the parent class.
  4. ...