Unreal Engine 4 C++ The Ultimate Shooter Course

Everything you learn in this course will translate to Unreal Engine 5. Unreal Engine 5 uses the same code base as Unreal Engine 4, so when UE5 is released, you will be prepared to use the world's leading game development engine!

Take the most comprehensive game development course on the internet! Learn techniques to get all of the shooter gameplay mechanics into your game that AAA titles have.

All C++ programmers need an IDE (integrated development environment). We go over three options, depending on your system. Each of these are free to download and use.

Unreal Engine is free to download! Create an Epic Games account and get the world's leading game engine so we can start building this game!

These are important concepts you must understand to use Unreal Engine's C++ code base. Don't worry, everything in this course will be explained as we code it. Ask other students on the discord server if you're unsure about something!

This quiz will ask you a few questions to make sure you understand some important C++ concepts.

Unreal Engine has a reflection system that makes it easier for us to program dynamically. This lecture covers the basics of garbage collection and reflection.

We learn how to get help from various sources, how to get the assets for this course, and how to download the finished project from the GitHub page.

This quiz is designed to make sure you understand the best ways to get help during this course.

We create our project and set it up with a blank new level.

We create our character class based on ACharacter. We're starting this shooter character from scratch!

UE_LOG is an important tool for Unreal Engine C++ developers. We brush up on how to send messages to the Output Log.

Format specifiers allow us to customize our log message and include values from data in our game.

We must be able to manipulate strings using Unreal Engine's FString type. We gets some practice with that in this video.

We add a Spring Arm Component, which we will use to attach a camera.

We add a camera that is attached to the Spring Arm, which follows the Character.

We go into detail about what the Controller is and its relationship to the other classes in Unreal Engine.

This quiz checks to make sure you understand some basic concepts related to the controller.

We learn how to move the Character back and forth, as well as side to side with user input.

We discuss the theory behind DeltaTime and why it's important to use this quantity each frame in order to keep our gameplay consistent and smooth.

We create rate-based movement to handle turning with the use of key and button presses.

We implement the ability to turn using the mouse, in addition to key presses. We also implement the ability to jump.

We add an actual Mesh to our Character, so we can have a visual representation in the world! It's getting serious!

Quiz on Section 2

We create the Anim Instance, the class from which the Animation Blueprint is derived. This is where we will access some data from the C++ side to expose to the Animation Blueprint.

We create the Animation Blueprint based on the Anim Instance class, and assign it to the Character.

We add run animations to our Ground Locomotion state machine in the Animation Blueprint.

We access the Character Movement Component and configure some of its properties in order to customize our Character's behavior.

Quiz to test your comprehension of Character Movement.

We create a function called FireWeapon and bind it to the left mouse button and the right console controller button. For now, it simply prints a message to the Output Log.

We create a Sound Cue using assets from the GitHub page, randomizing 10 different gun shots. We then play the Sound Cue in the FireWeapon function.

We add a socket to the Character's skeleton and position it at the gun barrel. We then spawn a weapon fire particle system at the barrel socket when firing the weapon.

We create an Animation Montage with a weapon fire animation, assign it a slot, then play this montage when firing the weapon.

We use a Layered Blend Per Bone node to play the shooting animation on the upper body while Ground Locomotion is played on the lower body.

We use a line trace to detect bullet hits and get a bullet hit location.

Quiz on Line Traces

We use the line trace hit location to spawn bullet impact particles.

We use beam particles to create a smoke trail for firing the weapon.

We add a socket offset to control the camera location relative to the character location.

We create a HUD class and add crosshairs to the screen.

We add the ability to shoot our bullet in the direction we're aiming.

Quiz on the Directing Rifle Shots lecture.

We perform a second trace, from the gun barrel to the trace end location, in order to check for objects between the barrel and the hit location.

We refactor the code in FireWeapon so the Beam End location is calculated in its own neat little function.

We calculate the difference between the yaw rotation of our movement direction and the yaw rotation of our aim direction, in order to get a quantity to use for strafing animations.

We create a strafing Blendspace to use our MovementOffsetYaw variable and strafe depending on your run direction.

A short quiz to test your comprehension of strafing mechanics.

We need a different jog start animation depending on the direction we move. We implement that in this video.

You were challenged to create a jog stop blendspace. We go over the solution to this challenge.

We tweak some parameters so the Character moves smoothly and skids to a halt, working well with the jog stop animations.

We now have an animated shooter Character! This quiz will test a few knowledge points you've learned from this section.

We change the field of view while aiming the weapon.

We use interpolation to smoothly change the field of view.

A quiz to test your comprehension of the Zoom Interpolation mechanic.

We blend between poses to get the Character to lift the weapon while aiming.

We create an Aiming State Machine so the Character can transition between hip and aiming poses.

We lower the look sensitivity while aiming to make it easier to zero in on a target.

We create a variable to affect the spreading of the crosshairs.

We implement the spreading of the crosshairs.

We add a factor for affecting the spreading of crosshairs while in the air.

We make the crosshairs shrink while aiming the weapon.

We spread the crosshairs slightly with the firing of the weapon.

A short quiz to test your comprehension of the Dynamic Crosshairs mechanic.

We look for some free assets on the Unreal Engine marketplace. This section is purely for the visuals of our level. Please make sure you have enough disk space for any assets you download!

We use timers to implement automatic gun fire.

A short quiz on Automatic Fire.

We implement jumping, making use of Apply Additive to use an additive animation while landing.