Making an Animated Timer

Create a custom animated timer for time sensitive games. With UI animations, you can make the timer pulse and disappear, or even add a custom countdown material that surrounds the clock.

This tutorial shows you how to:

• Set up a material.
• Animate a clockface.
• Change the clock color.

Create a User Widget in the Content Browser by following the instructions in the UI Pop-Ups tutorial.

Step 1: Set Up the Widgets

Once you’ve created the User Widget, double-click the User Widget thumbnail to open the Widget Editor.

1. Drag an Overlay widget into the widget graph and resize it to 1920 x 1080 by dragging the bottom right-corner. This widget acts as the screen where the UI will display.

2. Right-click on the Overlay widget in the Hierarchy panel to rename the widget to Root. This name also reminds you that it is the widget acting as a model of the screen.

   

3. Drag a second Overlay widget into the Root widget. This widget will contain all the widgets that make up the design and function of the animated timer.

4. Rename the second Overlay widget to ParentContainer in the Hierarchy panel.