[UE 5.3] Closed Blueprint's viewport and unable to re-open it

[agiro]

I have my Actor Component Blueprint’s Viewport tab closed and I’m unable to reopen it.

After looking up the problem I tried the following:

1. Open it from Window > Viewport, but there’s no such thing
   

2. Click Class Defaults in hopes of getting a prompt to open full blueprint editor, but it doesn’t happen
   

3. Close the engine, verify the 5.3 version in Epic launcher then reopen

4. Cry

Is there a way to restore the Blueprint Viewport somehow? A console command maybe?

[Mind-Brain]

Hey there, @agiro!

I think you may be confused.
An actor Component does not have a viewport. As it is a sole component there is nothing attached to it for visualization or organization, therefore there is nothing to view.

[agiro]

Thanks for the answer.

Why do I remember editing that as a viewport?? Work then going to vibe with Unreal must have gone to my head xd

[Mind-Brain]

Yup!

Actors are groups of components.

So they may need organization.
But you can’t have a group of components as a component- because then it’s an actor!

[agiro]

Figured I’d write here why I wanted to see the viewport of an actor component so others that might want to do something similar would find it useful -

With the FPS template comes a Rifle, that’s an Actor Component Blueprint, which has its Blueprint logic and its SkeletonMesh, which is the Rifle itself.

I wanted to decorate it with some nice particles on shot, which of course, have to be played at the barrel of the rifle. I wanted to find the socket of this mesh, which is why I needed the viewport.

What I didn’t know, and I figure many other beginners wouldn’t know is that you can just open up the Mesh itself from the Content Browser, and see the sockets or create new ones. Here the asset comes with a socket “muzzle” already, that is located at the end of the barrel, just at the right place.

You can then retrieve the Transform of this socket by its name.