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Blueprint guide

Right-click in a Blueprint graph and search for Day Night Cycle. The most useful nodes are grouped by Clock, Events, Time Ranges, Gates, Schedules, and State.

Read and control the clock

What you need Node
Current day and time Get Day Night Cycle Date Time
Current day only Get Day Night Cycle Current Day
Time of day only Get Day Night Cycle Time Of Day
A value from 0 to 1 for the current day Get Day Night Cycle Day Progress
Pause or resume Set Day Night Cycle Paused
Change clock speed Set Day Night Cycle Time Scale
Jump to a date and time Set Day Night Cycle Date Time

Day Progress is convenient for material parameters, lighting blends, and UI.

React to something

There are two simple approaches.

Listen for the whole lifetime of an object

Use Get Day Night Cycle Notifications, then bind the delegate you need. This fits managers, UI, lighting controllers, and other objects that should keep listening.

Wait for one result

Use an async node when one Blueprint task should wait and then continue:

  • Wait for Day Night Cycle Event
  • Wait for Day Night Cycle Time Range Entered
  • Wait for Day Night Cycle Time Range Exited
  • Wait for Day Night Cycle Time Gate Activated
  • Wait for Day Night Cycle Time Gate Released

An event wait can fail when its setup is invalid or all matching occurrences are already in the past. It becomes Invalidated if a valid wait can no longer be reached. Cancel stops it deliberately.

Tags and exact entries

Use a Gameplay Tag when you mean “anything labelled this way.” For example, several ranges may use World.Weather.Cold.

Use an Entry Reference when you mean one exact event or range. Use an Occurrence Handle when you mean one exact active gate.

Important

A tag is a shared label, not a unique ID. A tag operation can find or change several entries.

Events, ranges, and gates

  • Get Day Night Cycle Events and Get Day Night Cycle Time Ranges return the current compiled entries.
  • Get Next Day Night Cycle Event Occurrence finds the next exact occurrence.
  • Active tag nodes give a simple semantic overview.
  • Exact active-range and active-gate nodes preserve individual identity.
  • Release one gate with its occurrence handle. Use the matching-tag or Release All nodes only when every matching gate should continue.

Runtime additions

Add Day Night Cycle Event and Add Day Night Cycle Time Range create temporary runtime entries. Keep the returned Entry Reference if you may remove that exact entry later.

These additions do not edit the schedule asset.

Change schedule layers

  • Set Active Day Night Cycle Schedules replaces the complete active set.
  • Activate Day Night Cycle Schedule adds one layer.
  • Deactivate Day Night Cycle Schedule removes one layer.

Schedule activation may load the asset immediately, so it is best done during a normal loading or setup moment.

Save and restore

Capture Day Night Cycle State returns the complete clock and schedule runtime state. Store it in your own SaveGame object. Later, pass it to Restore Day Night Cycle State.

Restoring does not replay every event that happened between the old and restored times.