I’m been working on this project quick a bit lately, and I found really quickly that Blueprint was going to limit the scope. I like Blueprint, I really do, but once you want to make more involved tooling for a project, the game’s foundation just needs to be native.

So I did that. I nativized everything. I put all movement into an actor component so I can throw it on NPCs/enemies, I extracted all the world grid stuff out so it’s streamlined and fast, and this allowed me to make a map maker tool:

All in Slate/c++. I can whip up an entire map in minutes and play through it to get a sense of the space. I can go up ladders, fall down holes, move from one grid to another. But this wireframe view isn’t the best, so…

Using UE5s new Dynamic Geometry stuff, I made a Map Builder. Given a particular grid, it will take all that information and build out temp geometry to give me actual walls to walk around in, ladders to climb up, holes to fall through. It’s not efficient geometry at all, but it is useful.

Next, I want to make a few convenience tools for laying down doors and the like. Right now it’s entirely manual, and I’m a tech artist, dammit. I hate doing manual labor.