cjmxp / unreal.hx

Unreal.hx: Haxe Integration for Unreal

Unreal.hx

Unreal.hx is a plugin for Unreal Engine 4 that allows you to write code in the Haxe programming language. Haxe is a modern, high-level, type-safe programming language that offers high performance critical for game development.

Main Features

• Haxe compiles directly to C++, for high runtime performance.
• Full access to the entire Unreal C++ API - including delegates and lambdas.
• Full support for UCLASS creation, subclassing, and Blueprints.

Haxe Features

• Familiar C/Java-style syntax.
• Memory management via garbage collection.
• Strict type safety, with a powerful type inference engine.
• Many modern features such as lambdas/closures, generics, abstract data types (GADT's), reflection, metadata, and a powerful macro system for language extension.

Setup

• Make sure you've got a working haxe installation, and have the hxcpp and hxcs haxelibs installed
• Clone this library or add it as a submodule to your Unreal project in the Plugins/UE4Haxe directory
• Port your main Build.cs module to Build.hx and make sure it extends HaxeModuleRules
• On the Plugins/UE4Haxe directory, run haxe init-plugin.hxml to make sure your Build.hx file was built
• A new directory, Haxe, will be created at the root of your project. Add any class to be compiled to Haxe/Static, and you may add new compiler arguments to the arguments.hxml file
• For the latest master, you will need Haxe 3.3 and Unreal 4.11

Examples

package mygame;
import unreal.*;

@:uclass
class AMyActor extends AActor {
  // make a property that is editable in the editor.
  @:uproperty(EditDefaultsOnly, Category=Inventory)
  var items:TArray<AActor>;
  
  // make a function that is callable from C++/Blueprints
  @:ufunction(BlueprintCallable, Category=Inventory)
  public function addToInventory(item:AActor) {
    items.push(item);
  }
  
  // override native C++ function
  override function Tick(deltaTime:Float32) : Void {
    super.Tick(deltaTime); // call super functions
    trace('Hello, World!'); // all traces are redirected to Unreal's Log
    trace('Warning', 'Some Warning'); // and it supports Warning, Error and Fatal as well
  }
  
  // tell Unreal to call our Tick function
  public function new(wrapped) {
    super(wrapped);
    this.PrimaryActorTick.bCanEverTick = true;
  }
}

package mygame;
import unreal.*;

@:uclass
class AMyGameMode extends AGameMode {
  @:uproperty(BlueprintReadWrite)
  public var playerName:FString;
  
  @:ufunction(BlueprintCallable)
  public function makeExternalRequest(data:String) {
    // use Unreal C++ API to make an HTTP Request
    var httpRequest = FHttpModule.Get().CreateRequest();
    httpRequest.SetVerb("GET");
    httpRequest.SetHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
    httpRequest.SetURL("www.mygame.com/players");
    
    // use Haxe JSON library to encode data.
    var json = {
      name: this.playerName,
      playerData: data,
    };
    httpRequest.SetContentAsString(haxe.Json.stringify(json));
    
    // Receive a callback when the response is received.
    httpRequest.OnProcessRequestComplete.BindLambda(function (request, response, success) {
      trace('response received: ${response.GetContentAsString()}');
    });
    
    httpRequest.ProcessRequest();
  }
}

For a complete example project, check out https://github.com/waneck/HaxePlatformerGame , which is a port of Unreal's Platformer Game demo to Haxe 3.3/Unreal 4.11

More information is available on the Wiki