The Factory Planner docs

Setup and use, tool by tool. The same pages are in the editor: in the plugin's content folder, right-click READ_ME and choose Run Editor Utility Widget. Stuck? Email support@hoardstudios.com.

Getting Started

Set the plugin up in a new project in a few minutes.

The Factory Planner turns any Unreal level into a factory or warehouse planning tool: measure the building, place and arrange machines with clearance zones, mark floor areas, check vehicle routes, cut the building open to see inside, add notes, then save the plan and export it to spreadsheets and CAD.

Quick setup

Enable the plugin and restart the editor.
Content Browser: Settings, tick Show Plugin Content. The tools live in the plugin's own folder.
Project Settings > Game > Factory Planner: the Tool Definitions list fills itself the first time the editor opens. If it is empty, press Reset To Built In Tools.
Project Settings > Rendering > Custom Depth-Stencil Pass: Enabled with Stencil, for the selection outline.
Use the example Game Mode, or set the example Player Controller (it carries the Tool Host and all the input) in your own Game Mode or World Settings.
Press Play. Pick tools on the toolbar; Esc opens the menu.

How to use

Pick a tool on the toolbar. Its settings panel opens beside it and the hints box in the top left says what to click next.
Click in the level to use the tool. Esc backs out one step at a time, then opens the menu.
Everything you do can be undone (Ctrl+Z) and is kept when you save the plan from the menu.

Good to know

Using your own Player Controller: add a Tool Host Component named ToolHost, then copy the example controller's graph into yours. Its comments explain each part.
Route Checker needs navigation set up (see its page). Sectioning needs your materials prepared once (see its page).
Every tool is a data asset: change its settings asset to change how it behaves, without touching code.

Select

The everyday tool: pick, move, turn, copy and delete.

Click an object to select it, or press on it and drag to move it. Objects that were already in the level join the plan the first time they are moved. The selection is shared by every tool, and the panel's buttons take it straight into Objects, Clearance or Notes.

Quick setup

Nothing to set up. Its settings asset controls the hover outline, drag to move, whether clicking empty space clears the selection, and the key that adds to the selection.
What may be moved: placed objects, and level objects no bigger than Max Plan Object Size (Object Placement settings). Tag an actor ToolNotPlannable to keep it where it is.

How to use

Click an object to select it; press and drag to move it. Hold Ctrl (the add key) to select several.
R turns the selection 90 degrees, Shift+R by the rotate snap. Ctrl+D duplicates, Del deletes.
Click empty space, or press Esc, to clear the selection.

Good to know

The outline needs Custom Depth-Stencil set to Enabled with Stencil.
One undo puts a moved level object back where the level had it, and out of the plan.
Selecting is not an undoable change, so undo never changes what is selected.

Measure and Area

Lengths, routes and floor areas, in the units you choose.

Click points in the level to measure between them. Straight Line measures between two points, Multi Line follows a path through as many points as you like, and Area closes the shape and reports the floor area. Finished measurements stay in the level, labelled, until you clear them.

Quick setup

Nothing to set up. The Settings menu chooses metres, feet and so on and the number of decimal places.
The measurement look (line, markers, fill) comes from its Path Visual Style asset, shared with other tools.

How to use

Click to place the first point, then the next ones.
Enter finishes a Multi Line or Area measurement. Backspace removes the last point. Esc cancels the measurement.
Tab cycles Straight Line, Multi Line and Area.
Del clears every measurement (it asks first).
Rename or delete measurements in the panel's list.

Good to know

Points snap to the surface you click: floors, walls, ceilings all work.
Measurements are saved with the plan and exported to measurements.csv.
Measure and Area are two toolbar entries of the same tool class with different starting modes.

Object Placement

Place, move, rotate and scale machines and racks.

Two modes in one tool. Drag and Drop places objects from an inventory; Gizmo moves, rotates and scales what is placed. Every object gets a clearance zone, a label and a place in the list, and is kept in the save.

Quick setup

Fill the Default Inventory in its settings asset with the meshes or Blueprint actors you want to place.
To let users add objects from the level to the inventory at runtime, give those actors the tag ToolPlaceable (Add To List).
Objects that were already in the level can be brought into the plan with Add To Plan (see Clearance).

How to use

Drag and Drop: click an inventory row, then click the floor to place it. Ctrl held flips grid snapping.
Gizmo: click an object, then drag it to move. Pick Rotate or Scale in the panel to change what dragging does, or type exact values into the fields.
Ctrl+D duplicates the selected object beside itself, R turns it 90 degrees, Del deletes it. Esc steps back.
After placing, the object stays focused for adjusting; Enter (or Done) goes back to placing.

Good to know

Each object's clearance (front, back, sides, above) is edited in the panel; zones turn red when something is inside.
Labels float above each object; switch them off in the settings.
Placed objects are exported to placed_objects.csv with position, rotation and footprint.

Clearance

See every clearance zone and every clash.

Shows the clearance zones of all placed objects at once, lists every problem (an object or a wall inside a zone, zones overlapping, an object in a keep-clear floor zone) and lets you adjust each object's clearance.

Quick setup

Needs the Object Placement tool, whose objects it checks.
Clearance colours, materials and what counts as a clash (level geometry, overlapping zones) are in the Object Placement settings.

How to use

Click an object to see what is in its zone; the hints box names the problem and Show turns the view to it.
Drag or type the clearance fields to change the zone; the zone in the level follows as you drag.
Select an object that was already in the level and press Add To Plan to give it a zone and keep it in the plan.

Good to know

Zones are measured from the object's visible size, the level from its collision.
Problems are exported to clearance.csv.

Notes

Pin notes to machines and areas.

Attach a note to any object: a title and a body, written in a box floating above it. Notes follow the object when it moves, can be collapsed or hidden, and are listed, saved and exported.

Quick setup

Nothing to set up. The note box's look comes from the Note Widget Class in its settings.
Objects tagged NotNotable (the floor, for example) cannot take notes.

How to use

Left-click an object to attach a note to it, then type in the box.
Click an object's note to open it. Collapse or hide notes from the box or the list.
Del deletes the selected note; Esc deselects it.

Good to know

A note on a placed object stays with it through save, load and undo.
Notes are exported to notes.csv and written in full in the summary.

Sectioning

Cut the building open to see inside.

A section plane hides or ghosts everything on one side of it, so you can look into a building from above or the side. Simple sectioning hides whole objects; complex sectioning slices them pixel by pixel.

Quick setup

Tag the actors that should be cut with Sectionable (or untick Require Tag in its settings).
For complex sectioning, right-click your materials in the Content Browser and choose Add Section Clip. This makes Opaque materials Masked, so do it only on the materials you need.

How to use

Drag the plane to slide it; hold Shift as you start dragging to move it up and down.
Pick the axis (top, side, front), Hidden or Ghosted, and simple or complex in the panel, or type a position.
Clear puts every object back exactly as it was.

Good to know

The cut is a view, not part of the plan: it is not saved and not undone.
Collision is not cut, and there are no cap faces: two-sided materials look best.
If an object will not slice, the panel names its materials that have no clip.

Floor Zones

Mark production, storage, walkways and offices on the floor.

Draw named, coloured areas on the floor. Each has a type (Production, Storage, Walkway, Office or your own), an area in the export, and can be keep-clear: any object standing in it is flagged in Clearance.

Quick setup

Zone types, colours and which types start keep-clear are in its settings asset.
To bring in zones from a drawing, put a CSV or DXF file in the project's Saved/FactoryPlanner/Imports folder (the panel opens it).

How to use

Rectangle: click two corners. Polygon: click each corner, Enter to finish, Backspace to remove the last corner.
Select a zone to rename it, change its type and colour, resize it, or drag it and its handles.
Tick Keep Clear to keep objects out; tick Block vehicle routes as well to keep vehicles out of routes too.
Import: pick a file, then click two points to line it up with the level, or use the same place as last time.

Good to know

floor_zone_corners.csv can be edited in a spreadsheet and imported again.
floor_zones.dxf opens in CAD with one layer per zone type.

Route Checker

Check forklift, AGV and pedestrian routes.

Click a start and an end: the route is found on the navigation for the chosen vehicle, with its length, travel time, the narrowest gap and any tight turns. Routes recheck themselves whenever anything in the plan changes.

Quick setup

Place a Nav Mesh Bounds Volume over the whole floor (press P to see the navigation).
Add one navigation agent per vehicle and set Runtime Generation to Dynamic: the setup guide has the lines for DefaultEngine.ini.
Vehicles (width, speed, turning aisle) and zone rules are in its settings asset.

How to use

New Route, then click the start and the end. Pick the vehicle in the panel.
Green is clear, orange is tight, red is blocked; select a route and press Show in the hints box to see where.
Esc cancels placing, then deselects. Del deletes the selected route.

Good to know

Zone rules: Office is No Vehicles and Walkway is Avoid by default; a keep-clear zone with Block vehicle routes is No Vehicles too. People ignore zone rules.
An end outside the Nav Mesh Bounds Volume is reported as such, not as blocked.
Routes are exported to routes.csv.

Save and Load

Keep plans and come back to them.

Every tool's data goes into one plan save: placed objects, inventory, zones, measurements, notes and routes. The save browser lists, renames and deletes plans, and autosave keeps a backup.

Quick setup

Nothing to set up. Autosave and its interval are in the Settings menu.

How to use

Esc (with nothing to cancel) opens the menu: Save, Load and the save browser.
Quick Save and Quick Load keys are in the example controller.

Good to know

A load replaces the whole plan, and is all or nothing: a damaged save changes nothing.
Saves live in the project's Saved/SaveGames folder.
The section cut and the camera are not part of a plan.

Export

Spreadsheets, a summary and a CAD drawing.

Writes the plan to a folder of CSV files (one per tool), a plain-text summary and floor_zones.dxf, ready for Excel, a report or CAD.

Quick setup

Optional: set an export origin (datum) so coordinates match your drawing's origin.

How to use

Menu > Export, then open the folder from the panel.

Good to know

Files go to Saved/FactoryPlanner/Exports, in a folder named with the date and time.
Coordinates are in metres from the origin, with the drawing's Y the other way up from Unreal's.
Your own tools add their tables by overriding Build Export Tables.

Keys, Undo and Hints

The keys every tool shares, and the hints box.

Every tool answers the same keys, and the hints box in the top left always says what the active tool expects next, with the keys shown as chips.

Quick setup

The keys are the example controller's input mapping: change them there, then match the chip labels in the hint overlay's Action Key Labels.

How to use

Esc: cancel one step (then the menu). Enter: finish. Backspace: remove the last point. Del: delete.
Tab: change mode. Ctrl+D: duplicate. R: turn 90 degrees (Shift+R: a small turn). Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y: undo / redo. H: show or hide the hints.
In the hints box: - collapses it, x hides it (H brings it back), Show turns the view to a problem.

Good to know

Info and success lines fade after a few seconds; warnings stay until fixed or dismissed.
Undo covers every tool, in the order things were done.

Lists and Search

Find anything in long lists.

Measurements, inventory, placed objects, notes, zones, routes and clearance problems are listed in their panels: click a row to select it, rename in place, delete with the row's button.

Quick setup

To search a list, add the Factory Planner List Search widget above it and set its Target List Name.

How to use

Type in the search box: every word must appear in the row's name or detail, in any order.
The selected row always stays visible. Esc in the box clears it.

Good to know

A list can also be filtered from Blueprint with Set Filter Text.

Settings Menu

Units, decimals, video and autosave.

The menu's Settings page holds the user's own preferences: length and area units, decimal places, video options and autosave. They apply to every tool and are kept between sessions.

Quick setup

Nothing to set up. Each tool's settings asset holds the defaults for its own behaviour.

How to use

Esc > Settings, change a value, and every tool updates straight away.

Good to know

Project-wide UI colours and the default confirm dialog are in Project Settings, under Factory Planner UI Style.

Blueprint Access

Drive the plugin from your own Blueprints.

Everything the panels do is callable from Blueprint: activate tools, read placed objects and zones, save, load, export, undo, and react to events such as On Object Placed.

Quick setup

Start with Get Tool Host, and the typed getters under Factory Planner > Tools (Get Object Placement Tool, Get Floor Zones Tool and so on).
The example Blueprint in the plugin shows the most useful nodes, each in its own commented group.

How to use

Get Tool Host > Activate Tool By Tag opens a tool from your own UI.
Bind to a tool's events (On Placed Objects Changed, On Notes Changed) to keep your own widgets in step.

Good to know

Changes made from Blueprint are undoable like the user's own when they go through the tool's functions.

Make Your Own Tool

Add a tool of your own to the toolbar.

A tool is a class, a settings asset, a Tool Definition and an optional settings panel. The host handles input, selection, undo, saving and the toolbar; your tool only says what a click does.

Quick setup

Make a Blueprint (or C++) class from Interactive Tool Base.
Make a Tool Settings data asset for it, and a Tool Definition that names the class, a tag and an icon.
Add the definition to Project Settings > Factory Planner > Tool Definitions.

How to use

Override On Pointer Event for clicks and On Action for keys.
Tick SaveGame on the variables that hold its state: it is then saved and undoable. Wrap each change in Begin / End Tool Transaction.
Rebuild what the level shows in On Tool State Restored.
Override Get Tool Feedback to put hints and chips in the hints box.

Good to know

References to spawned actors are not saved: store transforms or assets and respawn them.
C++ tools can write their own save format with Serialize Tool State.