Object Movement - Easy ?

Development Programming & Scripting Blueprint
1

Hello All,

I’m trying my best to not fight with Blueprints until I’ll enjoy it! :slight_smile:
Unfortunately, I’m only familiar with an old visual scripting such as ClickTeam’s Fusion and Scirra’s Construct 2: both based on nested events that are extremely easy to follow, so the Blueprints are still new to me as it’s based on nodes and lots of terms in the nodes that I have no idea how to begin with when I want to do something specific.

I did follow some video tutorials on YouTube more than once (official and none official) and started to get the idea and fall in love with the blueprints idea but… when I wanted to do start something from scratch by myself, I got lost immediately because of confusion and no experiment in the are.

That’s why I really need your help in this, and I have a good feeling that it may help others like me in the future.

WHAT I’M TRYING TO DO:

I believe that the most basic satisfaction for me to learn and understand will be to Control a CUBE object and move it with the keyboard buttons, make it jump, or maybe even later… shoot?

Early Problems:
But before I get into the blueprints I already got lost on the creating game mode, because on my new scene (with the floor and start player) there are already modes and Player Start and other stuff that I don’t need… and not sure if I’ll just delete them from the scene it will also get rid of some modes that hiding in some other menus. as you can see… I’m already confused.
All I want is to start from scratch, build the simple Cube moving on a plane from the ground and start to add more to it it will be a GREAT WAY to learn how to play with blueprints and I’m very excited about it!

I’ve upgraded to the 4.11 Preview 6 so the video tutorials on YouTube are showing older versions with some menu differences and I go lost easily, even when it comes to create a Game Mode.
The Input part is very clear and easy to follow, I really like how it let me add any extra keyboard button I want to use.

The easiest for me to follow and learn will probably be more visual step-by-step via a video tutorial because of my bad English.
I’m learning a lot by watching that’s for sure.

So please…
If any of you have the time or patience to make a short video tutorial that show how to do the simple friendly Cube object moving as I describe… it will be very helpful and encouraging.

I don’t want to give up on blueprints… it looks so much powerful and friendly once I’ll get into it (hopefully I’m not wrong and it’s not getting SCARY).

Thanks ahead, and sorry about my bad English.

2

My Advice,

Don’t think about “Start From Scratch”. It makes no sense to use a game engine and then try to start from scratch. You can’t start from scratch making a video game, everything depends on libraries already written.

Just use the system as it’s given when you are starting out with it. If you don’t like the framework that’s given, use another game engine that your more comfortable. It’s very flexible, so I can’t think of a game-type that you couldn’t make with it.

Start with a project template and see how it’s put together before starting with a blank project. Such as top-down shooter.

3

Thanks for the reply mikepurivis!

Actually that’s what I’ve tried, I did look on the blueprints on other templates and got lost easily.
While following some video tutorials it helped me to understand better how things work but it was for very specific things.

It’s true, I feel more comfortable on the other game engines, almost natural and I can program anything easy because I understand how to do anything. but these engines are 2D… and I really love Unreal Engine and that I can do 2D or 3D with much more power.

When trying other engines I always start with: how to move an object.
it seems the most basic “almost like a game” feel, and in Unreal it is much more complicated for me.

That’s why I’m looking for a step-by-step video tutorial for what I’ve describe, I believe it will let me understand better the process of how to do a very specific thing that is uses in almost any simple game: movement of an object from scratch.

But I didn’t found any video tutorial like that, especially not for the latest version.

4

Hey Kayoto! Have you checked out the third person game with blueprints tutorial? It helped me a lot in getting my first playable character set up. If you want to just use a cube, you can probably skip some of the animation sections. Good luck!

5

The reason why there’s a bit more invloved with “just” getting an object to move is because you are dealing with multiple systems. Input, Controller, and Pawn. In simpler engines it is easier to do the simple, take input and move something, but then it becomes impossible to do more complicated things because they lack systems.

It takes some time to learn Unreal, but it’s worth it.

Here is the start of a beginner tutorial series. I have not watched it myself so don’t know if it’s very bad. But, it looks like it introduces you to the different systems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M3S3eiJK5I

6

I highly recommend you watch some video tutorials before diving in. No shame having your handheld until after youve got the basics of how thenengine works (pawns, possesion, controllers, and inputs are the basics relevant to your case as mikepurvis has said). Once youre familiar with the basics, playing around with and extending the already available systems will feel much more natural.