Unreal Engine 5 Game Development with C++ Scripting: Become a professional game developer and create fully functional, high-quality games

Expand your UE5 game development skills by leveraging C++ scripting to improve your game development abilities and gain an understanding of all the elements that go into making a complete end-to-end game

Key Features

• Learn C++ programming as well as C++ scripting for Unreal Engine 5
• Practice the UE5 scripting APIs that you learned through a game project to improve your knowledge and skills
• Increase your knowledge on the essential techniques as well as on the development cycle including design, implementation, and publishing

Book Description

Unreal Engine is one of the most popular game engines in the industry, having created lots of job opportunities. When studios work on games, C++ scripting is mostly used for developing high-quality commercial games owing to its high performance, advanced algorithms, and engineering maintenance. However, C++ scripting presents a barrier to those who don’t come from a programming background. If you're interested in learning C++ and C++ scripting for Unreal, then this is the right book for you. Through an enjoyable learning experience, this book strives to smoothen your learning curve.

You will start by creating an Unreal C++ project from the shooter template and then move onto the generated C++ project and the C++ code inside the Visual Studio editor. This book will systematically introduce you to fundamental C++ syntax and essential object oriented programing concepts. To help you have an overall view of game development, the rest of the book will cover various aspects of the game, including character creation, player input and character control, gameplay, collision detection, UI, networking, and publication for building a complete multiplayer game.

By the end of this book, you will be able to create professional and high-quality games using Unreal Engine 5 with C++ that will give you a sound base to learn more advanced C++ programming and game development technologies.

What you will learn

• Develop coding skills in Microsoft Visual Studio and the Unreal engine editor
• Learn C++ programming as well as Unreal engine C++ scripting
• Understand Object Oriented programming concepts and C++ specific syntax
• Gain fundamental knowledge on the technologies of game math, physics, AI, and algorithms
• Understand and use the predefined Unreal engine classes and the programming mechanism
• Write code to solve practical problems and complete tasks
• Implement solutions and methods that are commonly used in game development

Who This Book Is For

If you're a game designer or artist who has used Unreal Engine before and is keen to explore the enigmatic C++ scripting, then this book is for you. If you want to learn more about the power of C++ and become a skilled and professional game developer or if you're a programmer who wants to learn C++ scripting with UE, you’ve come to the right place. Basic experience with the UE editor is expected as well as some blueprint scripting skills. You should also be familiar with some game-related concepts such as game level, lights, camera, actor/pawn/character, transform, animation, and player control.

Table of Contents

1. Creating your first Unreal C++ game
2. How to edit C++ code in Visual Studio
3. Learning C++ and object oriented programming
4. Investigating into the shooter game’s generated C++ code
5. Learning Unreal C++ scripting basics
6. Creating and destroying the player character
7. Controlling the character
8. Handling collisions
9. C++ scripting miscellanea
10. Controlling the game flow
11. Making it a multiplayer game
12. Polishing and publishing the game

Zhenyu George Li is a passionate video game developer with 20+ years of experience. He has contributed significantly to many games and serves as a senior development consultant at Unity. His early immersion in technologies like C/C++, DirectX, OpenGL, and Windows GUI laid the foundation for his success. Notable titles in his portfolio include Magic Arena, Halo Infinity, Stela, Dead Rising 2, and The Bigs 2. He has gained extensive knowledge in programming, graphics, animation, gameplay, AI, multiplayer, and UI using Unreal and Unity engines. Additionally, he has taught UE at Vancouver Film School and has college teaching experience at College of Interactive Arts and Hefei Union University.