VR Spectator Control Window

Want to be able to use Unreal Engine UMG together with the spectator view in your VR apps? You can now do so with our Spectator Control Window plugin!

Marketplace

If you don't have the plugin yet, you can download it at the Unreal Engine Marketplace.
Download Plugin

Setup UMG

After you have purchased the plugin, you can activate in the plugins menu here:
To be able to use a UMG widget with the Spectator Control Window you have to create ControlWindowActor Blueprint and add that to your startup map.
you can then create a new one based on the ControlWindow or re-parent your existing UMG widget to this class.
To create a new ControlWindow UMG widget, create a new Blueprint Class a search for ControlWindow in All Classes and press select like the image below:
If you already have a UMG widget you would like to use in the Spectator Control Window you can re-parent your widget inside the widget by going to “File – Reparent Blueprint” and choose ControlWindow from the menu:
With the UMG widget, assign it to the created ControlWindowActor Blueprint you created earlier:
Now everything is set and you can start your game or app to see the VR Spectator Control Window in action!

Blueprint nodes

We've added some convenient Blueprint nodes:

Event OnControlWindowActivated and OnControlWindowDeActivated

The OnControlWindowActivated and OnControlWindowDeActivated nodes allow you to bind to the Window Activated or DeActivated events. These events are triggerd when switching between the main game window and the control window. For example you could use this to toggle a UI element on the Control window so you know when it is activated or not.

ResizeWindow

The ResizeWindow node allows you to resize the control window for Blueprints.

Settings

If you want to change the title, size or position of the Spectator Control Window, you can set them in the UMG class defaults:

Enable re-focus on VR

Since Unreal Engine will always set the input focus to the window that is active we created a special checkbox to enable setting the focus back to the game after interaction with the Spectator Control Window. This way you don’t have to click back in the game window to let the user use the motion controller triggers and buttons again. If you need to be able to handle text input in the Spectator Control Window, having this option enabled will disable the Spectator window after each key press. So if you need to use text input it is advised to leave this unchecked and click the game window after you’re done using the Spectator Control Window.

We hope you enjoy using our plugin!