• I am currently working my way through Exploring Blueprints
    • This is a much lower level tutorial
    • He show you how to move about in blueprints.
    • He does a much better job of discussing blueprints from an academic level.
  • He points out that a blueprint is actually an object in the engine.
    • Blueprint graphs are the methods.
    • If you start to create a new blueprint, look at the list of all classes
      • I have over 400 in the game I am working on.
      • This will change depending on the assets you have included.
      • And the blueprints you create.
    • All interaction at the game level is done through blueprints.
      • Actors in the game
      • Characters
      • The UI
      • The AI
      • Even motion and animation.
    • Blueprints are implemented in C++ and there is a very natural transition between the two.
  • I few things I have picked up here that I want to implement right away.
  • Clamp
    • Clamp is commonly used in graphics (How about animation software)
    • It "clamps" a value between a min and a max 
    • value = min(max(MIN_VALUE, value), MAX_VALUE)

// or
if (value < MIN_VALUE) {
    value = MIN_VALUE;
}
if (value > MAX_VALUE) {
    value = MAX_VALUE
}
    • But it won't do for mod, as mod wraps and clamp does not.
  • Comments
    • You can make a comment by
      • Select anywhere in the background of the blueprint area.
      • Press C
      • Drag this over the code you wish to comment.
      • Type in a comment
    • Comments move as a group.
    • You can nest comments.
  • Custom Events
    • One of the two advocated custom events to simplify blueprint graphs.
    • I created a custom event called AddToIndes
      • Right click and search for custom event
      • Rename it.
      • Hook it up to a graph.
      • Then use this
      • I added this to my construction script as well.
  • Collapse to Function
    • You can collapse a collection of nodes into a function as well.
    • Select the nodes then right click on one and select Collapse to Function
    • The graph is collapsed to a single node
    • And a new function shows up in the Functions window
    • You can rename, edit,... whatever you want with this function.
    • Which cleans up my code considerably
  • There is also a collapse Nodes and a Collapse to Macro as well.
    • I have not played with these
    • There is a discussion here
    • It appears that macros are just copies of the nodes
    • While functions are somewhat akin to c++ functions.
      • They have a single control entry.
      • They can be overridden in classes that inherits from this one.
  • Some last notes
    • Blueprints are interpreted
      • If you have a bunch of complex computations, you might consider implementing this in c++.