I have a Pickup C++ and its derived Blueprint. I want to have various types of pickups where only a handful of key parameters change (content value and appearance for example). Value is a float, appearance at the moment is an enumeration type, and the enumeration will help choose what material the pickup’s mesh will use. (all meshes the same)
So I created a USTRUCT(BlueprintType) etc. , let’s call it PickupType, with 2-3 of these members, as part of defining my pickup class in C++. The pickup class has a member filed of type struct (let’s call it MyType).
Now: I want to define a few static structs with predefined parameters. For example a Gold type will be a blueprint Pickup actor whose struct will have values of 100 and an enum to help indicate the metal_gold material (e.g. MaterialEnum::Gold etc.) I want this so that if I ever need to use in code I can go: PickupType::Gold and refer to that struct and essentially define a pickup type.
I get errors when I try to compile declaring and defining these static structs from within the struct definition itself. I found a workaround with making the static structs in the pickup’s constructor, but can’t get them to be blueprint-exposed.
My goal is that I want to be able to drag my pickup blueprint in the editor and be able in the details panel to set its type (through its MyType variable? or any other way - I don’t care) to one of the static/global structs that I have predefined. Something like a drop-down list so I can say this pickup is Gold, or Steel etc. The aspiration is that this will also refresh the material in the editor so visually I know I have achieved placing a specific pickup in my scene.
I have blueprint-exposed the individual struct members so I know I can set them (and with the material I can forget about enums and just select the material I want each time) but doing that multiple times can be error prone. I also understand I can just duplicate my pickup blueprint X amount of times for each type and fix the properties as appropriate each time, but that doesn’t seem so clean or elegant either? Essentially this is the “Typed Object” design pattern that I want to implement. Any ideas welcome. Thanks.