ue4_interface_blueprints_and_cpp

Developed with macOS in mind

0.1 https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Programming/Introduction/index.html

links

• https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Programming/UnrealArchitecture/Reference/Classes/Specifiers/index.html
• https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Programming/UnrealArchitecture/Reference/Properties/Specifiers/index.html
• https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Programming/UnrealArchitecture/Reference/Functions/Specifiers/index.html
• https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Programming/UnrealArchitecture/Reference/Structs/Specifiers/index.html

Setup

• Install Git-LFS (https://git-lfs.github.com)
• Not needed but highly reccomended, defaults write com.apple.dt.Xcode IDEIndexDisable 1, this disables indexing in Xcode, which is not needed and is a heavy process
• Install Epic Games Launcher
  • Install UE from Epic Games Launcher
  • This installs all the build tools
• UE consists of a Project Explorer + Pseudo-IDE/World Editor
• When creating a new project, UE must be launched from within Epic Games Launcher to access the new project wizard
  • When a new project is created, Xcode is launched, at this point both the IDE/World Editor and Xcode are open
    • You can close the World Editor, building the project in Xcode will re-open the World Editor
    • Can easily create new classes from World Editor -- File > Create New C++ Class > Follow Wizard
      • This is helpful becuase majority of boilerplate is written for you, could also manually create the class, but I prefer to have the World editor do it for me
    • You can close Xcode and re-compile directly in World Editor, chefs choice on this
• Edit code in your favorite editor (some editor will complain about include-paths, I use VSCode and it does, haven't looked for a solution yet, I rely on the compiler failing for these errors)

What it does

This project doesn't do much -- it sets up interactions between Blueprints (considered the 'designer' land for UE) and C++ (read comments in ALearningActor01.h/cpp)

NOTES

• UCLASS() — Used to tell Unreal to generate reflection data for a class. The class must derive from UObject.
• USTRUCT() — Used to tell Unreal to generate reflection data for a struct.
• GENERATED_BODY() — UE4 replaces this with all the necessary boilerplate code that gets generated for the type.
• UPROPERTY() — Enables a member variable of a UCLASS or a USTRUCT to be used as a UPROPERTY. A UPROPERTY has many uses. It can allow the variable to be replicated, serialized, and accessed from Blueprints. They are also used by the garbage collector to keep track of how many references there are to a UObject.
• UFUNCTION() — Enables a class method of a UCLASS or a USTRUCT to be used as a UFUNCTION. A UFUNCTION can allow the class method to be called from Blueprints and used as RPCs, among other things.