Preface
The Unreal Engine was first introduced to the gaming landscape in 1998 through Epic's
first-person shooter, Unreal. While the core of it is written in C++, Epic managed to craft
a language of their own, called UnrealScript, which is similar to Java in a number of ways.
In November 2009, Epic released the Unreal Development Kit, an SDK utilizing the Unreal
Engine, which allows developers to write and release games of their own. Many of this
generation's leading AAA titles utilize the Unreal Engine, including the Mass Effect,
BioShock, and Gears of War franchises.
My plan with this book is to allow you to have the ability to craft worlds of your own, by
teaching you how to program for the industry's leading 3D engine for AAA development.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Development Environments, will take us through several development
environments which can handle UnrealScript, define some of the perks and pitfalls of each,
and highlight the benefits of understanding the source code, through UncodeX and the
Dungeon Defenders Development Kit.
Chapter 2, Archetypes and Prefabs, will show you that as a programmer, one of your tasks
is to assist the level designers. This can be done in a number of ways, but one of the most
useful ways is to create what are known as prefabs and archetypes. By creating templates
for objects and actors and only exposing the variables that a designer will find to be useful,
you can make your work, and that of a designer, far more efficient.
Chapter 3 , Scripting a Camera System, tells us about cameras in UDK that are an essential
part of gameplay. They can simultaneously be one of the most frustrating yet rewarding
things to program, as once they are working correctly they can completely change a player's
experience, because you control their window to the world.