Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) is a popular tool to create gameplay elements. It features two methods; C++ and Blueprint Visual Scripting. Blueprint visual scripting, as the name suggests, is based on the concept of using a node-based interface to create gameplay elements from within the Unreal editor. So, this Unreal Engine C++ is generally for editors and designers.
However, if you are a long-time programmer and prefer sticking to code, the C++ method is for you. If you have already transitioned to the C++ method and looking for practical tips to speed up your development, this article will help you go further. Moving forward we will list 5 practical tips that only pro developers use to maximize their productivity.
Want to Increase Your Productivity in Unreal Engine C++? These 5 Tips Can Help
- Viewport Navigation
- Monitor Your FPS
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Locating Content in Content Browser
- Using Macros
What Should I Keep in Mind While Using Unreal Engine C++?
Want to Enhance Your Unreal Engine Performance? Visual Assist Works Like Magic
Contents
What is Unreal Engine C++?
Before moving on to the Unreal Engine C++ tips, let’s understand it first.
Unreal Engine is a powerful robust software that comes with extremely useful templates and sample projects. It is a complete suite of tools for game development. It is also used to develop:
- Architectural and automotive visualization
- Linear film and television content creation
- Broadcast and live event production
- Simulation and other real-time applications.
In short, an unreal engine works best when programmers create gameplay building blocks in C++ and designers take these blocks and make interesting gameplay.
Want to Increase Your Productivity in Unreal Engine C++? These 5 Tips Can Help
Here are the five useful tips that help developers maximize their productivity.
If you are coming from another DCC (Digital Content Creation tool), you may not know about the WASD game controls in Unreal. For instance, if you use your typical alt navigation, you may find the pan moving backwards from what you thought. Also, the camera will not orbit the same way as you wanted it to.
However, you can change these settings inside editor preferences to make them work as your previous controls. This is done under viewport navigation.
To do this, go to the edit in the top-left, click editor preferences and go down to the viewports option. Here, just check the box in the ‘invert middle mouse pan’ and ‘orbit around selection’.
You can also check the ‘Use Distance Scale’ to speed up the camera. This will help you when you are going through scenes that have lots of large objects by going through faster. Also, when you are near lots of tightly packed smaller objects, you will move slower. This is amazingly useful for navigation and increasing your development speed.
2. Monitor Your FPS
The second tip is about performance. Although there are several stat commands, you can monitor FPS by changing settings. For this, go to edit, editor preferences and then to performance. Here check the box ‘show the frame rate’. This will display your FPS counter and your memory usage in the top right of your computer screen.
To decrease memory usage, go to editor preferences and tick off the ‘Use less CPU while in background’ box. Doing this will help you use less CPU and maintain better speed. It’s especially good if you are swapping between applications. With this, you will also notice an increase in the application’s performance immediately.
3. Keyboard Shortcuts
Let’s say you created a new asset like a widget blueprint, and want to duplicate this. By default, the shortcut you use is Control + W. But, this is not the same keyboard shortcut that you use in other applications. But, you can change this shortcut to the same as you’re used to.
To do so, go to the edit preferences and then go down to the keyboard shortcuts. You can search here for any shortcut you are looking to change. For our case, we will search ‘duplicate content’, and then change this from Control + W to Control + D. Now, you can easily maintain the same hotkeys across different applications.
4. Locating Content in Content Browser
If you start a blank project, you will notice a blank content browser. But in reality, it is not blank; rather, it contains a floor and default materials. But, where do these assets live?
To find out, open the tree view in your content browser and go down to view options. You can enable this by ticking ‘show engine content’ and ‘show plug-in content’. This will give you access to inbuilt unreal engine content.
5. Using Macros
Macros are used to collapse long code into the shortcode. While developing, if at any time, you find that you are using things like branch checks or any logic repetitively, you can convert it into a single macro. To do this, select the chunk of logic and right-click on ‘Turn into Macro’.
Macros are especially helpful when you are working on bigger projects and want to avoid duplicate content. It also works best for cleaning up the code. Plus, Macros make the names shorter and avoid runtime overheads.
What Should I Keep in Mind While Using Unreal Engine C++?
If you are interested in building games with unreal engine c++, then you must learn more about Unreal’s Gameplay Framework. With a basic understanding of object-oriented structure, you can also learn about Actor, Pawn, GameState, PlayerState and GameModes to step up your skill.
It is also important to mention that never follow tutorials blindly to develop game projects. The best advice is to pick one game element, really master it and then extend from there.
Want to Enhance Your Unreal Engine Performance? Visual Assist Works Like Magic
Although Unreal Engine comes with enough documentation, a lot of developers are still stuck with their tasks which hurts their performance.
If you are one of them, then the Visual Assist extension is for you. This extension can build high-performance C++ code for your projects with tailored support and unique features.
But how does this extension help? Visual Assist and Unreal engine work together for the best results. Just open your unreal engine 4 game project and gain access to tailored navigation, refactoring, code generation, and much more.
The best part about Visual Assist is its 30-day free trial which helps you explore all its features before making your purchase decision.
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