Hand and Controller Hint

Overview

This feature is a part of Animated Hands and Controllers. No additional setup is required. But you will need to set a material for the hint to be enabled.

Settings

Transparent, TransparentWithCulling and Highlight respectively

DontLoadHint – Nothing will be loaded in this mode. Hints will be disabled.

Transparent – A transparent material will be loaded to use.

TransparentWithCulling – A transparent material with culling will be loaded to use. This material requires Custom Depth so it might not work on mobile platforms. If this is the case, this will be same as Transparent mode.

TransparentWithDDT – A depth test disabled transparent material with will be loaded to use. This material render on top of everything.

TransparentWithCullingAndDDT – A combination of 2 previous material will be loaded to use.

Highlight – A modified material of the mesh for highlight will be loaded to use. The mesh will look the same until a hint is shown. Showing a hint will show a highlight on the specified part.

Functions

Show Controller Hint

Hint Settings	Description
Hint Text	Text to show. The text will scale down to fit to the widget if it’s too long. Multiple lines are supported.
Height	Vertical distance between the button and the hint widget.
Color	Widget and line color.
Text Color	Text color.

Clear Settings	Description
Clear Manually	Hints will be cleared automatically on button press or release if this is false. Otherwise, Clear Controller Hint or Clear All Controller Hints has to be called manually to clear.
Clear on Press	Hint will be cleared on button Press if true, Release if false.
Clear Effect	Effect to play on clear.
Clear Sound	Sound to play on clear. There are really good sound effects for this in the engine directory.

This function shows hints on your controller. If the controller doesn’t have the specified button, it will warn. Controller hint can be showed even if the controller is not visible. If this is the case, controller will be hidden after all of the hints are cleared. Just like HL:Alyx!

Stick Up, Down, Left, Right and Pad Up, Down, Left, Right in the Button dropdown doesn’t have any effect! They are there because we didn’t want to create a new enum just for this. Look at the Show Directional Hint to learn more.

Show Directional Hint

This function doesn’t work on its own. There has to be a Stick or Pad hint already showed before this one is called. Otherwise it will warn.

Show Hand Hint

This function shows hints on your hands. If the controller doesn’t have the specified finger, it will warn. Hand hint can be showed even if the hand is not visible. If this is the case, hand will be hidden after all of the hints are cleared.

Clear Hints

Functions to clear hints manually.

Event Dispatchers

Controller/Hand Hint Cleared

Lets you know when a hint is cleared and returns what it was.

Customization

MPC_HintCollection

Float	Description
Pulse Frequency	Global pulse frequency
Mask Multiplier	0= No hint highlight, 1= Default, Bigger=More emmisive
Hand	1= Highlight whole hand, Bigger=More emmisive
Controller	1= Highlight whole controller, Bigger=More emmisive

Vector	Description
Hologram Color	Hologram color towards outside
Hologram Power	Hologram color towards inside
Highlight Color	Highlight color

This collection has every important variables for the hint feature. Have a look at the First Steps Level BP to see how it can be used.