Gridline Blueprints — Orthogonal Wire Routing & Named Reroutes for Blueprint / AnimGraph Editors

HelixTheHare
Tue, 03 Mar 2026 19:10:03 +0000
Showcase

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:

Simple — shifts the vertical segment sideways

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:

Eased — smooth Bézier arc (default)

Fillet — precise quarter-circle

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:

Break — gap in the crossing wire

Jump — arc over

Ring — open circle outline

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:

Dot — repeating circular markers, very lightweight

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:

Double-clicking a Usage jumps directly to its Declaration

Double-clicking a Declaration opens Find Results filtered to all its Usages

Right-click any existing Reroute node → Convert to Named Reroute, all connections preserved

Names are enforced unique per-Blueprint; a numeric suffix is appended automatically if needed

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

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!

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