Blueprint Editor
A game developed in Unreal Engine contains many Actors interacting with each other, for example players, enemies and items that can be collected are Actors. In Unreal Engine 4 the blueprint editor can be used to create new Actors for a game.
To open the blueprint editor you can double-click on a Blueprint or right-click and choose "Edit...". The blueprints editor has several tabs and can be used in various ways.
The image below shows the blueprint "ThirdPersonCharacter" of the "Third Person" template, opened in the editor with the tabs "MyBlueprint" and "EventGraph" visible.
To open the blueprint editor you can double-click on a Blueprint or right-click and choose "Edit...". The blueprints editor has several tabs and can be used in various ways.
The image below shows the blueprint "ThirdPersonCharacter" of the "Third Person" template, opened in the editor with the tabs "MyBlueprint" and "EventGraph" visible.
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| Click to enlarge |
The "My Blueprint" tab shows the variables, macros, functions and graphs of the Blueprint. Events and Actions are defined in the "EventGraph" tab that determine the Blueprint behavior within the game.
In the "Components" tab may be added various types of components that will be part of the current Blueprint. As an example of Components we have mesh, light, sound, geometric shapes used in collision tests, and so on.
The "Viewport" tab contains the visual representation of the components that are part of this Blueprint. The "Details" tab displays the properties of the currently selected element so that they can be edited.
The toolbar which is on the top of the editor has a few essential buttons for editing Blueprints:
- Compile: It is necessary to "Compile" the Blueprint to validate the modifications.
- Save: Don't forget to save the Blueprint frequently.
- Class Settings: Blueprint properties such as description, category and "parent class".
- Class Defaults: It allows modification of the initial values of the Blueprint variables.
