Hey everyone! I’ve been working on a Blueprint editor plugin for a while and finally have it in a state worth sharing. Gridline Blueprints replaces the default curved splines in Blueprint and Animation graph editors with clean orthogonal (right-angle) routing, and adds a suite of graph quality-of-life tools on top.
It’s purely editor-side — module type UncookedOnly, stripped entirely from packaged builds, zero runtime cost.
What it looks like
Features
Orthogonal Wire Routing
Every wire routes with horizontal and vertical segments only. Works across Blueprint event graphs, function graphs, macro graphs, and Animation Blueprint graphs. When the destination node sits to the left of the source, a clean U-turn path is automatically generated above or below both nodes rather than letting the wire double back on itself.
Wire Spacing
When multiple wires overlap along the same axis, they’re automatically offset so each one stays individually visible and selectable. Runs in two passes — once after initial routing and once after node avoidance — so freshly rerouted wires are always spaced correctly.
Node Avoidance
Wires detect when they would pass through an unrelated node and route around it. Two styles available:
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Simple — shifts the vertical segment sideways
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Complex — inserts full detour segments around node bounds
Configurable padding, up to five avoidance passes per wire. Comment nodes are explicitly excluded.
Corner Styles
Three shapes wherever wires change direction:
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Eased — smooth Bézier arc (default)
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Fillet — precise quarter-circle
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Chamfer — diagonal cut for a sharper, industrial look
Corner size is adjustable from 0px (hard right-angle) up to 32px. Short vertical segments that can’t fit normal corners are handled separately with configurable Tight Turn behavior.
Junctions
Where wires from different connections cross, a visual marker makes the crossing unambiguous. Four styles:
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Break — gap in the crossing wire
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Jump — arc over
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Ring — open circle outline
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Disc — filled circle
Size and placement are configurable. Uses spatial bucketing internally so detection stays efficient even in large graphs.
Flow Animation
Optional animated indicators travel along wires to show data flow direction, outside of PIE. Two styles:
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Dot — repeating circular markers, very lightweight
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Pulse — traveling brightness waves with a glow effect built from custom vertex geometry
Scope animation to execution wires only, data wires only, all wires, or selected-node wires only to keep performance manageable in large graphs.
Hidden Reroute Nodes
Fully-connected Reroute (Knot) nodes can be hidden along the wire to reduce clutter. They reappear on hover and remain fully interactive — click to select, drag to reposition, delete as normal.
Named Reroutes
Named Reroutes are a new node type that lets you label a wire value once and reference it anywhere in the same Blueprint — eliminating the long wires that sprawl across large graph areas.
Declaration nodes capture a value from a source pin and give it a name and optional color. Usage nodes re-emit that value anywhere in the same Blueprint — same graph, a different function graph, or the event graph. Both share the same title bar color for instant visual grouping.
A few things that make them feel native:
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Double-clicking a Usage jumps directly to its Declaration
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Double-clicking a Declaration opens Find Results filtered to all its Usages
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Right-click any existing Reroute node → Convert to Named Reroute, all connections preserved
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Names are enforced unique per-Blueprint; a numeric suffix is appended automatically if needed
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At compile time they are fully transparent to the Blueprint compiler — the compiler sees the original source pin, not the reroute pair
Settings
Everything lives at Edit → Project Settings → Plugins → Gridline Blueprints, stored per-user in EditorPerProjectUserSettings so tweaks don’t pollute source control. There’s a master enable toggle that reverts all graphs to default curved splines without uninstalling the plugin, plus independent toggles for Blueprint graphs and Animation graphs.
Compatibility
| UE 5.6 |  Supported |
| UE 5.7 | Fully Supported (slice-line API included) |
| Blueprint Event / Function / Macro Graphs | |
| Animation Blueprint (AnimGraph, state machines) | |
| Material / Niagara / PCG Graphs |  Not supported (different schemas, intentionally untouched) |
| Blueprint Assist |  Mostly compatible |
| Shipped / Packaged Builds | Excluded by design |
Links
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Fab Marketplace: https://www.fab.com/listings/7c0c9b3e-2a9e-4524-b152-d8158db67bfd -
Documentation: https://helixthehare.github.io/ -
Bug Reports: https://github.com/HelixTheHare/HelixTheHare.github.io/issues -
Discord: https://discord.gg/F2zGvGHWXX
Happy to answer questions about implementation, design decisions, or anything else. Feedback welcome!