Elevating game experiences with Unreal Engine 5 / Gonçalo Marques, Devin Sherry, David Pereira, Hammad Fozi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Marques, Gonçalo, author.

Fozi, Hammad, author.

Pereira, David, author.

Sherry, Devin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Computer games--Development.

Computer games.

Video games--Programming.

Video games.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (760 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

2nd ed.

Distribution:

London : Bloomsbury Publishing (UK), 2024.

Place of Publication:

Birmingham : Packt Publishing, 2022.

System Details:

text file HTML

Biography/History:

Marques Goncalo: Goncalo Marques has been an active gamer since the age of 6. He has been using Unreal Engine since 2016 and has done freelance and consulting work using the engine. Goncalo also released a free and open source plugin called UI Navigation, which has garnered an extremely positive reception with over 100, 000 downloads and is still receiving frequent updates and fixes. Thanks to the development of this plugin, he became an Epic MegaGrant recipient. He is now working at Funcom ZPX, a game studio in Lisbon that has contributed to games such as Conan Exiles, Mutant Year Zero, and Moons of Madness. Goncalo is currently working on a new Funcom game in the Dune universe. Sherry Devin: Devin Sherry is originally from Levittown, NY, located on Long Island. He studied the topics of Game Development and Game Design at the University of Advancing Technology where he had earned his Bachelor of Arts in Game Design in 2012. During his time in college, Devin worked as a game and level designer with a group of students called Autonomous Games on a real-time strategy styled, third-person shooter called The Afflicted using Unreal Engine 3/UDK where it was presented at GDC in 2013 at the GDC Play Showcase. Today, Devin works as an independent game developer located in Tempe, Arizona, where he works on personal and contracted projects. His achievements include the title Radial Impact, which can be found in the Community Contributions section of the Learn Tab of Unreal Engine 4's Launcher, and his work on his YouTube Channel, Devin Level Design, where he educates viewers on game development within Unreal Engine 3, UDK, and Unreal Engine 4. Pereira David: David Pereira started making games in 1998 when he learned how to use Clickteam's The Games Factory. He graduated in computer science from FCT-UNL, where he learned about C++, OpenGL, and DirectX, which allowed him to create more complex games. After working in IT consulting for a few years, he joined Miniclip in Portugal where he worked on popular mobile games such as 8 Ball Pool, Gravity Guy 1 and Gravity Guy 2, Extreme Skater, iStunt2, Hambo, and many others. Since then, he has been the lead developer for MPC in the John Lewis Christmas VR Experience, worked on an earlier version of Mortal Shell, and did volunteer work teaching people with Asperger's how to make games with Unreal Engine 4. Today, he's working on his own game, a soon-to-be-announced first-person action RPG. Fozi Hammad: Hammad Fozi comes from a gaming background and has been extensively working on Unreal Engine since 2017. He has been part of some very successful AAA projects such as Virtua FanCave (and Metaverse), Unnamed AAA Sci-Fi DJ Experience, Heroes and Generals, and Creed: Rise to Glory VR. Hammad has worked with teams who have had experience working at Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Games, 2K Games, and more! He has successfully helped teams consisting of 1030 people to scale to 150+ in size over his very short yet impressive career. Hammad currently works as a senior C++ game developer and has extensive experience in working with VR and augmented reality, PC/PS5/Xbox/Android/iOS/macOS game development, and Web3/Metaverse/NFT systems (within Unreal Engine).

Summary:

Immerse yourself in the Unreal game projects with this book, written by four highly experienced industry professionals with many years of combined experience with Unreal Engine. Elevating Game Experiences with Unreal Engine 5 will walk you through the latest version of Unreal Engine by helping you get hands-on with the game creation projects.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright and Credits

Dedications

Contributors

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction to Unreal Engine

Technical requirements

Exercise 1.01 - creating an Unreal Engine 5 project

Getting to know Unreal Engine

Exploring editor windows

Viewport navigation

Manipulating Actors

Exercise 1.02 - adding and removing Actors

Understanding Blueprint Actors

Exercise 1.03 - creating Blueprint Actors

Exploring the Blueprint editor

Exploring the Event Graph window

Exercise 1.04 - creating Blueprint variables

Exercise 1.05 - creating Blueprint functions

Understanding the Multiply node

Exploring the BeginPlay and Tick events

Exercise 1.06 - offsetting the TestActor class on the Z-axis

The ThirdPersonCharacter Blueprint class

Exploring the usage of meshes and materials

Meshes

Materials

Manipulating materials in UE5

Activity 1.01 - propelling TestActor on the Z-axis indefinitely

Summary

Chapter 2: Working with Unreal Engine

Creating and setting up a blank C++ project

Exercise 2.01 - creating an empty C++ project

The Content folder's structure in Unreal Engine

Working with the Visual Studio solution

Debugging code in Visual Studio

Exercise 2.02 - debugging the Third Person template code

Importing the required assets

Exercise 2.03 - importing a character FBX file

The Unreal Game Mode class

Game Mode default classes

Gameplay events

Networking

GameModeBase versus Game Mode

Understanding levels and the Level Blueprint

The Unreal Pawn class

The Unreal Player Controller class

Exercise 2.04 - setting up the Game Mode, Player Controller, and Pawn classes

Working with animations

Animation Blueprints

Event Graph

The Anim Graph

State Machines

Transition Rules.

Blend Spaces

Activity 2.01 - linking animations to a character

Chapter 3: Character Class Components and Blueprint Setup

The Unreal Character class

Extending the C++ class with Blueprints

Chapter 4: Getting Started with Player Input

Understanding Input Actions and Contexts

Exercise 4.01 - creating the movement and jump input actions

Processing Player Input

Exercise 4.02 - listening to movement and jump input actions

Turning the camera around the character

Activity 4.01 - adding walking logic to our character

Chapter 5: Query with Line Traces

Introduction to collision

Setting up your project

Exercise 5.01: Converting DodgeballCharacter to a top-down perspective

Understanding Line Traces

Creating the EnemyCharacter C++ class

Exercise 5.02: Creating the CanSeeActor function that executes Line Traces

Visualizing the Line Trace

Exercise 5.03: Creating the LookAtActor function

Creating the EnemyCharacter Blueprint Class

Sweep Traces

Exercise 5.04: Executing a Sweep Trace

Changing the Visibility Trace Response

Multi Line Traces

The Camera Trace Channel

Exercise 5.05: Creating a custom EnemySight Trace Channel

Activity 5.01: Creating the SightSource property

Chapter 6: Setting Up Collision Objects

Understanding object collision in UE5

Understanding collision components

Understanding collision events

Understanding collision channels

Exercise 6.01 - creating the Dodgeball class

Creating Physical Materials

Exercise 6.02 - adding a ProjectileMovementComponent to DodgeballProjectile

Introducing timers

Understanding how to spawn actors.

Exercise 6.03 - adding projectile-throwing logic to the EnemyCharacter class

Creating the Wall classes

Exercise 6.04 - creating Wall classes

Creating the VictoryBox actor

Exercise 6.05 - creating the VictoryBox class

Exercise 6.06 - adding the ProjectileMovementComponent getter function to DodgeballProjectile

Activity 6.01 - replacing the SpawnActor function with SpawnActorDeferred in EnemyCharacter

Chapter 7: Working with UE5 Utilities

Good practices - loose coupling

Blueprint Function Libraries

Exercise 7.01 - moving the CanSeeActor function to the Blueprint Function Library

Actor components

Exercise 7.02 - creating the HealthComponent Actor component

Exercise 7.03 - integrating the HealthComponent Actor component

Exploring interfaces

Blueprint native events

Exercise 7.04 - creating the HealthInterface class

Activity 7.01 - moving the LookAtActor logic to an Actor component

Chapter 8: Creating User Interfaces with UMG

Game UI

UMG basics

Exercise 8.01 - creating a Widget Blueprint

Introducing anchors

Exercise 8.02 - editing UMG anchors

Exercise 8.03 - creating the RestartWidget C++ class

Exercise 8.04 - creating the logic for adding the RestartWidget class to the screen

Exercise 8.05 - setting up the DodgeballPlayerController blueprint class

Understanding progress bars

Exercise 8.06 - creating the health bar C++ logic

Activity 8.01 - improving the RestartWidget class

Chapter 9: Adding Audio-Visual Elements

Audio in UE5

Exercise 9.01 - Importing an audio file

Exercise 9.02 - Playing a sound when the dodgeball bounces off a surface

Sound attenuation

Exercise 9.03 - Turning the bounce sound into a 3D sound.

Exercise 9.04 - Adding background music to our game

Understanding Particle Systems

Exercise 9.05 - Spawning a Particle System when the dodgeball hits the player

Activity 9.01 - Playing a sound when the dodgeball hits the player

Exploring level design

Exercise 9.06 - Building a level blockout

Extra features

Chapter 10: Creating the SuperSideScroller Game

Project breakdown

The player character

Converting the Third Person template into a side-scroller

Exercise 10.01 - Creating the side-scroller project and using the Character Movement component

Activity 10.01 - Making our character jump higher

Exploring the features of our side-scroller game

Enemy character

Power-ups

Collectibles

Heads-Up Display (HUD)

Exercise 10.02 - Exploring the Persona Editor and manipulating the default mannequin skeleton weights

Activity 10.02 - Skeletal bone manipulation and animations

Understanding animations in Unreal Engine 5

Skeletons

Skeletal Meshes

Animation sequences

Exercise 10.03 - Importing and setting up the character and animation

Activity 10.03 - Importing more custom animations to preview the character running

Chapter 11: Working with Blend Space 1D, Key Bindings, and State Machines

Creating Blend Spaces

Blend Space 1D versus normal Blend Space

Exercise 11.01 - creating the CharacterMovement Blend Space 1D

Activity 11.01 - adding the Walking and Running animations to the Blend Space

The Main Character Animation Blueprint

Exercise 11.02 - adding the Blend Space to the character Animation Blueprint

What are velocity vectors?

Exercise 11.03 - passing the character's Speed variable into the Blend Space

Activity 11.02 - previewing the Running animation in-game.

Enhanced input system

Exercise 11.04 - adding input for sprinting

Exercise 11.05 - reparenting the character Blueprint

Exercise 11.06 - coding the character's sprint functionality

Activity 11.03 - implementing the throwing input

Using Animation State Machines

Exercise 11.07 - player character movement and jump state machine

Transition rules

Exercise 11.08 - adding states and transition rules to the state machine

Exercise 11.09 - The Time Remaining Ratio function

Activity 11.04 - finishing the Movement and Jumping state machines

Chapter 12: Animation Blending and Montages

Animation blending, Anim Slots, and Animation Montages

Exercise 12.01 - Setting up the Animation Montage

Animation Montages

Exercise 12.02 - Adding the Throw animation to the montage

Anim Slot Manager

Exercise 12.03 - Adding a new Anim Slot

Save Cached Pose

Exercise 12.04 - Save Cached Pose of the Movement State Machine

Layered blend per bone

Exercise 12.05 - Blending animation with the Upper Body Anim Slot

Exercise 12.06 - Previewing the Throw animation

The SuperSideScroller game enemy

Exercise 12.07 - Creating the enemy base C++ class

Exercise 12.08 - Creating and applying the enemy Animation Blueprint

Materials and Material Instances

Exercise 12.09 - Creating and applying the enemy Material Instance

Activity 12.01 - Updating Blend Weights

Chapter 13: Creating and Adding the Enemy Artificial Intelligence

Enemy AI

AI Controller

Auto Possess AI

Exercise 13.01 - implementing AI Controllers

Navigation Mesh

Exercise 13.02 - implementing a Nav Mesh Volume for the AI enemy

Recasting the Nav Mesh

Exercise 13.03 - recasting Nav Mesh Volume parameters

Activity 13.01 - creating a new level.

Behavior trees and Blackboards.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

9781803248097

1803248092

OCLC:

1346149981