Unreal Engine 4 Game Development Quick Start Guide: Programming professional 3D games with Unreal Engine 4

✍ Scribed by Rachel Cordone

• Publisher: Packt Publishing Ltd
• Year: 2019
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 195
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Learn how to use Unreal Engine 4 by building 3D and multiplayer games using Blueprints

Key Features

• Learn the fundamentals of Unreal Engine such as project templates, Blueprints, and C++
• Learn to design games; use UMG to create menus and HUDs, and replication to create multiplayer games
• Build dynamic game elements using Animation Blueprints and Behavior Trees

Book Description

Unreal Engine is a popular game engine for developers to build high-end 2D and 3D games.

This book is a practical guide, starting off by quickly introducing you to the Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) ecosystem. You will learn how to create Blueprints and C++ code to define your game's functionality. You will be familiarized with the core systems of UE4 such as UMG, Animation Blueprints, and Behavior Trees. You will also learn how to use replication to create multiplayer games. By the end of this book, you will have a broad, solid knowledge base to expand upon on your journey with UE4.

What you will learn

• Use project templates to give your game a head start
• Create custom Blueprints and C++ classes and extend from Epic's base classes
• Use UMG to create menus and HUDs for your game
• Create more dynamic characters using Animation Blueprints
• Learn how to create complex AI with Behavior Trees
• Use replication to create multiplayer games
• Optimize, test, and deploy a UE4 project

Who this book is for

Readers who already have some game development experience and Unity users who would like to try UE4 will all benefit from this book. Knowledge of basic Object-Oriented Programming topics such as variables, functions, and classes is assumed.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
About Packt
Contributors
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction to Unreal Engine 4
Downloading the UE
Using project templates
Initial project setup
The Unreal editor
The Content Browser
The Viewport
Viewport options
Grid and snap settings
The toolbar
World Outliner
Details and World Settings
World settings
Editor preferences
Project settings
Input settings
Installing and using plugins
Adding marketplace items to your project
Summary
Chapter 2: Programming Using Blueprints
The Blueprint window
Variables
Using variables in the Blueprint window
Working With Object/Actor References
Casting object references
Class default variables
Functions
Local variables
Events
Overridable functions
Graphs
Components
Common components
Component events
Time for action
Creating a Blueprint from scratch
One small material change
Creating a child Blueprint
Giving our game a goal
Summary
Chapter 3: Adding C++ to a Blueprint Project
Technical requirements
Creating C++ classes in UE4
Using C++ classes in UE4
Using C++ variables in Blueprint
Using C++ functions in Blueprint
BlueprintCallable functions
BlueprintPure functions
Using out variables in C++
Using events in C++
Summary
Chapter 4: Creating HUDs and Menus Using UMG
The Widget Blueprint window
Showing Widget Blueprints in our game
Setting up an interactive menu
Commonly used widgets
The Common section 
Button 
Checkbox
Image 
Progress Bar 
Slider 
Text
The Input section
ComboBox 
Editable Text 
The Primitive and Special Effects sections
Circular Throbber and Throbber 
Background Blur 
Using widget events
Widget set nodes
Variable binding
Adding widgets to other widgets
Modifying the Pickup class
Creating the child widget
Creating the container widget
Adding the container to the HUD
Summary
Chapter 5: Animation Blueprints
Creating the attachment
Creating sockets on Skeletal Meshes
Spawning and attaching Actors
Animation retargeting
Setting up the source Skeleton
Setting up the target Skeleton
Retarget the animation
Adding a weapon Equip control
Modifying the Animation Blueprint
The AnimGraph
Modifying an Animation state
Summary
Chapter 6: AI with Behavior Tree and Blackboard
Creating a simple AI
Creating a Pawn for the enemy
Creating a controller for the enemy Pawn
Adding a Nav Mesh
Behavior Trees
Creating and running a Behavior Tree
Setting up a simple Behavior Tree
Setting up a Blackboard
Assigning the Blackboard to a Behavior Tree
Creating a Behavior Tree task
Selectors
Decorators
Services
Setting up Service in Blackboard
Summary
Chapter 7: Multiplayer Games
The client–server model
Testing a listen server
Replication
Variable replication
Event replication
Flow control in multiplayer
Actor replication
Multiplayer classes
GameMode and GameState
PlayerState, PlayerController, and Pawn
Summary
Chapter 8: Optimization, Testing, and Packaging
Optimization
The Profiler
Blueprint Nativization
Debugging in UE4
Packing a project
Summary
Another Book You May Enjoy
Index