Making UIs With C++ in Unreal Engine, by Ben UI

This talk was part of the JetBrains GameDev Day Online 2022 conference. Details: pages.jetbrains.com/dotnet-da...
Description: Game developers should be good at crafting the UI, shouldn’t they? This talk will dig into game UI goals and how best to attain them. It will give you hints of a good UI design and how to guide the users visually. Unreal Engine has an option to create a beautiful UI using Blueprints, but at times you might find yourself limited by its options, and you’ll have to fall back on good old C++.
Twitter: / _benui
Slides: benui.ca/unreal/slate-gamedev...
Speaker: Ben UI, Lead Programmer at Brace Yourself Games
Original stream: • JetBrains GameDev Day ...
#GameDevDayOnline

[@gamescreator5040]

Ben mentioned reasons why you might want to create your own Slate widget at the end of the video, and I would like to add another useful case for this. Unreal Engine has SSearchableComboBox, but for some reason, there is no UWidget equivalent available. As a result, you cannot use it directly in UMG. To utilize it in UMG, you can create your own UWrapper for this purpose.

[@linwilson1624]

I was a Unity developer and moved to Unreal recently. I feel like Slate in Unreal is at the same level as writing UI in code for Unity Editor. However, the latter one is not accessible for creating in Game UI. I do think Slate is ideal and intuitive for UI programmers to write in Game UI code. The one thing that makes me feel redundant is having to wrap Slate with the UMG class in order to be used in the editor. But I am also not sure if it is a good idea for Epic Games to remove the bridge. Anyway is a good introduction video for me! Top!

[@2k7u]

You know he's gotta be good when it's "Ben UI"

[@Ronin-6]

This is super useful, previously the best example of using Slate C++ in menus/UI was the Shooter Game example project in UE4. I've noticed in 5.2+ I can no longer create new C++ classes derived from the 'SCompoundWidget' class. Has anyone else encountered this?

[@volodymyrgolovan6137]

Please, add support for correct formatting for Slate in Rider!

[@user-od4wm5cj6g]

My slate UI is not showing after play in viewport. Is there anyone can help?

[@tburnettiii]

Very nice thanks. Where is the github for the code. I'm getting a "no instance of function template "CreateWidget" matches the arguement list" when I try it.. Thanks

[@furyodev1842]

Been searching for this kind of knowledge for a few days and I finally stumble upon it (why so late tho). Perfect video, many thanks.

[@marcapouli7805]

I think I'm gonna stick to Widget Blueprints, and my HUD will call these classes. But great video, I think

[@psychotrout]

If you wanna make something in Slate it necessarily needs to be painful

[@psychotrout]

@@JosephSeed Ahah some Pyside from time to time but it gives me the creeps too. I am happily married with WPF since 11 years and occasionally some Avalonia for personal projects so I complain quickly when there is even a bit of pain :D

[@hapticsvideodrome5785]

not very beginners friendly....I wish Unreal would redo their all ui system to make it more accessible and more coding friendly akind HTML/CSS for web.

[@vosdraug4628]

That's what you have Blueprints for.

[@YoutubeAccountMan]

Step 1: don't

[@FUnzzies1]

It's a shame he's pro terrorism/genocide.