Good Afternoon fellow developers. I have gotten myself into quite the pickle, and I am hoping some of you out there would be able to help me out. Currently, I am a student, hoping to dive into the world of C++ Programming for Games. My school had recently gone through a lot of changes and new hires, because of this, taking C++ classes had been postponed. Long story short, I am in my first C++ class, however, they had also placed me into a Game Prototyping Class.
I have played around with Blueprints in Unreal 4, however, their are still many things I don’t know. I joined a team in Game Prototyping to reduce my work load, however, their are some things they are asking me to do, that I am not entirely sure how to pull off. If you’re wondering why I am posting here, it is because I feel more conformable utilizing Blueprints to accomplish my desired goals, rather than C++, seeing as I am more experienced with Blueprint at this point. They would like…
A main menu, where I can load a save game, start a new game, and if I am to start a new game, an area to select the characters class, either prior to starting the game, or right when you start the new game. I think I know how to create a character mesh with all its key bindings and animations, but any resources with that would help me out a lot. Spawn mechanics for the zombie things they want to add into the game, with basic AI to have they follow/attack the player. I think I know how to pull off the AI, but not entirely sure how to spawn something. Other than that, a combat system so the play can use a melee weapon and block with a shield, and an inventory system and how to add objects to an inventory.
I understand this is a lot, but my friend told me how helpful the Unreal community is, and I would be very grateful if someone could help me out or point me in the right direction. I am fully aware that I made a mistake taking this class, but I am stuck with it and could really use some help
Heh, that’s a lot of questions. It sounds your question is basically “how do I do everything to make a game”.
You can probably do most of what you want in blueprints and the best place to start is probably to start digging through the official documentation then. For starters:
This should help you with making you main menu and character selection and such: UMG UI Designer | Unreal Engine Documentation
This should help you with making your save file: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Gameplay/SaveGame/Blueprints/index.html
This is a primer on AI’s and behaviors: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Gameplay/AI/index.html
All of those links also should show you the index for the UE4 documentation, so you should be able to dig around for more info. You often won’t find exact solutions to your problems in any documentation or tutorial, so you have to learn to think creatively with how to apply what you have learned to make things work the way you want. Break problems into small steps. For example: Don’t try and “build an inventory system”…instead break it down. 1: add a class of objects to the game that can be picked up, 2:make it so those objects can be saved/loaded 3:decide how those items display on a UI 4:decide how those objects affect the player, 5:etc… 6:etc.
If this is your first full game dev project, DONT be too crazy with what you are trying to build. It’s good to push yourself, but even small first projects will end up bigger than you anticipate. If you have tried to learn something on your own, and you find yourself struggling, it’s also ok to tell your classmates “I’m having trouble here.” If they know how to do it, they can tell you. If they don’t know either, then it’s time to either ask the teacher or you learn together or you rescope the project. That’s how college is supposed to work, at least.
Wow. Theyre pretty much making you do all the work aye?
Go search up on youtube “the massive unreal 4 tutorial playlist” and watch the relevant videos.
Just follow them pretty much step-by-step and you should get a working prototype for everything you need. Dont sweat the small stuff just yet. Get the big picture going and build from there.
We can help you out more once you have a backbone to build off of.
Cheers!