Blueprints Visual Scripting for Unreal Engine 5: Unleash the true power of Blueprints to create impressive games and applications in UE5

Cover
Title page
Copyright and Credits
Contributors
About the reviewer
Table of Contents
Preface
Part 1: Blueprint Fundamentals
Chapter 1: Exploring the Blueprint Editor
	Installing Unreal Engine
	Creating new projects and using templates
	Blueprints Visual Scripting
		Opening the Level Blueprint Editor
		Creating a Blueprint Class
	The Blueprint Class Editor interface
		The Toolbar panel
		The Components panel
		The My Blueprint panel
		The Details panel
		The Viewport panel
		The Event Graph panel
	Adding Components to a Blueprint
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 2: Programming with Blueprints
	Storing values in variables
	Defining the behavior of a Blueprint with events and actions
		Events
		Actions
		The execution path
	Creating expressions with operators
		Arithmetic operators
		Relational operators
		Logical operators
	Organizing the script with macros and functions
		Creating macros
		Creating functions
		Step-by-step example
		Macros versus functions versus events
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 3: Object-Oriented Programming and the Gameplay Framework
	Getting familiar with OOP
		Classes
		Instances
		Inheritance
	Managing Actors
		Referencing Actors
		Spawning and destroying Actors
		Construction Script
	Exploring the other Gameplay Framework classes
		Pawn
		Character
		PlayerController
		Game Mode Base
		Game Instance
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 4: Understanding Blueprint Communication
	Direct Blueprint Communication
	Casting in Blueprints
	Level Blueprint Communication
	Event Dispatchers
	Binding Events
	Summary
	Quiz
Part 2: Developing a Game
Chapter 5: Object Interaction with Blueprints
	Creating the project and the first Level
	Adding objects to our Level
	Exploring Materials
		Creating Materials
		Material properties and nodes
		Adding substance to our Material
	Creating the target Blueprint
		Detecting a hit
		Swapping a Material
		Improving the Blueprint
	Adding movement
		Changing the Actor's Mobility and Collision settings
		Breaking down our goal
		Readying direction for calculations
		Getting relative speed using delta time
		Updating location
	Changing direction
		Testing moving targets
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 6: Enhancing Player Abilities
	Adding the running functionality
		Breaking down the character movement
		Customizing control inputs
		Adding a Sprint ability
	Animating a zoomed view
		Using a timeline to smooth transitions
	Increasing the projectile's speed
	Adding sound and particle effects
		Changing target states with branches
		Triggering sound effects, explosions, and destruction
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 7: Creating Screen UI Elements
	Creating simple UI meters with UMG
		Drawing shapes with Widget Blueprints
		Customizing the meter's appearance
		Creating ammo and targets eliminated counters
		Displaying the HUD
	Connecting UI values to player variables
		Creating bindings for health and stamina
		Making text bindings for the ammo and targets eliminated counters
	Tracking the ammo and targets eliminated
		Reducing the ammo counter
		Increasing the targets eliminated counter
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 8: Creating Constraints and Gameplay Objectives
	Constraining player actions
		Draining and regenerating stamina
		Preventing firing actions when out of ammo
	Creating collectible objects
	Setting a gameplay win condition
		Displaying a target goal in the HUD
		Creating a win menu screen
		Displaying the WinMenu
		Triggering a win
	Summary
	Quiz
Part 3: Enhancing the Game
Chapter 9: Building Smart Enemies with Artificial Intelligence
	Setting up the enemy actor to navigate
		Importing from the Marketplace
		Expanding the play area
		Making the level traversable with a NavMesh asset
		Creating the AI assets
		Setting up the BP_EnemyCharacter Blueprint
	Creating navigation behavior
		Setting up patrol points
		Creating the Blackboard keys
		Creating the variables in BP_EnemyCharacter
		Updating the current patrol point key
		Overlapping a patrol point
		Running the Behavior Tree in the AI Controller
		Teaching our AI to walk with the Behavior Tree
		Selecting the patrol points in the BP_EnemyCharacter instance
	Making the AI chase the player
		Giving the enemy sight with PawnSensing
		Creating a Behavior Tree Task
		Adding conditions to the Behavior Tree
		Creating a chasing behavior
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 10: Upgrading the AI Enemies
	Creating an enemy attack
		Making an attack task
		Using the attack task in the Behavior Tree
		Updating the health meter
	Making enemies hear and investigate sounds
		Adding hearing to the Behavior Tree
		Setting up the investigating tasks
		Creating variables and a macro to update the blackboard
		Interpreting and storing the noise Event data
		Adding noise to the player's actions
	Making the enemies destructible
	Spawning more enemies during gameplay
		Creating the BP_EnemySpawner blueprint
	Creating enemy wandering behavior
		Identifying a wander point with a custom task
		Adding wandering to the Behavior Tree
		Last adjustments and test
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 11: Game States and Applying the Finishing Touches
	Making danger real with player death
		Setting up a lose screen
		Showing the lose screen
	Creating round-based scaling with saved games
		Storing game information using the SaveGame class
		Saving game information
		Loading game information
		Increasing the TargetGoal
		Creating a transition screen to be shown between rounds
		Transitioning to a new round when the current round is won
	Pausing the game and resetting the save file
		Creating a pause menu
		Resuming the game
		Resetting the save file
		Triggering the pause menu
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 12: Building and Publishing
	Optimizing your graphics settings
	Setting up our game to be played by others
	Packaging the game into a build
	Build configurations and packaging settings
	Summary
	Quiz
Part 4: Advanced Blueprints
Chapter 13: Data Structures and Flow Control
	Exploring different types of containers
		Array
		Set
		Map
	Exploring other data structures
		Enumerations
		Structures
		Data tables
	Flow control nodes
		Switch nodes
		Flip Flop
		Sequence
		For Each Loop
		Do Once
		Do N
		Gate
		MultiGate
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 14: Math and Trace Nodes
	World and relative transforms
	Points and vectors
		Representation of a vector
		Vector operations
	Introduction to traces and trace functions
		Traces for objects
		Traces by channel
		Shape traces
		Debug lines
		Example of vectors and trace nodes
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 15: Blueprints Tips
	Blueprint Editor shortcuts
	Blueprint best practices
		Blueprint responsibilities
		Managing Blueprint complexities
	Using miscellaneous Blueprint nodes
		Select
		Teleport
		Format Text
		Math Expression
		Set View Target with Blend
		AttachActorToComponent
		Enable Input and Disable Input
		The Set Input Mode nodes
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 16: Introduction to VR Development
	Exploring the VR template
	The VRPawn Blueprint
	Teleportation
	Object grabbing
	Blueprint Communication using interfaces
	Interacting with the menu
	Summary
	Quiz
Part 5: Extra Tools
Chapter 17: Animation Blueprints
	Animation overview
		Animation Editor
		Skeleton and Skeletal Mesh
		Animation Sequence
		Blend Space
	Creating Animation Blueprints
		EventGraph
		AnimGraph
	Exploring State Machines
	Importing the Animation Starter Pack
	Adding Animation States
		Modifying the Character Blueprint
		Modifying the Animation Blueprint
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 18: Creating Blueprint Libraries and Components
	Blueprint Macro and Function libraries
		A Blueprint Function Library example
		Creating the third function and testing
	Creating Actor Components
		Testing the Actor Component
	Creating Scene Components
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 19: Procedural Generation
	Procedural generation with the Construction Script
		Creating the script to add the instances on the level
	Creating Blueprint Splines
		A Spline Mesh component
	Editor Utility Blueprint
		Creating an Actor Action Utility
	Summary
	Quiz
Chapter 20: Creating a Product Configurator Using the Variant Manager
	The Product Configurator template
	The Variant Manager panel and Variant Sets
	The BP_Configurator Blueprint
	UMG Widget Blueprints
	Summary
	Epilogue
	Quiz
Appendix
Index
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