Event Dispatchers | Unreal Engine Blueprints

What is an Event Dispatcher?

In Unreal Engine, Event Dispatchers are used for communicating Blueprints with each other.

Imagine it as a way to fire off the code linked to an Event in one Blueprint, but the event gets triggered from another Blueprint. It’s like making a phone call: the first blueprint starts calling, and the second blueprint answers and starts executing its code.

But, before you get into Event Dispatchers, it’s important to understand the basics of Blueprints and feel comfortable with things like Casting and creating Custom Events.

Using Event Dispatchers isn’t really hard, but for beginners, it might be a bit confusing.

How can I create an Event Dispatcher?

To create an Event Dispatcher just go to the Event Graph of your Blueprint and click the ‘+’ icon next to ‘Event Dispatchers’.

This will create a new Event Dispatcher that you can name whatever you want. I named mine ‘Hello Dispatcher’.

After that, drag and drop the Event Dispatcher onto the Event Graph and select ‘Call.’ This will create a new Blueprint node that will call this Event Dispatcher when executed.

Besides that, if you select the Event Dispatcher, you will be able to add variables as inputs that you can use later on in the other Blueprints that are bound to this Event Dispatcher.

For this example, I created a string variable with a message that we will print in the other blueprint.

The event dispatcher’s call will execute when I press the Enter key on my keyboard. If you’re unfamiliar with how this works, read our lesson on Keyboard Events first.

How to Bind Event Dispatchers?

To bind Event Dispatchers, simply search for the name of the Event Dispatcher you created in the Event Graph. Then, select ‘Bind Event to X’ which will create a new Blueprint Node with an Event input.

Now, all you need to do is connect this Event pin to the Event you want to execute, such as a Custom Event.

As you can see in the example below, connecting the Event also enables me to access the ‘Hello String’ variable, which I can now easily output to a Print String.

Finally, depending on the Target, you might have to Cast To the other Blueprint. Here, I did a cast to the Game Mode where I created the Event Dispatcher.

Hope this helps! Keep on creating!