Unreal Engine · UMG & Slate

Build the behavior.
Refine every detail.

Animation, materials, particles, graph tools and profiling for Unreal UI. Author, inspect and refine your work inside the editor.

Coming soon Explore the toolkit and documentation while release details are being prepared.

The toolkit

Tools for the work inside Unreal.

Explore 13 feature areas, from Widget Blueprint animation to material authoring, graph documentation and profiling.

01 / Animation

Animation state machines

Organize Widget Blueprint behavior into states and transitions, with Blueprint and C++ controls, live debugging and test tools.

Capabilities and scope: Animation state machines

Organizes Widget Blueprint behavior into named states and transitions, with Blueprint and C++ controls. Supports looping, reverse and ping-pong playback, interruption priorities, delayed transitions, completion events, history, nested machines and parallel animation tracks.

Integrations cover Enhanced Input, mapping contexts, focus, Gameplay Tags, forwarded Gameplay Ability System events, view-model properties and Sequencer. Automatic ticking, snapshots and reduced-motion behavior are included.

Its editor provides graph authoring, common UI presets, validation, live debugging, transition breakpoints, test sequences, coverage, fuzz testing and definition comparisons. Transition blending exposes callbacks and blend values for widget-controlled crossfades.

Read the documentation

02 / Animation

Animation Studio

Edit native Widget Blueprint keyframes and curves in a synchronized timeline and Curve Editor, with undo/redo and Sequencer integration.

Capabilities and scope: Animation Studio

Provides direct keyframe and curve editing for native Widget Blueprint animations. A hierarchy-based timeline supports transform, opacity and visibility channels, playback, snapping, filtering and standard key editing operations.

The synchronized Curve Editor supports interpolation, tangent editing and weighted tangents. Changes use Unreal’s native animation data, with undo/redo and Sequencer integration. Unsupported track types remain editable through Sequencer.

Read the documentation

03 / Animation

Animation Workbench

Review the complete widget hierarchy, compare clips, find coverage gaps and apply scoped animation repairs.

Capabilities and scope: Animation Workbench

Reviews animation coverage across the complete widget hierarchy, including widgets without keys. Its coverage matrix, animation library and clip comparisons identify missing properties, inconsistent structure, timing differences, orphaned bindings and end-state issues.

Authors can add standard channels, adopt reviewed comparison structure, copy timing or values, and apply scoped repairs. An optional bridge connects animations to state-machine definitions.

Read the documentation

04 / Animation

Animation diagnostics and repair

Inspect and clean animation data with 18 focused panels, supported repairs, backup preparation and copyable reports.

Capabilities and scope: Animation diagnostics and repair

Anim Tools contains 18 focused inspection and cleanup panels covering redundant keys, tangents, references, material parameters, widget bindings, unused tracks, playback ranges, event tracks and state compatibility.

Supported repairs include key cleanup, binding remapping, tangent normalization and explicit track/channel removal, with undo, backup preparation and copyable reports. Some panels are inspection-only; general FPS conversion and automatic project-wide animation migration are not implemented.

Read the documentation

05 / Materials

Material Library and Material Editor tools

Browse and organize materials, manage parameters and functions, and inspect graphs with dedicated editor tools.

Capabilities and scope: Material Library and Material Editor tools

The Material Library provides searchable material browsing, previews, favorites, collections, tags, ownership/status metadata, configurable schemas and source-control-aware catalog editing.

Dedicated editor panels support parameter naming, grouping, defaults and ordering; material-function input/output management; named reroute navigation and cleanup; texture usage; transitive function dependencies; and UI compliance checks.

Common Nodes and Node Bindings+ provide configurable node palettes, shortcuts and a held-key chooser. Particle Preview supplies synthetic particle data for material testing. Custom Node Validator and Graph Heuristics provide advisory checks and limited repairs; their findings do not establish shader compilation success or GPU cost.

Read the documentation

06 / Materials

UI material nodes and reusable functions

Build scalable UI materials with N-Slice, shared UI scale, particle data, reusable functions and generated sample materials.

Capabilities and scope: UI material nodes and reusable functions

N-Slice extends nine-slice scaling to configurable grids, with fixed, stretch and repeat behavior per region, repeat thresholds and sizing in widget units or screen pixels. Its editor includes visual cut positioning, previews and presets.

Global UI Scale exposes shared DPI and HUD-scale values to materials. Particle Data Texture exposes particle properties for material-driven effects.

Checked-in functions provide Scale To Fit, Scale To Fill and Linear Gradient. An additional generator creates project-owned Glow, Sparks, Trails and Noise Motes material samples.

Read the documentation

07 / Materials

Distance Field Toolkit

Convert SVG artwork into SDF, PSDF, MSDF or MTSDF textures with material previews and repeatable reimport.

Capabilities and scope: Distance Field Toolkit

Converts SVG artwork into SDF, PSDF, MSDF or MTSDF texture assets using bundled native generators.

The workbench manages source files, preparation diagnostics, batch generation, output naming and destinations. Preview stages show the original artwork, prepared SVG, distance-field output and actual material rendering at different widget sizes.

Shareable presets cover generation, textures, naming and workflow settings. Generated textures retain their source and generation recipe for repeatable reimport. A shipped UI master material and Blueprint/C++ factory provide fill, outline, opacity and softness controls. Batch commandlets support automated baking and audits.

Read the documentation

08 / Runtime effects

UI particles and Niagara migration

Run deterministic CPU particle effects in UMG and Slate, with an optional, bounded Niagara conversion workflow.

Capabilities and scope: UI particles and Niagara migration

Runs deterministic CPU particle effects directly in UMG/Slate. Layered effect assets support configurable spawning, bursts, lifetime, velocity, gravity, drag, wind, pointer interaction, tint and material variation.

Rendering supports sprites, approximate distance-field circles, custom material quads and pre-rendered texture plates. The editor includes starter effects, layer controls, presets, snippets and diagnostics. Runtime controls include activation, resets, bursts, budgets, culling and reduced-motion profiles.

An optional Niagara extension converts supported renderer and parameter information into editable UI particle layers, with confidence reports and parity tools. It does not reproduce arbitrary Niagara graphs, GPU simulation or ribbons.

Read the documentation

09 / Graph workflow

Rich documentation inside graphs

Add rich Markdown documentation to native Blueprint and Material comments, including asset references and offline diagrams.

Capabilities and scope: Rich documentation inside graphs

Native Blueprint and Material comments support a separate plain-text title and rich Markdown body. Supported content includes tables, task lists, highlighted code, images, links, footnotes, collapsible sections, mathematical notation and offline Mermaid diagrams.

Documentation can be edited through Details or directly on the graph using Shift-click, with live updates and undo. Unreal asset references provide thumbnails, navigation and supported previews; media playback requires explicit activation.

Asset references remain documentation links and do not automatically create cooking or migration dependencies.

Read the documentation

10 / Graph workflow

Graph capture and alignment

Capture complete graphs as detailed PNGs and optionally align supported nodes with the Strict Grid Renderer.

Capabilities and scope: Graph capture and alignment

Quick Shot exports the active graph or selected nodes as full-detail PNGs, including offscreen content. It supports configurable padding, scale, transparency, comments, previews and image clipboard output. Large graphs use tiled rendering.

The optional Strict Grid Renderer aligns supported node positions, dimensions, titles and pin rows to a configurable grid. Specialized node controls retain their native behavior where appropriate.

Read the documentation

11 / Editor workflow

Asset editor layout presets

Save, restore and share panel arrangements across compatible asset editors, with recovery and display correction.

Capabilities and scope: Asset editor layout presets

Saves, restores and shares panel arrangements for supported asset editors. Presets account for asset type, editor family and workflow mode.

The manager supports naming, ordering, previews, import/export and defaults. A layout can be applied across compatible open editors and made the default for future instances. Undo, missing-panel recovery, display/DPI correction and protection against conflicting library writes are included.

Read the documentation

12 / Profiling

Slate and UMG performance profiling

Measure widget paint and prepass CPU time, inspect hierarchies, save captures and compare regressions.

Capabilities and scope: Slate and UMG performance profiling

Measures live widget paint and prepass CPU time, update activity, invalidations, emitted draw elements and geometry changes. Results can be inspected through authored UMG hierarchies or native Slate hierarchies, with widget picking and highlighting.

Includes ranked diagnostic findings, material/resource inspection, compiled material statistics, rolling history, persistent captures, recoverable sessions, regression comparisons, JSON/CSV export and Unreal Insights trace integration.

A dedicated editor window and in-game panels share the profiler. Collection is opt-in and unavailable in Test/Shipping builds. Measurements distinguish CPU phases; they do not assign GPU time or exact Blueprint execution time to individual widgets.

Read the documentation

13 / Editor workflow

Shared editor presentation and development tooling

Use shared editor themes and help settings, experimental inspectors, and source build and packaging tools.

Capabilities and scope: Shared editor presentation and development tooling

Provides consistent editor styling through Editor Native, UI Foundry Dark and High Contrast themes, with live color overrides and a shared verbose-help preference.

Experimental Color and Slate Inspectors expose sampled colors, widget paths, geometry and state; their current screen-sampling implementation is Windows-specific.

Source-development tooling covers engine selection, incremental builds, packaging, package inspection, selected-engine installation and automated repository checks.

Read the documentation

In development

Being implemented and validated.

Substantial code exists for these additions. They are still being implemented and validated and are not completed release features.

Graph Navigator and contextual action toolbar

A dockable minimap shows graph content and the visible viewport, with click/drag navigation, zoom and fit. A floating selection toolbar exposes applicable editing, preview, alignment, navigation and capture actions, with configurable order and visibility per asset type.

45-degree constrained graph dragging

Holding Shift before or during a drag locks movement to a direction in 45-degree increments while preserving group spacing. This scope covers graph editors.

Material Preview+ and Custom-node authoring

Adds remembered per-asset preview dimensions, width/height swapping, zoom, pan and an option to share dimensions through asset metadata. Node-comment visibility controls are being added. Custom-node pin synchronization reads explicit declarations or a supported typed function, reviews changes and preserves connections by name. Optional automatic synchronization handles full-code replacement; arbitrary HLSL type inference is outside its scope.

Global platform and input previews

Shared platform/device selectors update supported action glyphs across open Widget Blueprint Designers. The implementation uses project Common Input assets, supported CommonUI widgets and selected Enhanced Input mapping contexts. Custom hint systems require adapters; the feature previews presentation without simulating gameplay input.

Retained rendering controls and custom widgets

Adds inherited rendering rules, explicit retained-subtree boundaries, per-region phases, descendant overrides, manual refresh, effect materials and Blueprint controls. Helpers also coordinate standard Unreal RetainerBoxes. The custom widgets use Unreal’s retained renderer; performance benefits remain subject to comparison and measurement.

Double-click panel collapse and restoration

An optional double-click moves eligible editor tabs into Unreal’s native sidebar. Double-clicking the sidebar entry restores its original dock position.

Local Only Perforce changelists

Adds a persistent, workspace-scoped flag that prevents marked changelists and their files from submission through standard Unreal editor interfaces. External P4 applications, shelving and direct provider calls remain outside this restriction.

Read the development scope