Part 3

• These notes are starting at 1:53, Creating Widgets.
• I ended at 2:00
• First he builds a health bar.
  • This uses the UI construction set called widgets.
  • There is much more to this than he discusses here.
  • Keep in mind how you set this up.
    • Some systems do not attach this to the player.
  • Like everything else, the widget is programmable in blueprint.
  • He shows us a bad way to communicate between the widget and the player.
  • He builds this functionality in the widget
    • 
    • Note the GetPlayerPawn, then a cast to the right pawn.
      • We are getting a pointer to the base class.
      • Then casting it to the class we want.
      • So we can get the class specific data.
      • Note, we are not using getters and setters.
    • This is driven the wrong way.
    • It is called every tick.
  • A better solution is to create an UpdateHealth.
    • And only call it when we take damage or are healed.
  • We continue to build functions.
    • And he introduces parameters in a very casual way.
  • Be careful renaming things.
    • At one point I renamed a parameter.
    • But it didn't catch it. So it couldn't compile.
    • But the message was clear
    • 
    • With a very clear indication of the problem in the widget.
    • 
  • He gently introduces a "driver" as a "debug function".
    • While he said not to apply health through the damage system, I quickly hooked this up as well.
    • 
  • I Refactored my TakeDamage event

  PlayerT::DamageEvent(damageEventData) {
      UpdateHealth(damageEventData.damageAmount)
      UpdateHealthBar()
      CheckForDeath()
  }

• 

• PlayerT::UpdateHealth(healthDelta) {
      health = clamp(health+healthDelta, 0, defaultHealth);
  } 

• 

• PlayerT::UpdateHealthBar() {
     HealthBar.UpdateHealth(health/defaultHealth);
  }

• 

• PlayerT::CheckForDeath() {
      if (health ≤ 0  and not isDead) {
         isDead = true;
         System.PlayerDied();
      }
  }

•