AActor::InitialLifeSpan

property Engine Blueprint Since 4.0

#include "GameFramework/Actor.h"

Access: public Specifiers: UPROPERTYEditAnywhereBlueprintReadOnly

Description

How many seconds this actor lives before being automatically destroyed. A value of 0 means the actor lives forever. This is the initial value set before play begins and should not be modified after BeginPlay.

Caveats & Gotchas

• This is the INITIAL value read at BeginPlay to call SetLifeSpan() — modifying it after BeginPlay has no effect. Use SetLifeSpan() at runtime to change the countdown.
• The countdown is measured in real game time and respects global time dilation from WorldSettings; if TimeDilation is 0, the actor will never expire regardless of this value.
• BlueprintReadOnly means Blueprint graphs cannot write to this field; to set it from Blueprint, use SetLifeSpan() instead.

Signature

UPROPERTY(EditAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category=Actor)
float InitialLifeSpan;

Examples

Branch on whether the actor has a limited lifespan Blueprint

Set a 5-second lifespan on a spawned projectile C++

AProjectile* Proj = GetWorld()->SpawnActor<AProjectile>(ProjectileClass, SpawnTM);
if (Proj)
{
    Proj->InitialLifeSpan = 5.0f; // Set before FinishSpawning or in constructor
}

Version History

Introduced in: 4.0

Version	Status	Notes
5.6	stable	—

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