What's the difference between AnimNotify and AnimNotifyState?

AnimNotify fires once at a moment. AnimNotifyState has a duration: NotifyBegin at start, NotifyTick every frame while active, NotifyEnd at completion. Use State for ‘during this window, do something each frame’ like trail emission.

Why isn't NotifyTick firing?

You overrode Notify (one-shot) instead of Received_NotifyTick (per-frame). Or the AnimNotifyState has 0 duration. Or your character’s skeletal mesh isn’t ticking. Set duration >0 and verify the right method override.

How do I expose state to the AnimNotifyState?

Add UPROPERTY(EditAnywhere) fields on the AnimNotifyState subclass. Per-instance values appear in the notify panel inside the animation. Useful for trail color, duration scaling, etc.

Fix: Unreal AnimNotifyState Tick Not Firing

Quick answer: Override Received_NotifyTick (or NotifyTick in newer engine versions). Ensure the AnimNotifyState’s duration in the animation is >0.

A custom AnimNotifyState should emit particles every frame while a sword swings. NotifyBegin fires; NotifyEnd fires; but per-frame work never happens. The wrong method got overridden.

The Three Methods

UCLASS()
class USwingNotifyState : public UAnimNotifyState
{
    GENERATED_BODY()
public:
    virtual void NotifyBegin(USkeletalMeshComponent* Mesh, UAnimSequenceBase* Anim, float Duration) override;
    virtual void NotifyTick(USkeletalMeshComponent* Mesh, UAnimSequenceBase* Anim, float FrameDeltaTime) override;
    virtual void NotifyEnd(USkeletalMeshComponent* Mesh, UAnimSequenceBase* Anim) override;
};

Three callbacks. Begin at start; Tick per frame during the duration; End at completion. Override all three for per-frame behavior.

Common Mistake

If you override Notify instead of NotifyTick, you get a one-shot at start, no per-frame ticking. Notify belongs to UAnimNotify (one-shot); NotifyTick belongs to UAnimNotifyState.

Verify Duration

Open the animation. Right-click the Notifies track → Add Notify State → your class. Drag to set duration: visible green bar represents the active span. A 0-width state has no Tick calls.

Blueprint Equivalents

Blueprint AnimNotifyState exposes ReceivedNotifyBegin / ReceivedNotifyTick / ReceivedNotifyEnd as event nodes. Same three callbacks; same caveat about choosing Tick for per-frame behavior.

Verifying

Add UE_LOG in NotifyTick. Play the animation; should log per frame during the green bar duration. If only seeing Begin/End logs, you didn’t override Tick or duration is 0.

“NotifyState has Begin, Tick, End. NotifyTick is per-frame; Notify alone is the one-shot variant. Pick the right base class.”

For state-based effects (trails, particles, ongoing rumble), NotifyState is the right choice over single-frame AnimNotify.