![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/image-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nI blew a lot of time making functions with pass-by references to handle all the display potions, but overall we have 4 potions displayed on the back: Health, Mana, Yellow and Purple. I had in mind making the first 3 self-use items and the purple one as a throwable and with that, I made multiple of them appear on the players back to track how many they had available to throw while the others have a number to track which both disappear when at 0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These were setup by making static meshes on the player blueprint attached to spine_05, excluding the first purple potion which is attached to the hand. Text renders are created as child components to the respective potions they track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I set up some test inputs to modify the value of each of these, I feel particularly clever using a shift keybind to change whether it’ll increase or decrease, it’s a lot nicer than setting up 2 different keybind to increase\/decrease each variable. Also the fact you dont need to mess around with enhanced inputs it’s nice since input functions are all already set up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Increment potion takes these values to update whatever it wanted to update, and calls the holster update function after so they the diegetic inventory matches the new values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Due to have 2 different methods of tracking potions (text counter versus multiple potions), I added a branch to split the logic between the two versions. last thing I’ve done today is added the ability to throw these potions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I really like doing these little personal works to make niche mechanics\/systems, they’re a touch of love that I’m passionate about adding in my usual games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n I want to add utilities to these potions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Health, mana, sprite and boom names were all just default choices with sprite being made up. These should have been named potion 1,2, 3 and 4, which I will start off doing. A throwing animation would be good to have too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I want to add an ability to change these potions around too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had a shot at using mixamo.com to set up an animation but there were a few hurdles to cross. I tried importing an animation from the site without using my own model which of course didn’t work due to the skeletons not working. The animation now imported in unreal doesn’t work so I’m putting a pin on this and coming back to it later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before going to potion uses, I’d like to add a way to enable\/disable and change the types of potions used. I could switch to using an enumerator for the potions to track their type and count, I might need to add a bool onto that to track if the slot is enabled\/disabled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2nd March 2024 – Initial work I want to keep practicing blueprints since they’re still an incredibly important aspect of game design for prototyping mechanics as well as simply just using them in tandem with C++. That and I need a break from playing Helldivers 2 (love that game but I’m addicted). Unfortunately I decided… Continue reading Personal work – PotionMan<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":523,"href":"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions\/523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/image-2.png\")
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The multiple potions took a bit of extra work to figure out but it seemed like the right solution (anything other than nesting IF statements).<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lloydmills.nuacomputerscience.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/image-6-1024x389.png\")
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n4th March 2024 – Mechanics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Renaming with health as 1, mana as 2, sprite as 3 and boom as 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n