[UE4] Can I add BP children into another BP's children's variable sockets?

Larry

Hi guys, so I'm getting into BPs, pretty newbie at the moment, and can't find an answer to this one, nor know how to properly explain it. So I want to do the following:

Create a blueprint-> make children from it -> in those children there are sockets to add other blueprint children in. The reason I want to do this is to be able to be able to have everything separate, and make changes in each section without affecting the rest.

e.g. I want to make a blueprint to create customizable objects (with different variables, materials, collisions etc.) a blueprint to create customizable vfx, and then a blueprint where I can add those 2,place them and construct my final mesh, like an explosive or something. The problem I'm facing atm is, that the parent blueprint does not inherit the properties of the other 2. Plus, I would like it to have modularity and be used in many different cases, so I don't know what kind of values might be there.

Do I have to know exactly what will be in it, and then set some default inputs/variables/values to draw individually? Is there a way to check and create those initial values automatically, depending on what the blueprints have? What is the proper way to construct something like that in general?

Thanks in advance, Larry

Alex_J

blueprint actor components are useful if you want to non-destructively add/remove functionality to an actor.

along with that you'll want to be familiar with blueprint interface so that you can communicate between actors in a non-binding way.

inheritance can be useful but i think as a beginner it is easy to get yourself into a big mess with it. An example where it is useful is to make a generic widget class that all of your widgets come from. It should just be empty starting out. If you find that you are reusing same functionality over and over, you can then easily push it to the parent. Eventually you could have some global font variable so that you can change all widgets font style in one place.

I'd avoid trying to do anything crazy with it with characters/enemy type actors in your game until you have it pretty well figured out exactly what they'll be doing. Focus more on trying to design general behaviors and encapsulating those into data assets (primary data asset is the blueprint version) or actor components that can be shared non-destructively between actors.

I'm not the expert though, just a seasoned beginner. You probably get more programmer eyes if you ask on unreal subforums or unreal slackers discord.