How To Make A Game In C++ Visual Studio Code
The demand for computer games is growing more and more over time. Therefore, there is a need to create technologies that can effectively satisfy it. For successfully game development, you need to choose a suitable code editor, such as a C++ code maker, as well as some additional tools and extensions.
In this article, we will show you how to create a modern game using C++ Visual Studio Code and Unreal Engine.
Table of Contents
- What is C++ Visual Studio Code used for and what are its benefits?
- What is Unreal Engine and how does it help in the game development?
- How to set up Visual Studio Code for Unreal Engine?
- How to start developing games with Visual Studio Code and Unreal Engine?
- What are the benefits of Unreal Engine development in Visual Studio Code?
- How Visual Assist for Unreal Engine helps to improve the development process?
What is C++ Visual Studio Code used for and what are its benefits?
C++ Visual Studio Code is a lightweight and modular source code editor developed by Microsoft. It is an open-source cross-platform editor that supports Windows, Linux, and MacOS.
Visual Studio Code provides a code debugger, IntelliSense, Git tools, and custom themes. To expand its functionality, add new themes, languages, tools for debugging and code refactoring, etc. you can install C++ extensions for this C++ code maker.
VS Code allows you to deploy and host sites using Microsoft Azure. You can also store and query relational and document data, and scale it out with serverless computing.
With VS Code, you can create various applications, including web and cloud applications, and games. In order to develop modern exciting games with C++ Visual Studio Code, you need to install the Unreal Engine plugin.
What is Unreal Engine and how does it help in the game development?
Unreal Engine is a popular modern engine that provides a lot of advanced features for working with 3D graphics. You can easily create and manage beautiful 3D objects and scenes using it.
Unreal Engine is great for creating games of any genre. It allows you to easily build realistic worlds, create animations, various materials, simulations, effects, and much more. In addition, Unreal Engine provides powerful tools for writing, debugging, and analyzing code.
With Unreal Engine, you can create games for most modern operation systems and platforms, game consoles, and various portable devices. It also supports various input devices, network modules, rendering and audio playback systems, and speech recognition tools.
You can use Unreal Engine not only for game creation, but also for a range of other needs, including architectural and automotive visualization, linear film and television content creation, broadcast and live event production, training and simulation, and other real-time applications.
How to set up Visual Studio Code for Unreal Engine?
To get started developing your game, first, you need to download and install C++ Visual Studio Code and Unreal Engine from the official website. Optionally, you can install a number of VS Code extensions that provide additional functionality for developing Unreal projects.
Next, you need to open the Unreal editor and select the menu item Edit -> Editor Preferences. After that click General -> Source Code -> Source Code Editor and select Visual Studio Code from the dropdown list. You can now generate Visual Studio Code projects using the Unreal editor.
How to start developing games with Visual Studio Code and Unreal Engine?
After installing and configuring all the necessary tools, you can start developing games with Visual Studio Code and Unreal Engine. To do this, open the Unreal editor and generate a new Visual Studio Code project using the menu command File -> Generate Visual Studio Code Project.
After that, open generated project in Visual Studio Code using the File -> Open Visual Studio Code command. The Visual Studio Code editor will be launched. Now, you can edit, debug, and build your Unreal project in this C++ code maker.
What are the benefits of Unreal Engine development in Visual Studio Code?
The main advantage of development using Visual Studio Code is that this environment is lightweight and modular. It works much faster compared to Visual Studio. VS Code can quickly find any line in the entire Unreal Engine code.
Visual Studio Code is cross-platform, which allows you to create Unreal Engine projects in any environment convenient for you: Windows, Linux, or MacOS. VS Code is an open-source tool and it is free.
Unreal Engine creator Epic Games provides basic support for VS Code.
Despite all these benefits, there are also some disadvantages of using Visual Studio Code. One of them is the impossibility to use various extensions such as Visual Assist to improve development efficiency. This is due to the architectural limitations of VS Code. At the same time, Visual Studio does not have such limitations and allows you to use a wide range of different extensions.
How Visual Assist for Unreal Engine helps to improve the development process?
Visual Assist for Unreal Engine provides additional features for developing with Unreal Engine (UE), including support for UE keywords, preprocessor macros, and solution customization.
Visual Assist allows you to enable smart suggestions to display a drop-down list with qualifiers when entering or modifying UE macros.
You can quickly rename a UE declaration in a dialog box using Visual Assist. This action also renames all related implementations. In addition, to speed up the code development process, there are advanced features for quick code navigation and refactoring.
When extending functionality, UE Visual Assist automatically adds the code to call the superclass to the template, which allows you to reduce the number of mechanical steps and speed up the coding process.
Unreal Engine provides a huge number of features for developing your 3D applications. There is also a huge knowledge base for learning this engine. If you are just starting to develop applications with Unreal Engine, or if you are already an experienced developer but want to use new features in your programs, you may find yourself spending a lot of time reading the documentation.
Visual Assist shows comments from base classes for Unreal Engine C++ and U*Macro specifiers in the code, which can significantly speed up the learning process.
Try the free real version of Visual Assist for Unreal Engine and enjoy all the benefits it provides for the fast and easy development of modern 3D games.