Introduction

Welcome to Game Development Projects with Unreal Engine. If this is the first time you're using Unreal Engine 4 (UE4), this book will support you in getting started with one of the most in-demand game engines on the market. You will discover how to build up your game development skills and how to express yourself through the creation of your own video games. If you've already tried using UE4, this book will help you further develop your knowledge and skills, so you can build games more easily and effectively.

A game engine is a software application that allows you to produce video games from the ground up. Their feature sets vary significantly but usually allow you to import multimedia files, such as 3D models, images, audio, and video, and manipulate those files through the use of programming, where you can use programming languages such as C++, Python, and Lua, among others.

Unreal Engine 4 uses two main programming languages, C++ and Blueprint, the latter being a visual scripting language that allows you to do most of what C++ also allows. Although we will be teaching a bit of Blueprint in this book, we will be focusing mostly on C++, and hence expect you to have a basic understanding of the language, including topics such as Variables, Functions, Classes, Inheritance, and Polymorphism. We will remind you about these topics throughout the book where appropriate.

Examples of popular video games made with Unreal Engine 4 include Fortnite, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Borderlands 3, Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, Gears 5, and Sea of Thieves, among many others. All of these have a very high level of visual fidelity, are well-known, and have or had millions of players.

At the following link, you'll be able to see some of the great games made with Unreal Engine 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrPc2L0rfN4. This showcase will show you the variety of games that Unreal Engine 4 allows you to make, both in visual and gameplay style.

If you'd like to one day make games such as the ones shown in the video, or contribute to them in any way, you've taken the first step in that direction.

We'll now begin with this first step, where we will start learning about the Unreal Engine editor. We will learn about its interface, how to manipulate objects inside a level, how to create our own objects, how to use the Blueprint scripting language, and what the main game events do, as well as how to create materials for meshes.

Let's start this chapter by learning how to create a new Unreal Engine 4 project in this first exercise.

Note

Before you continue this chapter, make sure you have installed all the necessary software mentioned in the Preface.

Exercise 1.01: Creating an Unreal Engine 4 Project

In this first exercise, we will learn how to create a new Unreal Engine 4 project. UE4 has predefined project templates which allow you to implement a basic setup for your project. We'll be using the Third Person template project in this exercise.

The following steps will help you complete this exercise:

1. After installing Unreal Engine version 4.24, launch the editor by clicking the Launch button of the version icon.
2. After you've done so, you'll be greeted with the engine's projects window, which will show you the existing projects that you can open and work on and also give you the option to create a new project. Because we have no projects yet, the Recent Projects section will be empty. To create a new project, you'll first have to choose Project Category, which in our case will be Games.
3. After you've selected that option, click the Next button. After that, you'll see the project templates window. This window will show all the available project templates in the Unreal Engine. When creating a new project, instead of having that project start off empty, you have the option to add some assets and code out of the box, which you can then modify to your liking. There are several project templates available for different types of games, but we'll want to go with the Third Person project template in this case.
4. Select that template and click the Next button, which should take you to the Project Settings window.

   In this window, you'll be able to choose a few options related to your project:

   • Blueprint or C++: Choose whether you want to be able to add C++ classes. The default option may be Blueprint, but in our case, we'll want to select the C++ option.
   • Quality: Choose whether you want your project to have high-quality graphics or high performance. You can set this option to Maximum Quality.
   • Raytracing: Choose whether you want Raytracing enabled or disabled. Raytracing is a novel graphics rendering technique which allows you to render objects by simulating the path of light (using light rays) over a digital environment. Although this technique is rather costly in terms of performance, it also provides much more realistic graphics, especially when it comes to lighting. You can set it to disabled.
   • Target Platforms: Choose the main platforms you'll want this project to run on. Set this option to Desktop/Console.
   • Starter Content: Choose whether you want this project to come with an additional set of basic assets. Set this option to With Starter Content.
   • Location and Name: At the bottom of the window, you'll be able to choose the location where your project will be stored on your computer and its name.
5. After you've made sure that all the options are set to their intended values, click the Create Project button. This will cause your project to be created according to the parameters you set and may take a few minutes until it's ready.

Let's now start learning about Unreal Engine 4 by performing the steps in the next section, where we'll learn some of the basics of using the editor.