Unable to Communicate between Animation BP and Asset BP

This has been an issue I’ve been stuck with for a while, the context being trying to only play a Take Damage + Animation event during a select part of some animation montages by the use of montages.

My initial plan, screenshotted below, was to have the “AnimNotify_Hit Start” turn on a “SwordDamage” Boolean, and “AnimNotify_Hit End” turn off the Boolean. I then print a string just to let me know the notifies have happened.

The problem is, when I take this SwordDamage Boolean into my SwordBP, featuring a sword and a collision volume on the blade set to only overlap Enemy characters, and use SwordDamage to work a Branch node, the Boolean never returns “True” at any point.

Without this Branch and Sword Damage attached, the issue is that collision is “always on” and thus I can’t do damage calculations for different attacks etc - Since if you just walk into the enemy it will always deal damage.

Some of the solutions I’ve attempted without any success are as follows:

Tried using a Custom Event in my LevelBlueprint (And then retried in my ThirdPersonCharacterBP) that Branch checks a Boolean for (Sword blade) “Begin Overlap Enemy” and then another Branch check for the “SwordDamage” boolean set by the “AnimNotify_Hit Start” but couldn’t get this event to trigger, or even check on Tick.

I tried using the Hit Start anim notify to trigger a custom event in the SwordBP that then checks for collision, but couldn’t get the two blueprints to reference each other either way as Object Targets - Even creating a Variable Type in the blueprints set to a Blueprint Class kept returning Target Null, even when Object Target was Self in SwordBP, and trying to use SwordBP, it wouldn’t compile, and then complained when I tried to reference itself.

Then I tried to use Anim Notifes “Hit Start” to change the Object Response in Collision Class “MeeleWeapons” for Object Type “Enemy” from “Ignore” (Previously set to always overlap before I tried this method) to “Overlap” and then back to “Ignore” at “Hit End” However again I couldn’t reference the SwordBP’s Collision Capsule (Or even the BP itself) in the Animation Class in order to change the Object Collision, nor could I reference the Anim Notify Start/End in the Level, 3rd Person, or Sword Blueprints either to attempt it in those Blueprints.

Desperately need any help into fixing this, as I’ve spent almost 30 hours already completely stagnated by this one thing that seems to be a gatekeeper to me getting my combat calculations, and damages working.

Thank you for reading,

If I’m right, anim notifies are only here to fire cosmetics event, like spawning particule systems or sounds …

Arent those seperate boolean values?

And the AnimBP is for the Character?

basically what you need to do is:

The SwordBP needs to be referenced in the Character, or the Character must have a function to influence the Sword.
The AnimationBP you get the notify → get the owning pawn → cast to your type of pawn → get the sword reference.
Directly or use functions to set the swords boolean

Couldn’t make a reference to Sword_BP in ThirdPersonCharacter.

Not sure what blueprint I need that can have references to Sword_BP and the animation class.