Neo Soft Entertainment - Neo Library: A feature‑rich utility plugin for Unreal Engine

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Neo Library: A feature-rich utility plugin for Unreal Engine

Neo Library is a lightweight yet powerful modular plugin for Unreal Engine that significantly extends the engine with a wide range of quality-of-life systems not available out of the box. Written entirely in C++ with full Blueprint exposure, it is designed to help developers and designers work faster, reduce boilerplate code and ship polished projects without the need for custom subsystems.

What began as a general utility collection has evolved into a multi-module toolkit covering core utilities, advanced settings control, Gameplay Ability System extensions, AI integration, animation gameplay events, UI systems and online session workflows. The documentation emphasizes that Neo Library introduces several production-ready features that Unreal Engine does not provide by default, while remaining fully extensible and engine-friendly.

Comprehensive Blueprint and C++ functionality
  • Neo Library exposes a large collection of convenience functions and systems to Blueprints while remaining fully extensible in C++. All modules follow Unreal Engine conventions and are designed to integrate cleanly with existing projects.

Core utility features include
  • Enhanced print utilities

    • Multiple print nodes extend the built-in Print String functionality to support Unreal base types such as booleans, integers, floats, enums, names, objects and classes. An optional Print Function Owner flag automatically prints the name of the actor or object calling the node, which is useful for debugging complex gameplay flows.

  • Key name lookup

    • Helper functions return human-readable names for special input keys such as mouse buttons, modifiers and controller inputs.

  • Internationalization support

    • Functions allow querying the current project language and switching languages at runtime using enums. Additional languages can be added through C++ without modifying Blueprint logic.

  • Random utilities

    • A dedicated Random category provides multiple deterministic and configurable random generators, including numbers, letters, strings and colors, suitable for gameplay, UI and procedural logic.

Advanced settings management

The Settings category centralizes control over rendering and system configuration, allowing games to expose robust graphics and performance options without writing custom engine code.

  • Ambient Occlusion

    • Get or set the active ambient occlusion method, including SSAO and GTAO, with optional persistence to configuration files.

  • Anti-Aliasing

    • Query and switch the current anti-aliasing method between None, FXAA, TAA, MSAA and TSR.

  • Global Illumination

    • Retrieve and change the active global illumination technique, including None, Lumen, SSGI, RTGI or plugin-based implementations.

  • Ray tracing control

    • Check hardware ray tracing support, determine whether it is currently enabled and toggle it on or off at runtime.

  • RHI switching

    • Query the current rendering hardware interface and switch between DirectX 11, DirectX 12 and Vulkan. Changes can be persisted and applied after restart.

  • Scalability control

    • Read or modify individual scalability groups or apply complete scalability profiles using data assets. Designers can manage performance tiers without touching C++ code, and the plugin ships with standard scalability classes.

  • Persistent settings

    • Nodes allow saving user settings such as resolution and graphics configuration to disk using the engine’s user settings system.

  • Hardware and system queries

    • Functions expose CPU and GPU names, operating system version, motherboard chipset when available, MAC address and Epic account ID.

Utility tools and general helpers

The Utilities category provides commonly needed gameplay helpers that remove repetitive code:

  • Retrieve all dynamic material instances from any primitive component

  • Get the instigator controller from an actor and safely cast it to a PlayerController

  • Perform camera-centered line traces with configurable distance, collision channel, debug drawing and ignored actors, with automatic fallback to the player camera

  • General object, actor, math, string, array and debugging helpers used across gameplay and UI code

Gameplay Ability System extensions

Neo Library includes a dedicated Ability System module that significantly extends Unreal’s Gameplay Ability System.

  • Custom Ability System Components exposing additional lifecycle events

  • Extended Gameplay Ability and Gameplay Effect Context classes

  • Multiple ability tasks for common GAS patterns such as waiting for tags, attributes, events, delays or target data

  • Async actions that allow listening to ability system events outside of abilities

  • Additional target data types for ground placement, vectors, rotations and scalar values

  • Utility functions for querying attributes, effects and active ability states

These features enable cleaner ability logic and reduce the need for custom GAS boilerplate.

AI and animation integration

AI module

  • The Neo AI module introduces Behavior Tree tasks and decorators designed to work directly with the Gameplay Ability System. AI can activate abilities, wait for gameplay events or react to gameplay tags without custom glue code.

Animation module

  • The Neo Animation module provides animation notifies and notify states that send gameplay events when animations start, end or remain active. This allows precise synchronization between animation, abilities and gameplay logic.

UI systems and interaction tools

Neo Library includes a full UI module extending UMG, CommonUI and Slate.

  • UI utilities for widget ownership, invalidation and hierarchy traversal

  • CommonUI helpers for detecting input type and navigating widget trees

  • Slate utilities for focus control, geometry queries and navigation

  • A Slate Navigation Subsystem that manages global navigation rules and focus history

  • A Viewport Watermark Subsystem that displays text or image watermarks for development builds, demos or debugging

  • Async UI actions that listen for Enhanced Input actions or gameplay tags directly from widgets

  • Widget extensions such as forcing button focus programmatically

These systems are designed for complex menu flows, controller navigation and responsive UI behavior.

Online session workflows

The Neo Online module provides async Blueprint actions for managing multiplayer sessions:

  • Destroying active online sessions

  • Joining existing sessions from search results

The documentation covers complete session workflows including hosting, joining, leaving and quick match logic. The module integrates with Unreal’s Online Subsystem and works with platforms such as Steam and Epic Online Services. Best practices, troubleshooting and advanced usage patterns are included.

High performance and extensibility
  • All Neo Library functionality is implemented in native C++ and exposed to Blueprints with minimal overhead. Many systems support configuration persistence and data-driven workflows. The plugin is designed to be extended in C++, allowing developers to add new modules, nodes or subsystems while preserving Blueprint accessibility.

Documentation and support
  • The documentation includes clear module breakdowns, Blueprint examples, C++ usage instructions, best practices and troubleshooting guides. It explains how to install and activate the plugin, integrate each module and diagnose common issues efficiently.

Summary
  • Neo Library is a comprehensive, modular utility plugin for Unreal Engine that streamlines common development tasks while enabling advanced systems out of the box. It provides enhanced debugging tools, internationalization support, robust graphics and scalability management, deep Gameplay Ability System extensions, AI and animation integration, powerful UI systems and multiplayer session workflows.

  • Fully written in C++ and completely exposed to Blueprints, Neo Library is a production-ready toolkit that makes Unreal Engine projects more flexible, maintainable and scalable across gameplay, UI and online systems.