blueprint

[trim matrix]

thank you!

alright thank youuu

[versed sun]

Did it load ? i see // and \

[loud timber]

ah i've fixed that but it doesn't load

[versed sun]

incheck the is rel to content Dir

un check

[loud timber]

still nothing but im wondering if it has to do with the get string field node being connected before the decode json

[floral stump]

solved, it was needed to add these physics channels

[versed sun]

Here is how i pull variabls out of my json

But , I saved the json from the plugin so I know the path is right and it is the same format (not sure if different json scripts write differently)

[naive bridge]

When I make changes to the skeleton inside a 1D blend space it doesn’t save for some reason any help?

[loud timber]

this is wildly helpful

what kind of object is l level json?

[versed sun]

yah , different nodes need the VaRest Subsystem node

L Level JSON is Just a local variable in a function

I made a BP Function Library for all the missing json setters/getters

Here is basically a struct being turned into a json

Once you can get something to load...

[loud timber]

oh wow

this is massive!!

thank you

im having trouple getting this array filed connect to the as string

its just a json with an array of fruits so im trying to print a string for each fruit in the array

[lofty rapids]

you just want to print the items in the array ?

[loud timber]

loaded from a json yeah

[lofty rapids]

well no matter where it's loaded from

an array is an array

so you should be able to foreach

and print string each one

[loud timber]

what is the difference between an array field and object array field

@versed sun i got it connected but does this look like the right setup? doesn't seem to get past the for each loop on my end

[dawn gazelle]

It looks ok, but you're likely not getting anything in the loop as you're not defining what field to retrieve that holds the array you're trying to loop through.

[lofty rapids]

why this scale doesn't effect the movement at all ?

[sleek elbow]

can anyone tell where can i learn menu ui

[versed sun]

what does the code in the .json file look like ?

should be able to open in a text editor (Notepad++)

[loud timber]

basically just that

[lofty rapids]

well that's not valid json for one thing

[versed sun]

D{"PL":[{"U":["Floor",-2,0,0,2],"P":[]},
My array is ["Floor",-2,0,0,2]

try saving a .json from the plugin first so you know the format is the same

[lofty rapids]

if your trying to use an array it's [ ] <-- not { }

[loud timber]

does the array need a name as well

or can the json just be a single array

[lofty rapids]

idk because normally just D{ <-- this is invalid so i'm not sure whats going on there

[versed sun]

Donst need it , but it can help if your looking for it

[loud timber]

so could the json litterally just be [ 'yes','no','yes!' ]

or

[lofty rapids]

use "

not '

[versed sun]

Im clueless on syntax, i just did the plugin end

[lofty rapids]

normally json can be an array use double quotes " and try to read it

[ "one", "two", "three" ]

an array of strings ^

[lofty rapids]

this is also a very common structure with the key and the array as the value instead of just an array, i wouldn't be surprised if the thing enforced that

especially if you have to get fields by name or something

[loud timber]

yeah cause changing the json to that ^ weirdly causes it to not load

[lofty rapids]

well did you change the single quotes to double quotes ?

json requires it to be double

[loud timber]

yeah i changed it to double

[lofty rapids]

ok did you try with the key/value like was suggested ?

[lofty rapids]

^

{"Body": ["yes","no","Yes!"]}

then when you get, try to get Body

[loud timber]

sweet trying that

making progress but still not printing anything

[lofty rapids]

not sure if it's case sensitive

Body

[loud timber]

yeah i changed it to lowercase in the json as well

[lofty rapids]

first thing is just get the array field using the field name

i've never used this plugin

but i know json

[loud timber]

for sure i apprecaite the help at least

[lofty rapids]

what plugin are you using ?

[loud timber]

vaREST

[versed sun]

I can help plugin side once syntax is set

[loud timber]

ah snap i just got it to print the first thing in the array

[lofty rapids]

well it looks like your doing it wrong, you probably don't want to get field twice

just get the array

and log it's value

the forEach should loop over the array where you can just plug the output into the print string

[versed sun]

Remove the 2nd Get array field

[loud timber]

OMG

THAT DID IT

you two are my dang heroes

thank you @versed sun @lofty rapids @dawn gazelle you all just made my day

[versed sun]

Save the SS from above for future ref

[lofty rapids]

^

[versed sun]

are you printing the Move Scale to see that it indeed different ?

and , is there a Max Move speed ?

[lofty rapids]

i'm not using the character but maybe there is max move speed

logging the multiplied value shows that is the right number

[dawn gazelle]

Are you using the CMC at all?

[lofty rapids]

it's just a pawn with floating movement

[lofty rapids]

yes there is thank you, it was hitting the max

[hollow cove]

how do i open a blueprint without compiling it

i have a node in there that seems to take an infinite amount of time to compile, if i could just open it and delete it itd fix it

[versed sun]

sometimes they compile if you wait just a little bit longer.....

[marble tusk]

Or use source control to revert back to the version before it broke

Or if you don't have source control, then it's possible there's an auto save of it before it was added assuming the node in question was added recently

[hollow cove]

i have source control but i didnt push to it for like 2 hours

it was the last node i added

i might have thought of a way to make it break so itll open

[craggy flicker]

I have a really weird bug when trying to line trace the forward vector of my plane pawn, for some reason it's tracing to where the pawn spawned and not directly in front of the pawn. I move the pawn via an Add Force when holding LMB and rotate the pawn via Add Rotation. It seems like the pawns vectors arent moving??

however my logic for adding force to the plane to move forward via LMB is using forward vector and it's working fine

[hollow cove]

i did it by breaking a reference

[craggy flicker]

you can see the black line rotating around the planes spawn point

even though that's not where the forward vector is suppose to be

[versed sun]

Is that spawn point at 0,0,0 ?

[craggy flicker]

(X=1727.000000,Y=-4149.000000,Z=778.000000)

[marble tusk]

You need to add the world location to the line end. The forward vector is a directional vector centered on 0

[versed sun]

would mean the trace you mentioned didnt hit and is defaulted to 0,0,0

[sterile trench]

I think you need to add the world location to the forward vector to get line trace from your location

Kinda like this

[violet quartz]

Does anybody know why Create Event doesn't prompt me to select a function to make the event out of?

Delegate type for RuleWithPredicateCondition is like this:
DECLARE_DYNAMIC_DELEGATE_TwoParams(FLibantRulePredicate, int, state, bool&, out);

[marble tusk]

Also, multiplying it by 10 will only make it 10 centimeters long

[versed sun]

I see ,. the end point has to be the Get world loc + the x10 math

[craggy flicker]

that fixed it! thanks! you too @marble tusk

[violet quartz]

Looks like it might have just been some discrepancy after having recently rebuilt. The old node for that ufunction was probably stale or something.

[silk heath]

Is anyone familiar with VA rest or can give an example of how decode json or decode json value works?

[dawn gazelle]

Decode JSON will populate a "Va Rest Json Object Object" reference with the input JSON. So you'd create a variable of that type, and connect it into the target of the node and feed in the JSON you want.
Decode JSON Value requires you to feed in the Va Rest Subsystem into the target, the output is then a JSON Value Object, which is like a field in a JSON object, but its field name is not defined, it's just a value.

Here's a better example of what to do with the Decode value...

Basically allowing you to input whatever type of JSON object, and then set it into a field without having to worry about a type.

[silk heath]

🙏 TY I couldn't find much on Decoding anywhere with examples.

[dawn gazelle]

This example would make it so the JSON object then contains:

{"SomeData": {"Field1": "test", "Field2": 5, "Field3": true}}

[golden pewter]

how can i detect mouse hover or clicking of nav modifier volume
cant find anything on it

[gentle urchin]

Is there a way to listen for any enhanced input action, and get its name or something ?

in parallel with how the regular input work

Usecase being a quest system, where i want to listen for a specific input (preferably by tag)

[supple sparrow]

Hello, please I need help. Under "Create Advanced Asset" I cannot find a "Sounds" option!! I wanted to create a sound submix. This is Unreal engine 5.3..

[carmine scaffold]

is there a better way in organizing this

[golden pewter]

i tried getting the class off a get hit result node but didnt detect it

[supple sparrow]

ahhhh thank you so much ><

[wild moat]

what's a good way to stop jittering when aligning to surfaces? more line traces and averaging the results?
https://gyazo.com/120aefd5285c4f635bbb40e30d3e8513

[gentle urchin]

Not sure how that's related 😛

[golden pewter]

i tried getting nav modifier volume class from actor output of get hit result under cursor

@gentle urchin

but it prints false if click on it everytime

fuggit imgoin to bed

[wild moat]

oh! also i'm trying to do this calculation for velocity based leaning, but i think my math is wrong somewhere, because when my character is falling it does this:

https://gyazo.com/1c28adc55a0e225a68550e865b21825a

[gentle urchin]

You can opt out of leaning while jumping

[wild moat]

i still want it to lean when floating through the air though:

https://gyazo.com/3e1af3c22a5fd204aa653148c21665c7

also it does a weird roll when going backwards

[gentle urchin]

Ah

i'd split it up

and focus on one lean direction at the time

and combine it when they're working individually

[wild moat]

hmm alright, is there a way to show/debug forward/right/up vectors of components and controllers?

[gentle urchin]

Draw debug arrow

[wild moat]

perfect thanks!

[fervent steeple]

for some reason my material will not stay assigned to it when I re open the project. I think it has to do with something with my blueprint setup

[woeful yoke]

I am very new to Blueprint. Mainly Youtube. However I have seen some reddit posts saying that : Casting, Spawning and Ticks are bad practices (and the first two I learned from YT). What are the alternatives for these? Why are these so bad? I am currently learning Unreal as an 3D artist for employment purposes, but may explore game dev in future. So really don't want to waste my time learning bad practices!

[jade lintel]

i use the default http plugin for making json

it makes the code a little longer but it's cleaner and doesnt require a billion append nodes for brackets

and then use varest for http requests

Here's an example

[earnest fog]

I strongly recommend that you continue using them until you get to a high intermediate or early advanced level. If you bog yourself down with the “perfect” way to do things, you’ll experience too much friction and ultimately give up

I’m now at the level where I take great interest in those efficiency gains, but I never would’ve gotten to this point if I hadn’t been free to just use the simple solutions that work

[jade lintel]

This will output a json equivalent to:

{
  "r":"0.5",
  "g":"0.4",
  "b":"0.9",
  "a":"1.0"
}

[earnest fog]

Realized I probably should’ve pinged you. But yeah, like I said above, those things will eventually be relevant, but for now, don’t focus on them. Just focus on writing code that works, and having a good time.

[jade lintel]

Casting: "They create something called a hard reference, when an asset is dependent on another asset, This means whenever that asset is loaded, all assets with hard references to that asset are loaded into memory. All in all, cast nodes create hard references which means increased memory consumption. If the chain of references becomes long enough, it will start to cause performance issues."

Spawning: I dont think its bad but if i had to guess then spawning an actor may sometimes cause lagspikes

Tick: Its code which runs every frame, and most of the times you dont need to run it every frame so timers work fine

in a nutshell you dont have to worry its not that bad

[earnest fog]

Hey so I had a quick question. If on frame 5 you add to a pawn’s location, it will have a new location on that same frame. Whereas, if you use Add Movement Input, the pawn’s location will update the following frame. Why is this? Is this because Add Movement Input needs a frame to check for collision? If so, couldn’t you just enable Sweep on the Add Actor Location node?

[woeful yoke]

@earnest fog Thanks a lot! Blueprint in itself is scary, and to think what I am learning is ultimately bad practices is very demotivating. But posting here was a lot of help to relieve my anxiety haha 😄

[woeful yoke]

Thanks a ton for explaining these!

I got the Hard ref things from some googling, but never got the answer to why spawning is bad, that's why I came here

[jade lintel]

no problem :P

yeah i dont really get it either

[earnest fog]

Honestly I found Blueprint to be way easier than any other form of programming. It’s still programming but it’s pretty beginner-friendly all things considered.

[jade lintel]

maybe they meant spawning a lot of actors at once

[earnest fog]

Yeah I haven’t heard about spawning being bad. Also, I still don’t understand how soft references work lol

[woeful yoke]

I know some programming, mainly python, and a long lost java knowledge. C++ will take some high confidence from my part

but I have head that its also object oriented, so hopefully I can repurpose some knowledges

[jade lintel]

soft reference is basically telling the engine to go look for an actor at a path when you execute code on it

hard reference on the other hand doenst make the engine look for it, it completely loads the actor to the memory

[earnest fog]

Ahh ok

I have a short list of some Blueprint tips, maybe you'll find some of them useful:

• The equivalent of an "if" statement in Blueprints is called "Branch"
• If you ever need to have a delay in your blueprints, use "Delay" -- super, super useful
• If you ever have several things you want to code which come from the same forcibly-unique event (like Every Tick or Begin Play), use "Sequence"
• For math functions in Blueprints, you must call them according to their variable types. "Multiply" will not give you something useful, but "Float * Float" is more likely what you're after. I use these math nodes all the time.
• The "Cast To" node is extremely useful in Blueprints. Let's say your character touches an object, so we get that object as an output pin of that event. Is it a power-up? We don’t know — maybe we hit another character. So we use "Cast To BP_PowerUp" Basically, this node is saying "hey, object, are you a BP_PowerUp?" If true (top pin) you get to access the object output pin as the BP_PowerUp type, which now gives you access to its variables and functions.
• Do you want to set up a series of options to choose between? (like Attack Strength: light / medium / strong) You could use an integer and then process that integer back into a label, but that sucks. You know what’s a million times better? Enums. It functions like an integer but looks like a string. You create them in the content browser just like a blueprint actor or anything else.

The only modification I would make to this is that math operations may not necessarily use this exact terminology anymore in UE5 since often times they can change type, but if you poke around you'll figure them out.

(also, technically speaking, Enums function like bytes, not ints, but whatever. I've learned a lot since creating this list 😆 )

I've never used a SaveGame system. But it sounds to me like you're having an issue where something is happening multiple times during play and should only happen once. But then you changed it in such a way that it only happens once, ever, even between sessions. Sounds like the boolean you're using to control this is being saved into your SaveGame. It should probably just live in one of your Blueprints without being saved, since it's only relevant within a session and has no purpose in being saved.

[frosty heron]

Loading data shouldn't be equivalent to spawning anyway. I would even go as far as load the data right off the menu when the level isn't opened yet.

I felt like what you are doing is just applying band-aid and over complicating it. Simply load the savefile in main menu (eg from load game) then when the map is open, spawn the saved actors

you can use Guid to Uniquely Indentify each actors too instead of FName

[feral parrot]

Can I somehow define what objects are inside of a collision box on the “event begin play”?

Is it even possible to detect what already is inside a box collision on begin play?

I need to get an array of objects

[surreal peak]

@feral parrot you can get the current overlaps of the collision component, yes

It's theoretically even needed cause overlaps on spawn don't trigger the BeginOverlap iirc

[feral parrot]

But literally it doesn’t overlap as the game starts, I’m afraid it won’t work

[surreal peak]

Is the collision set up properly?

[feral parrot]

By default , didn’t change anything

[surreal peak]

Yeah but you have two things that are supposed to react to each other. The collision box and something else

And the question is are they set up properly to overlap each other's type and generate overlap events

[feral parrot]

the actor with a box collision is set to

[feral parrot]

no overlap is generated when I hit play

[surreal peak]

Again, initial overlaps will probably not trigger OnBeginOverlap

You wil want to get the "OverlappingActors/Components" from the CollisionComponent on BeginPlay and iterate them by hand

[feral parrot]

Mmm, didn’t get you, from the collision component?

Would you show me what you mean?

[surreal peak]

In the BP where you have the BeginOverlap node and the Collision Box Component

On BeginPlay, you take the Collision Box Component variable and call GetOverlappingActors on that

And loop over that

I usually have a function called (e.g.) HandleOverlap that takes an Actor Pin. And I call that from the BeginOverlap and from the loop to have the same code run for both

[feral parrot]

I put 3 actors in there but checking the last index gives me 0, meaning that it was not detected

[surreal peak]

No it means whatever you coded there is kinda weird

Why are you making an array out of each iteration

If you just want the length then do this

[short phoenix]

I have an event dispatcher in one blueprint that I call in it to fire an event. I want to connect it to a blueprint in a different actor. I don't know how to make that connection between two specific actors in my level. How do I connect this? (also, I assume I'm using "actor" correctly here...)

[feral parrot]

Yeah thx it works! One more question, how can the index be -1? 🙂 kinda wierd

[surreal peak]

Depends on what you are doing

An Index being -1 means it's invalid

[surreal peak]

Check the pinned messages. There is a video called Blueprint Communication, which is a tad old but still fully applies.

[short phoenix]

Wow. 2.5 hours.

I guess that'll have to be background noise a few times until I glean the part.

[narrow pendant]

is it not possible to call a custom event in a GeneratedDynamicMeshActor class BP?

[nimble flower]

how hard would it be to make a system that spawns enemies at set points either when the player reaches a certain point in a level or when all the enemies in a room are killed?

[faint pasture]

Not very

[nimble flower]

how would it work?

[faint pasture]

Many ways but simplest would be 3 actors.

Spawn point
Trigger
Enemy pawn

Put the logic in the trigger actor.
Give it an event to spawn enemies at all the spawn points in the world.
Call that event when player pawn overlaps trigger.
When enemy dies, notify the spawner so it can check how many are left and call event if none are left.

GetAllActorsOfClass will do it, if a bit dirty

[rancid moat]

I've been looking but can't find anything, is there no BP function to take a location (or any vector) and rebase it into another coordinate system ?

[nimble flower]

for the logic, would I just check if overlapping with player?

[faint pasture]

Transform / Inverse Transform location/direction

[snow rapids]

Good morning you beautiful people! I hope you are having an amazing day.
I have a question. I have a level bp with some variables. I have a PCG graph on the same level. I would like to use values of those variables form level bp in the pcg graph. Do you know how to make them talk to each other?

[faint pasture]

You can check if overlapping actor = get player pawn or various other conditions

[nimble flower]

oh that makes sense, I'll try that ty

[rancid moat]

Ok that wwas quite easy thanks

[maiden wadi]

Honestly, learning to use C++ with Unreal's systems isn't bad at all. The only main issue is that using vanilla VS for it is kinda broken. You either need an addon for it or use Rider to be able to code well. Using it with C++ is mostly about learning your macros and using them correctly.

[woeful gull]

Hi, the following documentation on SmartObjects mentions the usage of the blueprint node "Claim" from the SmartObjectSubsystem. https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.3/en-US/smart-objects-in-unreal-engine---quick-start/#createthebehaviortreetasks

I can't however access that node it seems. Any idea what the cause could be? I've made sure all the plugins are enabled, and everything else seems to be there except this very important node.

[plain cobalt]

Heya all, im working on something that I want to use to calculate a (decent estimate) of the space the player is currently in. Right now I have a circular linetrace and a vertical linetrace going that provide me with information on distance. The frequency of the traces is scalable, and I intend to store it in an array to be able to read a full rotation of the azimuth plane of traces to provide me with a good estimate of the shape within the last x frames.

However Im not sure as to how to convert that data to a shape best. Ideally for demonstration purposes I want to create a UI element that shows the current estimated shape, and I need those measurements for my reverb system anyway (volume + rough dimensions of the thing).
TL;DR does anyone know how to translate linetrace distance info to the dimensions of a shape?

[plain cobalt]

Is it there when you untick context sensitive or when you just create it from blank

[woeful gull]

Nope, but I now discovered that the CPP docs mentions that we should be using MarkSlotAsClaimed instead. Claim might be deprecated. They didn't update the SmartObject docs though. Just another case of the docs being terrible I guess.

[faint pasture]

Do you just need a box or more precise?

[plain cobalt]

Glad you figured it out that fast :D

[plain cobalt]

Ideally something more precise. Since in the scenario of my room being lets say a piramid, a box would probably have twice the volume

[faint pasture]

Do you care about the actual shape or just the volume?

What is the actual deliverable from this code that gets fed into the reverb algorithm?

[tawdry surge]

To be fair, it is an experimental feature.. idk who updates docs every time they make a change during active development

[plain cobalt]

Since I want to display the actual shape in a UI element, I care about that. Vague inputs for a reverb system dont work as well for portfolio purposes as something more tangible

[dark drum]

Check to make sure you've enabled all the relevant plugins for the smart objects.

[faint pasture]

That's gonna be hard as hell but I'd start by spraying cones of traces

Basically shoot lines at points on the latitude lines of a sphere

[woeful gull]

I have... the Claim node seems deprecated. They just didn't update the documentation.

[faint pasture]

You can estimate volume based on average length

And you can make a mesh based on the positions. Basically deforming a sphere or cylinder

I'd do like 32 per line of latitude

[plain cobalt]

That sounds kinda expensive if you run it often

[faint pasture]

I run 1500 traces per tick no problem

In BP it might be bad but you're outside of BP land for this kinda work.

[plain cobalt]

Alright, fair enough. What about the box option?

[dark drum]

What version of UE are you using? I have the options so I'm curious what version they changed in lol

[plain cobalt]

Because what you described is probably a little bit out of my scope for now to be fair

[woeful gull]

5.3

[dark drum]

Ahh, im still rocking 5.1.

[faint pasture]

For the box just shoot the 6 traces.

Or 14 for box + corners

I'd do the amortized latitude lines tho

You can do it over time like a 3d scanner

[plain cobalt]

Yeah that part I can work on and edit

[faint pasture]

Start with like 16 per frame and move the circle up every frame

[plain cobalt]

But Im struggling a bit with translating it to a box

[faint pasture]

I thought you just said you want the actual shape, which one do you actually want?

For the volume you just average the length of the traces.

And do some math on it, each trace basically represents a cone

[plain cobalt]

Well, as I said calculating the shape based on what you said is a bit tough to wrap my head around

So if I start with a box I can maybe work my way up from there

Im not that deep into ue yet x)

[faint pasture]

Imagine shrinking all those vertices towards the listening position

To the trace hit point

[dark drum]

It might be worth looking at octrees. You could do box traces in a specified resolution (octree depth). Each cube could then represent a pixel (or something similar) on your UI. If it's hits something fill in the pixel.

[plain cobalt]

I can imagine that resulting in a shape yes

Still not sure how youre going to get the dimensions of the box

[somber haven]

Hello everyone, I wold like to launch the character towards the nearest enemy and once it lands, i want the attak animation montage to play. I´m stuck, between the two things. I can launch the character and i can execute the montage, but i´m not finding a way to "listen" for overlaps after i launch the character while reaching the anemy You Know what i mean?

[edgy ginkgo]

Hi there!

I am currently making a game with a character creator and I am running into an issue where my character changes will not stay consistent from the character select menu and the game level. I will go over how it is currently set up and will attach pictures bellow. currently this set up sets the skeletal mesh to nothing and makes the character disappear

How It Is Set Up: In my character customization level I have a button. when the button is pressed it casts to player character and gets the head called "mesh" and the body called "Feet_0" and the material of it. It then sets these materials as variables in the game instance and opens up the next level. Then upon event beginplay in the character blueprint it changes each of variables to the variables within game instance. Both pictures are attached

Any help would be appreciated
https://imgur.com/a/2swH7qM

[faint pasture]

Why is it a box

You just said you want to capture arbitrary shapes

[plain cobalt]

Im still learning so if I can do a box and make it work, I can improve the system later

[dark drum]

You could create BP specifically for detecting when it's spawner has reached it. I have one thats just a sphere collision that calls an event dispatcher when it's overlapped by whats spawned it. This way, you can spawn it and bind to the event dispatcher. I also made mine have an option to auto destroy itself when overlapped.

[dark drum]

I can't see any issues with what you've done. Have you set the game to use the correct game instance? Do you get any errors?

[edgy ginkgo]

I have set the correct game instance,

I am getting this error on loading the level

[dark drum]

it looks like it might not be setting for some reason. Do you get any errors on selection screen before it switches the level?

[edgy ginkgo]

there are no errors that occur besides that which is the strange part

[dark drum]

Then I would say that the data its getting from the player characters isn't set to anything when it's being used to update the game instance. Add a few print screens and print the name of the skeletal mesh it's adding to the game instance before it switches the level.

[edgy ginkgo]

I will try that..

[mighty orbit]

An update on this is that it does work on the default open-world map, which leads me to believe it's some kind of conflict with the NavMesh I'm using on my level. I'll do some more investigation. 🙂

[edgy ginkgo]

I found the solution

I was plugging in skeletal mesh when what was needed was skeletal mesh asset

[nimble flower]

if I have a spawn trigger blueprint and a spawn location blueprint, how can I set it up so that I can link certain triggers and locations instead of having to make a new blueprint for each spawner

[dark drum]

I'm not sure what you mean. What are you trying to do?

[nimble flower]

like, when a player enters a trigger volume, I have it set up so that it’ll call the “spawn” event for every spawner, but I was wondering if there was a way to designate triggers and spawners so specific triggers will interact will specific spawners, because right now the trigger activates every spawner

[dark drum]

Ah ok, and yes, you can create a var on your trigger blueprint that's of the type of your spawner BP. You can then set it as instance editiable and expose on spawn. When you select the trigger in the level, you'll be able to see that new var and select a spawner. You would then use this var to active the spawner.

[narrow pendant]

is it possible to have multi colored string prints in BP? I want to timestamp my log function with a different color but on the same line ideally

[nimble flower]

oooh okay, I’ll try that then thank you

[void hemlock]

So I am trying to take screenshots via blueprints, but take high resolution screenshot only works in editor, not in a standalone project. Is there a take screenshot node that does work after a project is exported?

[cunning vapor]

Has anyone made a " Line of Sight Vision System" or a "Fog of war" system before ?

I.E.
Cone of vision infront of the player

Have found this but thought i'd ask as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BezQiFCGkq4

[narrow pendant]

for AI or for your own player?

I haven't built this myself yet but I've looked into the topic, this blog post seemed nice
https://hippowombat.medium.com/tutorial-line-of-sight-visualizer-for-unreal-engine-f32113b1f6f3

if you're wanting to use this with AI, look into EQS

[cunning vapor]

For the player character

[cunning vapor]

Thanks for that, will have a read

[feral parrot]

Does anyone know how to check and make sure all the actors inside of the box collision have got in to the array? It's kind of random thing, from type to tipe i hit play it returns me a diferent number. Delay doesn't help.

[lean flax]

that function does it, put a breakpoint in the array to check what is getting added

[spark steppe]

does anyone know why we can't use Blueprint Function Library methods in Blueprint UObjects?

[dark drum]

I believe its something to do with uobjects not having any context of the world. As you can't get the world using blueprints, there's no way to give the functions the context they need.

I believe it's possible if using C++ but that's not something i've looked into that much.

[feral parrot]

I check by the last index and it varies from play to play assuming that not every time the actors get defined

[spark steppe]

yea your explanation sounds reasonable enough, i can workaround that

[maiden wadi]

Pattym is correct. UObject does not implement GetWorld by default. If you override this in a C++ UObject class, any children of it can use functions that require a world context object.

[spark steppe]

also i barely remember that under some circumstances they would expose the world context pin

idk why this wont work anymore tho

[maiden wadi]

Likely attempts at stopping undesired effects. Similar to the fact you can no longer put SpawnActor in a function and call that from the ConstructionScript.

[versed sun]

Or having a negative light intensity... that looked awesome

[tulip plover]

Does this node not perform as expected, it doesn't matter what I input as start time, it always inserts the notify at the end of my montage

[trim matrix]

I want to do an interaction system based on context (multiples interaction types), but I don't know how to implement a way to select the desired option

Any tip?

My actual approach is use an enum but i don't know if is the best option

[versed sun]

Like a door could be interacted with a Key, Enter Pin, Power Switch?

[trim matrix]

More like a door can be used, removed...

[versed sun]

So interacting with E would open , Q would remove door ?

[vernal snow]

Hello there, i was wondering if anyone could help me with Blueprints and Timelines:
So i'm attempting to make a crouch mechanic in a single player little demo and i thought the easiest way is to simply set the relative scale and cut it in half.
Than i wanted to add a timeline and make it take time to immerse the player a bit more.

After a bit of debugging i kinda got there but there is a obvious "snap" or delay when reversing the operation.
Just wondering if anyone could throw a bone to help me out

[spice shell]

Hi folks, does anyone have a handy macro for searching a specified string for any subset of another string? E.g. 'Does the string 'Hello' contain any combination of 'H', 'He', 'Hel', etc.

Rather than Contains() which only works with the entire string and is basically an Equals in this case.

I fear I may have to use regex 😦

[versed sun]

Why doesn't Contains() work

[spice shell]

It's the fetching of the different sub strings that I'm looking for

[spice shell]

Right but the Make Array inputs there could be anything, I will have dozens of different potential strings, each could be 10-20 characters

I'm looking for someone who has had to do this before and has made a macro basically 😄

Otherwise I'll have to write a big loop function to break down every string dynamically into every combination

[versed sun]

ok, I guess im not sure what your substrings are going to be

[spice shell]

Doesn't matter, could be anything

Your nodes above are spot on and will work, it's just the gathering of the substrings from any potential string that's the bit I'd really like to not have to do!

[versed sun]

are you generating the list of substrings?

[spice shell]

Breaking every string into an array of n-length and iterating it

No, that's the bit I want 😄

[versed sun]

Do you want to break a string into random substrings?

[spice shell]

Not random, in-order, but every combination of substrings

So Hello needs to become H, He, Hel, el, ell, llo

etc

[versed sun]

ok, all combos of 1 letter , 2 letters , 3.. etc?

[spice shell]

Exactly

[dark drum]

is their a way to disable collision so something doesn't collide with other objects but can still be picked up in traces? I would have though setting it to 'Probe Only' would have done the trick but I get some weird issues when I do that haha.

[versed sun]

I just do this

[lofty rapids]

You can make another loop, or make it more complicated but here is an idea of how to do it

[versed sun]

Make a new trace channel Default to Ignore

[spice shell]

I'll give this one a try, thanks!

[tough atlas]

Does anyone know how to stop TAB navigation within the game, I'm using TAB as my inventory open and close, and if you left click while inventory is open, TAB will no longer close but will start navigating the widgets
I'm working with blueprints btw

[thin umbra]

Hello, can someone help me resolve the CameraActor that gets spawned when I first start the game?

Why does my controller possess it and it leads to it seeing its pov instead of waiting for the character to spawn and possess it

[silk heath]

DM if you have the time, thanks for the info.

[void hemlock]

Is there any way to make a blueprint sequence wait for it's contents to finish before moving onto the next item in the sequence? For reference I am trying to take screenshots with different settings, and use 2 sequences to go through each of these settings but it appears to not wait for the BP node to take a screenshot, instead skipping(?) taking a screenshot until it's the very last screenshot in the sequence.

[versed sun]

try this out

[dark drum]

It's more for runtime. I have some held items that have their collision disabled (on the actor) when picked up.

[spice shell]

This looks promising, thank you!

[versed sun]

Might be able to Copy this code and paste here

[spice shell]

Wow, yeah, that's amazing

Thanks for that! Will test it out

[lofty rapids]

yours look so much neater than mine tho lol

[versed sun]

Its the Electric Nodes Plugin

[lofty rapids]

ya i looked at that, i kind of like the curves i'm getting used to it

[versed sun]

Makes it 🤌

[spiral plinth]

Does anyone know a way to control a volumes size in Blueprints? I really don't want to have my engineers to write a component for it

[versed sun]

If its in run time you can do things like this

[spice shell]

Yeah this looks like it's going to work great, I just need to figure out a way to 'weight' the result now based on the amount of 'hits' - thanks for your help, much appreciated!

Also yeah electric nodes and darker nodes are must-have plugins haha

[lofty rapids]

sometimes, idk about unreal but programming in general as long as the arrays stay the same you can use seperate arrays and the index to keep multiple values of a single thing

so items[item], and weight[item]

[spice shell]

yeah you can do the same with maps in BP

[versed sun]

maps... such a nice idea that never works...

[spice shell]

It does make me sad we can't get proper arrays in BP

I came from Lua so was used to tables for years

tough transition!

[dark drum]

I was thinking about something like that but it would start getting messy when an actor has multiple meshes etc or different default collision presets. I think i'll just trace for the player and check if there holding something that would be applicable.

[lime cairn]

Blergh, I've got an animation blueprint that crashes everytime I open it due to an array out of bounds error

Any way I can open it and fix it? I think it happens because of something linked to the UpdateAnimation event node

[lofty rapids]

i'm linetracing the mouse to the landscape, then getting the closest grid cell here.
I'm looping through all the actors and getting closest based on the closest distance.
What would be a more efficient way to do that ?

obviously if i have a gigantic grid i don't don't want to loop through them all on tick

or atleast i would want it to be a bit more efficient

[versed sun]

Instead of ALL actor, Overlap Sphere Actors

[lofty rapids]

well i actually have them in an array

so i'm only looping through those actors

[lunar sleet]

That error happens a lot, often due to Chaos Physics related stuff

[lime cairn]

Yeah, it's not chaos physics related

The only chaos is my blueprint layout

[lunar sleet]

Point being, it’s a very low level error, no you can’t fix it yourself

It happens often with chaos but not necessarily

[lime cairn]

Yeah, I figure the issue is I;m making a call to a non existent array

[lunar sleet]

Probably not

It can be any number of things

[lime cairn]

But because the UpdateAnimation event is always running when you open the animation blueprint, it crashes

[lunar sleet]

You could try restoring it to earlier version if you have source control

[lime cairn]

Yeah, the other chaos is my revision history and my idiocy

I guess I'll have to delete it and start from scratch

Luckily it wasn't too bad

Remember kids, commit often!

[tawdry surge]

@lofty rapids you could use the mouse position to determine which part of the grid you are in and only have to check tiles near by

[lofty rapids]

That was a though i had as well, so basically calculate the x, y and figure out what part of grid ?

Probably would be much more performant

[tawdry surge]

Depends how big the grid is, but yeah..
If the mouse hits around 400 on x and y (and rows are 100x100) then at most you need to check 3 columns of 3 rows. 3,4,5

[supple dome]

Actor = Grid[index]```

[tough atlas]

https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/annoying-bugs-with-umg-focus-with-is-focusable-on-all-widgets-false/60280

Anyone got an idea how to do this in blueprints, umg navigation is annoying

[supple dome]

do what

[tough atlas]

What?

[supple dome]

yes

[lofty rapids]

my grid is offset so 0,0 isn't bottom left

[misty sonnet]

Hi guys. This is probably a simple issue but I was wondering how I'd go about playing an animation on the character when he picks up gun. So I have the gun attach logic all done but he just holds it in his hand. How would I transition to a walk forward iron sights animation once he has the gun in hand?

[supple dome]

you may also have to play with round instead of trunc for nearest

[supple dome]

animation states / animation layers

[lofty rapids]

i'll try this formula but i think it needs a bit more

also i have to change a few things so i was already planning on doing it like that but i was hoping for some sort of magic solution

[supple dome]

yeah, this has plenty of assumptions, 0,0 at worldpos is the 0,0 actor, both grid and worldposition goes in same axis (ie. each rows goes to +Y direction)... but its thats the gist of it

the easiest way is iterate over the grid, but as you mentioned its slower

make your choice

[lavish dawn]

Okay, I'm scratching my head on this one. So I'm trying to set up a jog and sprint system. I already set up the animation states. 0-120 is walk, 121-375 is jog, 376-625 is sprint. I'm trying to do it so that once you tap the left shift the max speed will increase to the jog max speed and when you hold down shift it'll switch to the sprint max speed. What I'm having trouble with is what would be the target for the two thresold sets I have? Originally I thought it was would be character movement but it said it can't connect that way. I'm a bit lost on what to try next as all of my guesses has turned out wrong.

[lofty rapids]

for one thing your exec is not connected

[lavish dawn]

If you're talking about the bottom one then that's just because I haven't got to it yet, I'm not done with the blueprint. I was testing out the top part first.

[queen heron]

I'm tryna spawn the floating actors with offset animation timeline depending on the current index from the for loop
but they all spawn in the same motion

so when they spawn, I want them to float like a waving ocean

[lunar sleet]

There’s an #enhanced-input-system channel btw but idk why you think that would work in the first place

[versed sun]

You are setting the New time after it spawns
Check the Expose on Spawn

[lavish dawn]

I'm kinda new to blueprints and still dealing with the basics so I didn't realize what I did was stupid. Thanks for letting me know.

[queen heron]

right.... 😅

[lunar sleet]

If you want hold/tap use a hold trigger and run the tap action off the cancelled pin. If you want to check elapsed time you need to actually use the elapsed seconds pin

[versed sun]

Then that will add it to where you spawn it

[queen heron]

oh! forgot about that trick!

[spice shell]

@versed sun Got everything working beautifully, many thanks for your help earlier ❤️

[lunar sleet]

Also the <= was not connected either, not that it’d do anything

[unique rapids]

Depends on your specific use case, but I would suggest dividing the grid into bigger chunks, registering your actors into those chunks, and then finding closest actor only from those who are already registered to nearest chunk, if the actor is not found on specific chunk, you could search in other chunks using spiral pattern

[versed sun]

ahhhhhhh thats what you wanted it for

[spice shell]

Yup!

When talking here I'm never sure how specific to be about the exact use-case because sometimes people get overzealous and lose track of the actual functionality 😅

So I try to detach the problem from the specific use-case mostly

Unless it's really directly relevant, anyway

[versed sun]

Now you need to add some way to read typos 🙂

[misty sonnet]

I have the animation and the attachment etc. I mean more where do I inset logic to make the character do it?

[spice shell]

😄

[versed sun]

so "lo" makes both pop up?

[spice shell]

Yup

but los removes glowstick, and low removes explosives

and because it tracks every character it should nicely filter things as the user types, which is a key feature I wanted

Rather than having to either type the whole word, or god forbid, hit enter before you get filtering 😷

It feels quite nice to use, need to test it with more entries!

[supple dome]

Well if you have an animation layer, all you have to do is call "Link animation layer" when the player equips the weapon and the animations will play

[autumn plover]

I just finished making a dedicated server. What are best practices that I can use to have the host change levels, player slots, password and other server settings when launching the dedicated server .exe?

[lunar sleet]

Try #multiplayer or #online-subsystems

[swift kiln]

Hey. I posted this on #multiplayer , but since no one is responding there and its blueprint related Ill post it here aswell. So I have a function to spawn player. I want to do some kind of among ug logic. Lets say when there is less than 5 players connected, I want to spawn 1 impostor (character blueprint) and 4 normal players (another character blueprint). I tried it like shown in the image, but when for example 2 players connect, each one of them is "impostor" and then it spawns 2 "normals". Is there a thing how I can cast spawn actor multiple times? Does anyone have any suggestions?

[lunar sleet]

See #rules on cross-posting and being patient

You can bump your post in there every now and then

[versed sun]

Multiplayer is a little above us
We are busy printing "Hello world" and opening doors

[lunar sleet]

Btw don’t use “cast” as execute, it means something else and might mislead people

[swift kiln]

Okay my bad Ill be sure not to do that again

[lunar sleet]

For reference, a cast node lets you check if the reference you gave it is of a specific class and lets you use functions inside that class

[alpine hinge]

hellow there, im having a problem with the menu widget that doesnt dissappear after i click a host button

[native ferry]

add remove from parent after host

[lunar sleet]

Like I said in #ue5-general the node is remove from parent

[lofty rapids]

spawn 5-numberplayers of impostors ?

[alpine hinge]

did it, no success 😭

[lunar sleet]

$10 says you didn’t feed it a ref to the widget? 🙂

[native ferry]

i beleive the widget is self in this case

believe

[swift kiln]

What? I dont follow

[lunar sleet]

#umg would know better but I think you’re supposed to add and remove widgets from the PC or the HUD , not inside themselves

[versed sun]

You can remove self from inside self

[lofty rapids]

well is 5-numberofplayers the amount of imposters you want to spawn ?

[lunar sleet]

Oh good to know

[lofty rapids]

why not just use a forLoop the amount of 5-numplayers and spawn them

[swift kiln]

Oh. No Its when number of connected players < 5, then 1 of them should be the impostor

I plan to do it when there is more than 5 players, there would be 2 "impostors"

[lunar sleet]

You’d have to maybe add each player controller to an array and check its length -1

The #multiplayer crew would know better, there’s prly something less hacky

There’s a player state array iirc

[sick fable]

Can someone help me I'm trying to make my animal ragdoll after reaching 0 hp I have line trace setup but for somereason when I shoot the animal nothing affects it like if I changed the output to destroy actor still nothing happens

this is my line trace

can anyone help

[gentle urchin]

Number of players % 5 = 1 then imposter

Else regular

If you want to randomize it, you shuffle the array before start

[versed sun]

Print Deer Health on the False of this

[sick fable]

where will it print

I can't see

[lunar sleet]

You know you can just turn on physics for this right? 🙂

[sick fable]

if you know then say because I want the Ai to ragdoll after dying

I switched it back to ragdoll instead of animation because I was trying to test it

[lunar sleet]

You put the print on the false pin

So if true it’ll never print

[lunar sleet]

Yeah, but if it doesn’t work put the print after the True

[sick fable]

ok

[versed sun]

the event is Custom Event , and you are calling Apply Damage

[lunar sleet]

Do you have an onTakeAnyDamage calling this event?

[versed sun]

i think you want to Override the Function

[sick fable]

Yes I think that is the custom event

[lunar sleet]

No

See what Ryck said

[sick fable]

im sorry man

i don't know what u mean

by overriding it

[versed sun]

on your function on the side , you see a hidden Override by the (+)

gotta hover for it to pop up

[sick fable]

ok

im trying to simulate the physics to make it ragdoll

[versed sun]

Im a little foggy on the damage system, but I think that your problem was the Custom Event wasnt getting called

[sick fable]

i don't know if thats right

[lofty rapids]

is the event firing ?

[sick fable]

tbf I am new I don't know how to check

[lofty rapids]

you see how you have a print string ?

[sick fable]

yes where does it print to

[lofty rapids]

does that show up in the top left at all ?

in the top left of the screen

[versed sun]

If you are calling Apply Damage , then you need Apply Damage , not Take any damage

[sick fable]

is that beter

?

[lunar sleet]

That part should be done on the bullet

And then you override take any damage on the deer

[versed sun]

yes , also print on the False

[sick fable]

nothing prints

[lofty rapids]

you can put a print string comming out of the execution just after the event (red) node and if it shows up on the screen then it runs

[sick fable]

I dont think so

[lofty rapids]

so i would check the line trace

[lunar sleet]

That’s a fake apply damage, it’s a custom event

What’s calling it

[lofty rapids]

but before you get to do any apply damage you want to make sure your hitting the thing, you can also press f8, look for green or where it's hitting

[sick fable]

I changed it back to any

[lunar sleet]

Ok

Pause a sec

[sick fable]

I saw green behind the deer

[lunar sleet]

You have a projectile bp?

Like a bullet

[sick fable]

nope

Its inside my character bp

[lunar sleet]

You just want to damage it when the trace hits?

[sick fable]

yes

[lunar sleet]

Ok

[sick fable]

and then after health reaches below 0 for it to ragdoll

I thought I knew how but it didn't work

[lunar sleet]

Go to your character, on your line trace grab the other actor, cast to the deer bp, then drag off the return value and plug it into the built-in apply damage event

[sick fable]

how can I make sure it is printing to the screen

[lunar sleet]

Nvm the printing for now

Let’s do this right

None of this hacky shit lol

[sick fable]

ok

[lunar sleet]

Do this and let me know if you have trouble with it

And make sure you actually give it a damage value so it’s not 0 (on the apply damage node). Show a screenshot of that when you’re done

[sick fable]

is this what you meant

[lofty rapids]

hmm

[sick fable]

sorry if im being dumb

[lunar sleet]

Almost

Remove the second apply damage node, move the cast before the first apply damage node

[sick fable]

the damage node is 35

[lunar sleet]

What you’re doing is checking you’ve hit a deer

[sick fable]

and deer health is 150

[lunar sleet]

That’s ok but do what I said

Basically plug other actor into the object pin on the cast

And then from that, do the apply damage

[sick fable]

where is the other actor your talking about

[lunar sleet]

It’s not strictly necessary here but you might not want to damage every actor

Hit actor mb

[lofty rapids]

well for one thing you need execution to that node

[lunar sleet]

Get rid of the branch and replace it with that cast

[lunar sleet]

The branch is not necessary but that’s fine for now

Now go to the deer bp

[sick fable]

ok

[lunar sleet]

Assuming you have the event any damage on there like you showed last, it should work now

[sick fable]

is set simulate physics

with ragdoll option

the wrong thing to do

to make it ragdoll

[lunar sleet]

Nope

Did it work?

[sick fable]

i shot him loads with green lines

nothing happened

is it because it is a skeletal mesh idk

or an option i didn't enable

[lunar sleet]

Print the health variable make sure it’s changing

[sick fable]

if i tick

simulate physics he falls over

[lunar sleet]

Don’t tick it

Just check the health

[sick fable]

ok but where do i see the output

[lunar sleet]

Top left in blue when playing the game

Or in the output log if you really want to

[sick fable]

is that correct

put print at the end

[lunar sleet]

Yep that’s fine

[sick fable]

ok in the output log and on top of screen

[lunar sleet]

Well

[sick fable]

nothing is showing

[lunar sleet]

Not really because it won’t print if true

Move the print string before the branch

[sick fable]

ok i did false aswell

[lunar sleet]

Or that

[sick fable]

bro idk what im doing wrong

im sorry

[lofty rapids]

the print on the false should show every time you hit the dear

untill the health is lower than zero

[sick fable]

no print either

[lofty rapids]

then that event probably isn't firing

[sick fable]

ok

what is stopping that

why my linetrace not applying any damage

shouldn't I have put apply damage before?

[lofty rapids]

well for one thing check your blocking hit if it's true or false on the line trace

[lunar sleet]

Print the hit actor too

[sick fable]

I do see the deer getting hit

[lofty rapids]

thats a good sign ig

[sick fable]

like green lines past it

can my deer not count as an actor so it isn't applying damage

its just stopping because it is hitting collision idk

[lunar sleet]

Is it printing the deer on hit actor?

Hit means red squares

[sick fable]

yes red squares when I shoot it

And green lines behind the red squares

[lunar sleet]

And the print hit actor what does that say

[sick fable]

I can't plug it in

to print

[lunar sleet]

Double click the line to make a redirect node and drag from that

[lofty rapids]

well i wouldn't put the print there

[sick fable]

actor object reference is not compatible with exec

it says

[stuck sentinel]

please i dont understand what do i do?? i made this e to interact widget bp and i dont know how to make it visible when on box collision

[lunar sleet]

Plug it into the string pin not the exec

[lofty rapids]

well if it fails you won't see anything

[lunar sleet]

#umg is the best place to ask for widget related stuff

[sick fable]

well it means the exec on the print text

[lunar sleet]

Guy

[sick fable]

basically I can't plug it into print text I put it after apply damage

[lofty rapids]

see where it says in text ?

[lunar sleet]

🤦 drag from print actor into in text lol

[lofty rapids]

you would probably benefit from looking at node execution flow and what the pins mean/do

[lunar sleet]

Actually

I just realized

Your print will never fire

If the cast fails

[lofty rapids]

^

[lunar sleet]

Yeah mb took me a sec

[sick fable]

there we go

it is printing -1

[lunar sleet]

Show updated code

[sick fable]

when ever i hit it

[lunar sleet]

Hit actor

Actor

[sick fable]

BRO

It wont let me

[lunar sleet]

You seem familiar

[lofty rapids]

you probably need to get class name

[sick fable]

It wont let me print hit actor into the in text slot

[grim sand]

hit actor > get display name > drag into text slot

[lunar sleet]

It should auto convert

[wild moth]

Just do PrintString

[grim sand]

yea it should, but just making sure there aren't some weird context settings messing with what this person is seeing

[wild moth]

not print text

[grim sand]

Oh yes, nicely spotted. It should indeed not be print text, no wonder it wasn't auto conveying

[lunar sleet]

Christ, good catch, I’ve never seen anyone mess that one up lol

[sick fable]

it says landscape streaming proxy

[wild moth]

😂

[grim sand]

that is what you are hitting then

[lunar sleet]

Try disabling trace complex

[wild moth]

also he could literally add a breakpoint and follow variable values

[sick fable]

yes but why is it not hitting the deer lol

[lunar sleet]

Yeah, but we were trying to keep it simple…

[wild moth]

true

[lunar sleet]

Disable trace complex and test again

Shouldn’t show red squares on it then but maybe 🤷‍♂️

[lofty rapids]

you could have no collision set also

[sick fable]

nope

[sick fable]

no coll on the deer?

[lunar sleet]

You should be blocking visibility

[sick fable]

ok bp deer

[grim sand]

In the mean time, quick question: We cannot save an array of arrays right? I have a group of actors I want to be able to save based on users creating them with their actions, meaning they could potentially save many of them, meaning I can't just pre-make a bunch of arrays and fill them

[sick fable]

is getting hit now

all i did was turn on collide with environtment and collision preset to charactermesh

or is it because i changed the trace channel to camera

thanks for helping anyway it must be frustrating to help someone new

lol

@lunar sleet

[lunar sleet]

Is it working?

[sick fable]

yes it is showing bp_deer as hit

[lunar sleet]

The damage I mean

[lunar sleet]

It’s all good, I’m at work so frustrated w/ people here not you 🙂

[sick fable]

ok my deer now falls over

when I shoot it

Thanks so much @lunar sleet and @lofty rapids

[grim sand]

Actually I can probably do this by having an array with structs that contain the info for each group that the user creates

[lunar sleet]

Cpp structs preferably

[grim sand]

because of optimization I presume? I cannot program in cpp (at the moment, its on the list to learn), but would love to know the benefits beyond optimization

[lunar sleet]

Because bp structs tend to break very easily

You get errors, lose data, etc

[grim sand]

Right that is good to know. I will try to add some data validation measures in that case for now, as this is just for a learning project, and only a minor part of the overal objective. But in the future I will be able to do it in cpp, thanks!

[distant bison]

Hi there!

What's the best workaround (in a 100% blueprint project) to call global functions from UObjects?

I'd like to create somethig like a function library that I can use in UObjects (function libraries unfortunately require world context and UObjects just don't have access to that).

Thought about creating some kind of actor that acts as a global library and to pass a reference of that actor to constructed UObjects but this feels weird and messy 😦

I'm thankful for any suggestion! 🙂

[potent sorrel]

just reaffirming what @lunar sleet mentioned, I've been burned one too many times with BP structs breaking in projects. Even in BP-only projects, I always create the structs in CPP to be safe. It's nothing more complicated than this (just an example) -- then you can access as you normally would in BPs

[grim sand]

Really appreciate the extra explanation. I might give it a go in that case, really appreciate it!

[dawn gazelle]

You have to use a blueprint function library to make global functions accessible anywhere, otherwise you'd have to use inheritance and create functions in a parent object class and make child classes of that object for any other objects that you want to be able to use those functions.

If your concern is with the world context object, pass some form of actor reference into the UObject (either through the outer, or use an exposed variable) and use that as the world context object. Some functions won't necessarily need the world context to operate correctly, only if the nodes you're using within them are asking for a world context themselves.

[wild moth]

He sais 100% Blueprint project, he doesn't need to care about the world context object

Just create a Blueprint function library for static/global functions

[lunar sleet]

I find it odd when someone says 100% bp and then mentions UObject

[wild moth]

true 😂

maybe he's used to c++

[modern radish]

hi all! I'm trying to Set Static Mesh component dynamically on a blueprint I have and that works.

[modern radish]

But how can I do the same if I would like to set an Instanced Static Mesh instead? if I add a Instanced Static Mesh below DefaultSceneRoot instead, in my Blueprint there's no option to Set Instanced Static Mesh Component

[distant hazel]

How can I change the material of a static mesh Actor (Pic1) to a debug one by having a switch in the settings of the actor ? (pic2)

[lofty rapids]

a switch like a variable ?

you could have a boolean instance editable

[distant hazel]

yeah like a box i can tick so it automatically applies the material I want

and reverts when unticked

[lofty rapids]

and maybe on beginplay if the boolean is true so it would change in game when run

idkk about in editor live check box

[distant hazel]

yeah i need it in editor not play mode :/

[vapid ginkgo]

Hey everyone! I'm pretty new to Unreal Engine, and I've been diving into Blueprints. Recently, I whipped up a Blueprint for a dialogue system. Now, I'm curious about turning it into a master Blueprint that all NPCs can use. I want to pass their dialogues and avatar images to it, but I'm a bit stumped on how to do it efficiently. My first thought was to make copies of it, but I'm not sure if that's the best move. Any ideas or advice? Thanks a bunch

I'm using UE 5.3 btw 🙂

[lunar sleet]

What kind of blueprint did you make ?

[vapid ginkgo]

It's a BP Class with Parent Class - Character

[vapid patio]

Anyone know how to check if the game is trying to close? I have a function that runs async and I need to terminate it if the game is trying to close weither that be in the editor or in a build

[lunar sleet]

If there’s just a dialogue system in it and not an actual character, you could just use a regular actor, but not sure if that’s the right way to do a dialogue system or not. Having said that, afaik there’s free dialogue plug-ins you can use

[vapid ginkgo]

Can you share the link :)?

[vapid ginkgo]

I do have a mesh in there too 😦

[lunar sleet]

I haven’t had to download any myself, but saw people mention it. Maybe try googling free dialogue plugin UE5

[lunar sleet]

Skeletal mesh comes with char class by default

[sharp fox]

why is it always saying aborted when i try to move

[feral parrot]

any ideas on how to make the SceneCaptureComponent2D not collide with everything in the scene? when I enter a building it jumps down because of the roof.

[lunar sleet]

Don’t cross-post. #gameplay-ai was the right place

[lunar sleet]

Doesn’t have collision settings?

[vapid ginkgo]

I think I'll copy-paste that cahracter class for each npc then

[vapid ginkgo]

using another plugin seems overkill D:

[lunar sleet]

That’s a terrible way to do it

[sharp fox]

sowwyy

[vapid ginkgo]

https://tenor.com/view/sad-sad-spongebob-gif-sad-spongebob-spongebob-gif-25853094

[feral parrot]

it doesn't have one

[faint pasture]

You made a whole damn character with dialogue mechanics

Whether or not that's what you meant to do is up to you

Move it into an ActorComponent if you want to be able to put it on anything

[vapid ginkgo]

I want to create a BP that all my NPCs can communicate to and just pass dialogues and images as parameters

[faint pasture]

Like a manager?

[vapid ginkgo]

Ok move it to an actor component and then I can attach it to all NPCs?

[faint pasture]

Yes but the way you're talking makes me think you're trying to make a manager object

[vapid ginkgo]

I just want to keep the BP DRY, that's why I thought on doing this

[faint pasture]

What does this thing do, what sort of data and functions does it have?

[vapid ginkgo]

When the player is near a npc if you push the letter E, the BP spawns a UI with text and image (character avatar)

[faint pasture]

Yes that'd be a component

[vapid ginkgo]

I want to be able to use that same functionality for N NPCs and since copying and pasting that BP and just changing dialogues, avatar and mesh sounds like resources havy, i thought I could create a master BP and just pass parameters

[faint pasture]

Press E -> get overlapping actors -> Iterate over them, choosing one with the component you want -> ???? -> profit

[vapid ginkgo]

I was thinking in making the npcs have and event that if they got triggered they communicate with the dialogue system 😅

I'll probably read about manager objects in UE

[faint pasture]

They still want a dialogue component which has events and data

you can either make the display of the dialogue its own component on PlayerController or just roll it all into the one component and switch on LocallyControlled or whatever

[vapid ginkgo]

Ok so then i need to create a actor component that is going to be the dialogue component and attach them to them and that's the one who communicates with the dialogue system variables?

Attach to the NPCS*

[faint pasture]

The dialogue mechanics can either live inside the dialogue component itself or be its own thing

Either way works

Event StartTalking -> if locallycontrolled -> true -> add widget to see the talking //you know you're the dialogue component on the player pawn
-> false //you know you're the dialogue component on the NPC

It all depends really, I'd start out with it all in 1 component

[vapid ginkgo]

Yeah I think I'm going to create the dialogue component then!

[vapid ginkgo]

It's OK if I sent you questions through DM?

[opal pulsar]

hello, is there a way to get the PhysicsHandle component to act more like a push and pull on an object instead of just snapping it to itself regardless of weight?

[faint pasture]

You can tune stiffness and damping

[vapid ginkgo]

just to be clared I need to create a BP Class and for the type Actor works right?

[faint pasture]

ActorComponent

[opal pulsar]

hmm, are you sure that would allow me to drag heavy objects instead of grabbing them? does the component take into account mass at all?

cause even with 0 stiffness i can just lift up a 200 Kg object like a feather xD

[faint pasture]

Show your code

[faint pasture]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.0/en-US/gameplay-framework-in-unreal-engine/

[opal pulsar]

theres not much to it

[vapid ginkgo]

oh thank you!

[vapid ginkgo]

But this is for the npcs right? to report the event and pass text and image right? what's the class for the dialogue system?

[mild ibex]

is there a decent way to adjust material parameter collections in blueprint without having to reset them to "default" with tons of nodes.

For example, I have an MPC with like wind intensity for megascans grass, and using the Set Scalar Parameter node to change it, but for different settings I need the grass at different intensities, and when nothing else is happening it should be default. The problem is that i have like 7 different nodes for other things that I have to run through and reset before switching to a different setting

[maiden wadi]

Unlikely. It would probably be best to do something like a DataAsset which you can put some functions in to alter these MPC as well as a default function to reset them maybe.

[mild ibex]

thats brilliant actually, hadnt thought of data assets to do this

thankyou!

[faint pasture]

The system can live in that same component if you want

just architect it such that DialogueComponent can enter a conversation with another DialogueComponent

[vapid ginkgo]

Will try my best, thanks!

[vapid patio]

Help! Anyone know how to get object reference in a thread safe function?

[faint pasture]

That seems to imply that you're NOT in a thread-safe function

what function is this

[vapid patio]

No this is a thread safe function

[faint pasture]

What function is it?

[vapid patio]

patience I was sending image

thank you for helping tho

[faint pasture]

This is the PCG system right?

[vapid patio]

this function is making geo for a chunk block thing

PCG?

um yes

maybe

im using the "Create Mesh Section"

node

each block has a reference to its neighbors so that custom calculations that I have are more optimized

and it worked in another function I had early, but that was running on the main thread and now I have it on a side thread so that generation doesn't slow down the game

also I never new about PCG, I dont have those plugins installed, is that how I should do it instead?

[faint pasture]

So you're calling a function marked thread safe from some code NOT in the main thread

[vapid patio]

yes

[faint pasture]

therefore it isn't thread safe

it might be safe to that specific thread but Unreal doesn't know that, the state of those objects is shared with game thread right?

[vapid patio]

yeah, oh so should it not be check as thread safe?

[faint pasture]

It's not safe at all, it's not on main thread

[vapid patio]

wait doesn't that say its callable on non game threads

meaning you check it if using on non game threads

[faint pasture]

If you uncheck ThreadSafe does the warning go away?

I think it's just warning you that you're violating the thread safety you indicated with the checkmark.

[vapid patio]

im confused on the purpose of thread safety, I read that its used if you want your code to run on another thread

[faint pasture]

It looks like that checkbox is just INDICATING that the function is meant to be thread-safe

and for BP function libraries only anyway

it's like const or pure

it's not really a thing, just a promise

[vapid patio]

hmm ok, yeah I turned it off for all the chain of functions and it seems to work. The result is not the same as before tho but that might just be an issue with the code itself. Thanks ill do some test

[faint pasture]

How are you spinning off that side thread anyway

[vapid patio]

I am using a plugin from the epic games market

ill send it in a sec

this one

cant seem to get a link to it tho'

ideally I would want to use a compute shader to do this calculation stuff but unreal seems to not have that in the slightest. At least I haven't been able to find any info about it online for the past few years

[faint pasture]

Multithreading in BP, seems spicy

What are you actually doing, WFC?

[lunar sleet]

Lol, what could go wrong

[opal pulsar]

you can actually make stuff run asynchronously by making your own While loop macros with delays in them

[lunar sleet]

Ew

[opal pulsar]

i mean, it works

[lunar sleet]

So basically shit programming = interesting stuff

[modern radish]

Hi all, when I Add Instanced Static Mesh Component dynamically to my actor at run time, and I inspect it in the World Outliner, I don't see any components under DefaultSceneRoot// Am I doing something wrong?

[vapid patio]

wfc?

[faint pasture]

WaveFunction Collapse

[vapid patio]

oh nooo

[faint pasture]

but probbaly not

[vapid patio]

yeah no not that, I have in the past tho

but this is just for a minecraft like thing

[opal pulsar]

well sorry im not a good programmer

[vapid patio]

2D

[faint pasture]

I got my 100 x 100 down to under 1 frame to run

[vapid patio]

ooooooo

dang thats fast

how you do that?

[faint pasture]

Each tile is just 1 byte and it's all just a super hot C++ loop

[lunar sleet]

Functions are designed to run in one tick, I think you’re achieving something closer to race conditions than multi-threading

[faint pasture]

no actors or anything involved, just inputs -> ????? -> Output

[vapid patio]

ahhh yeah, while I use unreal for my job and for fun, and have for a long time now, I have not touched c++

[faint pasture]

The BP version took like 2 minutes amortized

[vapid patio]

yeah my game right now is just using objects, no actors besides the ones I need. So blocks, chunks, and the world istealf are all objects, not actors

[modern radish]

See there's nothing under the root, but I see the ISMs added to the game at runtime?

[faint pasture]

Why not just structs?

[lunar sleet]

I’m not sure ISMs get attached to your bp details, should just show up in outliner no?

[vapid patio]

I want to allow the blocks to be extendable. The game wont be that large and so I want each block to be able to be made into a subclass and have its own data or functions. Its the slower route but it definitly allows for better game play mechanics. Like the powder game from DanBall

[modern radish]

Thanks, no they don't show up in the ourliner at all, but I see them in game

[faint pasture]

Good luck doing that in BP. Not saying you can't but it seems insane

[modern radish]

I'm basically adding an empty Blueprint to the level, then adding ISM components to it, and setting it to different meshes dynamically

[vapid patio]

it truely is quite insane, but I never had anybody show me how to do it in c++ and I can't seem to find any good tutorials on the matter

I know how to write in c++, but im so lost on how to start a c++ project and create custom nodes and all that. Very weird stuff. I just need it to click in my head ONCE and then I got it for lifee

[faint pasture]

I used BP exclusively for like 4 years. Got forced into moving 1 function into C++ then just grew from there.

the > 200x speedup was good motivation, and the upside is even bigger for really hot loops like procgen

[vapid patio]

should I be thinking of unreal as a game engine with blueprints being an API and c++ being the real thing?

i thought on the ground floor it was blueprints for a long time, then later I saw c++ is a way to make your own custom ones but I still thought blueprints are the core. I guess not then

[faint pasture]

Think of C++ as your project foundation and BP as scripting

C++ is Skyrim, BP is mod writing

[vapid patio]

AHHHH thats probably the best way to put it HAHA

[tulip plover]

If anyone runs into this issue, I kind of found out which is the problem. The length of the montage is 0.0 until I open it and manually save it. I create this montage in BP with a tool and populate it with a C++ custom node. So when I try to place my notifiers they're always out of the range of the sequence. The only workaround was to split the process and first create the montage with a scripted asset action and then insert the notify with another scripted action, that was the only way to make it work.

[vapid patio]

ok gotcha

[lunar sleet]

Why ISMs ?

[faint pasture]

@vapid patio Take a look at this, it's old and probably busted but it's my approach to doing a tilemap and procgen.
https://github.com/AdrielKinnunen/SpectrelightPlugins/tree/main/Plugins/SLTilemap/Source/SLTilemap/Private
Fairly simple really.

[tulip plover]

and open the asset and save it manually between the two actions

[wise badger]

In ue blueprints can you not turn off a nav link?

[modern radish]

Because I need to set their primitive custom data afterwards

[lunar sleet]

Oh, does that not work with regular mesh components?

Or is there a perf consideration?

[modern radish]

Not sure.. another reason is that I want them to all be under the same actor. if I do singular Static meshes, i get a bunch of actors in the outliner

not really perf reasons, but I use the custom data for the logic of my game

[vapid patio]

wow, yeah thats very cool. Also hard to follow (because my brain is smooth not your code). I think I get the core concepts of your code here but I am confused on the architecture of the files. Like where do I go to know the correct files I need and names I need for something like this. You have header files, c++ files and c# files. The c# has the word build too. Are these things auto created with some tool or do you make the files manually (the file names not the code, I know the code is made manually)

[lunar sleet]

You can add more than one static mesh component to an actor

[faint pasture]

I'd start by just making a BP function library, that'd be 1 header and 1 cpp

you can slam your structs and other datatypes in that same header

and move your expensive functions there

[modern radish]

My logic is all built around these actors being ISMs, so it's a bit annoying.. it would take me a while to adapt the whole logic to look for SMs instead

[lunar sleet]

Not saying you should, just curious

I haven’t played with ISMs much

Might be something to ask in #ue5-general about

I’ve seen it talked about there in the past at the very least

[modern radish]

Thanks for the suggestion.. I just thought here would be ideal since it's all BPs 😄

[vapid patio]

but where do I put that? Do I need to make my own plugin for that

[faint pasture]

No just add a c++ class to project

[vapid patio]

I am all self taught so there are areas where I know A LOT and areas where I know basically nothing

[faint pasture]

I'm making plugins so it's more easily kept separate and portable but you don't need to make a plugin

[vapid patio]

gotcha ok will do, thank you!

[faint pasture]

idk what yours looks like but just do that and do a function library and go nuts

[vapid patio]

thanks man, I knew where that was but thanks for the help!

https://tenor.com/view/kevin-hart-its-about-to-go-down-lets-get-it-on-bring-it-on-gif-7732121

[faint pasture]

Also check out the header preview, it can give you an idea of what the header for the C++ version of a BP class might look like

[vapid patio]

gotcha, yeah just found that out a few days ago

[vapid patio]

oh and one last thing while I have ya, do you know how to check if the game is trying to be closed? I need to terminate the thread if the game is trying to close because right now it will try to finish the thread before closing

[faint pasture]

No clue but maybe event end play on whatever fired the thread off to begin with

Here's a shitty work amortization macro for you

[vapid patio]

oh interesting thanks. Yeah I will look into that!

[opal pulsar]

hey, im trying to have these buttons inside a TileView change a text but i cant seem to find a way to get a reference to the parent widget to call the custom event to change the text, does anybody know how to do it?

[stone field]

Interface or Event could be a workaround, getting parent widget I have also found a bit tricky. Passing the parent as a reference on creation is an option, but searching for it after the fact seems messy.

Not sure what the best practice is here, but is certainly a common scenario

Mirko from Helsinki btw?

[opal pulsar]

i tried passing it on creation but it just didnt work, and had a null reference

[opal pulsar]

nope, Mirko is literally just my name

[stone field]

Null ref, odd

I'm pretty sure I've been able to do that. But yeah, I recommend trying Interfaces for stuff that's not called every frame, and you know there's like 1 thing listening for that certain interface call. Seems pretty clean to me

You set the parent up to have InterfaceCanDoThisThingX, and child finds it with https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/API/Runtime/UMG/Blueprint/UWidgetBlueprintLibrary/GetAllWidgetsWithInterface/

[opal pulsar]

hm, i see

ill see what i can do, thanks

[stone field]

Oh yeah, VictoryBP plugin has lots of interesting widget get stuff

[opal pulsar]

little update, it seems like no variables work in the entry widget

passing in any other variable is also null

and even using a custom event to set it just doesnt work

[stone field]

sounds like there's something sus going on there

[opal pulsar]

very much so

the text just gets set to nothing

either the Item variable itself is null, or its contents
which also shouldnt be the case

[stone field]

debug step through the thing

[wicked fable]

Hi, I was wondering if someone more skilled would be willing to help me with a very annoying minor bug im having involving a Stamina Bar. When I just tap shift, the bar goes down a slight bit but doesnt go back up

[lunar sleet]

Is this a bp struct?

[opal pulsar]

it is

[lunar sleet]

Then that is prly why

[opal pulsar]

ill try a string for testing then

string worked

so it doesnt like object references and structs

guess ill just decompose the data and send it over one by one then

nope, still doesnt work

very odd

[stone field]

Shift call Drain, how does Regen get called? You are certain it is being called?

[wicked fable]

It does get recalled because as long as i run for more than like half a second it works perfectly

[opal pulsar]

now not even strings work lmfao wtf

[wicked fable]

its just a very annoying nitpick

[lunar sleet]

Restart your engine

[lunar sleet]

But yeah bp structs are broken, go cpp route if you want reliability

[sick fable]

can I get help with my sensitivity

I can't get vertical and horizontal to be the same

[opal pulsar]

cant. brain too small for spooky cpp

[sick fable]

vertical is way faster when both set multiply 0.5

[lunar sleet]

Then suffer

[crude marlin]

What if i want a Car to be able to drive on any curface physically. What i aiming for is a car that dont loose grip when upside down in loops, tunnels or walls.

Any ideas, tips, or tutorial videos to reccomend ?!?

[lunar sleet]

But a struct is not too complicated to define^

[sick fable]

can some1 help me

nvm fixed it myself

[opal pulsar]

how did you fix it?

[sick fable]

well i think it is pretty specific but I had to move the pin connecting into a clamp for my spine animations

I had the original value going into the pitch below and multiplyed one above

original^

[opal pulsar]

ah i see

[sick fable]

just incase u have a simular issue idk

btw quick question to anyone

why in my project settings some value scales are -1

-1.0

[vocal prism]

anyone know how to make the third person BP and the template car move in the same scene?

[lofty rapids]

it reverses the output, +/-

[sick fable]

ah so backwards i mean't to be -1 then

[lofty rapids]

something like -1 * value

each one of those things will trigger that event, and it will be the value * scale output

that's the way i understand it work i used the old way because it was easier

but you probably want to use enhanced input like it says the other stuff is deprecated

[sick fable]

well Im just here because I have lost the ability to move

and I don't know why haha