Gridline Blueprints

Gridline Blueprints replaces Unreal Engine's default spline wire renderer in Blueprint and AnimGraph editors with a fully orthogonal routing system. Wires travel in horizontal and vertical segments only — like a professional schematic — making complex graphs dramatically easier to read and navigate.

From Fab Marketplace

1. Purchase and install Gridline Blueprints from the Fab marketplace. It will appear in your Epic Games Library under Vault.

2. Add to project: Click "Add to Project" next to the plugin in your Library and select your target project and engine version.

3. Enable the plugin inside your project: navigate to Edit → Plugins, search for Gridline Blueprints, and ensure the checkbox is enabled.

4. Restart the editor when prompted. The plugin activates automatically on startup — no additional setup required.

Manual Installation

1. Copy the plugin folder (GridlineBlueprints/) into your project's Plugins/ directory. Create the directory if it doesn't exist.

2. Regenerate project files by right-clicking your .uproject file and selecting "Generate Visual Studio project files".

3. Build and launch the editor. The plugin will compile automatically as part of the build.

4. Enable if needed via Edit → Plugins → Gridline Blueprints.

After installation the plugin is active immediately — open any Blueprint and your wires will already use orthogonal routing. To configure the behavior:

1. Navigate to Edit → Project Settings (or Editor Preferences for user-local settings).

2. Under the Plugins category, click Gridline Blueprints.

3. All settings take effect immediately — no restart or graph refresh needed.

Top-level toggles that control whether Gridline Blueprints is active and which graph types it applies to.

Controls how wire paths are calculated — where bends occur, how far pin stubs extend, and how short wires are handled when orthogonal routing would produce an awkward result.

Bend Position Values

Short Wire Style Values

Controls the visual presentation of individual wires — thickness, corner size, and the style used for direction changes.

Corner Style Values

When multiple wires run parallel on the same axis, Wire Spacing automatically spreads them apart to prevent visual overlap. This is particularly helpful in densely connected graphs where many outputs fan into a sequence of nodes.

Node Avoidance detects when a wire's path would travel through a node it isn't connected to, and reroutes it around that node. This keeps graphs readable even when nodes are closely packed.

Avoidance Style Values

Junctions are visual markers drawn at points where two wires cross over each other without connecting. They make it immediately clear that a crossing is not an electrical connection — an essential readability tool in dense graphs.

Junction Style Values

Unreal Engine's Reroute nodes allow you to manually redirect a wire through an intermediate waypoint. Gridline Blueprints extends this with an optional "hidden" mode that makes these nodes invisible during normal editing.

Named Reroutes are a two-node system for tagging a wire with a persistent name and color, then re-tapping that same value from anywhere in the Blueprint — including across different graphs. Where a standard Reroute node is an anonymous waypoint, a Named Reroute is a named variable tap: one Declaration captures the value, and any number of Usage nodes read it back.

The Two-Node Pattern

A Declaration node has both an input pin (where the source value enters) and an output pin. A Usage node exposes only an output pin — it reads the value captured by its paired Declaration and makes it available at that point in the graph. Each pair is linked by a stable GUID that survives renaming, copy/paste, undo, and Blueprint recompilation.

Adding Named Reroutes

1. Place a Declaration: Right-click in any Blueprint graph and search for "Add Named Reroute Declaration". The node is placed with a default name (Name) and blue title color. Connect a wire to its input to capture the value.

2. Rename it: Double-click the node title to rename it inline, or open the node's Details panel and edit the Name property. The name is validated to be unique — a numeric suffix is appended automatically if a conflict exists.

3. Change the color: In the Details panel, click the Node Color swatch. All Usage nodes sharing this Declaration immediately update to show the new color.

4. Create a Usage: Right-click the Declaration and choose Create Reroute Usage, or search for the Declaration's name in the action menu of the target graph. The Usage node appears with only an output pin — wire it to any input that needs the value.

Context Menu Actions

Each node type in the Named Reroute system adds entries to the graph editor's right-click context menu under the Node Actions section.

On a Reroute (Knot) Node

On a Named Reroute Declaration

On a Named Reroute Usage

Jump to Definition

Both node types support Unreal Engine's standard Jump to Definition action (accessible via the right-click menu or the keyboard shortcut). The behavior is intentionally asymmetric:

Behavior Reference

Action Menu Filtering

Usage node spawners are only shown in a Blueprint's action menu if a matching Declaration (identified by GUID) exists somewhere in that Blueprint. This prevents stale entries from accumulating in the action panel after Declarations are deleted. The action database is refreshed automatically whenever a Declaration is placed, renamed, or destroyed.

Flow animation draws moving indicators along wires to visualize the direction of data or execution flow. Useful when reviewing complex graphs or presenting to others.

Animated Wire Types

Gridline Blueprints is structured as a phase-based wire routing pipeline. Each frame, collected wire data passes through a series of discrete phases before being drawn.

Module Structure

GridlineBlueprints/
  Source/GridlineBlueprints/
    Public/
      GridlineBlueprints.h                   // Module interface
      GridlineBlueprintsSettings.h           // UDeveloperSettings config class
      GridlineBlueprintsConnectionDrawingPolicy.h
      UK2Node_NamedRerouteDeclaration.h      // Declaration node class
      UK2Node_NamedRerouteUsage.h            // Usage node class
    Private/
      GridlineBlueprints.cpp                 // Module startup / factory registration
      GridlineBlueprintsConnectionDrawingPolicy.cpp
      GridlineBlueprintsNamedReroutes.cpp    // Slate widgets, node factory, context menus
      UK2Node_NamedRerouteDeclaration.cpp
      UK2Node_NamedRerouteUsage.cpp

Routing Pipeline Phases

Each phase implements IWireRoutingPhase and operates on the full set of FWireData objects collected during the current draw call.

Factory Registration

The module registers a FGridlineBlueprintsConnectionDrawingPolicyFactory with FEdGraphUtilities on startup. This factory intercepts all Blueprint and AnimGraph schema pin connection draw calls and returns a FGridlineBlueprintsConnectionDrawingPolicy instance, which inherits from Unreal's FKismetConnectionDrawingPolicy.

A second FNamedRerouteNodeFactory is registered via FEdGraphUtilities::RegisterVisualNodeFactory to supply custom Slate widgets for Declaration and Usage nodes. Context menu extensions are registered against three tool menu paths — K2Node_Knot, K2Node_NamedRerouteDeclaration, and K2Node_NamedRerouteUsage — at module startup through the UToolMenus startup callback system.

Will this affect my shipped game?

No. Gridline Blueprints is an Editor-only module. It is completely excluded from packaged builds and has zero effect on runtime performance or behavior.

My wires look the same after installing. What's wrong?

Ensure the plugin is enabled in Edit → Plugins → Gridline Blueprints and that Enable Plugin is checked in Project Settings. A full editor restart after enabling is recommended.

Does this work with Animation Blueprints?

Yes. Gridline Blueprints hooks into the base AnimGraph drawing policy.

Does this work with Blueprint Assist?

Yes, but Gridline Blueprints requires some space to function properly so if wires seems to route incorrectly, then do the following: Increase Blueprint Parameter Padding in Blueprint Assist: Go to Edit → Editor Preferences → Blueprint Assist Formatting → Blueprint Formatting → Blueprint Parameter Padding. Increase the Short Wire Threshold in Gridline Blueprints: Go to Editor Preferences → Plugins → Gridline Blueprints → Routing → Short Wire Threshold

Wires are overlapping even with Wire Spacing enabled.

Wire spacing operates on segments that are detected as parallel. If wires share the same path through complex U-turn geometry, spacing detection may not classify them as parallel. Try increasing Node Avoidance Padding to spread segments further apart before the spacing pass runs.

Node avoidance is causing wires to take strange paths.

Switch Avoidance Style from Complex to Simple. If that still produces unwanted results, temporarily disable node avoidance to confirm it's the source of the issue, then adjust Avoidance Padding.

How do I access hidden reroute nodes to move or delete them?

Hover your mouse cursor over the wire near where the reroute node is placed. The node will appear and become selectable. You can also disable Hide Reroute Nodes temporarily to see all reroute nodes in the graph at once.

Does flow animation impact editor performance?

Flow animation forces a redraw on every tick for animated wires. In very large graphs, using SelectedOnly as the Animated Wire Types setting limits this to wires near the currently selected node, which substantially reduces overhead.

I deleted a Declaration and now my Usage nodes are broken. What do I do?

Deleting a Declaration orphans all its Usage nodes — they will display a black title bar and the label "Invalid Named Reroute." You can either undo the deletion to restore the Declaration, right-click each Usage and choose Convert to Reroute to replace them individually with standard Reroute nodes, or simply delete the orphaned Usage nodes.

Can a Named Reroute Declaration be referenced from a different Blueprint?

No. Named Reroutes are scoped to a single Blueprint asset. The GUID resolution searches only the graphs belonging to the Blueprint that owns the Usage node. To share a value between Blueprints, use a standard Blueprint interface, function call, or variable.

Can I use Named Reroutes across function graphs and the event graph in the same Blueprint?

Yes. Usage nodes search all graphs in the owning Blueprint when resolving their Declaration. A Declaration in the event graph can be referenced by a Usage in a function graph and vice versa.