Unreal Engine is a powerful and versatile game development engine created by Epic Games. With its real-time rendering capabilities, visual scripting system (Blueprints), and robust physics engine, Unreal Engine empowers developers to bring their creative visions to life. Unreal Engine offers a flexible and scalable solution for building stunning games, simulations, and visualizations.
Unity and Unreal Engine are two popular and powerful developing tool for virtual reality (VR) development. In this article, I will share some important terminology that will help understanding the Unreal Engine workflow.
Blueprint
Blueprint is Unreal Engine’s visual scripting system that allows developers to create gameplay mechanics, interactions, and behaviors without writing traditional code. It provides a node-based interface where developers can visually connect pre-built nodes to define the logic and functionality of game objects. In a single sentence – Blueprint is visual representation of C++ code with drag and drop feature.
World
The “World” refers to the virtual environment where the game or simulation takes place. It encompasses the levels, objects, actors, and other elements that make up the game world.
Level
A “Level” refers to a specific game environment or scene within the overall World. It contains a collection of actors and objects that define the visual and interactive elements of that particular area. Levels can be designed, edited, and loaded independently, allowing for modular and organized game development.
Actor
An actor is a basic unit representing objects or entities in a level, including camera, static mesh, player start location, characters, props, and lights. It has properties and behaviors and can be controlled (created/spawned, destroyed) through Blueprints or code to create interactive experiences in the game or simulation.
Pawn
A Pawn is a type of actor that represents a controllable character or entity within the game. Pawns can be controlled by players. They serve as the primary interactive entities in the game world.
Pawns are a subclass of actor.
Character
A Character is a specialized type of Pawn that represents a controllable humanoid character within a game. Characters often have built-in functionality for movement, animations, and input handling.
Characters are a subclass of Pawn.
Component
In Unreal Engine, a component is a modular piece of functionality that can be attached to an actor. Components define specific behaviors, such as rendering, collision, audio, and more.
Casting
Casting in Unreal Engine is the process of treating an Actor of one class as if it belongs to a different class. This action can succeed or fail. If successful, you can access class-specific functionality on the Actor you cast to.
If you are a programmer you already know what casting is! This applies to all the access control properties.
Player controller
A Player Controller in Unreal Engine translates player input into game interactions. It is present in every game and typically has a Pawn or Character representing the player. In multiplayer, the server has a Player Controller for each player to enable network communication, while clients have their own Player Controller to communicate with the server.
Project/game must have at least one player controller.