Game Development Patterns with Unreal Engine 5

Improve your game's code with design patterns to make it more readable, reusable, modular, and optimized, guided by an Unreal Authorized Instructor to enhance your overall use of C++ with Unreal Engine

Key Features

• Explore programming patterns, structures, and principles and their applications in Unreal Engine 5 game development
• Translate code from Blueprint to C++ to implement performant solutions in game development
• Build a decoupled communications hierarchy and become a better game developer
• Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Book Description

Design patterns serve as a toolkit of techniques and practices that enable you to write code that’s not only faster, but also more manageable. With this book, you’ll explore a range of design patterns and learn how to apply them to projects developed in Unreal Engine 5.

You’ll begin by delving into the foundational principles of coding and develop a solid understanding of the concepts, challenges, and benefits of using patterns in your code. As you progress, you’ll identify patterns that are woven into the core of Unreal Engine 5 such as Double Buffer, Flyweight, and Spatial Partitioning, followed by some of the existing tool sets that embody patterns in their design and usage including Component, Behavior Tree, and Update.

In the next section of the book, you’ll start developing a series of gameplay use cases in C++ to implement a variety of design patterns such as Interface and Event-based Observers to build a decoupled communications hierarchy. You’ll also work with Singleton, Command, and State, along with Behavioral Patterns, Template, Subclass Sandbox, and Type Object. The final section focuses on using design patterns for optimization, covering Dirty Flag, Data Locality, and Object Pooling.

By the end, you’ll be proficient in designing systems with the perfect C++/Blueprint blend for maintainable and scalable systems.

What you will learn

• Grasp the essence of design patterns and their inherent utility
• Understand the layers within UE 5 and how they work together
• Identify the relationship between C++ code and Blueprint in Unreal Engine 5
• Recognize the design patterns found within existing Unreal Engine 5 functions
• Explore design patterns to understand their purpose and application within Unreal Engine 5
• Creatively apply design patterns to existing code to overcome common challenges

Who this book is for

If you are a beginner or intermediate game developer working with Unreal Engine and looking to improve your C++ coding practices, this book is tailor-made to help you produce clean, reusable code through the application of design patterns.

While this book will cover introductory tasks to show the fundamentals of Unreal Engine 5, its primary purpose is not to teach Unreal Engine from scratch. Prior experience with Unreal Engine will be beneficial, but don’t fret if your knowledge isn’t in-depth; the book will introduce tools and features as needed.

Table of Contents

1. Understanding Unreal Engine 5 and its layers
2. “Hello Patterns”
3. UE5 patterns in action: Double Buffer, Flyweight and Spatial Partitioning
4. Premade Patterns in UE5: Component, Behaviour Tree and Update Method
5. Forgetting Tick
6. Clean communication: Interface and Event Observer patterns
7. A perfectly decoupled system
8. Building Design Patterns: Singleton, Command and State
9. Structuring Code with Behavioural Patterns: Template, Subclass Sandbox and Type Object
10. Optimisation Through Patterns

Stuart Butler is an Unreal Engine Expert with over 13 years of experience in teaching Games Development in Higher Education. Stuart has published projects in a multitude of disciplines including Technical Design, Art, and Animation. Stuart is the Course Director for Games Technology at Staffordshire University, responsible for the programming team within the UK's largest Games Education Department. Stuart is also an Unreal Authorised Instructor and Educational Content Creator who works with Epic Games on developing learning materials for Unreal Engine 5. Stuart holds a BSc (Hons) in Computer Games Design and a PgC in Higher and Professional Education.

Tom Oliver is a game programmer with over 10 years of experience in working with game engines both commercially and in an educational capacity. He has used Unreal Engine for contract work both in and out of the games industry, creating systems for games to mixed reality training simulations. Tom is the Course Leader for the BSc (Hons) Computer Games Design and Programming program at Staffordshire University, responsible for maintaining the award winning structure and teaching of the course in the UK's largest Games Education Department. Tom holds a BSc (Hons) in Computer Games Design and Programming and a PGc in Higher and Professional Education. Tom specialises in researching gameplay systems driven through mathematical phenomena.