Show UI

Time required: 20 minutes

Show UI is a mod commonly used in games to completely hide a quest from any UI. Basically making it a completely hidden quest.

This is useful when creating sub-quests that run in the background of a main quest or creating game concepts such as Achievements or Trophies.

Adding the boolean

There is two ways of adding the boolean. A blueprint only modification which takes a little more work or a C++ change.

Blueprint

To add the blueprint boolean, create a master quest then add a new boolean named Show UI.

Default this to true.

Now add a function into your master quest interface to return this boolean.

Finally, implement this interface function on your master quest, making it return the boolean.

C++

To make the C++ changes, simply open the file Quest.h.

Inside the class UQuest, under the Protected subsection, add the code under the QuestDescription.

UPROPERTY(EditAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category = "Quest Details", meta = (MultiLine = true))
FText QuestDescription;
	
//Allows quests to be completely hidden from the UI
UPROPERTY(EditAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category = "Quest Details")
bool bShowUI;

Finally, to add the default value, open Quest.cpp and add a default for the ShowUI boolean in the UQuest initialisation method.

UQuest::UQuest()
{
	QuestName = FText::FromString("My New Quest");
	QuestDescription = FText::FromString("Enter a description for your quest here.");
	bTracked = true;
	bShowUI = true;
}

Finally compile your C++ and re-open Unreal to make the UI changes.

Updating the UI

This section needs to be done whether you have added the C++ or Blueprint changes.

In order to make the UI hidden, we need to update the Quest widget to ignore any broadcasts that come from a quest with Show UI disabled.

Go into the plugins folder and open BP_Narrative3Overlay. Go into the Graph.

Macro

To make this easier, we are going to create a Macro to check the ShowUI flag.

note

A macro is like a function, but it lets you add your own Execution (exec) pins to make custom nodes like the below.

Add a new Macro called Should Show Update, then on the Inputs, add two inputs.

• Named Exec with an Exec data type
• Named Quest with a Quest data type

Then add two outputs:

• Named ShowUpdate with an Exec data type
• Named HideUpdate with an Exec data type

Blueprint

If you added the blueprint Show UI flag, drag off the quest node and call your GetShowUI interface call.

Connect this to a branch node.

Connect the True to Show Update of the Outputs, and the False to the Hide Update.

C++

If you added the C++ flag, simply drag off the quest node and get the bShowUI node.

Connect this to a branch node.

Connect the True to Show Update of the Outputs, and the False to the Hide Update.

UI Changes

Go into the function Show Quest Update. Right at the start, drag off the function and add the Macro Should Show Update.

Connect the quest into the Macro's quest then the Show Update to the remaining code.

Finally, make this same change to the following functions:

• OnQuestBranchCompleted
• OnQuestTaskCompleted
• OnQuestTaskProgressMade
• OnQuestSucceeded
• OnQuestFailed
• OnQuestStarted
• OnQuestNewState