Hello, World! Welcome to version 4 of my Inventory System. This version of the system was a complete rewrite from scratch. My goal was to provide a better foundation going forward, while maintaining a similar look and feel.

Since everything changed, this page will cover the key changes, and new features from each subsystem.

Version Support

Version 4 of this inventory system is only available in projects using Unreal Engine 5.4 and up.

Sticking to the old Version

Version 3 of this system will remain available to you, and is accessible through adding it to an Unreal Engine 5.1 to 5.3 project. You can then manually move the folder for this old version to a project using a higher engine version (verified up through 5.7).

V3 to V4 Primary File & Folder Name Changes

For those switching from V3 to V4 I put together this conversion chart showing the updated name and folder for some of the more popular files found in this asset. If you need help finding any of the others feel free to reach out.

Items & Slots

View the Items & Slots chapters to learn more.

— Specialty Slots - A way to define criteria for what can be put in a slot

— Buyable Slots - A way to offer the player expandable storage at a cost.

— Improved Dynamic Data Definitions & Helpers

— Usable Item Validation Step

— Consumable Item Animation Example

— Custom Drop Item Handlers

— Gameplay Tags have been added to the item structure. Internally this is optionally used as a method to define criteria for specialty slots.

Inventory & Hotbars

View the Inventory & Hotbar chapters to learn more.

— Inventory Touch Ups

— Inventory Widgets

— Easier Hotbar Placement

— Multiple Hotbars

— Hotbar Quick Use Usable Items in Slot

— Specialty Slots, Buyable Slots, and Starter Items

Equipment System

View the Equipment System chapter to learn more.

— Equipping Custom Blueprints

— Injecting Custom Inputs & UIs

— Equipping NPCs

— More Example Handlers (Guns, Flashlight, Throwables, Backpacks that extend inventory slots)

— Equipment now has its own Window, with live preview!

— Improved Mirroring to Multiple Meshes

— In an effort to reduce confusion, the equipment pawn setup has been broken up into multiple functions instead of one giant function to handle everything.

— Equipment Animations are now handled through a separate notification from the Equipment Events.

— Equipment Slot Indexes, making it easier to do things like switch which hands something equips to for a specific piece of main hand equipment.

— Equipment System uses equipment slots built on top of the Specialty Slots system to reduce overhead

— You can temporarily show a mesh in a specific equipment slot. In the demo example content of our consumable items we show the mesh in our hand as the animation plays to consume it. We do this using the equipment systems temporary mesh. You could also use this to toggle showing a pickaxe when the player is swinging at a mining node. If something is already in the slot it will be hidden. It is a timer driven system and a max duration is provided when you call the change.

Crafting & Workstations

View the Crafting & Workstations chapters to learn more.

— You can now craft recipes right from the player

— Workstations have been massively improved

— Crafting Queues have been introduced to both player and workstations

— You can now offer Unlockable Recipes, and I've included a button and a usable item example to unlock them!

— You can now have recipe Requirements.

— There is a call back to the player for each recipe crafting attempt, from this you can extend what happens on success or failure, like reward crafting XP.

Vendor System

View the Vendor chapter to learn more.

— Reworked, simpler to change user interface

— Persistent Per-Vendor Buyable Item Stock

— Wandering Merchant example

Player Banking

View the Banker chapter to learn more.

— Specialty Slots, Buyable Slots, and Starter Items

Player Currency

View the Currency chapter to learn more.

— Currency now has its own window rather than being an extension of the inventory. This should make it easier to customize and extend from.

Loot Systems

View the Loot chapter to learn more.

— Reworked Loot Logic

— Different Roll Types

— You can loot from storage components, hand picked loot, and even loot tables all from a single actor.

— The loot from sources can go into the same container.

User Interface

View the UIs chapter to learn more.

— Draggable Windows

— Portable UI_ItemGrid

— Item Filter Widget

— Refined UI_Item (combines both filled and unfilled slot logic in one)

— Dynamic Data Rich Text

— Dynamic Data shown in tooltips now supports defining the text syntax for negative, positive, and zero (or other) values. You can even create custom syntax handlers for more advanced values.

— Dynamic Data can inject additional UI widgets into the UI_Item and the UI_ItemTooltip.

— Reworked Gamepad Logic using built in Unreal Engine focus system.

Demo Content

— 38 different example items ranging from crafting resources, consumables, equipment, ammo, currency and other usable items like recipe unlockers and loot boxes.

— More equipment handler examples (Guns, Flashlights, Throwables, Backpacks that extend inventory slots)

— Equipment Stance change super simple example

— Campfire Workstation Example

— Wandering Merchant

— Treasure Chests