Set up from scratch

This takes you from a fresh project to an effect playing in your game in a few minutes. Nothing in it needs C++.

Before you start#

• Unreal Engine 5.8 with Blendable FX added to it. In the Epic Games Launcher, open Library, find Blendable FX under your Fab library and pick Install to Engine.
• A project. Any project works. To follow along exactly, make a new one from Games > Third Person, Blueprint.

1. Turn the plugin on#

1. Open Edit > Plugins, search for Blendable FX, tick it and pick Restart Now.
2. When the editor is back, open the Content Browser's Settings and tick Show Plugin Content.
3. In the Content Browser, open Plugins > BlendableFX. The starter effects are in three folders there: Plugins/BlendableFX/Transitions, Plugins/BlendableFX/Impacts and Plugins/BlendableFX/Overlays.

A Blendable FX button is now on the level editor's toolbar too, with the starters, the look browser and Live Tune on it.

2. Check it plays#

In the Content Browser, open Plugins/BlendableFX/Transitions and double-click Transition_Iris. At the top of its panel, in the Preview band, press Play As A Transition. The level viewport closes through an iris and opens again. If you saw that, the plugin is working, and there is nothing else to set up: no component to add and no setting to change before effects play.

3. Play one from Blueprint#

Effects are played by Blueprint nodes, so they go in any Event Graph: your character, a door, a pickup, a weapon, the Level Blueprint. Right-click in the graph and type the node's name; they're all under Blendable FX.

• Play Impact.

  Strikes an effect once over the player's view, and it goes by itself: a hit, a flash, a landing.

• Show Overlay

  and Hide Overlay. Puts an effect on screen and keeps it there until you take it off: low health, old film, a hacked camera.

• Play Transition.

  Covers the screen, lets you change something underneath where nobody sees it, and reveals the new shot.

• Set View Target With Transition.

  Switches the player's view to another camera behind a transition.

• Open Level With Transition.

  Covers, loads another level, and reveals it.

• Toggle Night Vision.

  Puts a night vision goggle on, or takes it off.

The quickest to try is Play Impact.

Play Impact, pin by pin#

Open your character Blueprint (in the Third Person template, BP_ThirdPersonCharacter) and go to its Event Graph.

1. Something to start it. Right-click and add an event: Event AnyDamage plays it whenever the character is hurt. To try it straight away, use a key instead: right-click, type One and pick the One key under Keyboard Events.
2. The node. Drag off the event's white execution pin and add Play Impact. The white wire is what makes it play when the event fires.
3. Player. Every Blendable FX node has a Player pin: whose screen the effect plays on. Right-click, add Get Player Controller (Player Index 0), and wire its Return Value into Player. In a single player game that's always the player.
4. Effect. This is which effect plays. Click the box on the Effect pin to open a list of every effect in your project and pick one: type Impact_HitRed to filter it. You can also select an effect in the Content Browser and click the arrow beside the pin to use it, or drag in a variable that holds an effect so the game can choose.
5. Amount (optional). Open the arrow at the bottom of the node to see it: how hard it strikes, 1 as designed, 0.5 for a graze.
6. Compile and play. Press 1, or get hurt: a red hit strikes over the screen and fades.

That's the whole pattern: an event, a node, the Player and the Effect. Every other way of playing an effect is the same shape, with a pin or two more.

Holding an effect on: overlays#

Show Overlay has the same Player and Effect pins as Play Impact, and keeps the effect on screen. It gives back a Return Value, a handle for the overlay it started: right-click it and pick Promote to Variable to keep it. Later, Hide Overlay with that variable in its Handle pin takes that overlay off. Give Show Overlay a For time, under its arrow, and it takes itself off after that many seconds instead.

Try Overlay_LowHealth. Overlays shows how to move one while it's on, or drive it straight from a number in your game such as health.

Changing something unseen: transitions#

Play Transition has a Covered pin as well as the usual white output. Whatever you wire to Covered happens while the screen is fully covered: teleport the player with Set Actor Location, swap a mesh, show another room. The transition then reveals the result, and Finished fires once it's fully open again. Try Transition_Iris.

Set View Target With Transition does the camera case for you: give it a camera in New View Target and it switches to it behind the transition. Give it the player's character to switch back.

Open Level With Transition takes a level's name and opens it behind the transition, revealing it once it has loaded.

Transitions goes through covers, blends and the handshake underneath them.

No Blueprint at all#

• A volume. Drag a Blendable FX Volume into the level from Place Actors, size its box, add an effect to its Effects, and pick what Plays: an impact as the player comes in, or an overlay while they're inside. FX Volume
• Every camera cut. In Project Settings > Plugins > Blendable FX, pick an effect in Transition Every Camera Cut and every camera cut that nothing else has transitioned plays it. Getting started

Night vision#

Toggle Night Vision on a key puts a goggle on and takes it off; pick the goggle in its Type pin, Two Tubes, Green say. A goggle amplifies the light your level really has and switches itself off in daylight, as a real one does, so try it in a dark level. Night vision in your game has the lighting and the other keys a player needs.

An effect of your own#

Right-click a starter and Duplicate it, or make one from nothing with Add > Blendable > Blendable Effect. Open it, pick a Look, change its colour and timing, and press the Preview buttons to see it after each change. Then pick it in any node's Effect pin. The effect asset goes through its panel band by band.

Taking it into your game#

• The player. Effects draw over the view of the player controller you pass in, on the machine that player plays on. In a multiplayer game, call them where that player is local.
• Packaging. An effect a Blueprint or a volume names is cooked with the game; nothing needs adding to the packaging settings.
• Trying looks quickly. Look Browser, on the Blendable FX button, plays every effect over your game while it runs. Look browser

Where next#

• Getting started: the editor previews and every way to play in brief.
• Blueprint nodes: every node the plugin adds.
• Starter effects: every starter, playing.