Rachel Cordone - Unreal Engine 4 Game Development Quick Start Guide: Programming professional 3D games with Unreal Engine 4

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First published: May 2019

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Rachel Cordone is a game designer and programmer who has been working with the Unreal Engine since the 1990's. She has worked with various game and simulation companies since 2003 on everything from PC, console, mobile, to VR and AR projects. For the past decade, Rachel has offered remote contract programming services to training software development companies including Northrop Grumman and Parsons Brinkerhoff. On the side, she makes video games through her company, Stubborn Horse Studios. She also wrote the book Unreal Development Kit Game Programming with UnrealScript for Packt.

Katax Emperore first encountered digital games when he got the Fire Attack series by Nintendo. One game stuck with him, a platform-based game called Shadow of the Beast by Psygnosis. He designs, develops, and teaches game design and programming. The Amiga platform created a high-quality gaming experience supported by an advanced architecture. It was a popular computer with real stereo sound, supported by advanced Direct Memory Access technology. He learned many aspects of programming, multitasking, DMA, interactive applications, I/O port mappings, graphic design, and 3D programming. When Microsoft introduced Windows 98, he learned programming, and 3D and graphic design, which led him to dedicate his education and career to the IT industry.

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Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) can make developing your own games simple, even for those who have no prior programming experience. This book will get you up to speed with the major features of UE4 quickly, and leave you with the resources required to expand your knowledge through other tutorials and official documentation.

Each chapter builds and expands on a working game. It won't be anything fancy, but you'll be able to see how UE4's systems interact by means of a working example.

This book is aimed at readers who already have some game development experience and would suit Unity users who would like to try UE4. It is assumed that the reader has knowledge of basic object-oriented programming topics such as variables, functions, and classes.

, Introduction to Unreal Engine 4 , looks into how Unreal Engine can be downloaded and installed. We will get a head start on the project's development. We will also learn how to use plugins and marketplace items to expand on the editor's capabilities and further simplify our own project's development.

, Programming Using Blueprints , shows how to create custom Blueprint classes and use variables and functions within Blueprint classes. You will also gain an understanding of the differences between functions and events.

, Adding C++ to a Blueprint Project , covers creating and using classes in UE4. You will also learn to create custom Blueprint Events in C++.