Getting Started with Unreal Engine 5 Blueprints

What you'll learn in this Unreal Engine 5 Blueprints course

The lessons follow one thread: build a small thing, hit a problem, solve it, and learn the node that fixed it.

• Blueprint basics: creating an Actor Blueprint, adding components, the construction script (for things that happen in the editor) versus the event graph (for things that happen while the level runs), and the compile button.
• Events: Event Begin Play, Event Tick, key press events (such as the L key) and Event Hit, plus Print String to see what your Blueprint is doing.
• Controlling a Blueprint: what possession means, how a game mode sets the default pawn class, using the third-person template character, and changing a Blueprint's parent class from Actor to Pawn.
• The Level Blueprint: toggling several lights with the 1, 2 and 3 keys, and why a Visible toggle beats hard coding an intensity value.
• Game mechanics: a bomb you plant and detonate with a Niagara confetti burst, Boolean variables, the Branch node and the Sequence node.
• Line Trace by Channel: shooting an invisible line from the character, using the hit location to spawn a graffiti decal on a wall, and using the return value so nothing spawns on a miss.
• Simulations: pins that change color when a ball hits them, using Event Hit, material parameters, the Do N node and Switch on Int.
• Functions and organization: turning a node chain into a reusable function with input and output parameters, debugging with Print String, aligning nodes with Q, anchor points on connection lines, and comment boxes with color labels.

How the course is built

There are 11 lessons with a total runtime of about 1 hour 19 minutes. Most of the time is spent in a live Unreal Engine project, and Jordy leaves his mistakes in so you can see how he debugs. A few lessons end with a small assignment, and the next lesson shows the solution.

The last lesson gives you two final projects. For games, you build a Squid Game style platform challenge where a random tile in each row falls away, the screen turns a desaturated red when the player falls and confetti pops at the end. For film renders, you make tree trunks that light up and fall at random moments in a forest built from simple shapes. A project file download (Learn_Blueprints_Course_Project_Files.zip, 61.3 MB) is included, and Jordy says the project files carry comments explaining the nodes he used.

Who this course is for

It is for anyone who has started exploring Unreal Engine and feels stuck on Blueprints. The course is rated beginner. Jordy's aim is that you understand the logic behind each node instead of copying what he does, so later tutorials become easier to follow.

It covers the fundamentals only. Jordy says in the final lesson that he has only scratched the surface, and from there you keep experimenting on your own.

What you need

Unreal Engine 5. The third-person template, which you add to your project as a content pack, supplies the playable character. A free graffiti decal from the Unreal Engine asset marketplace is used in the Line Trace lesson.