BP FPS From Scratch 1

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints (#1) v0.1 by Paul Arbogast (Arbo, arbopa) http://www.acclivitygamestudios.com/

Table of Contents About and Why...............................................................................................................................................................................................2 End Goal..........................................................................................................................................................................................................2 Setting up your project...................................................................................................................................................................................3 Some initial Settings...............................................................................................................................................................................5 Game Instance........................................................................................................................................................................................6 Game Mode............................................................................................................................................................................................7 Game State.............................................................................................................................................................................................8 Player Controller.....................................................................................................................................................................................9 Player State.............................................................................................................................................................................................9 Menus...........................................................................................................................................................................................................10 Background and such...........................................................................................................................................................................12 Build Main Menu..................................................................................................................................................................................16 Catching Errors.....................................................................................................................................................................................23 Preparing for Network Sessions...........................................................................................................................................................26 Hosting Menu.......................................................................................................................................................................................27 Map Selection............................................................................................................................................................................33 Game Mode...............................................................................................................................................................................39 Max Players...............................................................................................................................................................................45 Time Limit..................................................................................................................................................................................48 Score Limit.................................................................................................................................................................................51 Connection................................................................................................................................................................................53 Server Name..............................................................................................................................................................................54 Host Button...............................................................................................................................................................................55 Join Game Menu...................................................................................................................................................................................60 Settings Menu.......................................................................................................................................................................................77 Getting Started..........................................................................................................................................................................77 Video Widget.............................................................................................................................................................................81 Saving........................................................................................................................................................................................94 Loading and Apply Settings.......................................................................................................................................................99 Audio Widget...........................................................................................................................................................................100 Setting Defaults for First Load of Game..................................................................................................................................111 Gameplay Widget....................................................................................................................................................................112 Controls Menu....................................................................................................................................................................................119 In Game Menu....................................................................................................................................................................................130

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

About and Why This 'book' was put together based on a Wiki Tutorial I made on the UE4 Wiki. The Tutorial followed the progress of building a FPS from scratch, of course using Blueprints. While I intend to walk through as slow and precise as I can, after I cover how to add a variable or set up an input in a Macro a few times, I am gonna quit with the baby steps and simply show (or tell) you what you need to do. Why do this? Because I think there are other people like me that see loads of tutorials out there, that have specific information but don't link it all together. I plan to do my best to link it all together. Certainly there may be things that can be done better or organized better as I go, this is a learning process for me too. Feel free to PM me on the forum or contact me via my website.

End Goal There are many different varieties of FPS out there. I am pretty much shooting for a COD type game. Not uber realistic, but somewhat, but FUN. No character customization, they will be assigned based on primary weapon. You will have different classes you can set your primary, secondary and all that. Aimed purely at multiplayer, as that has always been the most fun for me. I am not a 3d artist, so unless someone wants to help out with that, when it comes to characters, it may just be Fuse characters. Nor am I an animator, so I will probably be buying stuff from the Marketplace and using it, you can do the same or make your own. And no need to name everything the same or make every menu look the same, you are learning, so play with it along the way. Use different naming conventions if you want, whatever, as long as you get the idea of what is happening along the way. And feel free to name your BP's as you see fit and organize them in a way that makes sense to you. Eventually I will mostly stop referring to some of them by specific name and just say things like 'your Game Instance', or 'your Player State', so you should know which one it is, in time.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Setting up your project This project starts with UE4 4.10, we may update if new releases are put out, if so it will be mentioned. Fire up the editor and create a new project. Since we are starting from scratch, select a blank project, and do not include the starter content. For the purpose of this tutorial I named my project LearnBP.

The first big piece we will be working on is the menu system, so we want to save the initial map that comes up in our project as Menus, since it will be used for the menu system. So create a folder under the Content folder and call it Maps. In the event you are really new, you create a folder by hitting the Add New button and selecting Create New Folder. In this case you want to click on Content first so the new folder will be generated in the Content folder. So now you have this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Your Content Browser may not have that left pane there, if that's the case, hit the following button (circled in red) and it will pop out for you. This makes it easier to navigate through your files.

I do not want any 'map' background in my main menu, so I do an File -> New Level and select an empty level. Now go up to the File menu and click Save As and name the map Menus and make sure you save it in your new Maps folder.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Some initial Settings Before we head headlong into this, we need to set up some things, and discuss some things. First, from Project and Editor Settings (looks like a little gear) go to Project Settings, then click on Maps & Modes. You will want to hit the pulldown for Game Default Map and Editor Startup Map and set them to the new empty map you saved in the last bit (Menus). This will load that map when the editor loads the project and also in your packaged project.

Now click on Packaging. On the Project – Packaging page, there is a little down arrow to open up ‘more’ under Packaging, do that and you will see a few addition options/settings. To the right of List of maps to include in a packaged build there is a plus sign, click on that. This creates a new element. Next to the empty box, click the ellipse (…) and it will open up file browser, go down your tree as needed and select your Menus.umap (thats the file for that map). This makes the system include that map in a packaged build. This will be needed for any map you want to include in your project builds. Also selected your L_Game_Instance for the default Game Instance Class.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Game Instance There are different modes and classes used by your game, we should consider these, and what they do, so as to get our base setup correct. The GameInstance is a globally accessible object that can store any data you want to be carried between levels. It is spawned at game creation and not destroyed until the game is shut down. So in other words, any variables/functions you want to have accessible in every other mode and level of the game, can go here. Note: To set a variable, then in the event graph or construction script or function or macro (of another entity) you can call “Get xxx” and link it to “Cast to ” and then you can just use get/set functions for the variables that originate in your GameInstance. As an exmaple, below we get our Game State, cast it to our game state BP, and from there can pull off our variable Map Name to set it.

So for our game, let’s create our own Game Instance to use. Start by going to the Content Browser and highlighting Content. Then Add New > New Folder. Let’s call it BluePrintsLogic.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now that you are in that folder, you want to Add New > Blueprint Class. Expand the All Classes and scroll down to Game Instance and select it. Now our custom GameInstance BP class is created, and we will name it L_GameInstance_BP (L for learning project and BP to note it is a blueprint).

Game Mode Since we are talking about a multiplayer game, this only exists on the server. It pretty much is used for your game rules. It should not have much data (variables) that changes during play and should not have transient data that clients need to know about, as this class is not an easy replicator. You can also use it for spawning players, trasitions between levels, and functions that clients call to request things (like changing a weapon, doing damage, etc). For our purpose we want a generic custom game mode, to track time and other things, then from that we will derive other gamemodes as needed (such as deathmatch). So since we are in the BluePrintsLogic folder, let’s add a new Game Mode BP, we will call it L_Base_Gamemode. And if we right click on that we can create child blueprint class. I did that and called it L_Deathmatch. Repeat this step and create another mode and call it L_TeamDeathMatch. 7

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

So now L_Base_Gamemode will contain everything that is common among any other game modes we will have in the future and it passes all that on to it’s children, which have stuff specific to those game modes. These modes will be used for actual game play. For our menus, we want do not want to use those, so let's create another one and call it Menu_GM. Now if you go to your Project and Editor Settings > World Settings, you will get a little tab on the right that has your World Settings. In this you want to go to Game Mode > GameMode Override and use the dropdown and select Menu_GM.

Game State The GameState monitors the state of the game on the client. It can keep track of things like players connected, scores, completed missions, killstreaks, etc. So it should be used to track properties that change during game play. It exists on the server and all clients and can replicate freely to keep all machines up to date.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

So like the ones before, we want to create our own custom GameState BP to use. So add new then you can type in ‘game’ in the search and you will find GameState. Create that and I named mine L_GameState.

Player Controller The Player Controller is an interface between the Character (character you are controlling) and you. This is where you set up all the movements and ‘controls’ you want to allow your Character to have. (A Character is simply an extended Pawn with a skeleton, collision and other bits) Add a new custom player controller class BP, name it 'L_Player_Controller'.

Player State This is the state of the player in the game, such as name, score, level, health, etc. These replicate freely and exist on all machines. Create one of these as well, name it L_Player_State.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Menus Now to do a menu, we need a place to display the menu. We will use a HUD. So from the Content Browser you want to Add New and create a new BP class, in the search item at the bottom, type in HUD to find it. Then create it (much like we made new BP classes for other things). I named mine L_HUD. I will do my best to explain HOW to do something (Create macro’s, variables, etc) as I go, but I don’t want to get to repetitive, so after the first time or two I will just say do it, not how. How we will accomplish managing the game, is by setting different states we are in. Such as in main menu, playing, in settings menu, etc. So to set those up, we need an Enumeration. I created a new folder called Enumerators and then did a 'Add New > Blue Prints > Enumeration'. Call this ‘Menu_States’.

Double Click on this to open it up, and you will see an empty list, you want to create new by hitting the ‘New’ button on the right side, and make enough entries to duplicate this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Open up your L_Player_Controller and go to the Event Graph. Create a variable, Menu_State of type Menu_States (the enum you created). In the below images this will be called 'current state' ... just keep in the back of your mind it is Menu_State ... too much work to go make all new images. ;) Congrats! Your first bit of BP for this project. Now you will want to create another Macro called Is_Current_State that will look like below. Make sure in your Inputs, you set 'InState' to be of type MenuStates, otherwise things will not work as they should.

(if you are really new, dragging off the ‘current state’ in that one will open the node selection, and you are looking for an ‘equals’ node, that’s what you see above) And create another new macro called Leave_Current_State and make it look like this (disreguard the Hide_Menu, that comes later):

The input 'Desired State' should be set to type 'Menu States', the ENUM we created above. Yes, loads of wires going to that set. That will change, as we add in different parts we will need to add bits to handle what needs to be done when we leave a certain state. Remember your variable in the above is Menu State not Current State.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Background and such Now we can start doing some other stuff for the main menu. When the game starts up we need to load up our main menu, which will actually consist of a background AND the main menu. So the first thing we need to show is our background image. And we need to create that before we can show it. Let’s start by creating a folder off our main Content Directory and call it ‘GUI’. Then in that create a folder called ‘Menus’, a folder called ‘Textures’, and a folder called ‘Fonts’.

The image we want for the background needs to be imported, so in the Textures folder, select import and import a nice big image to use. I found a nice big camo image to use as my background, use whatever you would like. In the Menus folder we want to create a new widget BP (Add New > User Interface > Widget Blueprint). We will name it MM_Background. Now double click it to open the editor for it. On the left in the Hierarchy window it will have it’s name and a [Canvas Panel]. You want to drag (from Palette > Common) an Image and put it in that Canvas Panel. On the right in the details, you want to check Size to Content, and set Anchors to top left and set Position X and Y to 0. Open Brush (little arrow to left of it) so now you see ‘Image’. If you click on the dropdown you should be able to find that image you imported and select it. So you should see something like this. Now compile and save and close that BP.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Back in our L_Player_Controller Go to your Event Graph. Next we need to create a custom event (Add Custom Event in nodes selection) and call it Show_Background. We will place this below the current nodes as it is a different part. Ah, we need to link the widget for the background into our BP so we can get/set/use it. So add a new variable and name it MM_Background, and when you pull down the type, type in the same, you will find our Widget BP, set it to that. Now we want add a get mm background node, drag off from that to a ‘? IsValid’. From the Is Not Valid drag off and make a create widget node, pull down on class and select MM_Background. From the Is Valid on that drag off to a Set Visibility. Add a Get Player Controller by that and link it to Owning Player. Now drag off from that Create to a Set MM_Background, and from that to a Add to Viewport. Now go back by the IsValid, and drage off from that get MMBackground and create a Set Visiblity. Link them all up and you should have this:

Hopefully it all made sense and came out like above. (edit: also connect the blue output on the set to the target on Add to Viewport). Now make another custom event called Start_Game:

(note: make sure your Leave_Current_State is set to Startup, not MainMenu)

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

What does all this do? Well upon game start, we make sure to load the proper level, set the state properly, then to show the background, we check (isValid) to see if we already have that widget created (as later in the game why waste time recreating it, we just hide and show the first one we create as needed). If it is already created, we just show it, if not, we create and show it. Last bit for this section, you want to go back to the main screen where the ‘Menus’ map is open, then on the top bar do Blueprints > Open Level Blueprint. From the Event Begin Play you want to add the following code, so when the map loads, it does the proper casting and calls our custom Start Game.

That’s it. Make sure everything is compiled and saved. Now in order for everything to come together, you want to load your Menu_GM and tell it that the Player Controller Class is L_Player_Controller. (press class defaults when you have the Menu_GM so it is highlight, then in details screen you can select this in the drop down) This connects our controller to our game mode so the proper pieces are executed. Compile and save.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Hit Play. You see our background. Yeah, maybe not exciting, but it is where we start.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Build Main Menu Ok, we have our background for the menu, now we need the menu itself. So I guess the first thing is creating the menu widget that we will display. So in our GUI/Menus folder let’s create another widget and call it MM_Main. We want to add the title of the game to the main screen, so let’s drag a ‘Text’ into the Canvals panel, and set the Position X and Position Y to 40 so it is up in the left hand corner. Click on the ‘Size to Content’. Change the ‘Text’ under content to our game name (I use LearnBP). From there you can mess with color, or change fonts (if you import a new font into the fonts directory, most TTF’s will work), change the size, or whatever to make it look like you want. (in reality you could also use an image here with the game name, but I’m not going into that). When doing this, consider what your background is, and that your text is a color that will show up against it. I fiddled with mine to change color and make it bigger, and have this:

Next you want to drag out a vertical box (under Panel in the Palette) to below the text and size it to a good size to fit all your buttons.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now you want to drag out 5 buttons (what we will be using) into that vertical box.

Now you want to rename the buttons so we can reference them elsewhere later. Do this by clicking on each button in the Hierarchy on the left side of the screen so it is highlighted, then you can change the name in the Details section on the right. Most default to a name like Button_xx. In order we want to name them from top to bottom: Join_Game_BTN, Host_Game_BTN, Settings_BTN, Controls_BTN, and Quit_BTN. So now your Hierarchy should look like this:

Now so that we know what each button is when looking at/using the menu, we need to drag a text object into each button and change the text to what the button is. So we have this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

From here you can click on the buttons and change padding so there is space around and between them, or change text font, size, color, all that good stuff, play with it to your hearts content, as playing with UE4 is how we learn. I changed just a few things so I have this:

So that is the appearance of our menu, but when the buttons are clicked, they need to do something, eventually, we will work our way through all of them. But for now, what you want to do is click on each botton and then in the Details panel, near the bottom, under Events, click on the green button with the plus sign by OnClicked. This will switch to the event graph for the widget and add a new event (OnClicked(Join_Game_BTN)).

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

This is where we will eventually hook up the nodes to do what is needed according to which button is pressed. But for now, do the same for the other 4 buttons as you did for the first one so we have OnClick events for all of them ready for us when we need them. Then compile and save and you can close that widget editor for now, we will return to it when we need to. So now we go back into L_Player_Controller. Down below the block we did for Show_Background, let’s create a new Custom Event (like before) and name this one Show_MainMenu. From that we want to drag off to a Leave_Current_State node and use the dropdown to select MainMenu for the desired state. Now like the background we don’t want to keep loading new ones, so we just load once and hide/show as needed. So we drag from the Leave_Current_State ( New State pin) to a ‘? IsValid’. And a brain fart from me, but we need to create a new variable and call it MM_Main, and then set it’s variable type to MM_Main (like we did for the MM_Background earlier). Now that that is done…. We want to add a get MM_Main by the isValid and conntect it to the input object of isValid. So you have this:

From the Is Not Valid pin we want to drag off and do a create widget node. Select MM_Main as the class in that node. Right by that do a get player controller node and connect it to the Owning Player input. (Actually, you are IN the player controller, so you could drag off from the Owning Player pin and create a reference to self). Next add a set MM_Main and connect both pins to the create node we just made. From that drag off to an Add to Viewport (any of this sounding/looking familiar yet?). From that output, drag to a ‘Set Input Mode UIOnly’. In that node check Lock Mouse to Viewport, then either add another Get Player Controller by it and connect that to ‘target’ or drag from the other Get Player Controller and connect there (Your choice). Now from one of the Get Player Controllers, drag off and add a ‘set show mouse cursor’, check the box in the node, and connect the Set Input Mode UIOnly to it. So from the IsValid over you should look like this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now we took care of the case that the widget does not already exist (like first run of the program), but we need to add the other bit from the IsValid in the case that it already exists. This might blow your mind, but it’s gonna be just like the MM_background stuff. From back at our Get MM_Menu, drag off and create a Set Visibility node. Now connect from the IsValid pin of IsValid to it, and from it to the Set Input Mode UIOnly.

So there is all our BP stuff to show our main menu widget we made, but we need to jump back to where that Start_Game was in our 'L_GameInstance_BP' and add something. From the 'Show_Background' node, drag off and add a Show_MainMenu node.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Pretty much like showing the Background, eh? The difference is we lock the mouse into the whole screen and show the cursor. Now if you compile, save and run, you will get this:

You might notice that if you hover over buttons they change colors slightly, this is all stuff you can set in the widget itself. Well, we have a main menu now, it doesn’t do anything, but we are making progress. So I will wrap up a bit here, by adding functionality to our Quit button, and some stuff for error messages to be displayed. We want to go back into our L_Player_Controller to get started. Somewhere in there you want to right click and add a ‘Add Custom Event’ node. Name it End_Game. This is really simple. Drag off the End_Game event you made and add an Execute Console Command node. In this node, set the command to ‘Quit’. That will do it. Perhaps there is some ‘clean up’ that should be done, but I don’t think so, I think closing out the game clears everything up all by itself.

If you wonder how I got that box around it.. Just make sure nothing is clicked, and click and drag a box around the nodes you want in the same group, then hit the C key. This creates a comment, as you see.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now we need to attach the Quit button to that bit of blueprint, so open up MM_Menu again and go to the Graph (instead of the Designer) and find your OnClicked(Quit_BNT) event. Just below it create a GetPlayerController node, drag off of that to a Cast to L_Player_Controller node. Connect the OnClicked to this as well. From the As L_Player_Controller pin drag off to End_Game.

Compile and save everything, and you can run your game now. You will get the menu, and the Quit button quits the game. It’s like magic eh?

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Catching Errors Well now I want to add some stuff to handle and errors we might get when doing sessions later, and show any error messages we may want to trigger. So let’s head back to L_Player_Controller. Create this, which will reload our Menus level and restart the game as if we just opened it:

Also create one called Destroy_Error_MSG.

In order to show the error on screen, we want to make a widget for it. So in the GUI/Menus folder, create another widget (ok, last time to remind you, Add New > User Interface > Widget Blueprint). Name it Error_MSG. Then double click it to open it for edit. Since we have done this before, I will quit babbling on step by step, and just show you what you need in the end. You will a canvas panel, name it Error_MSG. In that a scroll box, in that a text block you rename to Error_TXT. In the Canvas Panel, two images, one to fit the size of the text block, one to fit the size of the canvas panel. Also Text and a labeled button. So in the Hierarchy you should have something like this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Select Auto Wrap Text for your Text that is in the gray area, so longer error messages wrap. I named that Text 'ErrorMSGTXT and selected IsVariable as we will need to use this in a bit. And on your Designer screen you should have something like this (the Red and light grey are simply 'images' with color and opacity set.

Now click on the button and down on the right in events, add an event for OnClicked. Then switch to the Graph view and find your new OnClicked event. Make it look like this:

So to get our 'error message' to show in our box, let's make a variable Error_TXT of type Text. Set it to Editable and Expose on Spawn. Then off of our Event Construct in Error_MSG widget, we create this:

So with that last bit, we made our error box to show with an error message, but we need to do the stuff that shows the message and that box. So back to our game instance file (L_Player_Controller, come on, you should know that by now… ) 24

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Create the following. Remember, that Error MSG is a variable defined as the widget. Remember, we did the same for MM_Background and MM_Main. So you should be able to nail this one:

Compile and Save all. Yeah, we are not calling that one yet, but we will add it in when we need to. End thoughts: Yeah, we could skip the Start_Over thing and go right to Start_Game, but remember, down the road, we may well need to do other things like reloading saved data or who knows what. Yes, overall we don’t have a whole lot yet, but hopefully by now building nodes is becoming more comfortable, and you are getting to the point where you can look at a BP and be able to duplicate it.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Preparing for Network Sessions A guy named mordentral on the UE4 forms has come up with a plugin called the ‘Advanced Sessions Plugin’. This allows you to do loads of things previously not available with sessions in blueprints. This includes inviting friends to sessions and voice communications. I am going to use this in our little project here. So head over to his thread (here) and download for 4.10 and install per his directions (copying files to the right place). So once you have the files in the project directory as needed, you want to load your game back up. Double click on L_GameInstance_BP to open it in editor, then select File > Reparent Blueprint. You can start typing in the search box that pops up with classes, you want to find and select ‘Advanced Friends Game Instance’. So now on the top right of the edit screen for your game instance it should show that as the Parent Class.

In your Details for the class you will how see a section for Advanced Friends Interface. This will all come into play as we continue on with the menu for Join and Host menu buttons. Which is what I will get into in the next entry. Until then, if you don’t know how to create a simple map, go read the Level Designer Quckstart or some other tutorial and build yourself a new map for this project, just something simple is fine, make sure you include all the lights needed and a player start. I am working on a small level to play with as we make this game, but I purchased the PostApoc set from the marketplace and am using that for a start.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Hosting Menu Let’s work on setting up the ‘Host Game’ button and getting that working. Now minimize the editor and pull up your file browser, you want to go to your unreal projects directory (mine defaulted to my ‘My Documents’ folder for some reason), in there find the folder for your project name (LearnBP unless you used a different name), into Config folder, and edit your DefaultGame.ini file. Add these lines: [/Script/Engine.GameMode] +GameModeClassAliases=(ShortName=”DM”,GameClassName=”/Game/BlueprintsLogic/GameModes/L_ Deathmatch.L_Deathmatch_C”) +GameModeClassAliases=(ShortName=”TDM”,GameClassName=”/Game/BlueprintsLogic/GameModes/L _TeamDeathMatch.L_TeamDeathMatch_C”)

And add any other modes you may want/have here, similar idea. Save and close. This creates aliases we can use for our game modes in loading the selected level (Map). We are going to need the name of maps available in the game, so first let’s go to BluePrintsLogic folder. Create a new structure, 'Add New > Blueprints > Structure'. Call it 'S_Maps'. Fill it in as below.

(Note, make Map_Name a String, not text). The L_Base_GameMode is a Class, not reference. Close that once saved, and pull up our game instance blueprint. Create a new variable and call it Defined_Maps. Set the type to S_Maps and set it as an array.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

So now if you have the game instance open and have the show defaults highlighted, on the right hand side you will see your new array, and can add in your maps, maybe add in a few that you have not made yet so you can see the arrow buttons work to change picked maps later on… I added two maps, and my setup looks like this:

Display name is what will be displayed in your selection (and to users), map name is actual name of saved map, and supported game modes is an array where you can add in elements for each mode your map supports, I added for deathmatch and team deathmatch for both maps I entered. Do ever set base gamemode as one, that’s just a parent class. Down the road you may have more game modes to add, or you might have a map set up for only one mode, thus you would only set it up here for the mode it is compatible with. 28

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now, we need to create a new widgt in GUI/Menu’s, let’s call it MM_Host. Because Epic has never added the ability to set the font size in pull downs in the widgets, we need to take a different path than before, so I will be thinking this out as I go, stand by. We want to open up our MM_Host to the Designer, and let’s put a Vertical Box in there, somewhere in the middle, whatever you think is a good size to contain things. Now add a an Overlay, then inside that an Image and Text. You will want to change the text to ‘Host Game’. Change the Image color to a light Grey. Then add another image to the Vertical box, set the color to black and set the Image Size Y to 8. Now add a Horizontal Box to the Vertical box, and inside that add two more Horizontal Boxes. Make sure you set both of those to ‘Fill’ and set horizontal and vertical alignments to fill.

In the first of the last two Horizontal Boxes you added, add a Text inside it, and the other add a Text Box. Change the text to Server Name: and set it to right justify and vertically fill. I set my font size to 24. Now set the Text box to fill horizontal and vertical as well. You should have something like this:

This will be so we can set our Server Name. So you will want to have that text box selected and at the top right, rename it Server_Name. 29

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

You can mess with the Fill ratios of the boxes to line things up differently if you’d like. I think I set my first one to fill .5 so it moves over to the left a bit and is not so centered. But by the time I end this, it might change again. I use the same process with a Horizontal Box for all the other options as well. The next being an item to select game mode. My stuff looks like this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

The ‘ServerName’ and ‘Mode’ are simply horizontal boxes, I just renamed them so it was easier to read in the Hierarchy. So now we need lines for Connection (LAN/Online), Max Players, Map, and Time Limit. We will use the same concepts as above to add those in. So with all those entries done, our Hierarchy should look something like this:

Yeah, I continued to rename stuff so it would be easier to follow when collapsed. Also, all the text fields for these entries (between the < and >) should be set to some variable name so we can reference what is in there later. And our Designer view looks like this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

I will leave it up to you to add a separator bar at the end then ‘host’ button to create the session and start the game, and a button to return to the main menu. When you are all done with that, we need to take a step back. In the Designer you want to go through and make sure only needed items are check as ‘Is Variable’. Pretty much the up and down buttons for each line, as well as the return and host buttons you made. It seems the text boxes are often checked as ‘Is Variable’, we want to uncheck those. Instead, for each check box, you want to create a bind. So create text variables called Map_Name, Mode_Name, Time_Limit and Connection. Compile and save.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Map Selection First thing in here is first, we want the Return to main menu button working so we can back out as we go in and test things. So in the Designer click on the button you made for that and then under Details > Events on the right, click on the + by OnClicked to create an OnClicked event for that button. This will take you to the Graph and the new node. Now you want to set this up like this: (note: you will get player controller and cast to l_player_controller ... not the game instance stuff you see here)

Create two new variables, Map_PRT and Max_Map_PTR and make them bytes. The first will point to the current selection index, the second is the max number of maps we have set up. Also another one called RealMapName of type String. In our game instance, create two variables, G_MapName and G_ModeName, of type String. Back to MM_Host we want to create a new macro and call it Set_Map_Name_TXT, this will set the text variable that is bound to the text in the menu so it changes as we hit buttons. Set it up as seen below.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Click on the Inputs or Outputs nodes and you can add the Exec nodes as you see above. What this does is goes out and casts the game instance we are using so we can pick up our DefinedMaps from that instance and use it. We then loop through that array and break it down to it’s components to get the ‘Display Name’ for the maps. If our Map_PTR variable matches the Array Index, we set the Map_Name text variable. In addition while we have access to Defined Maps, we are getting the length of the array to set Max_Map_PTR. So jump back to the Event Graph tab and from Event Construct, drag off and connect to a Set_Map_Name_TXT node. So when our menu widget comes up it sets the initial value.

(do not pay attention to the line comming off the set_Map_Name_TXT) Ok, some more macro’s are going to be needed. Create a macro and call it Up_Button. Make it look like this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

(maxptr and ptr value are of type byte) (yes, I know you need the add and minus byte below before this... lol) And another new macro and call it Down Button:

(note: these will be added to down the road... right now they are set so when you hit the arrows it does not end at the last (or first) and keeps scrolling through) Another called Add_Byte:

And another called Minus_Byte:

In the Designer you want to click on the Text item for the 'map text' to highlight it, then in the Details, click the Bind by Content -> Text. Select Map_Name from that drop down.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now back into Designer, you want to click on the down and up buttons for map and with each create a OnClicked event. I had renamed my buttons Up_Map_BTN and DN_Map_BTN prior to this. Once those two events are created, head back to them in the Event Graph, and you want to set them up to look like this:

So what this does, is once the button is clicked, it calls the proper macro, sending data as needed, and based on what the current PTR is, increments or decrements it (or leaves it untouched), returns it to be set with new value if needed, then goes back to Set_Map_Name_TXT to reset that text in the even that it changed. Now we need to go back to our L_Player_Controller and create our Show_Host custom event to show the host menu. If you haven’t noticed, you also need to add a variable that is MM_Host which is of type MM_Host.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

And in our MM_Main widget we need to click on our host button and create an OnClick event for it (if you have not already), and it should look like this:

So now, if all is compiled and saved and run, we should have this:

Yes, your’s will not have other data filled out, mine is a bit different as I am working on things as I go then coming back to explain them. If you have this working, you will notice when you go to this menu, the Main Menu remains behind it. Let's take care of that. First in your L_Player_Controller make a new Custom Event and call it Hide_Host.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Add another one called Hide_Main, it is similar:

Now go to the Leave_Current_State macro and change it up to look like this:

So when we leave the main menu, going to the Host menu, this 'hides' the main menu. (note: conect the Startup pin to the SET Menu State as well.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Game Mode Next we will have to pull the available gamemodes for the game mode selection, then based on what is selected, we will need to filter our map names, so you can not select a map that does not support the selected mode. It’s gonna be a bit confusing, but if you have made it this far, you will be fine. In addition to hooking up all the other options. This time we need to set up a structure to hold the game modes that your game will use, and set all that up to be selected in the hosting menu. Start out with Add New > Blueprints > Structure. Call it S_modes, and set it up like this:

Save and close that, and open up your game instance BP, add a variable, Defined_Modes of type S_Modes and make it an array. Add both of your game modes in there (if you only have a L_Deathmatch, then create a new child class from L_Base_Gamemode and name it L_TeamDeathMatch so you have more than one mode for now). So you should have this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Compile and save your game instance and close it. Now open up your MM_Host widget and go to the Graph. You need to create a Mode_PTR and Max_Mode_PTR variable (similar to what you did with maps) of type byte. Also create another called Mode_Name of type string. So you should have these so far:

Again you need to create another variable, Mode_Alias type string. Create a new Macro and call it Set_Mode_Name_TXT, make it look like this:

Now switch to the Event Graph and at the Event Construct add a Set_Mode_Name_TXT to the end of the string:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now you want to go to the Designer and click on each up and down button for the mode selection and create an OnClick event for them, once that is done, head back into the Event Graph and find those events (I renamed those buttons UP_Mode_BTN and DN_Mode_BTN in mine). From those events, add what is needed to build these:

Now back in the Designer, click on the Text item for the Game type text to highlight it. Then click on the Bind button for Content > Text and select Mode_Name to bind. That’s all that’s needed to get the mode selection working. A bit easier since with had some of the other macros already built, eh? Compile and save all, run your game and:

You might notice that if you hit the last one and hit the up arrow, it does not cycle back to the begining. Let's fix our Up_Button and Down_Button macros to handle that. First, for both, on the Inputs, add a 41

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

new item, type Integer (should be a byte but there is no 'switch on byte' node), I called mine 'which'. Then we modify them to look like this:

You know enough to make the changes to the Down_Button... it's just the switch and setting the PTR values. Now back in your Event Graph, for your OnClicked items for your up/down buttons, you will add a number into that 'which' value. For map, the number is 0 (both up and down) and 1 for mode. There will be more as we add max players and time and such. This tells our functions which variable to set right once we get to a upper or lower limit. Now realistically you could have a map that does not support all the game modes, in which case you need to do a good bit more work to ensure you can not select a map that is not compatible with the mode selected. Edit S_Modes, add variable Mode of type L_Base_Gamemode class. In L_GameInstance_BP, go to our Defined_Modes array and add the proper item for each entry in our array... this is mine:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

create variable maps_per_mode of type S_Maps, an array. Also one called selectedMode of type L_Base_Gamemode class. So what we will do is instead of using the Defined_Maps for our list of maps, we will build a custom array that contains only maps that support the mode selected. So we do this by creating a Macro and calling it resteMapPerMode:

Now in our Set_Mode_Name_TXT we need to add in a SET for that selectedMode:

And of course our Set_Map_Name_TXT changes to use our new array:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now back in our Event Graph, from our Event Construct, it should connect from that to a Set_Mode_Name_TXT, then to a resetMapPerMode, then Set_Map_Name_TXT. And on our OnClicked up items for our mode buttons, you need to add a resetMapPerMode and Set_Map_Name_TXT to the end of both the up and down buttons (after the Set_Mode_Name_TXT in each). Now you will only be able to pick maps that support the modes you set them up for.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Max Players In the designer (like we did before) set the name of the down and up buttons for max players, and create OnClick events for them. Back in Designer, click on the text field for Max Players and over on the right under Content > Text, click on the pulldown menu and hit Create Binding. That will create a new function that will be bound to that text field. In the new function we just created, we want to create a new variable, call it MNP (for max number players) and set it to a byte. Compile and save and set the default value to 6 (or whatever you want for your minimum number of players. Once that is done in the empty new function you just created, you want to edit the Return node to return Text, and simply attach a ‘get MNP’ to that, it will insert a byte to text convert node. So you look like this:

This basically just get’s what MNP is and converts it to a text which is then put in the text field for max players. We need to add to our Up_Button and add and change our Down_Button for this one. Up_Button just get's a SET for MNP added:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

And down button get's the same, but we also add a variable to our Input. Called mine MinValue of type Byte.

From the Designer, make OnClicked events for the up/down buttons for max players then set them up like this:

We could make a max_mnp variable and store what the max number of players is, but why bother, that's kinda a hardcoded thing, so I just typed in '40' as my upper limit. Notice as well, now you need to go back into your OnClicked for your down map and down mode buttons and add a 'MinValue' of 0. 46

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

This is the most basic of them, you will notice I have 40 and 6 in my logic. I set that because I figured you would never go over 40 players, and never go under 6, you can change this as you see fit. Or can make variables in the game instance where you set these, and reference them here if you want to be able to edit them elsewhere.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Time Limit We could do time limits like we did Max players, so you can set your’s up the same with a byte value to track. But I am going to take a different approach and use an enumerator so that I can set my time limit in increments and also have a setting for unlimited. So in your GUI/Menus folder do an Add New > Blueprints > Enumeration. Name it TimeLimit_ENM, then open it up and set up your values, mine looks like this:

Once you set it up with the times you want, save it and close it, and head back into your MM_Host widget. You want to go into your Graph and create a new variable called Time_Limit_ENM and set it’s type to the Time_Limit_ENM you created. Create another one called Time_Limit and set it to a Text type. One final variable, Max_Time_Limit_PTR of type byte. Then go back into Designer, select the text block for the time limit and use the pulldown to find that variable to bind to that text block. (always make sure when you add things you compile and save first or the new items like this variable will not show up in the pull down). While in the Designer, do the same thing with the buttons that we did with other buttons, making OnClick events for them. If you haven’t figured it out yet, if you click on the button and no option is there to make the OnClick, make sure at the top the ‘is variable’ is clicked.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now back in Graph, you want to create a new Macro and name it Set_Time_Limit_TXT, make it look like this (except I changed Time_Limit to a text, so you will need to drag off from the Time_Limit_ENM and add a 'to string' node, then from there connect to the SET, which will make a string to text convert node.. so slightly different. Or you can set Time_Limit to a String and it will look exactly like this):

The 6 is there because that is the last entry item (0 – 6) for items in our ENUM, you need to change this if your’s is different. Then again, you don’t need to have the set for that there, you can just go to the variable and set the default. Now find your OnClick events for the Time buttons and make them look like this:

Now we need to update our Up_Button and Down_Button again to add in the case that these were pressed.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

And of course at our Event Construct, you want to add a Set_Time_Limit_TXT to the end of that string of nodes so we set the value as we enter. You should have a pretty solid foundation with all of this so far. It occurred to me that if you have an Unlimited game time, you might want to limit it by score. So can you add another line in the MM_Host, set up a score enumeration and get it working like we just did for Time? Yes, you can, as I am leaving that one for you, and not showing it.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Score Limit (Note: This is an addition you can do if you want. You will need to add another line to your MM_Host widget for it if you want to add this functionality. If not, just skip ahead. Future stuff may reference this, if so and you did not do it, just ignore this section) Our Score Limit will be done similar to our Time Limit. ScoreLimits.

First create a new Enumorator, call it

Again, feel free to set yours up however you'd like. But remember the number (0 - max) you have for use later. Create a variable called Score_Limit of type String. And another called SLP of type SoreLimits Enumorator. Also one called max_score_PTR of type Byte. Set the default for that last one to 3 (or whatever your's is based on the # of entries you have) Now create a new Macro called Set_Score_Limit_TXT:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Add this Macro to the end of the chain from the Event Construct. In designer, select Score_Limit as the bind to the Text for this entry.

Go to your Designer and create OnClicked events for the up/down buttons for score limit. They will look like this:

Now we need to modify Up_Button and Down_Button again to account for this one:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Connection Open your L_GameInstance_BP, create a new Variable, named LAN of type Boolean. Compile, save and close. Load up your MM_Host widget, go to the graph. Create a new variable named Connection of type String. And another and call it LAN and set it too Boolean. Compile and save, go back into Designer and select the text block for connection and bind this variable to the text block. (I know you remember how) Back in the Graph, create a new macro and call it Set_Connection_TXT. Make it look like this:

Back in your Event Graph you want to add this new function along with the others at Event Construct so everything is initialized properly. Now back into the Designer so you can create OnClick events for the buttons related to this one. Then into the Event Graph to add code for those button presses.

That’s it for that one. It simply toggles the state of LAN and resets the text.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Server Name I went back into the MM_Hosts Designer, and added an image in the same Horizontal box as the Server_Name_TXT (text box). I fiddled with settings of ‘Fill’ for the image and the text until I got them aligned to where I wanted. Then set the image I put in there to the same color as my background image so it can not be seen as a spacer.

But we should probably set a ‘default’ for what the server name is, that’s easy, just go into the Graph, and select our Server_Name variable (we did create that before, didn’t we? If not, create that, type string, then in Designer and bind this variable to the text block for server name). Now in Designer, make sure that text box is set as ‘is variable’, and go down and create an event for OnTextCommitted. This one is cake, just make it look like this:

Now compile, save and all that, and when you run it, everything works:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Host Button Now to send all that data back to actually create the session and start hosting, in our L_Player_Controller we want to create a custom event, let’s call it Host_Game. When this is created and selected, you can add inputs on the right hand side in the Details box. Let’s see, we need to send Max Players, Connection method, Map name, Server Name, Time Limit, game mode and Score limit. And we need to make sure we set the right data types, as we will be passing back strings and enums and pointers to arrays (bytes) and such. So your setup for inputs should look like this:

Back in our MM_Host, we need to set up the stuff off the OnClicked to call this new event. It looks like this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Back in the L_Player_Controller... Make a new Macro and call it Set_Attr_Array. Here you can see the input, and can see what the outputs are set to as well.

and this is what your macro will look like (this just takes inputs from the host menu and puts them into a form we will create the session with so we can use it later):

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now one more macro, call it Set_Options_String, input and output have one exec and one string each, and it looks like this:

This simply builds a string we use when opening the level so it switches to the proper game mode. That uses the aliases for game modes that we set up earlier. Oh, we are going to want some sort of Loading Screen for when we open maps, aren't we? Blueprints don't handle them properly, as when you reload a new map, it clears all widgets... but we can see what we can do to fidget with it and get it somewhat right. You need to create a new Widget, call it MM_Loading. It's real easy, just make some sort of 'loading' screen, use what is there or get creative. Compile and save it. Now we need to create the Custom Event's to show it (and hide it). But first make a new Variable in your L_Player_Controller called MM_Loading of type MM_Loading object. Next make a Custom Event called Show_Loading:

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And of coure Hide_Loading:

Back at your custom Host_Game event, add what is needed to make it look like this (the converter nodes pop in automatically if you drag from start point to end point.

Compile, save and all that, and if you have followed the steps (and I have not forgotten anything), you can run this, go to host menu, select your stuff and hit host, and after a little delay your map pops up. Of course we have not done anything with the player controller so you can not move around yet. And you have to alt-tab out to get out of the window so you can stop it running. So big progress. Well, it SHOULD work, but most likely there is something in one of your config files missing. Go to the project folder for your project, then in Config, find your DefaultEngine.ini and add the following lines to

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it. This tells your game to use the 'default' OnlineSubSystem, which is not much more than local LAN stuff. We will get to adding Steam support later. Anyway, add: [OnlineSubsystem] DefaultPlatformService=Null There ya go. You will need to save everything and reload your project in the editor.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Join Game Menu You want to add a new BP widget (in your GUI/Menus folder) and call it MM_Join. Open it up in Designer, and let's get busy making it. In the end, we want something like this:

And our Hierarchy will look something like this:

How do you get there? I was hoping by now you could figure that out on your own based on the two images above. But if you can not, it is pretty basic. We have a Text item that titles the name of the page ('Join Server'), below that an image with the color set to a light blue. On top of that image we have more Text items that set up the header for the display we will (eventually) see below (ie server, mode, map, etc). Below that we have another image, set to a transparent dark grey. And on top of that a Scroll Box set to the size of that image. Inside that Scroll Box we just have to Text Items, one set to 'No Servers Found', 61

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

and the other one. Then we have three buttons, one will refresh the list, one will return to the main menu, and the other will switch us from Online to LAN connection. It is important to name certain items, and ensure they are set to 'Is Variable' where needed, as our BP will need to access/modify some of these. Now you want to click on the button for the "Return to Main" and add an event for OnClicked. Make it look like this:

Now that we have that screen set and a way to return from it, we need to go back to our player controller and set the BP stuff to show it. Create a new Variable called 'MM_Join' and set it's type to MM_Join (reference) as we have for other widgets. Create a new Custom Event and call it 'Hide_Join', and set it up like this:

(edit: Change that to Hidden, not visible above in the Set Visibility) Create a new Custom Event and call it 'Show_Join', and add the code in so it looks like this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

This one will grow big time, but for now we just want to show what we have so we can run it and see we are making progress. Now find your In MM_Main, you need to have an OnClicked event for the Join button and set it up like this:

Now we want to head into our MM_Join, as we need to make some functions and such to support things. In the designer, click on the text object for our Connection status/change button. On the right by the text block, click the drop down for Bind and add a bind. Name it Set_Connect_Text. It should look like this:

This will set our Online/LAN text for that button, which will also allow us to toggle the value, when we add an OnClicked event for that button and make it look like this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

(You could go back and change the logic for the UP/DN buttons in the host menu to do it this way as well if you would like (using the NOT)) Now if you compile and save and run, you will see clicking that button changes the text (and variable). Now back in MM_Join, let's make some Functions we are going to need. First will be called 'Set_Searching_Status_Off' and looks like this: (Note, these were originally Macros, but they need to be functions, so what you see below will be different only in that in a function you have an input node and must drag off the last bit to 'Add Return Node')... too little of a difference to remake all the images right now)

The little Searching Status node is a 'get' node for that variable. You create it like other get nodes, and can drag it from the variables list into the BP and select Get. Next is 'Set_Searching_Status_On':

Next are two of the same sort of thing for our None_Status object... 'Set_None_Status_Off' and 'Set_None_Status_On':

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

And because we don't need the Refresh button to show when we are in the process of refreshing, we need two to show/hide it, so we have 'Set_Refresh_Off' and 'Set_Refresh_On':

Now we need to make another Widget, this one will be created for each server found and show up in our Scrollbox in MM_Join. Call this one MM_Join_Entry. This one, is actually a pain, or has been for me. To start you want to place a button as the first item in your widget, I set my background color and transparency so that it was a medium grey and slightly see through. Now I placed a Horizontal box on the button and set it to fill the whole space for Horizontal Alignment. Now inside of that Horizontal box I put 5 other Horizontal Boxes. And each of those has a Text element in it. So the Hierarchy looks like this:

Now to get the text where we want it we need to mess with the horizontal boxes a bit (in the Details window). This is how I set them, in order, the last three are set the same:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now I rename the 'Text' objects, and set them all to 'Is Variable'. In order I call them: TextBlock_Servername TextBlock_MapName TextBlock_Mode TextBlock_Players TextBlock_Ping So my screen looks like this:

Now if you go to the Graph for this widget, we need to create some functions. First create a new Variable and call it 'Result', and make it type 'Blueprint Session Result'.

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Now make a new function called Set_Search_Result:

Set_Map:

Set_Mode:

Set_Name:

Set_Players: 67

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

and Set_Ping:

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These will clearly set the text in our boxes based on the results we get back from our search for sessions. Create and save that, we will come back to adding an OnClicked event for it later. Now we need to return to our L_Player_Controller and go to it's Event Graph. Head to the Show_Join we did in the previous lesson, and we need to start adding in the stuff that actually sets things up and searches for other servers out there. First you want to drag off from the Set Visiblity and the Add to Viewport to a Set_None_Status off. From there to a Set_Searching_Status_On and then Set_Refresh_Off. This sets the visibility on our items so as we need them. Of course all of them have their targets set to an MM_Join object. Then we need to add a 'Find Sessions Advanced' (which comes from the plugin we added before). It should look like this so far:

(note: the SetVisiblity should connect into SetNoneStatusOff) We we go off to find sessions to connect to, we are going to need some Variables to store info in. So create one called 'Found_Sessions' and set it to type 'Blueprint Session Result' and click on the grid to make it an Array.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

And another Variable 'Found_Sessions_Widget' which is type Object > Reference. It is also an array.

Now back to our Show_Join event. We left off at the 'Find Sessions Advanced', and will continue from there. What this does is use the selected OnlineSubSystem to go out and find other sessions that we could join. It could return results or it could not find anything (ie fail). So we need to handle both. In the event that it fails, we want to set the 'Searching...' text to off, set the 'none found' to on and set the refresh button on. So we drag off of 'On Failure' and add those nodes. In the event it returns an 'On Success' we want to verify there are results, so we first set the results to our 'Found_Sessions' array, then we check the number of entries in that array, if it is zero, then clearly it did not really return a value, so we branch off and do what we did for the 'OnFailure'.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

In the case that it did actually find some sessions and returned them to us, we want to set the 'Searching..' off, then go through each array element so we can pass that data off to build our list. Once we go through the list of returned data, the search is done, so we want to connect 'Completed' to our node that turns on the 'Refresh' button.

To help us cut down on the confusion of lines that we might find ourselves with, make ANOTHER variable, call it "This_Session" and set it to type 'Blueprint Session Result'... just a single, not an array. So from the ForEachLoop we want to set 'This_Session' and create the widget (MM_Join_Entry) so it is displayed in our list.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

You can see from the point of creating the widget, we also use 'This_Session' to 'Get_Extra_Settings'. That is from our Advanced Sessions plugin, and it allows us to pull all the data we passed when creating a session (host a session), like server name, map name, etc. Now to move on to the next part, we need to make a new Macro, name it "Make_Server_String'.

(All the returns are 'Text' type, the 'SRsult' input is 'Blueprint Session Result' and 'Sess Ret' is 'Session Property Key Pair')

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now we can use that macro in our Show_Join code. To continue that we want to add the Make_Server_String, and we also want to set the MM_Join_Entry variable to the widget we just created.

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And then we add that child into the scroll box for MM_Join.

So this will fill our list with all the sessions out there we find for our game. We still need to now activate that 'button' so you can join them, but before that, a little discussion. UE4 uses 'OnlineSubSystem' for network communications, hosting, joining a session, etc. Currently, by default, this is set to Null. That means you have a basic system set up, and it has no idea of how/where to pull down info to find other sessions online. It works fine on a LAN, but not across the internet. So with that as the default, you will never find a session you host with 'online' set instead of 'LAN'. How do you get around this? Well, I set it to use Steam. You have to have a project Greenlit in order to get your own ID to use the steam stuff and identify your game, however, you can use a 'test' ID, which is 480, to test the whole steam connection stuff. When you do this and search 'online', it will get the info from Steam as to what other servers are out there, sort of like Steam is playing master server.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

There are LOADS of little bits of info on setting all this up, but all of that is not needed. With 4.9.1 (and above) , they put all the Steam SDK files where they need to be, so all you need to do is edit a config file. Wherever you store your projects, you want to go to /Unreal Projects/LearnBP/Config/DefaultEngine.ini. Open it up, and add the following: [/Script/Engine.GameEngine] !NetDriverDefinitions=ClearArray +NetDriverDefinitions= (DefName="GameNetDriver",DriverClassName="/Script/OnlineSubsystemSteam.SteamNetDriver",Dr iverClassNameFallback="/Script/OnlineSubsystemUtils.IpNet [OnlineSubsystem] DefaultPlatformService=Steam PollingIntervalInMs=20 [OnlineSubsystemSteam] bEnabled=true SteamDevAppId=480 GameServerQueryPort=27015 bRelaunchInSteam=false GameVersion=1.0.0.0 bVACEnabled=1 bAllowP2PPacketRelay=true P2PConnectionTimeout=90 [/Script/OnlineSubsystemSteam.SteamNetDriver] NetConnectionClassName="/Script/OnlineSubsystemSteam.SteamNetConnection"

If you have a line where OnlineSubsystem is set to Null, just remove that and put the above in it's place. Now when you compile and pack and run from the packed game, if you are logged into Steam, you will see a little message from Steam in the bottom left of your game window, and can hit ShiftTab to pull up the in game Steam stuff. This let's you know it is working. As of now, you will not see this if you PIE (Play in editor). Not sure why, but it is known that it does not work there.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

In your L_Player_Controller, create a custom event called 'Join_Session'. An an input to it of type 'Blueprint Session Result'.

Open up MM_Join_Entry. In the Designer, highlight the button and in the Details click the + to add an OnClicked event for it (if not already done). Go to the Graph and the Event Graph and find that event.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

At this point, if you package your game, (and temporarily disable the steam system we discussed earlier (set it back to null)), you can run two windows, one to host, one to join. And all will work. I get an error in the PIE (play in editor), but I am not concerned about that as we want to play a packaged game, not in editor. Add a set Input Mode Game Only at the end of your Join_Session node.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Settings Menu Getting Started This is gonna be a bit more complex than the previous stuff. To start off, we know we want to set stuff for Video settings and Audio settings (at least), would like to do one for Input so you can assign keys to certain movements/actions, but currently none of that is exposed in blueprints. There are some tutorials out there on doing this, most seem to stick to a sort of default Epic sort of thing, where you can set the 'Resolution Scale' rather than Resolution. Perhaps people do not set such things in 'modern' games, not sure, but I want to incorporate it, and a few other things. This might be difficult with BP, or we may have to 'tweak' a bit to do it. Time will tell as we work through the settings menu. So we start by going into our GUI/Menus directory and creating a new widget, we will call this 'MM_Settings'. We open it up, and the first thing we want to add in is a 'Widget Switcher'. This will contain separate widgets for the Audio and Video and Input sections, and we will simply hit a button to switch between them. With the Widget Switcher selected, I set the 'Anchors' to the full big box (bottom right on that dropdown), then I set Offset Left to 550, Offset Top & Offset Bottom to 200 and Offset Right to 400, so we have a box a little off centered to the right. The left side will be used for the 'tabs' to switch between settings groupings. Now I make 5 buttons and put text in them. I change the text in them to read 'Video', 'Audio', 'Input', 'Apply' and 'Return'. And each button I rename, in the same order (so they relate to the text), 'Video_Tab', 'Audio_Tab', 'Input_Tab', 'Apply_BTN' and 'Return_BTN'. I set my position X on all of the buttons to 320 and Size X to 230 so they lined up and looked about like this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

And the Hierarchy looks like:

Make sure you have the checkmark set for those buttons to be Variables. Then go into the graph and find the 'Event Construct', and add to it so it looks like this:

This will turn off the Video_Tab button, as it will be the default we go into when we go into the Settings Menu. And enables the other two 'tab' buttons. So now go back into the Designer and for the Video, Audio and Input buttons, create an OnClicked event. Once that is done, go back into the Graph. For the OnClicked event for the Video_Tab button, you want to make this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

The other two will pretty much be the same, which buttons are enabled and disabled will change, as well as the 'Index' for the 'Set ActiveWidgetIndex'. This is the BP for those button OnClickeds:

Compile and save (as should be habit by now). Now to display this very beginning of the process so we can see it in game, open up your L_Player_Controller. Like we did for previous widgets, make a new Variable, call it MM_Settings, and set the type to a reference to MM_Settings. Then find an open spot in your Event Graph and create a Custom Event, call it 'Show_Settings'. It will look pretty much like the other Custom Events we have made to show a menu (Widget).

Take note that Leave_Current_State set's us to a Desired State of 'Settings', the rest should be familiar at this point. Now create another Custom Event and call it 'Hide_Settings', since we need to hide the widget when we go back to the main menu and such.

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(In the above image, you want to connect your MM_Settings to the ?IsValid as well, I forgot to before I took the image) So you can compile and close your player controller, and open your MM_Main widget. If you do not already have an OnClicked event for your Settings button (Settings_BTN), go ahead and create one. You will then go into the Graph and set it up like this (except like others, 'Get Player Controler' instead of game instance, and cast to L_PlayerController... the image is old) :

Ah, we want to go back to the main menu from the Settings menu, so go back into your MM_Settings and create an OnClicked event for the Return_BTN. (again player controller, not game instance)

May not look like much, but what this will do is each of the 'Tab' buttons will display the specific Settings Widget for Audio/Video/Input that will will start building next.

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Video Widget Now let's make another new Widget and call it 'MM_S_Video', it will be the Widget we use for setting video settings. How I am going to go about this is pretty much inspired and based on a two part video tutorial by Tefel that you can find here. It is great stuff and he get's the credit for showing me how to do what he does. So to start, place a Canvas Panel in the default Canvas Panel that is automatically created when you made your new widget. Set it's 'Anchors' to the upper left. Set Position X and Y to 0. Set Size X and Size Y to, oh let's say 900 and 600 (for now, we may change it depending on how things look later. Now Drop an Image on that Canvas Panel, set Anchors to full (bottom right), and set all the Offsets to 0 so it fills the whole Canvas Panel. Now set it's Color and Opacity to a dark gray that is somewhat transparent (like we did in other menus). So I have this:

Now drag a Vertical Box onto the Canvas Panel, set it's Anchors to full, and set the Offsets to 20 so it is just inside the edges of our Image. Drag 9 Horizontal Boxes into our Vertical Box. Then drag a Text element into each Horizontal Box, set each Text element to 'Fill' for Size. I set the text as you see below, here is the Hierarchy as well at this point:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

In the Horizontal Box that is for Resolution Scale: Drop in a Size Box in it, click the box next to 'Width Override' and set it to 200. Then drag a Slider into that Size Box, name that element 'Slider_Percent' and check Is Variable. Now drag a Text into the same Horizontal Box, it should place itself to the right of the slider. Set the name of that Text element to 'Slider_Text' and check Is Variable, then set the Text to '100%'. So now you should have:

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Compile and save and all that good stuff. Create a Macro Library (Add New > Blueprints > Blueprint Macro Library). When you get the popup, select Object as the type.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Name it ObjectMacroLibrary. Open it and create a new Macro called 'forEachChildWidget'. For inputs add 'Parent' as type Panel Widget Reference, for Outputs add 'Child' type Widget reference, 'index' type integer and 'Completed' type Exec. The macro looks like this:

Now we need to set up buttons for some of the video setting options, so create another new Widget and name it 'MM_S_V_btn'. This will be an individual button that we press. Open it up and highlight the Canvas Panel, and right click on it and select Wrap With > Button. The whole area should fill in with a white/grey. And now you have a Canvas Panel inside the button, delete that Canvas Panel. Name the Button 'V_btn' and set Is Variable. Drag a Text onto the button and name it 'V_btn_txt' and set it to Is Variable. Compile and save.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Go to Graph and the Event Graph. Create two variables, one called 'name' type 'Text', in details for it select Editable AND Expose on Spawn. The next variable is 'IsSelected' type 'Boolean'. Now from the Event Construct, make things look like this: (display on spawn for name?)

This will set the 'name' text of the button when it is created. Create a new function call it 'Set_Button'. This will set a button to selected when we click on it, and change it's color so we know it is selected. Make sure you select the black boxes and set the colors, one is for selected one is unselected.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now jump back into Designer and create an OnClicked for the button. Add nodes to get this:

When any of the buttons (that will be in a line) is pressed, this goes through all of them, and tags which one is selected. Now several of these buttons will be used on each setting line, so we need to make a widget that is pretty much a line of all the buttons we need. Make a new Widget and call it 'MM_S_V_line'. Open it up, in the Hierarchy, click on the Canvas Panel, then right click on the eye and select Replace With > Horizontal box. Set that Horizontal Box to Is Variable. (I did not name my Horizontal Box, so what yours is may differ from mine when you see it's variable name) Go to Graph, create a new Variable called 'buttonName', type 'Text' and set it to an array and editable. Also create another called 'IndexNum' of type Integer and set it Editable and Expose on spawn. Now on the Event Graph, build up the Event Construct node so it looks like:

This creates each of the button widgets inside of our Horizontal Box. It will make sense eventually... believe me. Now create two new functions, first is 'setSelectedButton':

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

and 'getSelectedButton':

(the 'Note' on that node is of no concern, it just means that we do not have the False hooked up so not everything goes to the return node, that's how we want it to work, so it is ok) OK, now we can go back into our MM_S_Video widget. We want to go down to the User Created stuff in the Palette on the left, and find our MM_S_V_Line widget, and drag one down into the Horizontal Box for antialiasing, post processing, shadows, textures, effects and view distance, so our Hierarchy looks like:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now for each MM_S_V_Line in the Hierarchy, highlight it, and on the right in the Details > Defaults, add 4 elements for 'Button Name'. I labeled mine Low, Medium, High, and Epic, per the standard UE4 uses. Do this for all of the MM_S_V_Lines you use in MM_S_Video. Also, set IndexNum for each of them. I start at the top and go down the line, first 0, last is 6, in order.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

When you click the buttons they should change to color you set, which shows which one 'IsSelected'. Back into MM_S_Video in Designer, click on the Slider, at the bottom of Details on the right, add an event for OnValueChanged. It looks like the below image, the node after the Round node is a 'ToString' node.

This updates the text next to the slider when the slider is moved. We could do something to set defaults, but there is no point until we get into saving and loading these settings. Before we get to saving things, we still need to do something to set 'Window Mode' and 'Resolution'. For Window Mode, open up MM_S_Video and drag down a MM_S_V_line into the Horizontal Box for that item. Click on that MM_S_V_line in the Heirarchy then in the Details for it, add three elements to the Default > Button name. I called them 'Full Screen', 'Windowed' and 'Borderless'.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

For the Resolution, let's create ANOTHER new widget, call it MM_S_V_res. Open it up and replace the Canvas Panel with a Horizontal Box ( right click, replace with...). Now add a Button in there, then a Text, then another Button. In the button on the left add a Text and change it to '<'. Do same for right button but change it to '>'. Name the left button 'Res_DN' and the right button 'Res_UP'. Rename the center Text as 'Res_TXT' and set it to Is Variable. Quickly jump into your Game Instance and create a new Variable called 'Resolutions' set it to type String and an Array. And other named 'ResSelected' of type Integer. We need to set up stuff in here so it loads things up when you start the game, so it has them to get and apply our settings.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now create a new Function, call it Load_Res.

What this does it get an array of all the device supported full screen resolutions. We then go through the array one at a time, and if the X is < 1024, we throw it away, simply because I don't think anyone should be running ANY game at low resolutions like that. You can change this if you like, or set it to cut out more resolutions, or whatever. When it finds an acceptable resolution, it adds it to the 'Resolutions' array, putting in the form of aaaaxbbbb where aaaa is x and bbbb is y. And since this will be called whenever the game starts AND when we go back to the main menu, we start it by clearing the array so we don't fill it with more stuff and mess things up. So now go to the Event Graph in your L_Player_Controller and find the Start_Game node, and add in our new macro so it looks like this:

Back into MM_S_V_res and go to Graph.

Let's create a new function and call it setResTXT. 92

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Go back to the Designer and create OnClicked events for both of the buttons (Res_DN and Res_UP).

And finally go to the Event Construct and add this, so when it pops up, it set's the text to the proper selected resolution.

In MM_S_Video, in the Horizontal Box for Resolution, add a MM_S_V_res element from the User Created section.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now if you go into the game you will get the resolutions and can move through them.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Saving Create a new Structure, call it graphicsettings:

Add a new Blueprint Class, (i put this in my BluePrintsLogic folder) then in the search box type in 'save' so you find the SaveGame object, and select that. Name this 'Settings'. What we want to do with this, is add variables to save our settings to. So first create a new Variable, call it 'Graphics', set it to type graphicsettings (the structure you just made) and an Array. Compile and save, then add 7 elements. These will save for Window Mode, AntiAliasing, Post Processing, Shadows, Textures, Effects, and View Distance. They should all be defaulted to 0. The next Variable is 'resolutionScale' it is type Integer. And lastly (for now) another one named 'resolution' which is type Text.

Compile, save and close that. Open MM_S_V_res and go to the Event Graph, add a new function and name it 'getResTXT'.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Back in your Game Instance, create a Variable called 'graphicsCommands' of type String and make it an array. Compile and save, then add 7 elements to the array, fill them in so they look like this:

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Now we want to save the game when someone hit's the 'Apply' button, so .... open up MM_Settings. If you have not created an OnClicked event for the Apply button, do so. Then open up the Event Graph and find that node. Also create a Variable 'temparray' of type graphicsettings and an array. Create a custom event and call it 'Apply_Settings'. The text in the append nodes has a space at the end, this is required.

Now we need a new Function, call it 'Set_Res_Data':

Your Widget Switcher may have a different name as we did not bother to name it. Same with the Slider. From your OnClicked event, drag off to a 'Create Save Game Object' and set SaveGameClass to your class (Settings). Drag out from the Return Value to a Cast to Settings. Now we need to pull info together to save. So first let's Get All Widgets of Class to go through our buttons and pull out what was selected and stick it in our 'temparray'.

So it looks like this: 97

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Basically once the first part is done building and filling our 'temparray', we need to set that to 'Graphics' in our Save Game blueprint, as well as set 'resolutionScale' and 'resolution' from the data on our graphics setting screen, then save them off. Now we need to load the settings (to show they are saved, right?). Open MM_S_Video. Previously we just set everything to a default when it created it. Now we want to load the saved data (if it exists). Create two new macros, 'Set_Res' and 'Set_Res_Scale':

(Note: for some reason that cast causes an error with the Resolutions variable, so right click on the cast and convert it to a pure cast, that get's rid of the error)

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

From your Event Construct:

The only problem is this does not load and set your settings when the game launches, so we need to do that.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Loading and Apply Settings Now back into your Game Instance, and create a new function called 'Load_Settings':

(In things like the above BP, that top right Append node? The middle pin looks empty, but it is a single space. And in the other appends, there is a space after the commans (ie r.SetRest)... this IS IMPORTANT. It will not work without the proper spaces) Then in yourL_Player_Controller's Event Graph, add that Function in your 'Start_Game' bit of blueprints:

Now your game will load up the settings when the game starts and apply them.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

Audio Widget Now we want to have Audio settings, to control volume of different audio in our game. The problem that we WOULD have, is most of the stuff needed to actually set the sound level for these is not exposed to Blueprints. Not sure why they did not add such basic functionality to Blueprints, but it is what it is, and we do have a workaround, by using a plugin. Rama has a plugin that includes all sorts of useful things that he has exposed into Blueprint nodes. You can find and download his plugin here. There are instructions in his thread, and also here. It is easy like the Advanced Sessions Plugin we are already using, pretty much just goes into it's own directory in the Plugin directory for your project. I have been packaging and testing and it all works just fine. There apparently are other workarounds, but they are hackish and insane, feel free to go down that road if you do not want to use the plugin, but I am using the plugin as it is free and makes things much easier. So to start that we want to 'Add New > Sounds > Sound Class. I called mine Master. I also created a new folder under my BluePrintsLogic folder called Sound and moved 'Master' there. Now open up master. You will see a node labeled Master. From that drag off to create children. You can do it however you would like, think about the different sub classes of sounds your game may have that you want to allow volume control for. I added Music, SFX, UI, Announcer and Ambient.

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Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

So when we have this all set up, you will have a slider volume control for each sub class, and one Master that controls them all. Once you make them, make sure to do a save all to save all the new children you have created (it makes a new file in content browser for each one). Now you want to make a new Widget, name it MM_S_Audio. It is gonna be set up pretty much like the Video one we just went through (at least the base and the slider control). So add a Canvas panel to the default Canvas Panel, set it to 900x600. Ad an image in there, set it to a light transparent gray like before, and set it's size to fill the Canvas Panel. Now drag a Vertical Box onto that Canvas Panel, I set Anchors to full and offset all around it to 20 (like for Video). Now for each one of our sound classes we will drag a Horizontal Box into the Vertical Box. In the Horizontal box we drag a Text, then a Size Box (set Width Override to 200), then a Slider into the Size Box, and then another Text into the Horizontal Box. I fill the first Text with 'Master Volume' as that's what it will be, the second Text with '100%'. So here is my Hierarchy and screen so far:

The Slider I named 'Master_Slider' and set to IsVariable. The second Text I set to 'Master_Percent_TXT' and IsVariable. Back in our Game Instance we need to create a variable called masterVolume of type integer. Back in MM_S_Audio, create a variable named oldmasterVolume of type integer. Seems there is a problem with the volume controls. Since most of the sound classes are children of the 'Master', when you adjust the Master it actually changes the children. When you move the volume down, but not when you move it up. That is a problem. So to fix it, I am going to use the 'SoundMix' class.

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I created 11 different 'SoundMix's ... named Mix0, Mix1, Mix2 ... Mix10 ... in each I added 5 elements, for each of my sound classes, and set the 'Volume Adjuster' to 0.0 for Mix0, 0.1 for Mix1, etc. This is my Mix0:

Create a new macro called popOld:

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And another called pushNew:

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Then another called setslidermaster:

And one more called changeMaster:

Then I select the slider and add an Event for OnValueChanged, and set it up like this:

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And the fun keeps rolling. More Macros to create.... vol_changed:

and set_slider:

So now we repeat what we did last time and add our other sliders (you can select the Horizontal Box for master and CtrlC to copy it, then highlight the Vertical Box and CtrlV to make a copy of the Horizontal Box), and set the names and text appropriately for whatever the sound child class is you are setting up for. As an example, I will do one for Announcer. Of course rename the slider and percent text variables ... do this enough to cover all the sound classes you have made for your game.

Now I click on the Slider for one of your items, and add an OnValueChanged event. In the Event Graph by my new event I drag out an 'Announcer_Percent_TXT' and connect it all up to a 107

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

'Vol_Changed', making sure to set the Sound Class Object to Announcer. That sets us up to change the volume when the Slider is changed.

Do this for all your sound classes. And at our Event Construct node: So now you want to save and load the Sound settings? Ok, go open up your 'Settings' BP (the SaveGame BP). Add a new Variable for each sound class you use, I named mine SC_xxxxx (where xxxx is name of that class (ie. UI, Music, etc)). They are all of type Float.

(yes, I know they look like Integers, but I changed them to Float, make yours Floats) Now in MM_Settings I create a new function called 'saveVolumes'.

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Of course your's may look different depending how many Sound Classes you are controlling. Now back in our Event Graph we just add this function into OnClicked for our Apply button.

There is actually no need to do anything else to apply them, if you played with it before you know when you move the slider the result is instant. We just need to save the settings so we can load them when we come back into the game. So let's go back into our Game Instance . First we need a new Macro called pushVolume to set our volumes, you can copy and past from the pushNew you made before, this one is the same thing. I just haven't bothered to figure out BP interfaces and such so we can put it in one place. In our Load_Settings function, and just add the stuff we need to the end of that:

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The blue lines come from the Cast to Settings > As Settings above. One last thing, in your MM_Settings, in the Designer, under User Created in the Palette, grap and drag a MM_S_Audio into your widget switcher. It should be second (after MM_S_Video). This is all you need to have the widget switcher do it's magic. This basic setup will do all that we need and control the Master Volume. Want to test it? Find a nice WAV to import into your project, find something nice and long, import it, and add it to your menu level (drag it in). Now go back and double click on that Audio you imported, you want to go to Sound > Sound Class and select a class for it.. you could consider it music, or perhaps since this would be playing in your menu you want it to be UI, doesn't matter, that organization is up to you.

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You will set the class for EVERY audio you bring into your game, that allows it's volume to be controlled by the Sound Classes we have set up. But if you have done all that, compile it all, save it all, run your game. Your Audio should start playing if you copied it into your Menus level... go to Settings > Audio. You can adjust the slider for Master and you will hear the volume of your Audio change. It's an instant thing. That is the start, the rest is pretty much that easy, but instead of duplicating some of the nodes like we did above, we will make some Macros/Functions to simplify things.

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Setting Defaults for First Load of Game Of course when you start your game, if there has not been a 'save' of the settings, you want to set your defaults and create the game save, then apply all those settings so your defaults are 'working' the first time you run the game. To do this, let's go into our Game Instance, and create a new Macro called setfirstdefaults:

This creates a new save game object, and set's our defaults, then saves that object. Of note, the ForLoop is set to go from 0 to 6, that is because we have 7 items we are saving. Yours might differ. And you might want to break it out into a Switch on Int and set different one's different things. I just randomly selected my default resolution because it was a lower level 16:9 aspect ratio that most systems can support. You can choose whatever you'd like. The rest just sets all our sliders to 100%. now over in your Load_Settings function, we need to add in that macro so it creates defaults and saves them, then pretty much starts over and loads and applies them:

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Gameplay Widget So the next thing we will work on in the settings menu is the 'Gameplay' settings menu. Like Video and Audio, we must start by creating yet another new Widget Blueprint, I will call mine 'MM_S_Game'. The setup starts the same as Audio did, add a Canvas Panel in the Canvas Panel. In that add an Image and a Vertical box. Look back up at the settings from the Audio if you need to. Then like before, add Horizontal Boxes with text in them, to the Vertical Box. I added 6 because I am planning on having Player Name, and toggles for Aim Down Site, Jog, Crouch, Prone and Enable Console. Feel free to not do all of those, or to add more of your own as you see fit. I added some extra boxes and filled with transparent images to space things out a bit, but I am starting with this:

Then I messed with adding two Horizontal Boxes in each of the main Horizontal Boxes, I moved the text to one, and the other will be for input, set both to Fill to fiddle with spacing and got:

We could do Check Box's for all the settings, but I have not been able to figure out how to increase the size, so they are all quite small. So instead I am going to use buttons, and just toggle the text according to the state of the button. 113

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

So add a button in each of the Horizontal Boxes for the toggles, I will name mine BTN_Aim, BTN_Run, BTN_Crouch, BTN_Prone and BTN_Console and then I will add a Text in each button and name them similarly with _TXT at the end, set all to 'Is Variable' so we can alter them.

To have global data to save, we need to go into our 'Settings' save blueprint we created and add variables to save the state of all these buttons. I created the following variables in there, all Boolean except Player_Name which is a string.

And since these are things we want to have loaded and used when we get to our Player Controller, we want to go into our Game Instance and create variables there that we can pull and use elsewhere. I used the same names and types we used in 'Settings', pretty much duplicating those variables in our Game Instance. Now we need to go back to MM_S_Game and create an OnClicked for each button. Each one will look similar to this, but of coures you will get the proper Variable from the Cast To... node and select the proper _TXT to 'SetText' to.

(Yeah, connect that SET to the SetText I didn't before I made the screen shot) Make sure you go to your MM_Settings and drag down the MM_S_Game custom item into your widget switcher, it should fall as the third item under your switcher. 114

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Now if you Compile and save and run, you will see that the buttons change state (ie text) based on the boolean's changing. But of course we need to do something when the screen initializes to set the initial state. So we need to add something to our Event Construct node.... we will do that, and add the stuff to save and load these settings next time. So things do not get as cluttered as they could, let's create a new function and name it 'setDefault' in your MM_S_Game.

Note: to create this you may need to bring in one of your BTN_???_TXT elements and drag off it to create the SetText nodes. Once that is done, drag back off them to the function entry and it will automatically add the 'Target' node as input. Do the same from the Condition on the Branch. Now back to the main Event Graph we need to create this:

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That set's our initial toggle button values. Now we need to add this to the save stuff (yes, I am aware I have not done player name yet, we will get to that). So let's head to our MM_Settings widget and create a new function called 'SaveToggles'. Add an input of type 'settings reference'.

Now in the Event Graph, find your OnClicked for the apply button and add in the SaveToggles node...

So that will save what we have set. Now we need to go to our Game Instance and do the bit to load them. So pull up your Game Instance and go to the LoadSettings function you created before. This is getting big, so first an overview: 116

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

This is so you can see where the blue lines are coming from. Next a closer view so you can see how we load up the toggle settings:

That loads it, but remember we need to add stuff to set the defaults for the first time the game runs so go into you rsetfirstdefaults macro and add what you need:

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Now if all is compiled and saved, and you even package out, you can go in the settings, change the toggles, apply, quit the game, restart the game, you will find the toggles are loaded properly. I thought a good bit about this. My plan is to always use Steam (for now) as currently unless you build your own OnlineSubsystem, there really isn't a way to find other online servers on the internet. So from my point of view, I will always get the users Steam Name and use that when they connect to a server. Would love to see someone put together a nonSteam setup that got from a master server list so you could find other online servers. But that being said, we should set up some stuff so that if you do NOT have steam, you at least get the default 'name' as UE4 sets it. I personally am not going to allow it to be changed (since I will concentrate on Steam), but by now, you should be able to figure out how to get the changed name in the MM_S_Game widget and save and load it into our save file. To start, I open up my Player Controller, and from the Event BeginPlay node, we add on the pieces to either pick up the Steam name or get the UE4 default and set that to our PlayerName variable.

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Now into our MM_S_Game widget, at the end of the Event Construct we add the following to set the Text of what the players name is (I will change this from a Text input to a simple Text item as I just want to display it, rather than allow it to be edited, as I mentioned above).

That's it for me on this part. Which finishes up the Gameplay settings. Like I said, you could capture a change in the Text Box like we did for Server Name, and set that change to PlayerName, and save that to your save file, and load it when the game starts, if you want. But I am not doing that for the reasons mentioned, but it should be pretty darn easy to figure out if you have made it this far. Nor did I bother to save or load it from our setting save. I didn't see the point.

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Controls Menu This part, by far, has been the most aggravating, but I got it down to something that works. This will take advantage of Rama's plugin that we used for sound. To start you will need to create a few new widgets. I made MM_Controls, MM_C_Axis and MM_C_Action. Because UE4 uses two different kinds of input, Axis and Action inputs. For now, just create them and save them, leave them blank, we will get to them, first we have to hook up all the stuff to show/use them. First go to your Player Controller, and we need to create two new Custom Events, Show_Controls and Hide_Controls. These will work like all the other 'show' and 'hide' custom events we did for other submenus. Of course create a MM_Controls variable that is of type MM_Controls object.

Open up your main menu (MM_Main, and make an OnClicked event for your Controls button (again, you will get player controler and cast to L_Player_Controller ... not use the game instance like below...).

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That's the basics for getting our new menu to show up. Now you can open up MM_Controls and start working on it. I set it up as follows, feel free to make your's look more refined or pretty (I kinda gave up on that for the tutorial.. LOL). Mike looks like this:

And the Hierarchy:

Create an OnClicked event for your return button (player controller not game instance):

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Some Variables to create: MM_C_Axis of type MM_C_Axis (a reference to that BP), MM_C_Action of type MM_C_Action, V_Input_Axis_Array of type Victory Input Axis as an Array, and finally V_Input_Action_Array as type Victory Input also an Array. Now we need several functions, the first is GetAxisKey, what this will do is take inputs for the Axis keys we WANT to be showed, search through all the ones that exist and pick out what we need. (as an example, lookup is an Axis command commonly used and attached to the MouseY... there is no reason to change this (that I see), so when Rama's plugin returns it in the Array of all Axis inputs, we never need to show this, thus we must pick out only the items we want to display for the user to set)

As a note, you can create all this then drag back the string and float from the '==' to the function input to add them to the input, if you so desire. The next one is pretty similar, but for the Action Inputs rather than Axis. I called it GetActionKey.

Next in your MM_C_Axis you want to create some variables. victoryAxisKey of type Victory Input Axis and keyDesc of type Text. Set both as Editable and Expose on Spawn. Now in your MM_C_Action 122

Building a FPS in UE4 Blueprints

make victoryActonKey of type Victory Input and keyDesc of type Text, these also need to be set to editable and Expose on Spawn. Next up are two functions that actually take the Inputs we want the user to be able to set, and set up and create the needed Widgets and add them to our Vertical Box in MM_Controls. First is Make_Action:

Next is similar, just for the Axis inputs instead, thus it is called Make_Axis:

Next we need to add one that ties all these together and steps through and adds all the Inputs (Axis and Action) that we want the user to be able to change. I called it 'addInputs':

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Now you are gonna have a lot of questions, and perhaps we need to have a little discussion. What is all this crap? Well, for this project, I figured on some key movements that I wanted to use, those being forward, backwards, left, right, jog (run), crouch, prone, jump and our in game menu. We have not set any of this up yet, but we can go over that now, so you can set yours up (even though we have nothing to control at this point). Think about all the actions/movements that you will desire in your game, you might want a 'swim', or 'climb' or who knows what, so your end setup for 'addInputs' may be a bit different. For basic Axis movements (forward, back, left, right), they use a 'Scale' which controls the scale of the movement, so a forward movement is a scale of 1.0, set the scale to 1.0 and the movement is reversed, so forward becomes backwards and right becomes left. So if you go to your main screen and do Settings > Project Settings > Input you can set all these inputs. As an example, here is mine:

You can name the mappings pretty much however you like, but remember them, as they are used in our 'addInputs'. So you can see for my 'MoveForward' I have two inputs, one uses Scale 1.0 and one -1.0, thus different movement directions. Same for Move Right. Action Mappings are more basic, just a key attached to an action, no Scale. Go ahead now and set your's up as you will need. Now that you are done that..... For your 'addInputs', you want to input the names you used (that I said to remember just above), then the MakeAxis you can actually set a different description for the movement. This is needed because you do not want two 'MoveForwards', when you want a Forward and Backwards key for the user to set... throwing in the Scale stuff would just confuse them. So the 'Get' and 'Make' functions we made look past the Scale (and I also looked past the shift,alt stuff that Action inputs can use, because honestly nobody uses that for much of anything).

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So as an example:

We know that to move backwards, we set that Axis to 'MoveForward', and the scale is 1.0, so in 'GetAxisKey' we set those so that function goes and finds that input key for us. Then we pass that key to 'Make_Axis' and set the description to 'Back: ' so when it is displayed to the user, they simply know they are setting the key for backwards movement. Same idea for moving left, as it uses 'MoveRight' and a scale of 1.0. If you are paying attention you see I also did this for my 'Jog' Action key, and changed it to 'Run' for the user. I could just change my Action Binding name... but then I wouldn't have another example to show. LOL. Ok, so to tie all this together, you want to go back to your Event Graph for MM_Controls and add on to your Event Construct event so we get all the bindings and put them in our Arrays for use in all the stuff we did above:

This clears our Arrays (which is old programming habit on my part), then we simply take ALL the bindings and add them to our arrays, then call 'addInputs' to make all our pretty little widgets. Now we are done with MM_Control. Open up MM_C_Axis and let's design our little widget. On the default 'Control Panel', right click and go down to 'Replace' and select 'Horizontal Box' (we have done this before). Then I just add a few items and get this:

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The Hierarchy:

How did I get those items to look like that? The Key_Name_TXT (which is a 'Text') I set to Fill and 0.5, right aligned. Key_Change_BTN is set to Fill and 0.75 (Note: set to left align so it will look better than above, the button will only be as long as the Text in it... also, you can delete the 'Image', that was a spacer but since you set the last to left align you no longer need it). Make sure to set those variables as you see above and all are set to 'Is Variable' true. Now go to your Graph as we need to make a variable. First is OLD_VIC_Key which is of type Victory Input Axis. Also one called gotAxis of type Boolean. Our Event Construct should look like this:

When the Widget is created (via MM_Control), this pulls in the key for it and set's the text for the key, as well as the description name we pass it. Next we need an OnClicked for our Key_Change_BTN:

So when our button is pressed, we need to first disable the button (this is so we can pick up some button clicks and button presses that we otherwise miss). Then we set the text to tell the user to 'Press Key to 126

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Assign', save what our current Key is in Old_VIC_Key and set the Keyboard Focus to our little widget we are in. Now we need functions to pick up key presses and mouse buttons. So to start we need to create a new function that is an override. So if you mouse over the bar for 'Functions', a little drop down will appear for 'Override', click on that and select OnKeyDown. What we will be doing is pretty much stealing keyboard input to set our new key (same with mouse in a bit). The function looks like this:

So when a Key is pressed, this get's the key and converts it into a VictoryInputAxis structure, we pull from that for the new 'text' of the key and the new key structure, but pull the Scale from our old settings (OldVICKey) so the user does not have to deal with that. We use all that to make a new VictoryInputAxis and ReBind the new key. Then of course you need to set VictoryAxisKey to the newly created key, and enable the button. The Handled node is not needed, but I put it in there because without it you get a warning. Now for the mouse we create an override function the same way, this time we override OnMouseButtonDown:

Same concept as key down, but Mouse Buttons are handled a bit different.

Ok, the only thing left for this is the MM_C_Action widget. And for the most part, this is a duplicate of the MM_C_Axis widget, with minor changes. 127

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First, open up MM_C_Action, and we need to set up things, like with C_Axis, change the Control Panel to a Horizontal box, put the same stuff in the box, and name them the same (a Text, and a Button with a Text in it). Keeping the names the same is important. Go to your graph and create variables like you did for the C_Axis widget, only difference is create VictoryActionKey of type Victory Input (instead of the Axis version we did before. Now your event graph is pretty much the same (input instead of axisinput used):

Your OnClicked for the button:

Create the override for OnKeyDown:

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And the override of OnMouseButtonDown:

Thanks to gmc on the Unreal forums, we can add a bit of stuff and capture up/down mouse wheel as well. I did mine just for the MM_C_Action (for action keys) as using mouse wheel for Axis keys doesn't seem to make much sense to me, but you can add it to your's if you'd like. You will just use VictoryInputAxis stuff instead of VictoryInput for the new function in your MM_C_Axis if you add it. BTW, gotAction should be checked so it is defaulted to TRUE. Whereas in the Axis it is unchecked. Next, add an override function OnMouseWheel. It looks like this:

The Input for GetWheelDelta is connected to the MouseEvent Pin on the Purple On Mouse Wheel thingy, The Out Pin on the Select for Text is connecting to the SetText Function and is converted to a String connecting to the Make VictoryInput KeyAsString Pin, The Out Pin on the Select Key is connecting to the Make VictoryInput Key Pin! 129

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That's it. Compile and save, now when you click on a key to change the binding, you can scroll up or down with your mouse wheel and it will pick it up and rebind it properly.

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In Game Menu Though we have nothing going on once you host/join a game, as we have not worked on characters or movement, we should still throw in an 'In Game' menu so we can back out of the game. So start by making a new Widget BP, call it 'In_Game'. Drag in a Vertical Box, and in that box, drag in two buttons, then add text to them both. I named the first one 'Resume_BTN' and the other 'Leave_BTN'. The text you set for them is pretty clear, resume and leave game. Create OnClicked events for both buttons. I set the size of my Vertical Box to 500 x 300, changed the anchor to 'center'. This way I can set the Position X to 250 and Position Y to 150 and the box will be centered on the screen. Like other UMG stuff, you can play with it, add frames/backgrounds or whatever. I would hope by now you are doing that to most menus to set it to your own 'style'. (As a side note, you should go back through your Widgets that you have created in the past, and set any main Vertical Box or Image or whatever the base of the menu is, so the Alignment is centered. It will take a bit of fidgeting, but this will ensure that when a user changes resolutions, everything stays pretty much where it should, with less chance of things being cut off in lower resolutions/different aspect ratios) Now go back into your Player Controller, we need create two new Custom Events, one 'Show_In_Game' and one 'Hide_In_Game'. These will be like the other show and hide events we have for other menus. In order to build them, we need a new Variable. Call it 'In_Game' and set it's type to be a reference to our In_Game Widget (like we did for previous menus).

Now open your Project Settings > Input. Add an Action Mapping, call it 'In_Game_Menu' and set it to the Escape key.

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Don't forget to add this key/input in your Controls stuff as well so users can customize the binding on it as well. So now we need to go back to the In_Game Widget we made and make the buttons do something.

Note: This will not work when played in editor, not sure how to catch it for that, but in the packaged game it works. And that is the end of Part 1. In Part 2 we will deal with setting up our character and it's movement, then on to the game framework. When we create our custom character, we need to add this into it in order to pull up the in game menu:

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