blueprint

[lofty rapids]

just a camera ?

or a spring arm ?

[pallid cypress]

just camera

[lofty rapids]

is the camera at 0,0,0 ?

[lofty rapids]

ok yea it looks close to 0,0,0

[pallid cypress]

and I have camera manager

and I plan to cnage the camera by the camera manager

[lofty rapids]

you can use an interp

thats your best bet

on tick, interp from the current camera position, to a variable that is a vector

then when you change that vector, it will move to that spot smoothly

[pallid cypress]

I was planing to use timeline for that

[lofty rapids]

ok, it shouldn't matter how you do it

but i would use interp, but thats fine

[pallid cypress]

like in this tutorial

[lofty rapids]

ya interp imo is a little better, but whatever you want to smooth it out

the point is now you have click event

and now you just move your camera

[pallid cypress]

yes

[icy imp]

For my RTS game, I have a set of BP that have a gametag that I assign to map to a datatable to get the stats. This works just fine. I have further mapping I need in the UI for the user to build a unit or building and I want to make the UI data driven so I can swap out the UI based on the faction. What I want to know if there is a way to find a BP class that has a particular variable value. (i.e. Find the unit BP class that has this tag set. Then, spawn that BP class.)

[lofty rapids]

get the camera position, add some vector to it, set camera position

in reality you can just use bp_player actor

[pallid cypress]

ok

[lofty rapids]

and just get,move,set

then if you want you can add a timeline

[pallid cypress]

I can do the changing the position for the camera

I just want to access the click event from other Blueprint

so I was thinikng I gonna do it from Level BP

[lofty rapids]

wdym access click event from other blueprint ?

you can bind to on clicked

the level bp is useless you cant get a ref to it, unless your just testing something out

[pallid cypress]

so you mean I gonna make click event in BP_Actor for that?

[lofty rapids]

you can bind an event to it from another bp

but i don't understand the issue

[pallid cypress]

I did this in BP_Actor

but it's not working

I think I mess up something there

I was playing a bit with it

[lofty rapids]

you have onclicked torso

do you want to click the torso ? or the whole actor ?

[pallid cypress]

torso

[lofty rapids]

it's not working ?

[pallid cypress]

no

but maybe I mess up something

becasuse I was changing a lot of there

this is collision on troso

[lofty rapids]

enable simulation generates hit events

try again

[pallid cypress]

not working 😦

but if I do on body

that is parent of torso

than it works

but that will work for whole body and I want only on torso

[lofty rapids]

idk much about the clicks and heirarchy why that might or might not work

theres another option which is a line trace

and then you can cast to check for different parts

[sharp ferry]

hi, i'm tring to make my camera to change when i Interact with my BP character with E is not working can someone help me

the camera is a component of a mesh i have to interact with

[lofty rapids]

is the e key registering at all ?

[sharp ferry]

when i interact with the box collision is should works, but it doenst

[sharp ferry]

yess, i also have other anims and stuff with E key working

[pallid cypress]

yes I don't really understand how to use line tracing to help on that

I understand that Body object i consume the clicking event?

[lofty rapids]

well with a multi line trace you can go through things

[sharp ferry]

can i know why not working

[lofty rapids]

seems to be so

[sharp ferry]

is this ok?

[lofty rapids]

do any inputs work in your camera ?

[sharp ferry]

are not

i added a print on last part and is not

[lofty rapids]

try to enable input on it

[pallid cypress]

are you able to explain me how I can do it so the clicking even would work?

[sharp ferry]

instead of disable?

[lofty rapids]

no when you spawn the thing, on begin play, right click do enable input

put self in there

[lofty rapids]

well you would multi line trace by channel, which would give you an array of hits, you would then loop through the array and check if one of those hits was torso, i'm not sure it would work but it's worth a shot

[sharp ferry]

did that is not wokring still

camera not swap

[lofty rapids]

is e firing ?

[pallid cypress]

I was checking one tutorial about it but I couldn't figure out how to use it in my case

anyway I'll try more, thank you for help

[sharp ferry]

is not

added a print string on the Bp_mesh pressing E not working

when i get close to the mesh collision

i dont understand why is not working E

[lofty rapids]

usually these things are done on the player or controller

where E would work fine

[sharp ferry]

you mean i have to do this logic not on the BP_Mesh but on my Bp character?

[lofty rapids]

you could ya

[sharp ferry]

but its messy

i want the interaction on the mesh

why is not working with E like this?

[lofty rapids]

idk, enabling input usually fixes it

[sharp ferry]

when i did the spawn random money on a box collision i did it not on the charactrer and worked

always with E

[lofty rapids]

with the character its no problem it's setup for input

normal actors are not

but usually enabling input lets it work

[sharp ferry]

what can i do can u help me out

i added enable input on event begin inside the BP_Mesh

is not working

[lofty rapids]

not bp_mesh

what is the fernello_blueprint

this is where your input is

[sharp ferry]

is fornello

is the baker

im doing it there

all

i want all the logic inside the fornello

i added the enable input see?

[lofty rapids]

you didn't plug in the player controller

get player controller

is this one player game ?

[sharp ferry]

i cant plug that enable inot get player controller node

[lofty rapids]

you plug the get player controller node, into the player controller

are you saying they don't plug in ? because i'm pretty sure they do

[sharp ferry]

im soooo confused

i have only get player controller node here

[lofty rapids]

do you know your inputs from your outputs ?

you have an enable input node

with two inputs

one is a player controller

you need to get the player controller

and plug it into the input

[sharp ferry]

it worked

thank u

what is that player controller?

[lofty rapids]

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+player+controller+in+unreal

[sharp ferry]

is it hard now to get back to my camera?

[sharp ferry]

theres something wrong because my character behind keeps moving

with wasd

she shoul'd stops

how i stop my character when the camera switch?

i have disable input but is not disabling

[lofty rapids]

i have a fealing you want to posses another character ?

[lofty rapids]

ok show how you disabled input on the character

[sharp ferry]

disable input, self

it should stops my movments

is not

am i wrong?

[lofty rapids]

yes because your disabling it on self, set the target to the thing you want to disable

[sharp ferry]

so self is the fornello?

[lofty rapids]

correct

self is a little weird sometimes like with parent classes

i'm not fully sure how self works all the time, but it typically means exactly what it is

"self"

[sharp ferry]

idk

how to

add my character in this case

cast to ?

no cast to not works

[lofty rapids]

get player character might work

[sharp ferry]

yes

worked

thank you. i want to now returns to the main camera

and movements of my character re pressing E

https://tenor.com/view/morgan-freeman-gif-24496452

i try with Gemini

thank u btw

[rose crest]

Chet player character>as new view target. As for input, it's in the controller so just create logic

[sharp ferry]

you talking to me?

[crystal moon]

hey guys! im having an issue w an event dispatcher, new to blueprints and wanted to test out calling and receiving. im doing it from a widget to the player character. but it seems like the event part won't go off, even when it's just a print string.

[lofty rapids]

it print string "Valid" ?

[crystal moon]

yup

[lofty rapids]

can you try dragging from the bind event, to the custom event without the create event

[crystal moon]

still not getting the received

[lofty rapids]

and on pressed is obviosuly in the same bp ?

[rose crest]

Probably it's not valid, it binds to none

[crystal moon]

are you not able to call from one bp to another with the event dispatchers?

[lofty rapids]

yes you are, but you need the target to be the one your calling too

[rose crest]

Ah, didn't notice message earlier xD

[lofty rapids]

this image on the left target is self, so it's calling on self

[crystal moon]

ohhhh gotcha

[lofty rapids]

do you have another dispatcher with the same name on another bp ?

how did you even get that node lol

[rose crest]

Lol, you can dispatch without target

[lofty rapids]

right but they must of copied the node from the bp with actual event dispatcher in it

most likely

[waxen ice]

Probably because it is in the blueprint that added this Dispatcher

[rose crest]

Maybe, dispatched tents to bugs out if copied

[crystal moon]

i didnt do copy

[rose crest]

Drag and call?

[lofty rapids]

hmm, thats interesting i'm surprised it was able to right click and show up

in a different bp

[waxen ice]

@crystal moon is UIReference valid at BeginPlay?

[crystal moon]

yup

[waxen ice]

But is it in different bp?

[rose crest]

Ok,.how do you setup reference?

[crystal moon]

widget is the one with the call, and then i set up the receive in the character

the reference is an object reference to the widget

[rose crest]

As you check it on begin play. How do you set the reference, since it's begin play...

Somhe don't have valid pointer

[lofty rapids]

you should be able to use widget reference as target and be good to go

[crystal moon]

i was wondering if that was the issue, but i have it set up in here

[rose crest]

If he create it runtime then wouldnt

[crystal moon]

where it says uireference, i have it set to the widget

[crude glacier]

anyone knwo how to turn a for loop t ofor loop with 1 sec delay?

[rose crest]

Copy engine macro into new library and add delay/timer in it..there are tutorials on yt

[lofty rapids]

you can create your own macro, but you can also delay 1 second * index

[crude glacier]

ye but theres error

I ve tried timers so many turoials but nothing

[rose crest]

World context

[lofty rapids]

you got the wrong delay

[waxen ice]

Delay can't be used in functions

[rose crest]

Drag pin for object input

[crude glacier]

oh

[lofty rapids]

ya no latency in functions

only events

[crude glacier]

so should i use a timer?

[rose crest]

Now I think timer wouldn't work xD

[waxen ice]

I never set widget like that. Does it even show what you want?

[lofty rapids]

you'll need to move the function to an event

[crude glacier]

alright ill try

[rose crest]

Just make macro not function

[crystal moon]

im tryna set up a widget that when clicked, it makes the player camera turn 90 degrees to the left or right. thus the widget, when press left, calls to the player character, and then that issue is happenin with the receive

[crude glacier]

ok

thanks

[crystal moon]

the widget is simple just two buttons left and right, and then the on pressed (left) code as i ss above

[waxen ice]

Ok but does it after this initialization show on the screen buttons?

[waxen ice]

Why would you need loop with 1s delay in construction script? 😄

[crystal moon]

this is the viewport on play

[lofty rapids]

that reference should be valid

but your ui reference

is not your ui, its the camera

so it's valid

but incorrect thing i think

where do you add to viewport

[crystal moon]

so i should be making it the camera instead for here?

[crystal moon]

from gamemode

[crude glacier]

basically spline generation forward, i run scriot and a spline is generated forward and so on

[lofty rapids]

you can make an event that you can Call in Editor

[sharp ferry]

is difficult engage to now get out of the camera and go back to my view?

and re -enable the input of my character?

[crude glacier]

how, im kind of new to ue5

[rose crest]

I would create widget component and set it there, get reference and then assign

I just think manual reference doesn't work well and it assigns to different object

[lofty rapids]

make a custom event in the bp, click call in editor in the details

[crystal moon]

gotcha, let me try that

ty everyone!

[crude glacier]

in eventgraph?

[lofty rapids]

ya right click add custom event

print string hello

if you click on the event

in the details on the right

[waxen ice]

It probably assign to CDO

[lofty rapids]

theres a checkbox

[sharp ferry]

@lofty rapids sorry to Interrupt is difficult to go back to my camera and re enable the input?

[lofty rapids]

no it's very similar to what you already did, but you'll need a boolean

[crude glacier]

ye but I need track generation using spline for what im doing

[sharp ferry]

got it

ty

[cunning zodiac]

would this server be the right place to ask if someone would be willing to get on a discord call to troubleshoot my inputs not working issue? Not right now, as I am at the office and don't have access to a microphone. I'm going to be taking the files home though. Our work wifi sucks so I'm cut off of a lot of UE5 forums do to 'privacy' concerns. I've been staring at this for two days and I think I reached a point I need more specific help. If not this server, where would you recommend?

[lofty rapids]

i'm not sure what your saying

[crude glacier]

so Im trying to make a splnie that every secondgenreates antoehr spline point forward

[lofty rapids]

yes so did you make a custom event ?

and check to see if its checked off

put a print string in there

when you place that actor in the scene

click on it
and in the details you can click the button that is the event

[waxen ice]

Try to reach me dm. I can try to help you

[lofty rapids]

it will run in editor

[crude glacier]

brb

[cunning zodiac]

That's very kind of you! Thank you. I will reach out later on once I'm set up at home

[lofty rapids]

this server is good, you can check out #enhanced-input-system if it's enhanced inputs, and also the official unreal forum is a good place to post as well

[waxen ice]

Its already 9pm im my area so I may answer tomorrow

[silent pilot]

for debug purposes, is there a way to slow down the whole game?

i don't know if blueprint is the way to go for that but I'm asking here in case

[cunning zodiac]

absolutely! I totally understand

[lofty rapids]

time dilation ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeA2K1coDVw

there is a global

[silent pilot]

oooh really

where would it be

[lofty rapids]

right click, time dilation

[silent pilot]

by global you mean for the whole project?

that's what I'm looking for

I need my whole project to slow down, not just an actor

[rose crest]

It will slow down game

Just make debug key in controller

[silent pilot]

right nice thanks!!

[sharp ferry]

@lofty rapids its getting back to my character controls but the camera is not in the position it should be

its like inside the chest

[lofty rapids]

thats weird the camera moved ? did you change the camera position ?

[sharp ferry]

no i didint, the camera when going back to my character its like inside the chest

[lofty rapids]

show the code you used

[sharp ferry]

i just fixed using again the player character i forgot to add it to ''new target''

i show u anyway maybe smth is wrong

[lofty rapids]

oh ok you fixed it, nice

[sharp ferry]

that one up is the logic for getting back to the camera of my character

now i want to add an animation when i interact

and audio too like a music

should use a montage if i remmeber

[lofty rapids]

your using an anim bp ?

[sharp ferry]

i dont know

[lofty rapids]

i would probably put a default slot in there and play montage might be best bet

[sharp ferry]

default slot on the same logic?

[lofty rapids]

you'll need an anim bp, and a default slot to play montages i think

[sharp ferry]

i forgot how to do it

[lofty rapids]

i'm guessing you have anim bp

[sharp ferry]

my brain cant link the ABP part rn

yes

[lofty rapids]

and what is your anim class in the mesh details of your character ?

[sharp ferry]

character movement?

[crude glacier]

then how would i add a delay to my add spline point, i dont understand a timer?

[sharp ferry]

do i have to open ABP?

[lofty rapids]

1 second times the index

so the first one is on 1 second, the second on 2 second

and so on

so they don't all fire at once

[crude glacier]

how tho?

I dont understand

[lofty rapids]

try to think of this logically ...

[crude glacier]

hmm

let me try

[lofty rapids]

these loop bodys all trigger

at the same time

[sand shore]

heh, actually this doesn't work

All the timers get stomped one after the other ignored since the first timer is still pending (edit: I was thinking about retriggerable delays, which cancel the previous timer handle)

You need to break out the manual "Set Timer By" nodes for that setup to work

[lofty rapids]

oh right

the idea is the same

[sand shore]

It's also more difficult to track which spline point each individual callback is for - at least in BP

[lofty rapids]

but the nodes are wrong

[sharp ferry]

this is so difficult

[crude glacier]

it does not work ye

[sand shore]

Personally, I would use a single timer for this, but make it repeating.

At the start, when creating the timer, set the CurrentPointIndex to 0.

When each timer callback happens, use the CurrentPointIndex to know the spline point you're doing a thing about. Then, increment the CurrentPointIndex when the callback is finished.

When you no longer have any spline points, you can cancel the timer (make sure to save the timer's handle)

[crude glacier]

ah ok thanks for help guys

uh

my spline is intresting

[lofty rapids]

i still have no clue about latency

[lofty rapids]

this doesn't work either ?

it just stacks up then prints once

thats wild

[sand shore]

Do not use Loops

[lofty rapids]

i know the other way is better

that you mentioned, just was wondering what this is all about

it stacks up on itself

it's such an odd behavior to me

[lofty rapids]

yes but why wouldn't it work the other way ?

[sand shore]

Ohhhhhhhhhh

I see what you're asking about.

[lofty rapids]

something about latency i'm not getting, it stacks up on itself

and just prints once

[sand shore]

Ok, so it has to do with the Delay node's implementation. Delay doesn't do anything if the timer it manages was already set.

This is why the delay node has a different behavior to the timer - the timer event is always set.

There's another node, Retriggerable Delay, that cancels a previous timer instead of ignoring any new timers.

[crude glacier]

uh how do i make it striaght, i meassed up

[sand shore]

You can manually build either of the Delay nodes yourself.

using just timers

[icy imp]

Just to add a bit of details, the data for units, buildings, etc. are coming from a database with datsa keyed to Tags, which are used to populate the tag list. I could edit each record in my datatable and have the actual class reference there, but I was hoping for a way to look up classes

[lofty rapids]

i'm still not understanding why it doesn't work, i just know it doesn't and that they all stack up on each other, its as if i set it one time for the last amount

very strange to me

[lofty rapids]

whats the code look like ?

[sharp ferry]

I DID this but not works it print string it but not works the animation

[lofty rapids]

your adding a spline to the last ploint + 500 on all three axis

[crude glacier]

its like this

no other spline points

[crude glacier]

oh

ye your right

so smart

well idk why its doing htat

nvm somehow fixed it

Ill add the timer start in a sec

thanks

[crystal moon]

got it to work btw, had to do it like this, thanks everyone for helpin!

[sharp ferry]

cant beleive i made it my own

[lofty rapids]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ehu9md6uZm8

[icy imp]

I figured it out. I added a Primary Asset Type to Scan in Project setting for each of parent classes - Unit, Building, etc. Then, on game start, I loop through these to get the class and then the gameplay tag associated and store this mapping.

[waxen ice]

To be honest its terrible solution. 😄 To make it proper way you should just on beginplay create a widget and add it to the viewport. Then store its reference and use wherever you need

[crystal moon]

LMAOO ill do that then !

[rose crest]

Or get widget component from character>get widget>cast to it and set reference

[waxen ice]

That's also valid solution

[olive yarrow]

Why do my projectiles specifically fly in one direction when spawning from a pool? When i was still spawning them as a BP like an idiot it worked perfectly normal but now... help plz

Im positive its this function in my AC_ObjectPool, but i have rotation being added

[crude glacier]

thanks

[lofty rapids]

you set the spawn rotation, what is it set too ?

[olive yarrow]

Ain't gonna lie to you homie, im not even sure.
i followed Ali;s object pool tut though. Ended up swapping a forward vector in some spot elsewhere and it fixed the issue - no idea why but i really wasn't wanting to allocate this brain space to this today, so i'm just gonna accept it and keep rollin 😢

[elfin lagoon]

how can i get "acceptance radius" functionality, if i use a "simple move to location" node for moving player-controlled characters?

[rose crest]

get random point in bounding box

i think it could create similar effect or goal -

goal vector - your acceptance

[pallid cypress]

Hello
I add widget with one button to my viewport, now all my click events that are on the scene are not working. I guess the widget consume all of them. How I can make that I can clilck the button on Widget and also still have my click events in the scene?

[rose crest]

disable collision for overlay

whatever you put as background get collision

[pallid cypress]

where I should disable collision?

[rose crest]

visibility>non hit tracable

[pallid cypress]

ok but on whitch object?

on the widget?

[rose crest]

yes

on whatever is overlaying screen

or is it just 1 button?

can you show widget screen?>

[pallid cypress]

yes

[elfin lagoon]

nope, goal - dont work correctly, stage is mirrored and centered around 0 coordinates

[rose crest]

borders

[pallid cypress]

I don't see any collision option on the boarders

[rose crest]

visibility

[pallid cypress]

oh ok I set to Not Hit... and it works

thank you

[cyan wren]

Ive made a destructable crate that spawns individual pieces of debris when destroyed, is there an easier way to do this? One thats less taxing on the engine? Or is this the strat? I can send a video example of the destruction if necessary

The pieces are loaded into the map without collision or visibility and then teleported to the location and orientation of the main piece. The one issue with this however other than the size of my blueprint is the fact that the killing shot does not give any impulse to my debris and it leads to a break of immersion in the bad physics

[rose crest]

CHAOS physics

sry i didnt read all, you want it to do dmg etc

[cyan wren]

Im worried itll perform badly and that it wont look as clean as handmade assets, i also want them to be interactable and what not. Im also still going to have to do this to certain assets that break cleanly, like armor getting shot off of someone or a pallete of tied down crates that blows apart when you shoot it

[tiny tundra]

I have a billboard sprite, and I am looking through an orthographic camera. I want the sprite to maintain the same size when I increase/decrease my camera's ortho width - anyone have an idea of an easy way to accomplish this?

[trim matrix]

hi, i have this object bp that when player uses a vacuum input it checks if they have an item already if not sets the item info from struct and players held item from the one that is sucked up, (the sucking up just scales the mesh, lerps towards the player, and then is set to hidden) but i have a blow input that im trying to then spawn a new actor but copy the data from the sucked up item and have the new one i spawn have the same info or "copy" the sucked up item as if the player is moving items from room to room w the vacuum, but when i do the only part working is the class it spawns, once i spawn the new item and suck it back up i cant blow it back out again, the class being valid fails after you suck the item up a second time,

[trim matrix]

i also have noticed the trace keeps randomly refiring itself still even when im not hitting the input

[forest timber]

Why does project to world stop updating the screen position, even when I turn and move and rotate?

[forest timber]

So after you spawn it again, it can't be sucked up? In your OnVacumn effect, have you tried checking if it's not firing on the is alive(?) or can be added to inv? It looks like you're not getting anything after the branch of "Can be saved"

[trim matrix]

it can be spawned then once you suck the newly spawned back up, the loop dosnt flow back to being able to spawn another new version of the object, instead acts like the player no longer has an item

[forest timber]

That is so weird, Ive been looking at it for a bit. I can't tell you why, but the second time you go to suck it up, there are no printed strings for adding to inventory, so you still technically have nothing in your inventory after you blow for the first time. Something is going wrong when you suck it up for the second time

[trim matrix]

ik 😭 i been fucking around trying things to see if changing shit fixes it sofar nothing has

[forest timber]

Whats the false out node of cant be added to inv?

[trim matrix]

wdym

[forest timber]

On your on vacuum, you have a second if to check if it can be added to your inventory, what happens if it's false? I dont see any screenshot for that

Im just so curious now, this is weird haha

[agile moss]

I need help with math :/
I want to cast a ray, if colliding adjust the location 10 times, if it fails dont teleport, otherwise teleport

the main focus is getting the capsule to move down the ray by 50 each time to move

[primal schooner]

I need help figuring out how to fire off a delegate that I've defined in C++..

I have a workout manager class which exposes a ptr to WorkoutEvents, which are just a bunch of multicast delegates.

When I click a button in my WBP, I want to trigger one of those delegates so anyone listening to it can respond.

But I'm not sure how to work the editor UI to let me do that. If I try and drag a pin from GetWorkoutEvents, all I can do is bind

[spark steppe]

did you declare it as BlueprintCallable?

[primal schooner]

I just realized that's missing and I'm building and hoping that fixes it 😅

[primal schooner]

that worked!

[spark steppe]

that was a long compile...

[agile moss]

found out

"channel did not hit anything
prints string: hit = true; hit items = -1
quits job"

[pastel apex]

unsure if this belongs here. I have this actor that has movement mode flying and when i knock it down, even when setting gravity scale to 1 on their movement component, when they hit the ground they slide alongside it. Is there a way i can have it firmly be planted on where it lands in the same way as an actor whose movement mode is walking?

[steel shadow]

Try 'stop movement immediately'

Set can walk to false

By default too

[pastel apex]

i'll keep that in mind

so far my solution was to set movement mode to none and it kept them in place

[uneven warren]

Hi everyone
im tryna get the game instance inside editor utility widget, but none of these opts seems to work. How can i access my game instance to change a value from editor utility widget before running PIE
thanks in advance

[surreal peak]

You can't.

GameInstance doesn't exist before PIE.

[frosty heron]

Whats the alternative for bp? Save game object? Or no viable storage for bp only project.

[surreal peak]

I'm not sure I follow

[sharp ferry]

@lofty rapids Hello, you helped me yesterday to create the logic of interacting with my fornello and start and close the aniamtion with E input. i wanted now to add an item to the hand socket. for some reason is not showing up during the animation these are the nodes i Used, do you have any idea why is not showing? as default in the item i've setted it on ''not visible''

''baking soda'' is the name of the item attach to the hand

[full badge]

gameinstance doesn't exist in editor
you can try use savegame to store the values instead

[frosty heron]

That person seems to need to pull some data that is stored and readily available for editor utility widget.

Since GI won't be instantiated before PIE, was wondering what would the alternative be.

UDeveloper setting doesn't seems to be an option for bp.

[dark drum]

Data assets can be a good option.

Also, I think Save Game Objects still work.

[little agate]

I wonder why I rarely seen dev using json for savegames

[spark steppe]

because unreal's json library is... questionable

and unreal has pretty good buildin binary serialization, which is just faster than parsing/generating a json file

[little agate]

it is not like we need to serialize/deserialize it frequently though

[frosty heron]

Any specific reason to use JSon?

[little agate]

very easy to maintain, also for backward compatibility, and also if I need to store it to persistent server DB like mongoDB. it is widely supported and seamless

[frosty heron]

You can store anything on the db including the .sav.

Using json mean even a 6 y.o can open their text editor and edit the values.

The .sav would work on any UE version too

Maybe it has some implications but I dont see any real benefit for my game.

[little agate]

is it more like to prevent access to user to modify it?

[frosty heron]

Not only that but it works, I see using json as a detour

Json file is just a map/dictionary. It would be easy to just open it and look for the gold and edit the value.

[little agate]

I like it because I can easily convert is to the whole struct seamlessly, lol

[little agate]

yeah, that is why, it is easier to maintain both programatically and even manual

[frosty heron]

Save game object already have serialize function.

Its easy to save and load especially in cpp.

[frosty heron]

I dont know in what way but I am not a programmer.

[little agate]

I asked this because I haven't reach the point when I make gamesave, I play around with json now as data initializer. haven't decide it yet if I want to use it for savegame

[dark drum]

Unless you want to be able to edit them externally there isn't much point in my opinion. Its easy enough to just add vars to a Save game object, set the data and then save to disc. Loading the save game object from disc automatically creates the relevant save game object type and parses the data into the relevant vars.

[frosty heron]

Yeah and it create a temporary object too instead directly modifying the source.

Thats already enough reason that json alone is not ready for save and load, out of the box.

[sharp ferry]

guys why my widget not showing up when i interact

[frosty heron]

You need to add the widget to the viewport

Atm you are adding null as you never set the reference.

[sharp ferry]

i thought the view port is already calculating it

how to fix that node?

[frosty heron]

What you can do here is before add to viewport, from the return value, connect it to your set variable

Then you can use that variable and add to viewport

[frosty heron]

This has nothing to do with calculation what so ever. You may want to get familiar with objects and object reference to move forward.

[sharp ferry]

its already connencted to the variable

the create WB is already conecteed to my variable in return value

[little agate]

will try both I guess before I decide, especially the backward compatibility and data migration in case of new version changes. will be a headache i guess if i ignore this after releaseing the game

[sharp ferry]

the problem still persist

[frosty heron]

Send screen shoot

Your previous picture show why nothing added to the viewport and I can see it in plain sight

[little agate]

why, you can read mind

[sharp ferry]

i dont understand

i connected the WB to the variable as u said

in return value

[frosty heron]

Please send screen shoot so I can assess it

Im back on my computer, can draw squiggle

[frosty heron]

there, fixed.

if the exec pin is not connected, it will never fire.

[sharp ferry]

like thta

not works and my character go T pose

[frosty heron]

show screen shoot

my screen shoot has nothing to do with your character going to T pose or not.

it just added the widget to the viewport

[frosty heron]

bruh

[sharp ferry]

what i did

[frosty heron]

please look at the screen shoot again and apply the fix

[sharp ferry]

is

a camera switch

with animation too

[frosty heron]

can you see where the red line is going?

Look at my picture again, you are still not connecting the exec pin

[sharp ferry]

ty it worked

[frosty heron]

computer reads line from top to bottom

[sharp ferry]

yes i not seen well

[frosty heron]

in blueprint it follows the white line

[lofty rapids]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aYhx7-M54Y&t=589s

[rose crest]

at this point I think he's trolling ;D

[safe quail]

does anyone know how you'd go about developing this grid to show the curvature of the landscape? I'm completely stuck 😓

[spark steppe]

probably by somehow sampling the height of the landscape

not sure which ways you have

[safe quail]

Sampling the height of the landscape is the obvious part, but how are they drawing the grid? Is it a HISM-like system connecting lines together? How do they do the movement of the lines when the slope increases? is it a mesh with a tail that moves along the surface, is it a material that's surface aware? Maybe it's just a big plane with a grid texture? I'm not even sure how to begin

[spark steppe]

since that's an proprietary engine i guess they just use a custom shader which draws lines

[safe quail]

i think this is unity, similar system

I had something kind of working with a HISM, but it came at too much of a performance hit

[devout bolt]

Hello everyone 🙂 I'm trying to understand a thing that's probably very beginner. I created a new level and even if there's no GameMode selected for that level, when I run it, it generate a ThirPersonCharacter within the scene. Can anyone tell me why? Btw, to solve this I created a new GameMode (with default pawn class on None) and I selected that new GM for this new level. Now it doesn't create the ThirdPersonChar anymore, but it still remove the cursor when I run the level (seems like it set it on "Input Mode Game Only". Since I have to create a MainMenu, I'd like the cursor to be visible but if I set it on "Input Mode UI Only" the cursor still disappear.
Can anyone tell me where the choise to make the cursor disappear is made within the editor and how to fix this?
Thanks a lot to anyone who can help ❤️

[surreal peak]

UEs SaveGames system also has support for Versioning, which is quite useful. Plus it can store information more densely packed. A lot of games need a lot of data saved, and that could cause large save game files and long loading times. Iirc the long loading times of GTA5 were mainly due to a shitty json deserializer.
On top of that, using the serializer for uobjects means you can more or less just write out the objects directly without needing any additional setup.
If you want user editable files you'd use config/ini files.

[surreal peak]

The GameMode stuff comes from the default GameMode that is selected in the Project Settings -> Maps and Modes.

The one in the level is to override it. UE also allows dynamically selecting a GameMode to use with a level runtime, via shortcodes you can set up in the same settings menu. These codes map a name to a GameMode class and can be used by adding ?game=Shortcode to the open level or server travel commands.

That's usually used if you have a game that can have different GameModes used with the same level. It's a bit more traditional stuff Deathmatch vs Team Deathmatch and such things. (Unreal Tournament)

InputMode is usually managed in the PlayerController, or, if you are more up to date with UE features, via the CommonUI plugin that adds ActivatableWidgets which apply an InputMode.

The simplest setup is a GameMode that serves as an overall base class, followed by a GameMode that inherits from it for your MainMenu. That MainMenu one would then be able to have an equally set up PlayerController (Base + MainMenu) which can set the InputMode and ShowMouseCorsur Boolean on BeginPlay.

[heavy perch]

Does anyone have any idea what could cause this behavior?

[surreal peak]

I would say the widget doesn't know what size to use for the border.

You can try wrapping the whole widget with a size box or at least set the preview on the top right to some fixed values instead of desired.

Does it do that same in the game or only in the UMG editor?

[heavy perch]

Both, but I think I've figured it out, I have a C++ base class for them to override the size boxes' width/height and I didn't give it the right reference in the graph

I hate being stupid 😦

[surreal peak]

Right reference in the graph?

Did you not use the BindWidget stuff?

[lofty rapids]

in your player controller, select show cursor

[lofty rapids]

i'm guessing you used the template and thats why it keeps loading the thirdpersonplayer

but what you did is how you want it setup, a custom game mode, with custom stuff, and the default pawn will spawn at player start

[heavy perch]

Not for this, I check if the input size box is valid, and if it is, I override its height/width, but instead of the outer size box, I used one of the interior ones

[lofty rapids]

i'm looking into projecting virtual textures, i'm going to try to do this its an interesting concept

[safe quail]

Let me know how you go, I've given up for now

[long moat]

hey fellas i have quick question, im in a bit of an interesting spot, i have about 3100 lines in my excel spreadsheet im using for my starmap, i'm struggling to get the instancing to work. rip apart the bottom half of my instancing and code here, i tried to fit it all in one screen:

there we go

[lofty rapids]

so what i did was blend a texture sample at a world position - offset with the help of a couple tutorials, the idea is you have an instance of the landscape material, and just overlay the grid texture at the specific spot within a range

[safe quail]

oh wow thats awesome!

and then you could colour the texture sample based on magnitude of the slope

[lofty rapids]

i'm not that great with textures, but i'm sure you could do a bunch of stuff

[safe quail]

would you mind sending me the texture sample you used please? Looks nice

[lofty rapids]

it's T_1x1_Grid

then just make an instance

set the landscape material to the instance

and alter the parameters

but you could add some sort of way to turn it on/off other then 0 radius

[safe quail]

the material itself could probably animate moving arrows along it too, wonder if that would require not using a grid tho

as the texture

[lofty rapids]

idk it was just an idea that kind of works, doesn't have any animations just the grid

i was trying something simple lol

without messing with shader code

[surreal peak]

Your actor needs at least one collision primitive

The actor one generally calls for the actor. The component one is if you have different components that do different things

I don't think I usually use the actor one fwiw

If you want your Pawn to overlap with other Pawns, yes

Needs the generate overlap events check box above it too

[lofty rapids]

how to set the landscape material at runtime?

so that i can have a dynamic instance, and alter it

[lofty rapids]

material parameter collection, this worked instead of instance

[cyan wren]

I have a crate breaking system that enables collision and visibility and teleports debris pieces to the destroyed crate with parent orientation.

Im wondering if theres a more efficient or less... technically cumbersome way to do this

I cant just use chaos physics for every model, im gonna have larger crates that split into smaller crates and things like armor pieces you can shoot off, so i cant really beat around the system i dont think..

[surreal peak]

Object type should probably be Dynamic or so

[grim sand]

I am a little confused by the error log that happens on an infinite loop in my A* pathfinding functionality. How am I actually supposed to debug these types of errors?

Like it shows which functions it is calling in what order and I know the exact use case of when the infinite loop kicks off, but I have no clue as to what part of the code is infinitely looping

[lunar sleet]

Assuming you made this function in #cpp , ask in that channel

And maybe show the actual code

[grim sand]

Sorry, should have clarified that this is happening in blueprints

[lunar sleet]

This still applies

[grim sand]

Above is the function that is last fired before the infinite loop occurs.

[lunar sleet]

That sort macro take more than one tick?

[grim sand]

That could be it, but it is iterating through really small numbers, a couple hundred at most.

[lunar sleet]

Well you have a nested loop and a lot of stuff going on, and all of this has to complete in one tick, cause it’s a function

If it exceeds that, you usually end up getting those infinite loop warnings

[grim sand]

Right I see. What would you suggest? Splitting up into multiple functions?

[lunar sleet]

First, I’d take out the part that contains the macro and test

If it works fine, then that’s your culprit

And if it’s the sort itself that takes too long to complete you’ll need to find a way around it

[grim sand]

Right that is fair. Let me go and try that. Thanks for the pointers!

[surreal wagon]

Do I have to get a reference to where the event dispatcher comes from? Does that not defeat the whole purpose of decoupled design? I'm sure I'm missing something

[maiden wadi]

The decouple comes from the thing having the dispatcher not needing to know what needs it's message.

But yes. If you need something on B to bind to a dispatcher on A, the B needs to know about A. But A does not need to know or care about B.

[crystal granite]

https://youtu.be/r20VEPH_e0o?t=189

[crystal granite]

if need variant without using direct references
its more advanced technique
General Use
https://unrealcommunity.wiki/gameplaymessagesystem-74b916
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnxk6iiy7sU&ab_channel=CodeLikeMe
For UI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93NTeqTiXIw&ab_channel=AmrMakesGames
For Abilities Gameplay Ability System made on top of gameplay message system
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xp5osLp2W8&ab_channel=CodeWithRo

[surreal wagon]

why do they make it hard to enable?

[distant grotto]

I'm trying to get movement to replicate on a listen server, but the execute on server event never fires

it works on server but doesnt update at all on client

[lunar sleet]

Ah, CodeLikeMe, one of the worst creators out there lol

[lunar sleet]

#multiplayer should be able to help

[crystal granite]

any better example of use GameplayMessageSystem?

[lunar sleet]

Not sure, maybe #gameplay-ability-system has some links since it tends to use that system

[surreal wagon]

Not the same thing

[surreal wagon]

You need to install Lyra to get this plugin

I feel I'm entering uncharted territories

[proud magnet]

Hey can anyone give me a little help here? In my BP, there is a 0-4 chance of a jumpscare happening when opening the fridge as you can see in the clip. For some reason, even though the branch is set to do the jumpscare when the Int=4, it does it randomly. In the video it does it on 0, but when I set the branch to be 0, it does it on 4?? I can't for the life of me figure out whats going on here???

[trim matrix]

it calls this event,

[surreal wagon]

Any expert here? Is this a no-no?

[maiden wadi]

Is this an honest question? O.o

[maiden wadi]

Right click the random node and "Show Exec Pins" and hook it up before the Print. Your issue is that the Print node calls that once for one random number and the branch calls it again for a second random number.

If you show exec pins you convert it from a pure node to an executed one and it will only pull one single random number when it's executed, not when something needs it.

[frosty heron]

You cant change speed like that in blueprint for networked movement. The ones on YouTube are actually scam because they didn't test with delay.

You will need to dive into cpp.

How cmc work is the client pack the movement data into a struct called FSavedMove, there are bits you can use to represent state (e.g sprinting etc). Where it will apply the move locally then send to server where server will simulate and check if the move is valid and apply correction when its not.

[surreal wagon]

You can register it once on beginplay XD

[proud magnet]

This makes sense, but I dont see any "Show Exec Pins" when right clicking the random Int node!

[maiden wadi]

Ah. This is only available in.. 5.5 I think? Are you on an older engine version?

[proud magnet]

Thats so disapointing... I'm on 5.4 😭

what if i make it a variable?

[maiden wadi]

The old method is that you'd drop the pure node into a local function that has exec pins or populate it's output into a variable before use.

[autumn pulsar]

Would there be any specific benefit to setting up a weapon with a data asset vs a uobject?

was wanting to allow for some "onhit" effects

[proud magnet]

Would it work if I set the variable on beginPlay and then read from that?

[waxen ice]

Its because random is getting called everytime u are using it

so its getting called on print string and on the branch and its two different numbers

[proud magnet]

Got it. So technically it is working as intended, just the print string is showing a different number right?

[maiden wadi]

Correct.

[waxen ice]

to print string it properly, store it in some temp variable and use it then

[waxen ice]

Oh you already answered it, sorry

[autumn pulsar]

Or just make it non pure

[proud magnet]

Okay well as long as its working properly I'm happy lol. Thank you guys for the insight!

[autumn pulsar]

whoops didn't mean to reply to that

[maiden wadi]

And you can do it on begin play if it is only ever meant to be set once for an instance. But if not it is more readable to populate it into a variable or make it impure.

[autumn pulsar]

In Unreal there are "pure" nodes which are nodes that don't have the little "exec" arrow. These are called pretty much every time something requests an output. Normally this means it outputs the same thing every time, but with the random node, it's random every time it's called

[maiden wadi]

Unsure of the question here. If you need instances created at runtime, then definitely UObject. If you're only using content browser static data instances then DataAssets should be fine. The OnHit comment makes me assume UObject, but it depends on if you'd put it in this class or somewhere else?

[lofty rapids]

i usually cache the random into a variable

5.3.2

[autumn pulsar]

Was thinking of putting it in the weapon class yeah

[proud magnet]

Right. I'm aware of this from pure casts, just didnt know it happened with random int as well

[autumn pulsar]

So a fire sword will cause a target to ignite no matter who or what holds it

[proud magnet]

In the same BP or a different one?

[autumn pulsar]

Yeah that node is a function

Typically any non fundamental types are function calls

[autumn pulsar]

https://i.imgur.com/x2cecvF.png

If you do show exec pins you can then reuse the output multiple times

[lofty rapids]

it doesn't matter where you store the variable

[proud magnet]

Yes, unfortunately I'm on 5.4 and thats only available on 5.5 as Authear said

[autumn pulsar]

is it? I could have sworn I did it in UE4 as well

[maiden wadi]

This is a difficult question for me because to me a weapon is more than one class. We use GAS, so the working logic is all abilities. The weapon actor class is nothing but visuals and runtime data(ammo counts, etc), meshes and such. And then there's a data asset which contains all of it's static non changing data.

[autumn pulsar]

very sad

then yeah variable is your best bet

[proud magnet]

yup but its okay as long as its working which it seems it is 😭

[maiden wadi]

I wish it had been in ue4. I solved a lot of performance issues on Red Solstice 2 by making quite a few functions impure.

[autumn pulsar]

if you're using a function you could make a local variable

pure is evil

[proud magnet]

yeah i feel like a lot of aspects of my game could be streamlined with inpure functions

but im not about to update my game to 5.5 a month before release lol

[maiden wadi]

If you have source control I would fork it and test it out. There are a lot of amazing performance updates to rendering in 5.5

[autumn pulsar]

5.6 is going to be crazy

[proud magnet]

really? I see a lot of people saying that anything past 5.3 has a lot of unnecessary stuff

i heard 5.5 is bloated

[potent bear]

I have a Blueprint system that updates a texture icon whenever a player acquires a mutation. The flow works like this:

1. OnMutationAdded event fires when player gets a mutation
2. Gets the icon from the mutation component
3. Async loads the asset and casts it to Texture2D
4. Updates the brush texture

The Problem:

• First time getting any mutation: ✅ Icon updates correctly
• Getting a different mutation: ✅ Icon updates correctly
• Getting the same mutation again: ❌ Icon doesn't update

The Blueprint logic appears to execute (no errors), but the visual icon remains unchanged when acquiring duplicate mutations. It seems like the system isn't recognizing that it needs to refresh the texture when it's the same asset being loaded again. Does anyone know why this is happening?

[maiden wadi]

??? Bloated by what?

[proud magnet]

I dont really know lol take what i say with a grain of salt im mainly just thinking of the people who hate on UE5 games for having shitty performance

as someone who only has like a year of ue under their belt im still fairly new to optimization

[lofty rapids]

i mean if your getting the same thing, then why would it change ?

[surreal wagon]

Just turn off effects lol

[autumn pulsar]

Most optimization is just limiting what gets called on a single frame

[proud magnet]

yeah i recently did a shit ton of work unbottlenecking my game thread in 5,4

[lofty rapids]

i micro optimize everything

[autumn pulsar]

Micro Optimizing is usually bad

[lofty rapids]

seems to help me with overall performance

[proud magnet]

since im still new and barely know c++ optimization is pretty far down on my list lol

[potent bear]

Then I guess my question would be how would I load the same asset? I changed it to use soft object to test how it would work, and while I like it, I still don't know how I can then load the correct asset if it was already loaded

[lofty rapids]

c++ is the way to go though, for sure if you want performance

[autumn pulsar]

Only really worth it to micro optimize if you're dealing with shitloads of things

[proud magnet]

yeah id choose c++ anyday if it didnt x10 the time it takes for me to make things 😭

[lofty rapids]

if you load the same asset, won't it be the same same texture ? so you wouldn't notice the difference

[lofty rapids]

i just use a BFL, and , c++ nodes in blueprint, np

[maiden wadi]

IMHO, I tend to basically ignore anything that comes from a non certified source(person who's worked on an actual game). And I specially ignore Youtube clickbaits.

5.5 had a lot of extra threading for the renderthread. Stuff was moved off of it to give it more time. We only got like 10-20FPS increases when we did it. But I went back and forth a couple of times to take some samples and I can say that our game runs more smoothly in 5.5 due to less jumping frametimes. It feels like the framerate doubled for us.

[proud magnet]

Right, I've heard a lot about BFL's but still dont really understand them

[proud magnet]

I'll definitely have to look into it soon.

[lofty rapids]

they are perfect for tools, basically it's just a spot for functions that are "global"

you can access them from basically anywhere

[potent bear]

I wish that was the case XD.

Currently I have two Mutations in the scene:

• Mutation 1
• & Mutation 2

When I pick up Mutation 1, the event gets called and I get its Icon, and I update the image with the new icon (Mutation 1 has a unique Icon). When I pick up Mutation 2, the same thing happens (Unique icon too). But when I go back to pick up Mutation 1 again, the icon doesn't change. That's the issue that I'm facing.

[proud magnet]

What's the style of your game? I'm using ue5 for the hyper-realistic graphics so thats my main performance block. Is 5.5 better for stuff like that?

[lofty rapids]

and what are you passing into this event as mutation ?

[potent bear]

The entire Mutation class. From that class I call a function that returns the Icon as a soft object reference.

/*************************************/
/* Returns the Icon for the Mutation */
TSoftObjectPtr<UTexture2D> UMutation::GetIcon() const
{
    return Icon;
}

[maiden wadi]

It has a lot of lumen and hardware raytracing performance enhancements on top of the renderthreading I mentioned. For our style, our biggest issue was trees and lumen not liking them. I can't really say what our art style is. Semi realistic fantasy? The art has been considerably updated since the Steam images, but you can check out "Atre: Dominance Wars" on Steam. I can't really show anything unofficial here.

[lofty rapids]

at some point your calling the event and passing mutation

[lofty rapids]

is this event connected to a bind ?

[potent bear]

This is when it gets called (it is connected to a bind)

This is where it's being called OnMutationAdded.Broadcast(this, Mutations[Mutations.Num() - 1]; //broadcast mutation added

void UMutationComponent::AddMutation(AActor* Instigator, TSubclassOf<UMutation> MutationClass)
{
    UMutation* NewMutation = NewObject<UMutation>(GetOwner(), MutationClass); 
    if (NewMutation)
    {
        ...
        if (Mutations.IsEmpty() || IsMutationNew(NewMutation))
        {
            ...            
            OnMutationAdded.Broadcast(this, Mutations[Mutations.Num() - 1];     //broadcast mutation added
                        ...
        }
        else if (!Mutations.IsEmpty())
        {
            if (Mutations[RepeatedMutationIndex]->GetMutationTier() <= EMutationTier::Tier_4)
            {
                ...
                OnMutationChange.Broadcast(this, Mutations[RepeatedMutationIndex]); //broadcast mutation change
                                ...
            }
        }
                ...
    }
}

[proud magnet]

Wow! That's super high quality, really impressive! Optimizing Lumen is like the #1 thing for me right now since without it my game looks terrible lol. This first game of mine is more of a learning experience than anything else but doesn't mean I don't want my game to look and play the best it can. If you care at all its Sub Terra on steam :)

[potent bear]

There are two broadcasts. For debugging purpeses I'm forcing it to only call OnMutationAdded.Broadcast(this, Mutations[Mutations.Num() - 1]; //broadcast mutation added

actually

I'm an idiot

[potent bear]

By typing this I found the issue

I wasn't forcing it to repeat the call

[lofty rapids]

next time #cpp because this is #blueprint

🙂

[potent bear]

The reason I added it here was because of this. I thought I could have done something through here

I thought it was a simple error of mine through the blueprint side

[lofty rapids]

makes sense

[potent bear]

which it ended up being.

[maiden wadi]

Nice, yeah I would definitely check out 5.5 when you get a few. I'd be curious to know how it helps your benchmarks when you do. And like I said, also check out the feel. We had a bit of a stuttery feel on 5.4 even with decent framerates and same rates on 5.5 just feel a lot smoother due to the lack of framejumps.

[lofty rapids]

always the simple things

[potent bear]

In case you wanted to know. The issue stemmed from the fact that it was never calling the blueprint code because it wasn't calling the same broadcast. Because the user already had the mutation, it wasn't going to if (Mutations.IsEmpty() || IsMutationNew(NewMutation)) (first if after the NewMutation check), it was going straight to the second if else if (!Mutations.IsEmpty()).

void UMutationComponent::AddMutation(AActor* Instigator, TSubclassOf<UMutation> MutationClass)
{
    UMutation* NewMutation = NewObject<UMutation>(GetOwner(), MutationClass); 
    if (NewMutation)
    {
        ...
        if (Mutations.IsEmpty() || IsMutationNew(NewMutation))
        {
            ...            
            OnMutationAdded.Broadcast(this, Mutations[Mutations.Num() - 1];     //broadcast mutation added
                        ...
        }
        else if (!Mutations.IsEmpty())
        {
            if (Mutations[RepeatedMutationIndex]->GetMutationTier() <= EMutationTier::Tier_4)
            {
                ...
                OnMutationChange.Broadcast(this, Mutations[RepeatedMutationIndex]); //broadcast mutation change
                                ...
            }
        }
                ...
    }
}

[maiden wadi]

FYI I would check out the SetBrushFromSoftTexture/Material functions to streamline this. It takes care of the async loading for you. Less bug prone if your thing updates too fast sometimes.

[potent bear]

Thanks. I'll check it out now

[maiden wadi]

Like if you have ImageB loaded, and you call yours with ImageA and then with ImageB before ImageA loads, it'll show ImageA, because it'll set it up for ImageB immediately and then once A loads it'll callback again and set it for A. UImage's SetBrushFromSoft function internally dismiss the loading handle so it will only ever show the latest one you told it to show regardless of loading orders and such. Nice little feature from UImage.

[potent bear]

thanks

[faint pasture]

You don't even nano-optimize?

casull

[frosty heron]

Way smoother for me fps wise leaping from 5.1 to 5.5

[jaunty magnet]

Hello everyone, it’s my first time asking anything here, but i’m stuck and i really need help. I’m making the most simple thing ever - door opens after stepping on a button. And for some reason even this logic doesn’t work. If i uncheck IsLocked just walking up to the door works and it opens, but if IsLocked is checked, and i step on the button and walk over to the door it won’t open. I’d appreciate any help. Thanks!

[crisp hawk]

Hey all,
Using UE5.6, I'm trying to get a post process to render at display resolution, while my scene renders at a lower resolution.

I'm not using TSR or TAAU in this project though, which it seems means there's no way to put this post process material strictly under the display resolution.
But even if I did, when using TSR/TAA, it seems I can still manipulate the density of the effect by changing screen percentage.

SceneViewExtensions seems to be the way to go? But before I get into learning this whole new thing for me, I want to make sure there's no easy, simple way to achieve this. It seems like such a trivial thing to expect to have available.

I even thought of using UMG somehow to get there, but this seems like too hacky of a way to do it.
Not sure what's the right way to achieve this.

[waxen ice]

Unfortunetaly it's hard to see. Can you upload Blueprints on blueprintue?

[jaunty magnet]

yep, just did.
BP_Button
BP_SlidingDoor

[waxen ice]

Can you share the links? 😄

[jaunty magnet]

yes absolutely my bad 😆

https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/ehud6il_/

https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/6ebnl8y9/

[waxen ice]

I see you calling event dispatchers but where do you bind them?

[jaunty magnet]

After i called the dispatcher in my door bp i set the button parameter in details tab to my button

[waxen ice]

Bur you have to bind some function to Dispatcher if you want it to do something

[jaunty magnet]

oh okay. I have the unlock function, and i need to bind them. Makes sense. And if I wanted to do so, how would i do it? Sorry it’s my first solo project and i don’t have much experience with UE yet

[waxen ice]

No need to be sorry. 😄 everyone starts somewhere.

Dispatcher is called in button right?
So in door you have to have pointer to the button and then in doors beginplay for example you can drag this pointer to button and search for assign to "your event dispatcher"

[jaunty magnet]

OHHH well that makes even more sense now. Thank you very much!!!!!!

[waxen ice]

To clarify what event dispatcher are doing.

When you call it you can imagine they are shouting that they did something.

Now if nobody is listening to them nothing happens so you have to set that somebody is listening to them and they will react when they shout. 😄

[barren sonnet]

Is there a cheap way to change model based off distance to camera ? I want to add some bushes that become ragdolls when you are close to them so they can be interacted with and turn to static versions in the distance to make them cheaper.

[jaunty magnet]

yes thank you so much for help!!!!!!!!!

[unique bronze]

hello, I need some advice on how to tackle this properly:

I have set up 4 sockets (and will want to add more later).
Those sockets are used to spawn a SceneComponent which is used as a component I attach an Actor to later on.
I have two "modes" I can switch from, midpoint and individual.
For the first "mode" Im getting mid point location between two of the sockets (s1-s2=mid), and for the second mode, the midpoint calculation has to be off and both sockets are treated as their own locations instead to spawn a SceneComponent on both.
So far I thought of two functions, one takes two socket locations and gets their midpoint, and a second function just takes in a list of socketnames, but this is not very scalable if I decide to make more sockets.

What Im trying to make is a function which can take N amount of predefined sockets (pref. a list of already existing sockets, instead of typing the name) and depending on "mode", switch between average location of the chosen sockets or get each location individually.
So far Ive seen DataAssets, Tables and Structs, but they all sound overkill for just that 🤔

[rose crest]

is it inside actor or each socket is individual actor?

if its inside actor I would just get all child components (put socket as childs of scene component) or get all components with tag. Add them to array and you have array of references

[unique bronze]

Its inside a custom FirstPerson Skeleton, two sockets are at fingers level and other two between palms, the ones between palms are only read to get the middle point between them. Essentially I need 1 vector location in one case and two vector locations in another.

[rose crest]

ah, skeletal mesh sockets

[unique bronze]

sorry I didnt know any other sockets existed xD

[rose crest]

it sounded like anything that can be used as location reference

mesh-> get all socket names

but you'll have to have logic inside your actors to define what socket and mode you want to use, simple make array of names, get length>1 then use average function, else get index 0

[unique bronze]

Thanks for the info! Im using an Enum to switch two modes with an IA_SwitchMode action. Then get their midpoint with "hardcoded socket names".
Is it possible to write a function which will change its Inputs based on Enum selected?
For Standard mode it lets me choose two points from a list (of filtered sockets, so its not possible to choose feet sockets for example), and the Rapidfire mode changes the function inputs to specific two point also from their own list.
Maybe using prefix on sockets or something 🤔

[rose crest]

you can turn socket names into array and use prefixes to determine correct one

[unique bronze]

I didnt figure out how to get the index from the selected enum entry from inside function to use the select node 😅

[rose crest]

just use enmum as index

[unique bronze]

lmao

I really didnt know enum is an index already

thanks!

And for prefixes comparison I just use prefixes as names (also some map or predefined list) and compare to the socket name array?

[rose crest]

yes, i think its enough

[unique bronze]

okay thank you!

[waxen ice]

It is worth to know that under the hood enums are just integers. 😛

[unique bronze]

I think i was confusing it with map or something like that xD Thanks!

[sharp ferry]

why its so difficult to create logic of my widget....

[dark drum]

What are you trying to do?

[unique bronze]

you can try concepting it first, with draw.io or in miro

[steel shadow]

Is format text where I want to display ''x {integer}" more efficient than doing: inttostring on the integer, append string ("x" and the"inttostring") and then string to text?

[turbid pecan]

Wanna run something by y’all: I’ve made a helicopter and put it in a pawn blueprint. It’s controllable (not using physics, just setting locations), but I’m stumped with the collision behavior. Right now I have a scene root collision box at the landing gear area which allows it to land. It’s set to block all. If I chuck any other collision boxes or capsules in the root (next to the helicopter skeletal mesh in the hierarchy) - no amount of block settings make those extra collisions do anything in the environment.

I’m sure this is a skill issue. Like how in the world am I supposed to have collision segments all actually colliding with the environment while sitting inside my pawn blueprint in some sane way? Is there some standard to do this properly?

[dark drum]

Yes, format text allows you to specify the text you want to display but denote variables that you can then connect. These get replaced with the values inputted.

[mental trellis]

That isn't really what he asked.

[steel shadow]

Haha yeah they are both of the order of 0.001ms but this is in widgets of which I may have 150+. So it adds up

[unique bronze]

I found the situation where I struggle with enums and getting their index. The blend poses by int inside the animbp needs an int index to switch between state machines (irrelevant).
Im getting the enum from the character, which isnt an index so it cant be plugged in, so I made a Mode Index in the character bp which sets its index according to its current enum selected so the blend poses by int node can distinguish between which mode was selected.

So now thanks to andaron suggestion using select node it looks like this, I think its okay, but surely removes the need to of extra int variable xD Im open for better ways!

[frosty heron]

Why is mode Index an integer.

it's kinda hard to read

if they represent a state, may as well turn it into enum, or gameplay tag.

anyone reading the code will be able to deduce it.

[unique bronze]

yeah thats what I had before, but all I want is to switch between speific logic on button press (for example sword stances)

[frosty heron]

that doesn't justify using integer to represent a state

like 0 and 1 could be antyhing, it's a magic number which only you will know.

[dark drum]

Oh sorry, you're asking specifically about the performance. Set something up on a loop and profile. Easiest way to find out. I would imagine the format text would be faster as there would be less BP nodes in the middle.

[unique bronze]

I removed it, like I said, the picture was before and after xD Unless i still misunderstand something?

[maiden wadi]

It is more efficient usually. But efficiency isn't really the issue here as much as localization. The moment you convert it to string, you lose loc. If you for example were to have the server multicast that, everyone would get the string version in the server's language. If it's an FText it's sent differently with the properties uses to format and reconstructed on the client in their own language. Similar issues with language changes in the middle of the game without a restart happen if you to string it and back to text it. It loses it's original text key so it can't relocalize on a language swap.

[frosty heron]

@maiden wadi Sorry for the ping, say I have 3 elements in this box. And I want to pop the one selected out, so I need to detached it from the parent, I wonder if that's possible.
Then I need to offset the rest of the element so it align with the red line.

Do I just play with the offset here?

[maiden wadi]

TLDR it doesn't matter. You should never to string anything player facing.

Instantly, or animated?

[frosty heron]

btw there is blend pose by enum

[unique bronze]

you meant its just bad practice? the "Mode Index" variable, right? Not the SpellMode Enum?

[frosty heron]

animated 😦

[unique bronze]

only with GAS apparently :/

[frosty heron]

nothing to do with GAS

[frosty heron]

Yeah the Mode Index is just a no no in my book.

[steel shadow]

Oh interesting yeah I saw a lot of this mentioned as I was googling. In my case it's irrelevant since it's just a number and game is only English and Spanish. Performance is the only thing I am concerned with.

[unique bronze]

lol.. was I high or something? I swear I couldnt find it, then googled for an hour to come to a conclusion after some posts mentioning it only being with GAS, even a youtuber said "Unfortunately you need GAS for this node so we wont go into it here" WTF

xD

This solves it all honestly, thank you!

[turbid pecan]

Not to sound like a stackoverlow user - but should you really be prematurely optimising? If the problem is format text nodes in terms of performance something’s gone terribly right.

That being said - if I recall format node uses FText under the hood (citation needed) and for UI stuff is probably more than fine..?

My point really is that if you come to some performance issue and it turns out that formatting is the thing you’re paying a lot of compute for - perhaps then it’s time to optimise.

[steel shadow]

like I said, context matters, very small operations add up if they are being called on 150 UI elements

[unique bronze]

Cause I totally agree, I hate this index fuckery too, its unreadable and messy, it feels wrong, even the blend nodes look better with "Actual PoseName" instead of "Blend Pose 0, 1, 2"

[steel shadow]

If it was just a one time thing then yes it's irrelevant

[frosty heron]

Yeah that detour with converting to int may also cause bugs, if you decide to remove / modify some of the enum.

[turbid pecan]

Sure, but why don’t you use it in 150 elements first, run a profiler and add up the cost of all of that to see just how much it’s hurting you if at all

[steel shadow]

I did

and each convert to string and append string is like 0.002 - 0.004 ms

so multiply by 150 and that can be significant when ur aiming 20 ms

[unique bronze]

I see why people love this engine and what people miss out on, simplification. Thanks for the info!

[turbid pecan]

Why not use the format text node with string interpolation as a comparison? Like replace all that string append stuff with just my final {text} outcome to compare. Unless you did already?

[maiden wadi]

The easiest way I've found to do that is to have yourself a repeater track animation that calls an event in the children.

When something in the parent changes it prenotifies the children. They save their current viewport space location.

The parent then reorders the children into their new place. and then postnotifies them that they've moved.

The children set up immediately by offsetting themselves from their new location by their old screenspace one, this makes them visually look like they're in the same spot they were before. Then the repeater track runs each frame to move them into their new spot.

For the removed one it depends on how it's animated out. But you can put it in something like a common visual attachment which makes it take up 1px space so the others are in their correct space and it can just animate to the right or something internally and only actually remove itself from parent when it's done animating.

[frosty heron]

I will comeback in 3 weeks to show the result 😄

love doing U.I except when it gets complicated.

[maiden wadi]

Best time to do UI. 😄 If you want to keep it really clean. Make yourself a base class for the container and child widgets, so that you don't have to repeat a lot of work if you choose to do different layouts or use it multiple times.

[frosty heron]

on it, Thx :3

[dark drum]

Must be UI day. 😅 I'm trying to wrap my head around how the action bars work in CommonUI. 👀

[mental trellis]

Do it a thousand times per widget in a loop. See which tanks your fps more.

[maiden wadi]

The simplest form is that CommonUserWidgets can register actions for the closest CommonActivatableWidget. And when that widget is active a common bound action bar will try to place action buttons in itself for the current actions available.

[dark drum]

Yea, that's what I assumed but I can't get it to work. I assumed its based on the 'Input Mapping' for the widget but it doesn't display anything. I'm obviously missing a piece of the puzzle.

[maiden wadi]

I'm not sure with IAs. I'm still using legacy datatable ones for ours because when I was setting them up IAs were still having some issues.

[steel shadow]

yeah will try that on my next optimisation pass

[sharp ferry]

i was trying to craete a mini game bar skill check

press space when the line is on the right spot skill check minigame

[dark drum]

What was you struggling with? It's just having a number that increases (from 0 - 1) and then when you press the button check its value to see if its in range.

[sharp ferry]

gemini guided me to create like 6 variables

speed, direction, float variables, and 1 bool

then started to tell me to add, multiply node, add and got lost

dont tell me gemini is usless, is mostly helping me to create the basic nodes to do things i want to do and with some of your helps i always managed to get the final result

[dark drum]

I'd say 4 for the core logic but you'd probably need to add a few extra things. This assumes that it's from 0 - 1 so the speed would how much it changes per second. Direction should be either -1 or 1 to control if the value goes up or down.

[sharp ferry]

thanks this loook so difficult

[rose crest]

if youre looking for options what can you do with enums just type enum name in search window 😉

[surreal wagon]

If it gets the velocity when landing, that means that it has to be 0?

[dark drum]

The velocity is what it is at the time of hitting. So the speed before its reset to 0.

[surreal wagon]

Does this node broadcast the velocity or do I have to do Get player character - get velocity?

nvm

[storm solar]

for common activatable widgets, is there anyway I can run events on enhanced input action without it running input actions outside of said widget?

[dark drum]

Unfortunately not.

[storm solar]

It seems so backwards that I cant do that.
Like, If I am opened on an equipment menu on character A and want to use the shoulder buttons the swap to character B equip page... the system natively wouldn't allow that?
So are all comercial games using C++ for stuff like this?

I could have a variable attached to every input that checks if you're in a focused widget or not and run actions based off that but it seems overkill.

[dark drum]

Its because there's two inputs systems one for the game and one for the UI. When they made enhanced inputs it runs on the game inputs. This means if you're using input mode UI only, the enhanced inputs don't trigger. With CommonUI they've attempted to solve this with the Common UI Action Router but having spent the last few hours trying to wrap my head around it, feels overly convoluted for what is essentially a bandaid solution. Even then, it doesn't allow you to directly use the input action event nodes.

[storm solar]

Besides it being clunky, how bad is turning input mode to game in the widget and having a check done every time the action is triggered?
It seems if there isnt a solution this may be the next best thing.

[crude glacier]

when i add it to game space it instantyl adds it all at once, how do i make it wait then add wait then add ect

[languid pagoda]

Hello everyone. Has anyone encountered an issue where the following occurs in regards to widgets/input action events.

• Press ESC to toggle pause menu | Pause menu Appears (Intended)
• Press "Resume Button" on pause menu | Pause menu disappears (Intended)
  -Press ESC | Nothing happens (UNINTENDED) pause menu should pull up
  -Press ESC again | Pause menu appears

Logic

[lunar sleet]

Best to use a Boolean instead of a flip flop, the latter can do weird things sometimes. Use a breakpoint and step through the code to see what happens

[languid pagoda]

ok let me give that a try

[languid pagoda]

Amazing Bools were the answer. Thank you @lunar sleet

[graceful sage]

I want to get my data here from an Actor Component and set the brush on the widget while handling async loading on my Actor Component. Would this be a good way to handle this or is there a better way. I did sorta successfully do this but it set all my instances of this widget to the same texture.

[lunar sleet]

A for loop executes in one tick, so it will always happen all at once. I’d add everything to an array with the for loop, and then on completed set a timer by event to run at whatever interval you see fit, with the event itself taking each index and doing what you want it to do

[crude glacier]

I read for loop as foot loop

omd

ok thanks tho

I will try it

[languid pagoda]

What do you all typically use for your Object Reference when casting to a Widget Blueprint?

[lunar sleet]

Yeah it’s stupid phone autocorrect

[crude glacier]

oooh lmao

thats good that im not halicnating

[lunar sleet]

The ref to a widget

Cast just takes a ref and verifies that it is of the correct type, it’s not a magic wand 😀

If you’re asking how to get the ref, it’s easiest to store it in a variable when you first create it. Sometimes you can use get user widget depending on the use case

[languid pagoda]

Let me break it down further. So I have a WBP_Settings, when I cast to it the object reference can only be itself so I get the "note" at the bottom of my cast

I can't find another parent to reference to, but his is only a problem with widgets

like player character or pawn is easy

[lunar sleet]

That note means you don’t need a cast because it’s already set to that ref, but it usually means you created an empty variable of that widget bp type that contains nothing and you’re expecting it to autofill

[languid pagoda]

SO it works, but it just bothers me that its a soft error

[lunar sleet]

If you get the note, the cast is unnecessary

Show the actual code

[lunar sleet]

With the object

That you plugged in

[lunar sleet]

Yeah you don’t need to cast you just made it

Again, a cast is just a type check

[graceful sage]

The return value is already that type

[lunar sleet]

It takes object A and determines whether or not it is of the type you want (in this case WBP_SettingMenu)

If you just plug in WBP_SettingMenu you already know it is the correct type

[languid pagoda]

I need to have acces to the settingsmenu though because that's where the "back" button is

[lunar sleet]

So promote the return value of the Create node to a variable

Then just GET that variable and use it

You don’t need a cast to access its insides because you already know what’s in it

So you can just drag from that variable and do whatever you need to it

When you have time watch the video in the second pin, so you can understand bp comms like cast and so on

[languid pagoda]

Oh wow that worked

[lunar sleet]

Ofc it worked

You just created the widget and know what it is, no point in checking what it is 😀

[languid pagoda]

Dang 2.5 hours. Watching now

[lunar sleet]

I promise it’s the best 2.5h you’ll ever spend when it comes to UE.

[languid pagoda]

Will do, I'm going to watch teh whole thing

[crude glacier]

im kinda dumb so where do i connect it to 😭

[lunar sleet]

Which part

[crude glacier]

ye

[lunar sleet]

For set timer by event connect the red square pin to the red square pin of the actual event

[crude glacier]

ok thanjs very much

[crude glacier]

less go after a week of trying i nearly have it working

[verbal girder]

Does anyone have any idea why , for the exact same actor being referenced (in the same simulation run too), that one of these calls to my interface works, and the other one does not?

Context: It's a Component (AC_HealthAbility) that accepts the TakeDamage message for this pictured type of actor.
The thing that works: In my BT_Enemy tree, BTT_HitPlayer makes the first of these calls where it takes simply an actor reference and tells it to TakeDamage according to BI_Damageable. This works regardless of if the interface is implemented in a subcomponent of the actor or the actor's class itself.

The thing that doesn't work: When a spike bush is overlapped, it tells the other actor to TakeDamage, which only works here if the interface is implemented in the blueprint class and not in a component's class. This means my Player class will not receive the damage, but the Enemy class (Which has a top level interface implementation) will, so it IS firing that message.

I can easily hardcode my overlap function to check if it's a player and then yank that component and manually call the take damage function... but that kinda defeats the whole purpose of me setting up this interface heh

[maiden wadi]

You don't need an interface here unless you want a slightly faster getter for the component(which won't be faster in BP, only in C++).

You're misunderstanding interfaces. They're meant to patch holes between two different classes that need to accept the same event or run the same function but have drastically different functionalities or cannot share a base class for some reason(which is never a good reason because of my next point)

You are already making this compositional. You don't need an interface. You have a component. You can get this component literally from any actor by GetComponentByClass. Without casting a reference you can call this on any Actor level pointer and get your component to directly call a function on without the abstration of an interface. If you want an easier function that hides this away, make a function library that takesn an actor and internally does this and silently fails for any actor that can't take damage, or logs it.

[verbal girder]

This interface it utilized by multiple other classes. Specifically this bush class can damage anything damageable (you can kite enemies into it, or throw breakables into it).

[surreal peak]

This works regardless of if the interface is implemented in a subcomponent of the actor or the actor's class itself.
I kinda doubt that.

[maiden wadi]

You did not read what I wrote.

[verbal girder]

Kk ill re read

[surreal peak]

You can't call interface functions on classes that don't have the interface.

[maiden wadi]

You are already making this compositional. You don't need an interface. You have a component. You can get this component literally from any actor by GetComponentByClass. Without casting a reference you can call this on any Actor level pointer and get your component to directly call a function on without the abstration of an interface.

[verbal girder]

The player health component is only for player health, other objects I want to take damage simply react to it, like by breaking

[maiden wadi]

Then I would still make a library function that tries to get the component if it exists. Else just run the interface on the actor.

[trim matrix]

hi, using these camera spring arm settings ive gotten my camera to rotate nice when the player moves, but now im running into an issue where the players inputs dont rotate along with them, that once the camera rotates pressing w no longer is forward, etc. how could i fix that?

[verbal girder]

This does function. The component of my main player class is what implements the interface, and it's able to receive the message from multiple sources, but not this new one that I'm calling in the same way

whups meant to include that part

you can see no implemented or inherited interfaces there

(for damageable)

I don't mind "Do this completely differently" but I would like to know why that works sometimes and other times doesn't

[surreal peak]

Is that some Blueprint-only shit? You usually can only call Interface Functions on Classes (or Child Classes) that have the Interface added to them.

[verbal girder]

Could be. Wonder if it's a bug

But it functions on my builds

it has to have some reason it propagates to components

[surreal peak]

How do you even add the Interface events to the graph if you don't have the Interface added to it?

[verbal girder]

I don't. The AC_HealthAbility implements the interface.

and also then adds the event

[surreal peak]

But the Pawn doesn't, and you call the Interface on the Pawn ?

[verbal girder]

No, I just say "Actor from overlap, take damage!"

[surreal peak]

How the f*ck does that end up in the Component o.o

[verbal girder]

Heh well it sounds like that's not the right way to do it but yeah it does work lmao

well, in one three places and not my latest one

[dark drum]

In short the reason its not working is because it's implemented on the health component, not the pawn. This means when you call the event, you need to pass a ref to the thing that implements it, in this case the health component.

[surreal peak]

Yeah

That's what I would expect.

[dark drum]

Personally, I would just have the health component get its owner, (the actor) and bind to the on damage events that is available on all actors. Then when you want to apply damage, just call the damage function on the actor.

[verbal girder]

Yeah, that was the passthrough fix I implemented and that works fine, I just thought that interface messages would propagate to components since... it did... just not every time. I'll have to assume it's something fucky with my AI blackboards that I don't understand

This is an example of one that works where the actor is reffed, take damage is call, and the component of the actor receives the call.

[dark drum]

This for reference.

[verbal girder]

I'd guess this is because when you are setting the direction of your move input you are asking the orientation of the model, and not the camera?
attached is our input action that changes the direction you are going according to the player view point (Which is the player camera, not the model, confusing I know haha).

[verbal girder]

To re read this, your point is "Don't use interfaces ever, here is a different way to do this"?

[random jolt]

Hi everyone, I'm new to Unreal. I'm using a DeformableCollisionActor with chaos. I would like to know if there is some way through blueprint to add in the field in photo (which is of DeformableCollisionActor) once the simulation starts a static mesh that I have in the scene at run time.
If this last mesh was available in editor mode, there would not be this problem. However, the static mesh is spawned at run time. I would like to avoid to add it manually each time

[verbal girder]

A little different, rather, use them when they have COMPLETELY different reactions to the same event.

[maiden wadi]

I never meant don't use interfaces ever. Your case if like harming a bush or pot that doesn't have a health component is a good use case. But it can be made easier with a function library function which internally tries to do the component first and falls back to a direct interface call on the hit object. So that normal gameplay things with a health component can process their health normally and special cases like things that just break can handle their stuff internally. And things that need to damage stuff can call this one function without having to care where it's routed.

[verbal girder]

Gotcha, I appreciate your clarifaction!

I should rewrite my health component to be more broadly applicable then I think as well

[dark drum]

Interfaces have there place but in BP they should be the last option and only used when nothing else is suitable. (My opinion)

You tend to get better results using hierarchy or components.

[verbal girder]

Hmmm. Well, the base of my game is that I have elemental ammo that reacts differently to everything, and also that all these elemental obstacles react with enemies, so you can knock them into them and such. Interfaces seemed like the way to go for that architecturally because take damage has an elemental enum that gets passed along with it. Broadly, a lot of things take damage differently depending on the element, (fire on fire does nothing, ice it doubles, etc).

So take damage passing an element in an interface allows for a custom reaction from everything that can take damage (including some that simply break from any damage). I'm not sure architecturally how to do that with components in a manner where they could be hit by a fire wall vs an ice bullet vs walking in to an acid pool vs a pot to the face, and have that reaction for the players and enemies and inanimate damageable objects (You can push an ice block into a fire wall, acid pool, etc).

Some things take that damage by just dying, others by changing. (A rusty door takes acid and becomes usable)

[dark drum]

All actors can implement the 'AnyDamage' event. No interface needed. Plus components can bind to it as well. This is whats triggered when you call the 'Apply Damage' function on an actor.

[verbal girder]

That doesn't pass what kind of element is hitting it, though?

A few things don't need that info, but the majority do

[mellow folio]

I wouldn't spend 5 seconds trying to avoid an interface if that setup makes sense to you.

He's right that the other options are to use components or for all your objects to share a base class (hierarchy)

If you find yourself rewriting the same code over and over again in the various objects that received the interface, that would be a good indication that the other approaches would have been a bit better

[verbal girder]

Gotcha, and that hasn't really happened other than "React to this by dying" which is trivial

[dark drum]

You can create damage types.

[rose citrus]

If I have a blueprint with several Static Meshes. Is there a way I can select them based on their name? For example, say they are all name SM_01, SM_02, SM_03 ..etc. And then I have an integer. Can I select a static mesh by putting together "SM_" + Integer?

[mellow folio]

That sounds possible but it also seems like a pretty bad idea Danny, there must be an easier way to achieve what you're trying to do. What are you trying to do

[verbal girder]

I see, and the damage type is an object and has a causer as well, yeap I coulda just used this. I basically just made a simpler version of that built in stuff haha

[rose citrus]

I have an Ammo Box with a tray of 50 bullets, and when I interact with the Ammo Box holding a magazine, it loads them into the magazine one at a time.

[dark drum]

I don't see people using the built in damage events much. Not sure why because it does what most people need lol.

[mellow folio]

So you want the player to be able to interact with specific meshes

[mellow folio]

Everybody's damage systems are slightly different, it just ends up being a headache to use the built-in event

[verbal girder]

There's a bit of nervousness to altering built in systems that look technical

feels like I could really fuck it up so I end up creating my own aha

[rose citrus]

The player only interacts with the Box. So each interaction gets rid of a bullet from the box. So let's say the box has 50 total bullets. Player interacts with box, SM_Bullet50 is destroyed or visibility off, then TotalBullets - 1.

[trim matrix]

how would i do this for all movement directions?

[rose citrus]

I wouldn't want to do a switch on int for 50 values

[mellow folio]

So the ammo meshes should just be in an array and each time you destroy the next one

[rose citrus]

Ah, I didn't even think of that. Yea that sounds good thanks!

[mellow folio]

Slightly more correct approaches would be to use instanced static mesh systems or toggling the visibility instead of destroying the meshes

[dark drum]

I get that but using the built in system isn't a headache. It's pretty bare bones to be honest. When applying damage what else do you need other than the target, damage causer, damage amount and damage type?

[random jolt]

Sorry but I'll respond only to make it visible again. I really need a hand🥲

[verbal girder]

Movement Input should work for all directions, assuming you've calculated the direction you want them to move from the camera. It's just a relationship between the Camera's right vector and the Input's XY values.

[mellow folio]

Can you rephrase the question

[flat coral]

I just noticed Eternal Strands seems to be able to detect whether you're on a PS or Xbox controller to show different tutorial prompts? Anyone know how they're doing that? I know how to tell if the user is on a gamepad, but not what type.

[unique bronze]

Hello, I have a (for me) complicated mechanic, and Id like to split it into 4-5 functions, caveat is that one function needs to be called inside another so I dont have to pass inputs/outputs all the time, but is just made for the sake of splitting up a larger task.
Is calling a function inside another function considered bad practice?

[flat coral]

God, no. Complex code is functions inside functions inside functions, all day long

Even stuff that seems basic is just a built-in function anyways. Add to array? Function. Get a variable value? Function. For loop? I think that's a macro.

[unique bronze]

oh so its standard practice? great, very good, time to rewrite some stuff. But it does get complex in terms of modularity though, sometimes I feel like "there are too many functions" cause I cant find which one was doing what exactly, thats why I need to have them very very specific. Calling SpawnAndAttach sounds somewhat weirder to me than calling Spawn and then calling Attach passing the spawned Object.

[flat coral]

It does get complicated, but that's because it IS complicated. When a thing is fundamentally complex, there's always going to be trade-offs in how you represent it. Break it up, and parts of it can become opaque. Centralize it, and it becomes overwhelming.

But here's the trick: "Parts of it can become opaque" is a feature, not a bug. By wrapping a self-contained unit of logic in a function, giving it a good name and a decent description, it lets you abstract that bit of logic and only consider the details of it when relevant

[mellow folio]

As you gain experience you will feel less overwhelmed by how many functions there are. At high levels of productivity, most functions will be pretty small, but not all

[unique bronze]

that makes sense, without breaking the stuff up into "modules", things will be unreadable-complicated, so I guess the trade off would be that its readable and needs to be understood, both things a human brain can do well. As long it makes logical sense of course.
So the complexity didnt go away, it only changes into different complexity which allow depth as it seems.

[flat coral]

The zen of it is taking a little piece of code and putting it in a box that summarizes it, and then you don't have to think about the code, you just think about the box.

And you're already doing this, without knowing it! Look at this bullshit code:

[mellow folio]

Also keep in mind that functions are the only safe way to ensure that complex logic occurs in the proper order, because standard blueprint events start a new chain of logic which may or may not complete before the logic which called it.

[unique bronze]

glad to hear that lol, I found it very cool when I was able to reuse a function at two different situations, just because a part of the other situation was doing the exact same thing, that was some dopamine rush

[flat coral]

Seems pretty complicated right? Well, that's "For Each". You've almost certianly used it. But I bet you never even looked inside it, you didn't need to know about this complexity to use it.

[unique bronze]

so its okay to follow the "if it works, dont touch it" rule, close the damn box and just use it all over?

[unique bronze]

i did, for 3 seconds, then closed, yep, "fuck that, it works"

[mellow folio]

I wouldn't collapse graphs, it doesn't actually enhance readability

[flat coral]

Basically, yeah. I mean, the cool part is you can still mess with what's in the box, it's just then you can do that JUST in the function and it becomes it's own small managable problem.

[mellow folio]

Just keep grinding and eventually you'll be able to read a function in a split second just by the colors of the nodes

[flat coral]

And it means you can test and debug in isolation too. Is this small function the problem? No, it's getting the inputs I expect, and returning the output I expect. Okay, close that box up again, and go up a layer

[unique bronze]

do you think of "inputs and outputs" while working in that small manageable problem? I often find myself not being able to think of what inputs are okay to add from outside vs just get a ref inside the function itself.

[unique bronze]

grinding sounds right, thanks, Im a little addicted atm too, but sometimes it feels like I dont know what Im doing, but the after some more grind things eventually work out somehow

[flat coral]

I mean, there are times I'd do things each of those ways. Generally, if it's always going to be the value of some variable you're already storing, then just use that. But also, if you're only using the variable one place, don't store it.

[dark drum]

It depends on the context. Having an input can be nice as it means you could manually specify the enum without needing var. If the function is only specific to a given thing then pulling directly from the var can make more sense.

[mellow folio]

That's just a question of whether or not the sender or the receiver of that event has easier access to the information. It's actually really bad to have references to objects that aren't necessary.

[flat coral]

See here's a good example of why you'd do it the first way. This map exit has to assign itself to the exits list of both rooms it touches, so I'm calling my custom function GetPriorityRoom twice, with two different location values

[unique bronze]

ah okay so like think if this function will be used where this specific variable wont be accessible, or if it always will be able to then maybe provide the input so it cant be used without it?

[unique bronze]

I see, yeah makes sense, so if the function is exclusive to the same bp where the variable is from, it makes sense to me not to add the input pin

[flat coral]

End of the day, an input is just a temporary variable anyway. Create it if it'll be useful to you, skip it if it won't.

[mellow folio]

Yeah

[unique bronze]

yup that makes sense, needed a moment to understand what the answer is for, but yeah I understand, if will not be able to use this function when the Room Location vector isnt available where I want to call the function from, and doing it inside the function still needs some ref from outside too. Thanks for the info!

[mellow folio]

Either approach here would be very acceptable. One of the arch demons of object-oriented programming is convoluted object references, where one object is linking to another object linking to another object making another object to look up a value. Be mindful about doing less of that. Specifically, core classes like your player character should never have references to more peripheral classes, like a door. If a door wanted to send a message to a player character, it's fine for a door to have a reference to the player, but very bad for a player character to have a reference to a door. It would be very bad for the player character to look up a value on the door, the door should send it. This is because for most games, the door will be loaded in and out of memory but the character will not.

[unique bronze]

it's fine for a door to have a reference to the player, but very bad for a player character to have a reference to a door.
Okay this is music to my ears, because all I do is FOCUS on doing exactly that, decoupling useless stuff from other stuff, and wonder if Im overthinking or not doing that.
Things which dont feel right, dont feel logical, need to be elsewhere, otherwise I noticed I have too many variables storing the same stuff.

It feel "rough" and not "polished" or rounded up to me if things dont have their logical place

[mellow folio]

To rephrase that, it's very acceptable for the various objects in your game to read values on other objects which are Central to your logic and will always be in memory. The player character and player controller are good examples. Conversely, the central objects should not be looking up values on more peripheral objects.

Using these rules will guide which references exist where, and that will guide whether or not you use inputs in your functions

[unique bronze]

Hmm I think I understand, or Im close to it, would you agree on saying to think of "read-write" in this case, and central logic shouldnt be written by peripheral logic, only read, while central should write to peripheral ?

[mellow folio]

No. Reading and writing are equally problematic. It's a question of references, when a blueprint has a reference to another blueprint, the game cannot load blueprint a without also loading blueprint b into memory. This means that if your main menu has your player character in it, and your player character has a reference to a door which exists somewhere in your world, then you can't even open the main menu of your game without loading that door into memory.

This is all about memory management