FPS Tower Defense Toolkit Basics: Holographic Tower Constructor

[The following information is based on the v2.1 edition of FPS Tower Defense Toolkit & hence may not remain entirely relevant in later versions. For more information about the toolkit, check out the official support thread in the Unreal Engine forums: https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?79300-FPS-Tower-Defense-Toolkit]

The Holographic Tower Constructor represents the part of the Holographic Tower Display system that displays Holographic models of the tower designated by the player for construction. The Holograms are created & updated at run time through the 'BPC_HolographicTowerDisplay' component (attached to the player character) using information specified in the 'Holo Constructor Data' array, located within the Tower Manager. Listed below is a brief explanation of the different parameters that drive the Tower Constructor:


- The 'TowerType' enum identifies the data associated with the tower model selected by the player for construction.

- The 'Tower' parameter determines the base mesh (same as the mesh model for the actual tower) used to create the tower hologram.

- The 'LocationOffset_GridCellToTower' controls the translational offset of the tower hologram relative to the location of the focused grid cell.

- The 'UsesGridCellOrientation?' flag decides if the hologram will be partially or fully aligned with the grid generator. For example, the Trap holograms have this value set to true, since their spatial orientation completely match that of the underlying grid generators. The remaining towers (including the Tower Base) on the other hand, have this value set to false, since they only partially align (along the XY plane) with the grid generator.

- The 'HasTurretAttachment?' flag determines if the tower has a turret attached to it.

- The 'TurretAttachment' determines the mesh (same as the turret mesh model for the actual tower) for holographic display of the Turret (if any).

- The 'LocationOffset_TowerToTurretAttachment' controls the translational offset of the turret mesh hologram relative to the tower mesh hologram.

- The 'RotationOffset_TowerToTurretAttachment' controls the rotational offset of the turret mesh hologram relative to the tower mesh hologram.

- The 'DisplayTowerRange?' flag determines if the constructor needs to display the effective range of the tower.

- The 'LocationOffset_TowerToTowerCenter' stores the offset between the tower location & the central point of the tower mesh (specified based on the said offset in the actual tower class).

- The 'AffectsNavMesh?' determines if the placement of the tower affects the navigation mesh. This flag is set to true for the Tower Bases since the AI bots will have to path around them. As a result, the holograms for Tower Bases keep updating their color to convey the availability of valid navigational paths based on the tower placement location.


The Hologram itself will be displayed as long as the selected tower model can be created at the focused location. However, based on the construction pre-requisites like availability of tower resources & valid navigational paths, the hologram may change it's color to reflect the feasibility of constructing a tower of the selected variety under the given conditions.

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