Modifying Blueprint Properties with Matinee

As of 4.23, Matinee is no longer supported by UE4 and will be removed from the engine in the near future. Once removed, you will no longer be able to run a Matinee or open Matinee Editor.
Please use the Matinee to Sequencer Conversion Tool to convert any files to Sequencer as soon as possible.

Just as you can animate Static Meshes, Skeletal Meshes, Lights, and other Actors in Matinee, you can also animate those objects when they are components of Blueprints. You can control Blueprint components and other properties by exposing specific kinds of Blueprint variables to Matinee using Matinee's tracks to modify those variables over time and using those variables in combination with events and functions in the Blueprint.

You can also create events in Matinee, and use them to trigger Blueprint functions at specific times in the Matinee sequence's playback.

Exposing Blueprint Variables to Matinee

The types of variables you can create in a Blueprint and expose to Matinee include:

• Bool

• Float

• Vector

• LinearColor (found in the Struct category)

To expose a Blueprint variable to Matinee:

1. In a Blueprint, create a Bool, Float, Vector, or LinearColor variable.

2. Select the Expose to Matinee option in the variable's Details panel.

   

For more information about Blueprint variables, see Blueprint Variables.

Modifying Variables Over Time

Typically, when you want to use a Blueprint variable in a Matinee sequence, it is because you want to modify the value of that variable over time.

To modify the value of a variable in Matinee:

1. Open the Matinee Actor in Matinee.

2. In the World Outliner or the Viewport, select the Blueprint Actor containing the variable.

3. In Matinee, create an Empty Group. Give it a relevant name, such as "Blueprint Actor."

   

   For more information about creating Groups in Matinee, see Working with Groups and Tracks.

4. Right-click on the new group, and select the type of track you want from the context menu:

   • Bool Property Track

   • Float Property Track

   • Vector Property Track

   • LinearColor Property Track

   

5. In the drop-down menu that appears, select the name of the variable you want to modify, and then click OK.

   

6. Add keyframes to the new track at the points in time where you want to change the variable's value(s). (For information about adding keyframes, see Toolbar.)

   

7. Modify the variable's value(s):

   • For Floats, Vectors, and LinearColors, click the toggle icon () next to the name of the track to display its animation curves in the Curve Editor. Modify the curves in the Curve Editor.

     

     For more information about the Curve Editor, see Curve Editor.

   • For Bools, right-click the keyframes, and click Set to True or Set to False, depending on the Bool's current value.

     

When you animate a component of a Blueprint in Matinee, you cannot preview it by scrubbing the timeline. Instead, you must close Matinee and use Play In Editor (PIE) or Simulate to preview the animation.

Using the Modified Variables in Blueprints

In your Blueprint, you can use the variables modified in Matinee to animate specific changes over time. To do so, in the Graph Panel, you create a Get node for the variable. Then, you connect that variable node to an appropriate function, and choose an event to trigger it.

To use a Matinee-modified variable in Blueprints:

1. Open the Blueprint.

2. In the Graph Panel, create a Get node for the variable, either by holding down Ctrl and dragging the variable into the graph, or by dragging the variable into the graph and choosing Get from the context menu that appears.

3. Add and connect an appropriate event and function. For example, to change the scale of a Static Mesh component over time with a vector variable, you could use an Event Tick event node hooked up to a Set Relative Scale 3D function node, with the Static Mesh component as the Target and the variable node hooked up to the New Scale 3D pin. The Tick event is called every frame, so in general, it is a good place to update your Blueprint when using Matinee to control variable values.

   

Triggering Events Over Time

In Matinee, you can create an Event Track for a Blueprint Actor to time the triggering of specific events. You can then expose those events in the Blueprint and hook them up to functions that you want to have triggered at specific times.

To use Matinee events to trigger actions at specific times in Blueprints:

1. In Matinee, add an Event Track to a group associated with a Blueprint.

   

2. Add Keyframes at specific times on the Event Track. Every time you add a keyframe, you will be prompted to give the new event a name.

   

3. In the Level Blueprint, with the Matinee Actor selected, right-click in the graph. One of the options available is to add a MatineeController for your Matinee Actor. Select it to create a MatineeController node, which lists the events for which you created keyframes in Matinee.

   

   You can now hook up the event execution pins in the MatineeController to function nodes that will be triggered during playback of the Matinee sequence.

Each Matinee Actor can have only one MatineeController node. If you do not see the MatineeController option on the context menu, you probably already have a MatineeController node in your Level Blueprint.

If you add an event to the Matinee Event Track after adding the MatineeController node in the Level Blueprint, you can update the node's list of events by right-clicking it and then clicking Refresh Node.