It is possible to make a game in Unreal Engine 5 without ever having to write a single line of code. The blueprint feature allows the developer to code all the logic in a node-based system.
Why should you use codes?
It’s not all stars and sunshine with blueprints. It can sometimes be slow and bulky. For example, blueprints come with a lot of functionality that you might not be using, but when you call a blueprint, it brings extra features related to it.
Coding simpler codes will do what you need to do in the game without the extra features that come with the blueprint, and it is easier to customize when writing code than the pre-made functions of a blueprint.
Setting Up The Environment
Visual Studio can be a little bit intimidating at first because of the vast amount of features that come with it. Fear not! It is straightforward to set up. Start by going to this link here: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads
Download the community edition of Visual Studio 2022.
For Unreal Engine, select the following options in the visual studio installer and hit Install while downloading. This will take some time.
Great!!! We are halfway there. Now to set up Unreal Engine to work properly with Visual Studio.
Downloading Plugin
Starting up Visual Studio will show a notification on the side to install the Visual Studio Integration Tools made by Microsoft. Clicking on it will take you to the Unreal Engine marketplace, where you can download the plugin.
Or you can download it from here:
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/visual-studio-integration-tool
Enabling the Visual Studio Integration
Once downloaded, you need to enable it by going to “Edit -> Plugin” on the top left. Then search from Visual Studio and enable it like the image below.
This needs to be done with every new project you create because it’s disabled by default.
Common Issues with Visual Studio
- The notification to install the integration plugin will keep showing even if you have the plugin installed but not enabled. So please make sure to enable it from the plugin settings.
- After the initial creation of the project, codes usually work right away. If newly written codes do not affect the project, close and restart the engine.
- I found it better to start Visual Studio first and build the project from Visual Studio, and that with start the engine automatically.
- If there is not enough empty memory left to build the project from Visual Studio, it will crash and show some errors like
C3859.
It is easily avoidable by building from the Unreal engine live coding system. Just hit recompile, and it will build the project without crashing, even if there is not a lot of memory available. It may take some time, so please be patient.