Change what the HUD shows¶

Everything the player sees during play is a small widget of its own, owned by the system that needs it. There is no single big HUD widget. Changing the ammo counter never touches the health ring, and deleting one element never breaks the rest.

This page says which file to open for each element on screen, and which fields on it are yours. For the wider picture of who creates what, see How the HUD, menus and saving fit together.

The widgets live in Content/TheLastTemplate/Blueprints/Widgets/. The materials they draw with live in Content/TheLastTemplate/Materials/Widgets/.

On screen	Widget	Where you change it
Health ring and stamina bar	`BP_LifeCharacterWidget`	`MI_Round_Progess`, `MI_OverlayBackdrop`
Ammo counter and pips	`BP_AmmoCounterWidget`	`MI_AmmoPips`, the weapon Data Asset
Equipped throwable icon	`BP_ThrowableWidget`	the throwable Data Asset
Crosshair	`BP_AimWidget`	one crosshair material per weapon
Interaction prompt	`BP_InteractWidget`	the interactable's Details panel
Tip in a corner of the level	`BP_TipWidget`	a `BP_TipZone` you place
Notifications	`BP_NotificationWidget`	one function call
Weapon and item wheel	`BP_RadialWidget`	the weapon Data Asset
Damage flash	`BP_HitCharacterWidget`	`T_HitCharacter`
Fade to black	`BP_FadeScreenWidget`	its widget animation
Death screen	`BP_DeathScreenWidget`	its own fields

The health ring and the stamina bar¶

BP_LifeCharacterWidget draws three things: the ring, the stamina bar under it, and the dark backdrop behind both.

The ring is one Image running MI_Round_Progess. The widget writes Percentage into it as health changes. Everything about how the ring looks is in that material instance:

Parameter	What it does
`Percentage`	How much of the arc is filled. Written at runtime, so what you set here is only the editor preview.
`Thickness`	Width of the ring stroke.
`Smoothness`	Softness of the ring edge.

Thickness and Smoothness are not linked. If you make the ring much thicker, raise Smoothness with it or the edge turns hard.

The backdrop is a second Image running MI_OverlayBackdrop. It is a rounded rectangle plus a disc, drawn in the material rather than as a texture, so you can move and resize it without new art: Rect Center X, Rect Center Y, Rect Half Width, Rect Half Height, Rect Corner, Disc Radius, Panel Opacity and Softness.

The maximum values come from the vitals Data Assets, not from the widget:

Data Asset	`Vital Max Amount`	`Vital Tick Decrementation`
`DA_Vital_Health`	100	0
`DA_Vital_Stamina`	200	2

Health does not decay on its own. Stamina drains by 2 per tick while sprinting. Raising Vital Max Amount gives the player more health without any change to the widget, because the ring is drawn from a percentage.

Warning

DA_Vital_Health and DA_Vital_Stamina also carry a Vital Icon and a Vital Color. Both ship empty and the HUD does not read either of them. Setting them changes nothing on screen. The colours of the ring and the bar are in MI_Round_Progess.

More on vitals in Health, stamina and new vitals.

The ammo counter¶

BP_AmmoCounterWidget appears when you hold a gun. It has three parts: the weapon icon, the current and reserve numbers, and the pip strip.

The pip strip is a single Image running MI_AmmoPips. One pip is one round in the clip, so the length of the strip follows Clip Size. The count is written by the widget every time ammo changes, so Max Pips and Pip Count on the material instance only affect the editor preview. The two parameters worth touching are Pip Fill and Softness, which control how a pip is drawn and how soft its edge is.

The weapon icon comes from the weapon Data Asset, not from the widget:

Field on the weapon Data Asset	What it does
`Weapon Icon`	The texture shown next to the numbers.
`Weapon Icon Scale`	Its size, as a 2D vector. Each weapon can have a different one.
`Clip Size`	How many pips are drawn.

The throwable equivalent is BP_ThrowableWidget, which shows the throwable you have equipped. It reads Icon and Throwable Icon Scale from the throwable Data Asset, the same way. See Add your own throwable.

The crosshair¶

BP_AimWidget draws the crosshair while you aim. Each gun brings its own crosshair, so a shotgun and a pistol never look the same.

Two crosshair materials ship, with three instances made from them:

Material instance	Built from	Shape	Used by
`MI_CrosshairPistol`	`M_CrosshairNormal`	Four ticks	`DA_Pistol_01`, `DA_Pistol_02`
`MI_CrosshairShotgun`	`M_CrosshairCircle`	A ring	`DA_Shotgun_01`, `DA_Shotgun_02`
`MI_CrosshairRifle`	`M_CrosshairNormal`	Four ticks, own length	nothing yet

MI_CrosshairRifle is there for you. No shipped weapon points at it, because the template ships two pistols and two shotguns.

To give a gun a different crosshair, set Crosshair Material on its Data Asset. Crosshair Display Delay After Aim on the same asset is how long the crosshair waits before appearing once the player starts aiming.

To change how a crosshair looks, open its instance. M_CrosshairNormal exposes Color, Length, Thickness and Softness. M_CrosshairCircle exposes Radius, Thickness and Softness.

Both materials also have an Offset parameter, which the widget writes every frame so the crosshair opens as the weapon's spread grows and closes as it settles. The spread numbers themselves are on the weapon Data Asset: Ammo Spread, Max Ammo Spread and Spread Recovery Speed. See Change how a gun feels.

The interaction prompt¶

BP_InteractWidget is not a screen widget. It sits on a Widget Component on the interactable itself, so it floats in the world at the object. That is why you never have to register anything: place the actor and the prompt comes with it.

Everything you change is on the actor, in BP_InteractableOverlapBase and its children:

Field	What it does	Default
`Interact Text`	The label, when you are using text.	empty
`Interact Icon`	The texture, when you are using an icon.	none
`Use Icon`	Picks between the two. They are alternatives, never both.	`false`
`Error Text`	Shown instead when the action is refused, for example a full backpack.	`Full`
`Show Interact Zone Range`	Distance at which the prompt appears.	300
`Interact Zone Range`	Distance at which the key actually works.	60

Pickups override the two distances to 200 and 100, so a prompt on a pickup shows up closer than one on a door.

The prompt has four states: hidden, far, near and near with an error. Far is inside Show Interact Zone Range but outside Interact Zone Range. You do not set the state yourself, the actor does it as the player moves.

Pickups can also show a count. Show Amount on BP_Interactable_PickupBase is false, and BP_Interactable_Pickup_Item turns it on, so an item pickup carries a count next to its label while BP_Interactable_GateButton just reads Open. The number is Amount on the pickup.

If you are writing your own interactable and want to drive the prompt by hand, BP_InteractWidget exposes Set Interact Text, Set Interact Icon, Set Interact Amount, Set Error Text and Set Display State. See How interaction works.

Tips in the level¶

A tip is the small line of help that appears near an obstacle, showing a key and a sentence. It is BP_TipWidget, and it is spawned by a BP_TipZone you drop into the level.

Drag BP_TipZone from Content/TheLastTemplate/Blueprints/Environments/Zones/ into the level.
Size the box to cover the area where the tip should show.
Set Tip Message to the sentence you want.
Set Tip Action to the Input Action whose key you want drawn.
Save.

Tip Action is an Input Action reference, not a key name, and it ships empty on purpose. The widget resolves the glyph from the player's current binding, so a tip that says Space keeps saying the right thing after the player rebinds. The glyphs come from DA_KeyPrompts, set on the widget as Prompt Set. See Key icons and letting players rebind keys.

The tip fades itself out and removes itself when the player leaves the box.

Notifications¶

A notification is the panel that slides in with a title, a message and an icon. You raise one with a single node from anywhere:

Show Notification, in BFL_NotificationLibrary.

Pin	What it is
`In Title`	The headline.
`In Message`	The body text. Leave it empty for a title only panel.
`In Icon`	A `Texture2D`. Leave it empty for no icon.
`In Duration`	How long the panel holds before it leaves.

You do not create or place anything first. The node looks for BP_NotificationLayerWidget on screen and makes one if there is none.

Notifications queue. Only one plays at a time, and the next starts when the one before it has finished leaving, so a burst of pickups reads one line at a time instead of stacking.

The pacing and the look are on BP_NotificationWidget: Display Duration, Intro Time and Outro Time are its class defaults, and In Duration on the call overrides the first of them. The wipe that reveals the panel is M_NotificationWipe, driven by Wipe Phase and Wipe Alpha, with Reveal and Feather as its material parameters.

The weapon and item wheel¶

BP_RadialWidget is the wheel on the middle mouse button. It has two halves.

The horizontal rows hold your guns. Which row a gun lands in is Radial Slot Row on its weapon Data Asset, so two pistols on the same row become one row you scroll through, and a shotgun on another row gets its own line. Add a gun with a new row number and a new line appears, no widget work.

The vertical column holds the medkit and the two throwable slots, primary and secondary. Which one a throwable takes is its Type on the throwable Data Asset.

Three slot widgets do the drawing: BP_Radial_SlotHorizontalWidget for a filled weapon slot, BP_Radial_SlotHorizontalEmptyWidget for an empty one, and BP_Radial_VerticalWidget for the column. The highlight colours are on BP_RadialWidget itself, as Selected Background Color and Unselected Background Color.

The wheel slows time while it is open and re-centres the mouse cursor on the screen.

Damage flash, fade to black and the death screen¶

The damage flash is BP_HitCharacterWidget. It is one full screen Image using T_HitCharacter, with two widget animations: one that fades the flash in and out on a hit, and one that keeps pulsing while health stays low. It watches health itself, so it needs nothing from you. To change how being hurt reads, replace T_HitCharacter or retime the two animations.

The fade to black is BP_FadeScreenWidget, a black Image plus one animation. The player character calls Play Fade Animation on it when the screen has to go dark. Retime the animation and every fade in the game follows.

The death screen is BP_DeathScreenWidget. Two fields on it are yours:

Field	What it does
`Death Tips`	A list of lines. One is picked at random each death. Add your own, remove the ones you do not want.
`Continue Key Icon`	The glyph shown next to the continue prompt. Ships as `T_Key_Enter`.

Continue loads the most recent save and reopens the level through the loading screen. The death screen is built from the same base widgets as the menus, so it already matches them. See Add or change a menu page and Save and load a game.

There are two ways in, and the first one is almost always the right one.

Restyle the widget that ships. Open it, change the layout, the fonts, the textures, the animations. Nothing outside it needs to know. This works for every element on this page.

Replace it with your own class. Make your widget a child of the one it replaces, so the code that holds it still finds what it expects, then build your own layout inside the child. The play HUD widgets are created in Initialize Widgets on BP_PlayerCharacter; swap the class on the Create Widget node there.

To add something new to the HUD, build your widget, then add a Create Widget and an Add to Viewport in Initialize Widgets next to the others. Give it a higher Z order than the elements it should sit above.

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