Unreal Engine 5.5: Simple Door Animation Tutorial

This is Rambod and in this tutorial we build a simple interactive door in Unreal Engine 5.5. You will learn how to use Blueprints, box collisions, and timelines to make a door open and close smoothly when the player interacts with it.

1) Create the door blueprint

• Open the Content Drawer.
• Right click → Blueprint Class → Actor.
• Name it BP_Door.
• Open it and save.

2) Add components

• Add a Static Mesh named Door.
• Add another Static Mesh named Frame.
• Add a Box Collision to handle interaction.
• For the meshes, use assets from Starter Content:
  • Door mesh from Starter Content.
  • SM_DoorFrame mesh for the frame.
• Adjust transforms: set the door’s X location to around 45 for a good fit.
• For the Box Collision:
  • Set Box Extent to (100, 50, 100).
  • Offset Z by 100 for proper placement.

3) Add interaction logic

• In the Event Graph, right click on the Box Collision.
• Add On Begin Overlap and On End Overlap.
• Cast the overlapping actor to Third Person Character.
• If valid, trigger door actions on overlap begin and end.

4) Create door timelines

• Add a Timeline named Timeline_OpenDoor.
• Open it and add a Float Track called Rotation.
• Set length to 1.
• Add two keyframes:
  • Time 0, Value 0.
  • Time 1, Value 90.
• This will rotate the door open to 90 degrees.

Duplicate the timeline for closing:

• Name it Timeline_CloseDoor.
• Reverse values:
  • Time 0, Value 90.
  • Time 1, Value 0.

5) Connect to rotation

• Drag the Door static mesh into the graph.
• Use Set Relative Rotation.
• Connect the timeline’s update to the rotation value.
• For the closing timeline, connect the reversed curve.

6) Place and test

• Save and compile the blueprint.
• Drag BP_Door into your level.
• Play the game. When your character overlaps the collision, the door opens. Leaving the area closes it.

Wrap up

You now have a working animated door in Unreal Engine 5.5 with smooth open and close functionality. This technique is simple and a great starting point for more advanced interactions like locked doors, key systems, or sound effects.

For more Unreal Engine tutorials, visit rambod.net, subscribe on YouTube, or watch this tutorial here: Watch on YouTube.