Unlocking C++ in Unreal Engine

Unlocking C++ in Unreal Engine

A One-Day Hands-On Workshop to take Unreal Engine beyond Blueprints

By Integrated Design & Media Program at NYU Tandon

Date and time

Saturday, July 12 · 10am - 5pm EDT

Location

NYU Tandon @ The Yard

Mc Donough Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11205

Refund Policy

Refunds up to 7 days before event

About this event

  • Event lasts 7 hours

Take Unreal Engine beyond Blueprints. In this intensive day you’ll configure a full C++ toolchain for Unreal Engine 5.5, learn when native code outshines visual scripting, and discover how AI code copilots can super-charge your workflow. Through guided exploration and live coding you’ll compile your first custom Actor class, expose functions to Blueprints, search the Unreal source code, and learn how to improve your C++ skills using LLMs.

For more workshops like this, visit Tandon at The Yard's 2025 Summer Workshops page.


Who Is This For

  • Technical artists & gameplay programmers migrating from Blueprints to C++
  • Virtual-production & real-time content creators who need maximum performance
  • Indie devs & prototypers wanting AI-assisted coding inside Unreal Editor


Basic familiarity with Unreal Editor navigation is assumed; no prior C++ required.


Materials

  • Laptop with Unreal Engine 5.5 installed
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2022 (Community or higher) with “Game development with C++” workload (Note: we will walk through this step in class)
  • GitHub Copilot / Cursor / Cline or Claude/ChatGPT (optional, free tiers okay)
  • Three-button mouse for comfortable viewport work
  • (Optional) External SSD for project files

Workshop Schedule (10 AM – 5 PM)

10:00 – 10:15

Welcome & Goals
Workshop roadmap; poll participant experience

10:15 – 10:45

Why C++ in UE?
Native vs Blueprint performance; memory, determinism; exploring the source code

10:45 – 12:15

Environment Setup & First Compile
Create C++ project; configure VS; hot-reload; build a custom Actor; Debugging Compile Errors

12:15 – 12:30

Morning Break


12:30 – 1:30

Exposing C++ to Blueprints
Core C++ classes; UCLASS, UFUNCTION, UPROPERTY macros; Samples;

1:30 – 2:15

Lunch Break


2:15 – 3:15

AI-Assisted Coding
Integrating LLMs into the workflow; prompt patterns for boilerplate, refactors

3:15 – 3:30

Afternoon Break

3:30 – 4:30

Project Sprint
Creating a custom C++ feature (from prompts or your own idea); Profiling;

4:30 – 5:00

Showcase & Closing
Share builds, Q&A, next-step resources


Outcomes

Participants will:

  1. Configure and compile C++ projects in Unreal Engine 5.5.
  2. Create custom Actors, Components, and Blueprint-exposed functions.
  3. Leverage AI coding tools to conceptualize, boilerplate and debug code.
  4. Prepare a custom C++ feature together (Optional: bring your own idea)
  5. Leave with the skills to use C++ for future games or virtual-production pipelines.


Presenter

David Cihelna — Technical Director and co-founder of Pyramid3, an R&D studio building virtual content, game engine and synthetic-media experiences. David guides teams across virtual production, AI tooling, and experiential entertainment, drawing on deep expertise in Unreal Engine, and real-time graphics. LinkedIn


Location

For walking directions from the gate to the workshop venue, click here.

Tags

Organized by

Integrated Design & Media Program at NYU Tandon

Programs that tend to teach one thing or even several things neatly bounded and categorized are generally easy to describe and easy to write about. IDM is not such a program. Even a cursory look at the makeup of our faculty, the courses we teach, and our academic and professional practice cannot fail to give the impression that we are a program hard to pin down: an eclectic crew of singular individuals gathering the arts, design, engineering and humanities into our capacious minds and hands. A visit to our floor and a few conversations with our students would reveal much the same: terrifically busy crisscrossing mediums, genres, and forms; curious, critical, and creative. We could add, with no little pride, that we temper this spirit of experimentation and invention with a commitment to criticality and ethical and social responsibility; to engage in 'art for art's sake, design for the market' would be no good. So perhaps this is what, despite the diversity of disciplines, practices and skills we present, binds us together - faculty and students - in common cause, that we believe to create entails a commitment to what Hyginus deemed as constitutive of the human condition: care.

$268.61