C++ Character Input Implementation UE4 / Unreal Engine 4 C++

[@DevEnabled]

In this video, we implement our player movement bindings and set up the main components. This is part 1/2 of the player code class implementation.

[@subcanisdev7225]

Hands down the best tutorial I have seen with C++ and Unreal. The beginner videos just teach how to do stuff in blueprint. The advanced videos are too fast and are easy to get lost. Thank you for making videos that go into C++ basics and teaching new coders how to make a game from scratch on Unreal that isn't just blueprint.

[@DevEnabled]

Great to hear people finding it useful. I know I really try to drive that point hard but I still so many people fighting for EITHER BP or C++ and it's just slowing down a lot of workflows.

[@orlandoalmario]

there is so much little content on using C++ inside unreal, thank you very much for sharing this content, trully awesome stuff!

[@JonesCrimson]

I actually got pretty far doing this on my own, but there was a part of the documentation that confused me so I came here and that helped.

[@novaria]

Really no problem with the length of the videos in this series... The content is great! Also, if it were too much to digest at once I as a viewer always have the option of pausing the video :)

[@afakkobyab5982]

thanks, great that you continute C++ with UE

[@XiOh]

thx for the vid and explaining where to find what to include

[@MatthewCC0311]

Hey Rob great content as usual. You may remember me from a few months ago, maybe not. Either way I am back again after divorcing UE4 to pursue DirectX API Game engine programming. I have now decided against that and am back to just using UE4 for my game haha. I will perhaps go back to those things after I finish some games! I will continue to follow your series and I am glad to see that you are still going strong! I after I get through your YT videos I will look into your patreon and join your Discord! I am not stopping UE4 until I master it, and only then can I start looking for my own solutions to game creation. Looking forward to see more from you! Thanks for it all :)

[@DevEnabled]

Hey, yeah of course. Great to hear you came back to the Unreal ways, definitely the way to go if you just want to get a game up and running. I look forward to seeing you over on Discord. It's not too busy there yet but the community is definitely growing.

[@VampNeo]

Excellent tutorial. Though I have a request , if it's possible for you please make a tutorial on touch interface , how to make use of default one and modify one in c++. Most of the instructors doesn't give any importance to touch interface , however nowadays mobiles are taking over, but there are very less info on that or just the basic ones . No one goes in deep for a topic like how to make your own virtual joystick in c++ for ue4 . There are tons of students searching for touch based tutorials on internet and everyone has to get sad as there are none profound tutorial.

[@DevEnabled]

Hey, thanks. Just so you're not waiting around, that's probably not going to happen. I'm happy for mobile and its success but in general, I don't work with them and actively avoid projects involving mobile devices due to the general irritations when working with the platform. On top of that, Unreal really isn't built with mobile development in mind. If I absolutely had to build something for mobile, I'd move over to Unity without a second thought. That's not to say you can't make mobile apps in Unreal, but it does add extra levels of frustration to working with an already frustrating dev structure.

[@nfrancisj2122]

Is there a reason you're doing it from scratch? (Other than for tutorial purposes) All these components are already available for use in the blueprints. A more efficient way, in my opinion, is to create a blueprint, add whatever components you need, then add functionality/behavior via C++ code. You can source a blueprint and its components via C++. (If you don't want to use the node base graph for performance concerns) Thanks for taking the time to share. 🙂. I enjoy watching your series.

[@DevEnabled]

Thanks, glad you hear you're enjoying them. I think I go into this in a lot more detail in the first video of this playlist. But in short, I'm trying to cover as much C++ as possible whilst balancing efficiency. Things like this are much easier in BP but people starting developing in c++ are likely to see this kind of code around in existing projects or examples so I figured it's useful to know the implementation.

[@nfrancisj2122]

Dev Enabled Gotcha! 👍

[@mistakenmeme]

Because it's fun

[@TheBugB]

How much C++ do you think you should learn before trying to jump into developing?? I only have a very basic understanding of a small amount of C++ content. Also a little off topic, but do you strictly generally stay to the coding aspect of game development or do you also dabble in things like character art, animations, and level design.

[@DevEnabled]

Not sure how to answer that one really. I prefer to learn things by implementation so I'd say just learn it whilst you go. You'll never know or remember 100% of a language so you can just pick up what you need as you go along. Of course that's if you even need C++ for your project. There's no reason not to just jump in and start working with Blueprints, I do most of my full-time work in BP unless I have as specific requirement for some C++ like writing a plugin or extension. I like to do a little bit of everything when I get the chance. My main job is as a programmer and I know I'd get really bored and burned out if I only ever wrote code. When I had more spare time I enjoyed doing Game Jams like Ludum Dare and working solo so I had to do art, sound, programming etc.

[@TheBugB]

@@DevEnabled Do you think you would ever do any tutorials on things that are art and sound related??

[@DevEnabled]

@@TheBugB I'm getting better with Blender and feeling a bit more confident that I'm taking the correct approach for good modelling standards. As soon as I'm sure I won't be teaching any bad practices or anything I'll likely start covering some of that. As for sound I have no idea what I'm doing with that but it's always fun to try.

[@TheBugB]

@@DevEnabled Thats fair I'm excited for when you feel more comfortable with blender and those may start releasing.

[@alexandroiceman6707]

Good tutorial

[@cloudirs5]

I am getting an error on "LookUpAtRate" with this line: PlayerInputComponent->BindAxis("LookUpRate", this, &AYTCharacterBase::LookUpAtRate);

[@youssefelhefnawy7009]

you have to define the axis in the project settings first

[@matt-g-recovers]

Teach a man to fish...Thank you!

[@kimcorson4458]

Most definitely you need a visual example of what will be done in this :/ i cant tell if it is jsut input or if it will helop my character move around.

[@DevEnabled]

Thanks, but I mean what am I meant to show an example of? As the title and the thumbnail both clearly indicate, we're looking at the Input Implementation. The movement will be covered in the video titled Character Movement.

[@unrelentingpest]

@@DevEnabled Maybe he meant some sort of console log, like "Forward input was received"

[@TheFastWarriorGames]

hey great tutorials, I recently found an error when building in visual studio. it said that i can't there is no need to include these lines: CameraComp - CreateDefaultSubobject(TEXT("CameraComp")); CameraComp->SetupAttachment(SpringArmComp); Does these have to include for further tutorials, or did i just messed somthing up?

[@DevEnabled]

Hey, thank you. I don't quite understand what you mean. If you're still just in the code you tend to get a lot of false error/warnings which you just get used to ignoring. The main thing is that the compile in the editor is running without returning errors.

[@TheFastWarriorGames]

@@DevEnabledthanks for the quick response, I have taken some coding courses a year ago and was trying to get back into coding, the problem is that the build would fail if I add these lines. If I delete these there are no errors whatsoever and the program can build successfully. I hope this doesn't bring any problems further in the tutorials. I leave it out for now and if it gives me troubles I will try a way to fix it. I'm using unreal engine 4,25 and visual studio 2019. Thanks in advance!

[@DevEnabled]

@@TheFastWarriorGames Yeah you should be fine. I think others have mentioned that recent versions show that variables are being declared twice due to some engine changes. I've actually just started releasing videos in a new C++ playlist which are intended to be a little more detailed and also following the updated standards.

[@MatthewCC0311]

If that text is exactly what you put into your code, the problem I see is that you put " - " when you should have put " = "

[@fn0rd-f5o]

Curious why you initialized the values for BaseTurnRate and BaseLookUpAtRate in the constructor and not the header file. Is this an Unreal convention?

[@DevEnabled]

I don't think there's anything in Unreal to specify that approach. To be honest, it's just the way I was taught and am familiar seeing it done so it's mostly a subconscious workflow. Now you've mentioned it though, it's probably safer to initialise them in the Header. If you get the chance to try the changes, let me know what you find.

[@fn0rd-f5o]

​@@DevEnabled I always was taught to initialize in the header so you don't get any undefined behavior, however rare it is. The thing with coding is there is always more than one or two ways to skin the cat. ; )

[@Viterkim]

Is there a reason why variable names are capitalized, aren't those for class names?

[@DevEnabled]

Different languages and variations of those same languages tend to have variations on programming standards. This is just the Unreal variant of C++. You can go with your preference for capitalisation, naming conventions etc. but you may find you struggle when it comes to working on projects with other developers if they stick to the given platforms standard conventions. Generally, in my tutorials I tend to go by the given engines standards so you'll see the code in the Unity tutorials I have in the works very different from my Unreal tutorials.

[@alexandersh895]

nice

[@DevEnabled]

I'm looking forward to the day I have a one-word comment from you on each video😂

[@alexandersh895]

@@DevEnabled someday

[@DanielOraraVA]

is it more efficient to just include it in the .h, and will the .cpp file also automatically include with since it include whatever is in the .h?

[@DevEnabled]

Give it a go and find out what happens, genuinely a great way to learn and it will take you about 2 minutes.

[@DanielOraraVA]

@@DevEnabled not with my laptop xD

[@DevEnabled]

@@DanielOraraVA Ha, fair. In general includes in the header do not filter over to the code file. And forward declaring things in the header is the cheaper option than using the #include which is only really needed in the code file as that's where you'll be calling functions and setting values on the references.

[@abrahamyehoshuafrias3390]

There is any diference between visual studio and vs code. Cause you made up for both of them. And here you use visual studio but no vs code

[@DevEnabled]

Visual studio has the capability to build and easy debugging. I personally prefer VSCode which is why I've shown how to use it in the past, but for bigger projects or longer series like this where I will be working with it for longer periods of time, Visual Studio has more capabilities so it's been easier to just use it for the whole project.

[@whoknows4728]

Im fucking hate unreal for its behaviour. Its just crashing on compiling and loosing all files

[@DevEnabled]

development definitely isn't always smooth sailing.