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

Level Blueprint Communication

Unreal Engine has a special type of Blueprint called Level Blueprint. Each Level of the game has a default Level Blueprint. They are useful for creating Events and Actions that only happen at the current level. To access the Level Blueprint, click the Blueprints button at the toolbar of the Level Editor and choose the Open Level Blueprint option, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 4.20 – Opening Level Blueprint

In the Level Blueprint, we can easily create references to Actors that are on the Level. To see this in practice, let's create an example where Box Trigger is added to the Level. When an Actor overlaps the trigger, Blueprint_Effect_Sparks is activated, producing the effect of a spark:

  1. Create or use an existing project based on the Third Person template with the starter content.
  2. In the Level Editor, click the Create button located on the toolbar. In the Basic category, there is a Box Trigger...