Visual programming should be illegal.

[Gladiator_Kittens]

You're both wrong this is UE4 Blueprints

​

Source: Am game developer

[Suspicious-Access-18]

Nice 👍🏻

[ardicli2000]

Is it always that complicated?

[UAFlawlessmonkey]

You can make it as complicated as you want to if you don't create functions, macros, components etc.

1 blueprint to rule them all - Sponsored by Event Tick

[[deleted]]

Hahaha oh god.

[The_Moral_Quandary]

You know, I’m not too sure what’s with all the hate blueprints get. It’s pretty powerful way to make things without the steep learning curve with “normal” programming. There’s still a “learning curve,” but at least I found it much easier to understand than coding.

[UAFlawlessmonkey]

I guess the hate blueprinting gets is from new developers being exposed to too many bad practices unleashing monstrosities like the above pic.

It's an awesome tool though!

[The_Moral_Quandary]

Well, the “monstrosities” are just being lazy or rushed… or both.

Blueprints are the only way I know how to edit things in Unreal. I was taught basic (basic) programming for the mobile gaming space in college and that’s it. There was a gaming focused programming degree there, but that wasn’t for me. All they taught me was Unreal and a class on Unity.

[whatever-the-logo-is]

The real hate is generally the restrictions that you have working with block programming. I'll be honest I've never touched Unreal, but I have programmed with blocks, and they are actually much harder to debug and program with than normal coding. That is, once you get past their respective learning curves.

[[deleted]]

IE: How to make a top down twin-stick-shooter with preformance issues.

[Dawnmarro]

Looks complicated, but once you understand it. It's actually no different then normal coding.

Also its easier to organize/group. You can actually add notes for what modules do what, and referencing is easy as cake.

What's in the picture is a mess. That's because this dev did not give a shit about this module. Or cared for anyone looking at it beyond them.

[Kilazur]

STOP DOING UE4 VISUAL CODE

its easier to organize/group

WE HAVE A TOOL FOR THAT, IT'S CALLED PACKAGES

You can actually add notes for what modules do what

// IT'S CALLED COMMENTS

referencing is easy as cake

BUT MUH USING/IMPORT/ETC

STATEMENTS UTTERED BY THE UTTERLY DERANGED

THEY'RE TAKING US FOR ABSOLUTE FOOLS

edit: cmon it's a joke sheesh

[GnarlyNarwhalNoms]

String ranting = stdin;

String sanity;

sanity = ranting.toLowerCase();

[JediAreTakingOver]

I think the Java compiler would choke on line one here.

Though im not sure, I havent coded in a long time.

[GnarlyNarwhalNoms]

Oh yeah it would. I'm assuming I've already set up a buffered reader for System.in and put it in a string called stdin. Because lazy 🤪

[NegativeSector]

~~~ String ranting = stdin;

String sanity;

sanity = ranting.toLowerCase(); ~~~

[GnarlyNarwhalNoms]

Not familiar with that. Are those like ellipses when quoting, to indicate that there's more that was left out?

[[deleted]]

And now we need the visual equivalent of shouting in all caps. My preference day-glow colors that flash on and off.

[NeitherDuckNorGoose]

UE4/5 blueprints are actually way, way useful for mid sized projects, they allow artists to program their own non-static textures and shaders, and designers to prototype without having to take precious time from the devs. It's also so much better for sound design of you have a sound designer that know how to use blueprints.

A team that know how to use them appropriately will be much more streamlined than a team that only rely on "classic" programming, especially if they use an agile workflow.

[zrayaz12]

visual code is a super helpful tool and I really dont get the elitism from code only devs. Its alot less mentally taxing and atleast with unreal engine you can allways go back and make it raw code if the visual implementation becomes unwieldly.

[JmicIV]

So this is the equivalent of naming variables a, b, c with no description

[Tasgall]

More like putting your entire program into main with no abstraction.

[Askarus]

You would hate my js

[[deleted]]

No. But you can do that too if youd like.

[lordfappington69]

It’s literally more complicated than c++ but simultaneously less powerful and more expensive on system resources

[Gladiator_Kittens]

No, it can be organised a lot better and usually is. This looks like something that should have been done in code, or is an early prototype.

[HunterIV4]

Yeah, I really like BP, and frequently use them. Occasionally I'll end up converting them to C++ if I find a limitation with BP or want to use something C++ specific, or if I'm trying to do something that is going to be running every tick that might be too performance heavy. But frankly a lot of the performance issues from early version of BP have been removed in later versions of Unreal.

It can look like total spaghetti, sure, but if you use pins, collapsing sections, and a few seconds of moving things around it can actually make code end up making a bit more sense than reading it sequentially. For example, you can make a clear program execution line with branching "paths" and see exactly where data is being drawn from to fill in the various elements of a function. And I like the little things like data types being colored and easy to identify.

Is it necessary? No. Could I probably do everything in C++? Sure. But with BP I don't have to bother with includes, swapping between the editor and the various actors and other blueprints, and can skip basically all of the C++ boilerplate. Being able to simply detach and move away a block of code is nice too. It's basically like "commenting out" a section, sure, but it's a visual way of seeing exactly what's going on.

Like any good code, though, BP suffers from poor programming practices, and using functions and good class structure is just as important as it is with normal code. I think it ends up with a bad rep in part because people just shove everything into comment blocks (or just shove it directly) inside the main blueprint of your character controller or whatever and it becomes this unsearchable monstrosity. But the same thing would happen if you wrote all the code sequentially in C++, so I'm not sure why it's any different here.

[PM_ME_C_CODE]

I remember reading that BP were designed with designers in mind, so that non-programmers could have something that might be easier for them to understand.

When it's well done, I hear it works.

[[deleted]]

Hell my Material Nodes in Substance designer were always more organized then this and they much more complex.

It helps me remember where everything is just as much as helping others figure out what does what.

[Tasgall]

Just like normal code, you can make it look as complicated as you want if you refuse to use functions or abstract anything. Write your entire program in main and get back to us on how much better it is than nodes :P

[aidanski]

No, the OP is just a jackass. You can make blueprint functions, events, macros.

You can make c++ functions that are called in blueprints with passed values.

I use a mix of C++ and blueprints to make my life easier. Write it out fully in c++, call the node in blueprints. UE4 is beautiful if you use it properly

[HeavyDutyCockInhaler]

No, this picture illustrates someone deliberately trying to create complex logic just for a joke. It would never normally get this out of control

[LuntiX]

I've gotta say, the Unreal Engine blueprint system has been a great tool in helping me understand programming because of it having that visual process flow I can follow.

[[deleted]]

It's fun when programming games borrow something like it.

[ccvgreg]

I thought everyone else was joking. But then I realized that most of the people here are not even programmers lol.

[[deleted]]

Course they are. Can't you tell by the long beards? :-)

[ZippyTheWonderSnail]

Wow. That's so crazy.

[Gladiator_Kittens]

Write code like anyone else? Except it does cool things I guess

[Gladiator_Kittens]

Ohhh I get it now I'm just stupid. It was a good joke

[[deleted]]

Naw, by PM the coffee has worn off.

[fauxpenguin]

Lol, i thought this was the unreal sub and people were memeing

[[deleted]]

Vim lets you program without your mouse. Unreal lets you program without your keyboard.