blueprint

[cold sinew]

i will try it

[strange stream]

I'm spawning a sphere to detect enemies and then a particle system which attaches to them, but I want it to only attach to X amount of enemies, and the enemies should be the ones who are closest to the character.
How do I go about doing this? I guess I need an array to make sure it doesn't attach to a enemy twice?

[nocturne holly]

after some experimenting, I figured it out all I had to do was compare the forward vectors of the actor and projectile when they collided

[maiden wadi]

@strange stream Array Element in a For Each Loop is the element in the array that is at that array's current spot in the loop's current iteration.

[strange stream]

Hmm, so how would I go about doing what I described?

[maiden wadi]

Depends. Do you want to attach every actor that is within a range or always just the single closest one?

[odd ember]

@nocturne holly if you're using hitscan you should use traces, not overlaps

[nocturne holly]

I'm not using hitscan stuff here, but I'll keep that in mind for the future

[strange stream]

Lets say the 5 closest enemies

This is my bp atm, obviously flawed

[maiden wadi]

@strange stream More or less you need to take the large array, the one with all of the nearby actors. Make a local copy of it, run it through a function to find the closest actor, return that actor and then remove it from the array and attach it. And you'd run that all on a loop five times, or for how many ever actors you want to attach at a time.

[burnt rivet]

Ladies and Gents, Who would like to help solve a mystery that makes absolutely ZERO sense. TopDown/TwinStick I will be in the support chat and sharing my screen Kudos!

Well attempting to share my screen

[maiden wadi]

Everything makes sense. You just need a bigger shovel for digging.

[rough jacinth]

Hello, i have a problem. I need a complex collision mesh to be able to simulate physics, is there a way to make that ? I'm making a sort of box that holds other objects, and should be moved using a PhysicHandle

Hello, i have a problem. I need a complex collision mesh to be able to simulate physics, is there a way to make that ? I'm making a sort of box that holds other objects, and should be moved using a PhysicHandle

Hello, i have a problem. I need a complex collision mesh to be able to simulate physics, is there a way to make that ? I'm making a sort of box that holds other objects, and should be moved using a PhysicHandle

Here is an example : https://youtu.be/uHbMYRzIQE4

[odd ember]

@rough jacinth not in editor. you'll need to create complex collision in a 3D package

[burnt rivet]

what does your complex collision look like when viewing it in the mesh viewer

[rough jacinth]

It looks like the real mesh, but the complex collision is preventing physics simulation

So i will not be able to test the game in editor anymore @odd ember ?

[odd ember]

I don't know what you're asking?

[burnt rivet]

As Cranz said above you need to fix that in an external program

[rough jacinth]

I think i don't understand

[odd ember]

you need to use something like blender

or 3d studio max

[rough jacinth]

I made the model using bledner

[odd ember]

to make your collision different

collision mesh is not the same as visual mesh

[maiden wadi]

You can generate simple collision in the editor. But for Complex Collision it needs to be done in a 3d modelling app and imported with the model.

[burnt rivet]

or you can try setting use complex collsion as simple

[rough jacinth]

https://i.imgur.com/OrqxkPJ.jpg It looks good to me ?

[odd ember]

none of us know what you want to do with it

[rough jacinth]

@burnt rivet When i do this i get this message https://i.imgur.com/hstG6bf.png

[burnt rivet]

He wants to inert a cube into the hole in the front

[rough jacinth]

Yes and that works using use complex collision as simple

But then i get a message saying i can't using physics on this object anymore

[burnt rivet]

is the object set as moveable

[rough jacinth]

Yes

[odd ember]

you can always use a physics asset to override

and try that

or you might ask in #legacy-physics

[burnt rivet]

I was just about to suggest that

[odd ember]

a channel made for questions like these

[rough jacinth]

I see, i'm going to see what a physics asset is and then asks in physics if i can't get it working

Thanks to both of you

[burnt rivet]

No problem, now to find a solution to my own problem lol

[odd ember]

what is your problem

[burnt rivet]

I will attempt to describe but i may have to show you. First my control system for a twinstick works flawlessly. Now the problem, only when I rotate the character toward my AI while moving does the aim jump left or right of the Target as if a magnet was repelling it. Think of it as my character absolutely refuses to shoot the target. However this does not occur when standing still or when im not rotating toward the target. I even built in aim assist and that did not fix it.

Also I completely removed an tick functions to eliminate performance interuptions.

[maiden wadi]

Need to see your rotate towards target and aiming logic.

[odd ember]

yeah I'd need to see some logic

[burnt rivet]

simple put look at hit result under cursor -> lerp

[odd ember]

have you debugged using breakpoints?

[burnt rivet]

yes in several different ways

[odd ember]

so what did the hit result say?

[burnt rivet]

hit result of cursor, jump in rotation,

[odd ember]

but you checked you actually got a result

[burnt rivet]

indeed

[maiden wadi]

You really should just screenshot what you have. It'd be easier to read through it. Otherwise we're throwing random stuff out.

[burnt rivet]

I even set the target to ignore traces from the mouse

i set custom collision methods to ignore everything except the ground, same result

[night grotto]

I created a blueprint (BP_Object) that extends Object. I've created other child blueprints (i.e. BP_ObjectDerived1, BP_ObjectChild2)

My expectation was if I created a variable of type BP_Object on an ActorComponent, that I could then configure that component with one of the derived classes. However when I browse I don't see BP_ObjectDerived1 etc. in the drop down list.

What am I doing wrong, or what is the error in my understanding?

[odd ember]

@night grotto you'll need an instance of that object

[burnt rivet]

Ill give you a screen shot

[odd ember]

what you're trying to add is a class

[night grotto]

@odd ember Ok silly question, how do I convert a blueprint class, to an instance of that class?

or is my mental model wrogn

[odd ember]

your mental model is wrong

a class is just a schematic

[odd ember]

an instance of a class is that schematic being used dynamically at runtime

[night grotto]

ok so I have to create the instance dynamically, that makes sense

[odd ember]

@burnt rivet big big oof

huge oof really

[burnt rivet]

im listening

[odd ember]

you're setting a timer to run on its own event

that is very no bueno

[burnt rivet]

haha yah i know I was in a hurry

[odd ember]

if there's anything causing you issues, it's that

dude that's no excuse

[burnt rivet]

same result even using tick and not a time

[odd ember]

if you try and break blueprints you will break them

the same thing happens if you try and break code

there's no gain in trying to circumvent the system

I don't even think anything else is wrong

I think it's just that

you're spawning 100s of timers

but only the last one has the handle

[burnt rivet]

its fire and forget, then reset

[odd ember]

yeah but you're only resetting the very last timer

not the 100s of timers before it

the way you set it up

[burnt rivet]

timer only executes once

[odd ember]

nope

since it calls itself, you execute a new timer every 0.01 seconds

that's a little more than 1 timer per frame

that's a LOT of timers

[burnt rivet]

oh damn i was looking at it differently i see exactly what your talking about lol

[odd ember]

usually this would have been curbed by infinite loop detection, but since you used timers the code can't track it

it's not only bad because it's an infinite loop, but running the game long enough would eventually cause a memory leak

[burnt rivet]

fixed, lol doesnt solve the issue

[odd ember]

the handle has no reference this way

you can't mix execution threads with pins like this

that's another violation

[burnt rivet]

lol dammit

This advice is all find and dandy but it doesnt resovle the issue

Much appreciated fixes

[odd ember]

try visibility channel instead of camera channel

[burnt rivet]

already tried

[odd ember]

then debug it

with breakpoints

see what you get from the hit result

actually just to be sure, save the hit result as a variable

as the first thing you do

oh I forgot

another violation, you're using the controller from another event

that is likely why

[burnt rivet]

you need to see the actual issue, the controller is fed directly from the player controller

even if i replace it with a reference the result is the same

[burnt rivet]

I have attempted to resolve this 100 different ways, works on a gamepad, works without something to shoot at

[odd ember]

use get hit result on mouse aim, not on tick

because you're getting hit result more than every frame

if you get it every 0.01 seconds

[odd ember]

yeah that has nothing to do with what I showed you

[trim matrix]

Hey so I'm using a player camera manager and I'm trying to add an ads for my gun. I can successfully use set view target with blend to use the camera on the gun, but what exactly do I use if put in for the new target when I want to go back to my player camera manager. I've tried to plug in my camera manager that I made, but It doesnt do anything.

[odd ember]

the event node supplying the controller pin has nothing to do with the node using the controller pin. they don't share execution

so, a violation

PLUS

you're getting hit results more than once every frame

it's almost guaranteed that your hit result will be null

you need to get hit result directly on mouse aim, not on tick

[odd ember]

yes

[burnt rivet]

same result

[odd ember]

did you read what I wrote?

[burnt rivet]

ill set that up real quick

[odd ember]

and use visibility trace

not camera

everything visible blocks visibility traces, not everything blocks camera traces

[burnt rivet]

I noticed something you wrote, I am not getting targets with the mouse, i am only using the mouse as a look at rotation find targets is irrellevant

[odd ember]

yeah but you're using it to get actors that you want to rotate to

what if there are no actors under the cursor?

[burnt rivet]

only as an aim assist

[odd ember]

okay where is the code that does the rotational movement then, if that is not it?

[burnt rivet]

was never intended to be added

[maiden wadi]

So your ship only rotates when there's an enemy?

[odd ember]

yeah I don't even understand what you're trying to do now

was the aim assist then not what you needed help with?

[burnt rivet]

its a top down shooter twin stick

shall i screen share to show the issue?

[odd ember]

nope

[burnt rivet]

the controls work as intended exept when I try to look in the direction of a target while moving

[odd ember]

and you think this is because of the aim assist?

[burnt rivet]

no, the aim assist was used to lock the rotation onto the target if the cursor was over it.

[odd ember]

I see, so the aim assist was the branching part of it

[burnt rivet]

yes

[odd ember]

you should still have a branch and only execute rotation on hit

[burnt rivet]

if the object under the cursor had an enemy tag then use that rotation

[odd ember]

use the bool from the get hit under cursor node

and only execute if true

[burnt rivet]

rotation is set to look at result of the cursor, no matter where the cursor is the character will look at it while the aim button is down.

[odd ember]

if your cursor doesn't hit anything, impact point returns a vector 0

it'll pull you to the center of your map

[rugged carbon]

Is it possible to have input on a pawn prioritized above the player controller? Apparently "input priority" does nothing in this case

[burnt rivet]

whether i hit the floor in front or behind the target the result is the rotation jumps to the left or right of the target

[odd ember]

@rugged carbon probably not, but what is your case that you would need this behavior?

[rugged carbon]

Trying to let the player sawp between top down and third person perspective. In top down I use click to move, in tp click attacks. Causes conflict

[odd ember]

use a branch on input?

way easier

[burnt rivet]

twin stick keyboard and mouse or gamepad

the issue is isolated to using the mouse

[maiden wadi]

@burnt rivet Just curious, have you tried printing the look at rotation results to see if it's drastically changing while this glitchy rotating is happening? If that remains steady but you're still rotating heavily, it's probably the Rinterp node outputting odd values.

[odd ember]

@burnt rivet yeah but that is you thinking that you will always have a result. in reality that is not always the case. and you were complaining about being pulled around. this could easily be one of those reaosns

and what you're doing is mouse rotation

gamepad doesn't use this function

[burnt rivet]

thats what i said, its isolated to the mouse

[odd ember]

yep

so put a branch on like I suggested

and see if you still get an error

like I don't know why you're arguing

[amber marsh]

So what is the most ideal way to do a player teleport that works in multiplayer? I am getting a weird rubberband issue on clients

[burnt rivet]

no errors

[odd ember]

not errors, but like if the effect still happens

[burnt rivet]

still occurs

[zealous moth]

@amber marsh try teleport, set world transform or just spawn the player elsewhere

[maiden wadi]

How about them rotation prints?

[amber marsh]

teleport? Is that a node? hmm

[rugged carbon]

@odd ember I was thinking of using branch node, I just felt like it was a "duct tape" solution and not the proper way to do it.

[odd ember]

@burnt rivet then I'd suggest printing your location values for where you are getting pulled, like suggest by that other guy

@rugged carbon ?????????

or rotation values, sorry

but either way, understanding what your values are, are key to fixing this issue

if you're getting pulled the wrong way, then that means the game registered something that it wants to pull you towards

[zealous moth]

@rugged carbon yeah good luck with that, you will need to fix several things before you can make that work. I released a top down template with click to move to fix a UE4 bug

[odd ember]

if it's not origo, it's something else

[rugged carbon]

@zealous moth How do you mean? Everything is working smoothly in my project, both moving the character top down, and in third person. I just wanted a better way to switch

[maiden wadi]

@burnt rivet Is the Z from the look at rotation on the true of that branch wildly changing back and forth when you print it?

[odd ember]

@rugged carbon just to clarify, if you're worried about duct tape solutions, go study software architecture. a branch for a single value change in one class isn't something that will cause massive repercussions down the line

worst case, you delete it

[burnt rivet]

Let me restate some info, If i am standing still aiming works as intended no avoidance when aiming at the target. When im moving there is no jumping or distortion of the aiming when no target is present. If the target is present aiming is only affected when trying to hit the target.

[odd ember]

best case, you turn it into a camera system

[zealous moth]

the problem is that he is changing his inputs

the UE4 engine has a capture event on play that messes up the top down click to move if not set up correctly in the controller

so even if he manages with a branch, his controls will be wonky at best

[rugged carbon]

I'm not using the top down template, nor the third person one. I use my own

[burnt rivet]

@zealous moth are you speaking about my controls or someone elses?

[odd ember]

I mean if it's working for him then there's no issue?

[zealous moth]

@burnt rivet talking about expansix

[burnt rivet]

gotcha

[odd ember]

he's right to consider whether or not it's a duct tape solution or not

[zealous moth]

i am way too far down from your initial question to know

[rugged carbon]

It's just me getting stuck in my head trying to find the best way to do something since I've burned myself on subpar solutions previously

[odd ember]

it's okay to do that but don't tire yourself out if you don't actually know how to implement better solutions

plus it's always easier to get feedback on a solution than getting a solution in the first place

in the case of a single branch, it's a very low risk solution

[rugged carbon]

It's my exam so there a little extra pressure. And yeah, you're right

[odd ember]

pretty ballsy to pick a system requiring two different cameras for an exam

[rugged carbon]

Well, yeah and I'm doing multiplayer too... so I might have overshot a little, but haven't met any major problems so far

[odd ember]

oof

here's hoping nothing breaks at least

[rugged carbon]

I'm roughly 2/3 through the groundwork

[odd ember]

ah cool, so you only got 8/3rds to go 😉

[rugged carbon]

It did break once, but that was my fault for a careless delete. And, yes 8/3rds sound about right 😄

[spark robin]

How do you make a transform from floats once again?

[zealous moth]

make vector

[spark robin]

Thanks 🙂

[maiden wadi]

You can only make a transform from a vector or rotation.

[zealous moth]

you can also right click the pin and split them

[spark robin]

Also how do you like just move an actor from world location A to location B (without pathfinding) over a set amount of time?

[zealous moth]

using pathfinding 😄

[spark robin]

With what node then?

[maiden wadi]

I think you're looking for linear interpolation. There's a lot of quick tutorials on it.

[spark robin]

I know what that is

If you mean like a timeline

[burnt rivet]

https://youtu.be/lEpDeGMP5eA

took about 50 seconds of video while moving, different cursor location, rotation not aiming at the target etc.

[odd ember]

@burnt rivet it's firing at origo

in your branch from before, drag out the boolean pin from the branch, use an AND node

then pick a pin from that, write vector != and pick that node

put your impact point into that, and GetVectorZero in the other

[spark robin]

@maiden wadi Is this what you meant?

[odd ember]

can almost guarantee that yes

[spark robin]

Doesn't seem very performance friendly 🤔

Is there really no node that just lets you move an object in a straight line from one location to another?

[odd ember]

well it depends on how you use it

what is it used for?

[spark robin]

AI climbing once it hits a wall

It will happen quite frequently, and there will be quite a lot of AI

[odd ember]

if you're really worried about performance, use cpp instead of blueprint

[spark robin]

(Its a block game, so I dont need a climbing animation)

Generally Im not, but this solution worries me a bit

[odd ember]

but generally AI is among the biggest performance hogs in a game

[maiden wadi]

No node is going to do that any less performance heavy. If you want to move an object from location a to location b and do it smoothly, you have to do it a little at a time every frame.

[spark robin]

Okay

[odd ember]

all released games will have some limit on how many AI can be alive at any given time

[spark robin]

So stuff like AIMoveTo also update location pretty much for each frame as well then?

[odd ember]

yeah

[spark robin]

Huh well okay, then I guess I have no reason to be so concerned then, thanks

How would I like move an actor X distance in the direction the rotation is pointing towards?

[odd ember]

(StartLocation - EndLocation).normalized * distance

[spark robin]

Like, how would I get the location of A distance in a certain direction (The rotation output of the node in my screenshot) from location B

[odd ember]

what I gave you would be exactly that

except faster because you don't have to convert to rotation and back to direction

[spark robin]

I believe it just came to me

[flat valve]

Howdy! Is there an "elegant" way to do a conditional switch node, where I say "if X == 1, then add 3 to X, if x == 2, then add 6 to x, etc, etc

I guess, I just use "switch on INT" and call it a day.

[odd ember]

@spark robin yea that's a slower version though

@flat valve could also try a select node perhaps?

[maiden wadi]

@flat valve What is your use case?

[spark robin]

I dont get what you mean tho, how would I get the end location if not like that?

[odd ember]

you asked for direction

what you get there is direction

you have a start and a target

that's the same as a start and an end position

under the hood it's doing the same in the find look, it just converts it to rotation too

[maiden wadi]

@spark robin It's the same as what you're doing, just without the rotation conversions, keeping the math in vectors.

[hallow night]

how to i make a line like this from 1 point to another so i can spawn instance meshes?

[flat valve]

I have a list, 0-35. That list, is made of up 9 "groups" so 36 divided by 9, therefor each group consist of 4 items. When I want to say "go to family 4, I will reference item 12 on the list" . Basically I'll just do a switch and add. So.. if 4, add 8", etc, etc

[spark robin]

Oh now I get it @odd ember how would I get the distance tho?

[flat valve]

It's hard to explain, and I could do it with a long branching mess, "switch on int" should work. So if INT item is 4, I will just execute off item 4, and add 8,

[maiden wadi]

Multiply after the normalize.

[flat valve]

You guys do some cool stuff!

[spark robin]

Oh, so you just mean the distance I want to move the character, not like between the 2 locations?

[hallow night]

why don't you make a structure variable that have index and family index

[odd ember]

@spark robin the distance between the two vectors is the length of that vector. if your normalize it, it becomes a direction. you can then multiply that by an amount x to move x distance in that direction

[spark robin]

Huh okay

[maiden wadi]

@flat valve You should check out the select node like Cranz said too instead of rerouting execution. You can set your multipliers on it.

[spark robin]

@odd ember I cant say I really get it, so I have to ask, would this work then?

[flat valve]

@maiden wadi Okay, I will. I saw that and then got distracted typing up my little story! Thanks!

[odd ember]

yes

[spark robin]

Alrighty

Thanks

[odd ember]

@spark robin you used plus, you should use minus

[spark robin]

oh, yes that makes more sense

[hollow reef]

Does anyone know if theres a handy material node that'll help me get my material to react to other meshes? So if a cube comes in contact with the material a cube outline will form in it.

[burnt rivet]

@odd ember I took the idea you mentioned and it gave me a new idea. Instead of just firing forward vector i now fire the projectile at the location of the cursor, this eliminated the issue

[flat valve]

@maiden wadi @odd ember - Thanks, select node is perfect, works great!

[rugged carbon]

Are delegate bindings automatically removed along with an actor, or should I make sure to unbind before destroying something?

[zealous moth]

how can something, that subscribed to something, do anything about it if it gets destroyed?

[rugged carbon]

I'm more wondering if a binding will keep it from being destroyed

[zealous moth]

well.. try it and let us know 😛

[rugged carbon]

Ok, will do 😄

[zealous moth]

my guess is no since the 2 methods do not see each other

but since one depends on existing (subscribing) if you don't exist, your subscription is null

[thin marsh]

Hello, I have an issue for my 2D top down project, I am modeling a car with the FloatingPawnComponent
in the first part of the video, I press forward and left/right (it's working nice), in the 2nd part I release the forward key then when I left/right my car don't follow the orientation of the car, like on ice :/

Can someone tell me how to simulate the physic of my car when I release Forward?

[rugged carbon]

@zealous moth Actors are still destroyed. Still learning the ins and out of delegates, so excuse the noob-ish question 😄

[maiden wadi]

Can't be entirely sure, but I think you also need some vector math to update your movement while rotating. To 'slow' the car a little and simulate it turning. You might be able to use it's velocity with the axis value somehow to set it's movement towards it's left or right.

[thin marsh]

I tried to use AddInputVector, the only problem is that the car accelerate instead of decelerate

[strange stream]

I'm spawning a sphere to detect enemies and then a particle system which attaches to them, but I want it to only attach to X amount of enemies, and the enemies should be the ones who are closest to the character.
How do I go about doing this? I guess I need an array to make sure it doesn't attach to a enemy twice?

[maiden wadi]

You still don't have much choice other than creating a function that finds the closest five out of the array.

[strange stream]

Yea but I'm not sure on how to approach that

Working with arrays confuses the hell out of me

[maiden wadi]

Haha, better get used to it. You'll be using them a lot in programming. I can help with that though.

I have a function in a library that'll help you start.

[strange stream]

Like, this doesn't even work and I have no idea why

[maiden wadi]

Are there any AI masters in the sphere when the level is loaded? If so, you may have a collision detection issue.

[strange stream]

This sphere spawns when I press a button

AI might be in the sphere at that time yes

[maiden wadi]

Instead of spawning a brand new actor for that, there's a sort of trace node you can use instead. SphereOverlapsActors.

[strange stream]

Okay got the loop to output the names

[maiden wadi]

I strongly recommend putting together that function I posted to get the closest actor from an array. It'll save you some hassle.

[strange stream]

Now, how do I make sure only ai_masters get included in the array?

Yeah I will thanks, just need to construct the array properly

This is the closest I get

[maiden wadi]

Try this instead of overlaps. Overlaps is going to be a lot of upkeep for the array.

[strange stream]

Class filter is where I should put the ai_master?

[maiden wadi]

Yep.

[maiden wadi]

You may or may not need to change the object type, I'm not sure what collision type your AI is.

[maiden field]

i dont understand why it wont switch

obv pinning it

[maiden wadi]

Put a print before it, what is it printing?

[trim matrix]

Is there a way for me to rotate my player to face the center of my view port?

[maiden field]

i check. im running that on gamemode. with dedicated server

[strange stream]

This actually worked

[maiden field]

oh. maybe i got it

cause the server reconize the map as Entry and not as Lobby or whatever

[strange stream]

Not sure how For Each Loop works in a tick tho..

[exotic warren]

Yo bois, Does this node remove an item from the input list in project defaults or just reset the keybind to the default. The tooltip is whack
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/BlueprintAPI/Settings/RemoveActionMapping/index.html

[maiden wadi]

@strange stream Kay. You'll want that function I linked earlier. You'll want to make a second function with two local actor arrays, one of those takes your overlapped actors, then you'll want to loop the function I linked five times, when it returns an actor, you'll remove that actor from the already filled local array and put it into the second local array. At the end of that loop, you'll have a local array with five actors which you can return to do whatever you want with.

[strange stream]

@maiden wadi
Yeah, but I need it to update when a enemy leaves the sphere or a new one enters..

[maiden wadi]

Aren't you executing this on a 0.2 second timer?

[strange stream]

Yea, but I've heard a for each loop is not smart to have in a timer

[maiden wadi]

Depends on your use case. Many people abuse it for stupid means. You need to check an array often.

[strange stream]

The ability idea is:
Basicly the player enters a state where it fires a beam at maximum 5 enemies, but if they leave the sphere it needs to change to another target.
Also if I use it before any enemies are within range it needs to update as soon as an enemy enters.

If that makes sense

[dapper cradle]

Has anyone here ever made a QTE (Quick time event) In game ?

I am envisioning something coming at the player and when it gets close to the player it slows down, giving the player a couple of visual prompts that they have to do reactively in a set time,.

there would be an animation for success and failure.

getting abit more advanced, I would even like to do 2 QTE in a row, once the first is done a second begins immediately in quick succession...

would that be more of a cinematics question ?

[maiden wadi]

@strange stream Sounds like a perfectly acceptable way to use a timer. Specially at 0.2 seconds, that's not bad at all. That's not even close to tick. You're looking at 5 calls a second, tick is usually 60-120 a second.

[dry pewter]

Hello everyone.
I'm comming back to UE after a long break and i forgot how to reference pawn's variable (That are not player controlled) so i can show it's value in the HUD

Like displaying enemmy unit's Health bar and sort

I know the documentation shows how to get the player controlled pawn variables but not the others

[maiden wadi]

@dapper cradle It's pretty program based. Of course you'll need to play animations, but you also need to figure a way to do the character positioning. The rest of it is just using a widget to display the correct button to press. On press, send key to an event and if key == correct key, do something, false, do something else. And some time dilation.

@dry pewter You can get them a number of ways. A mouse click, a line trace, Overlap, collision hit events.

[dry pewter]

Just by the pawn existing on the map? they're all child of a single pawn class

[dapper cradle]

Thank you @maiden wadi ! something i hope to tackle in the coming days.

[maiden wadi]

@dry pewter Can you explain your use case a little better? Are you using a specialized widget for each enemy? Are you using a single on screen widget that switches based on a mouse click, or closeness to screen center? To help, I need to know more of what you're trying to do and how you can easily get your enemy reference.

@dapper cradle I haven't done a lot of it, but look into the sequencer. I think you might be able to make great use of that for something like that. Unsure.

[dry pewter]

Alright @maiden wadi Fisrt of all thankyou for your attention

I have a party of 4 characters the player will cycle from one to another with given keys for each one
Also in the map there are 1-8 enemmy characters
I need the HUD to show the name, health and other stats from each character (player party on the bottom, enemmy on top of the screen) such stats are stored in Variables on each character, all of them are child classes to the same pawn

[maiden wadi]

So, something like Divinity?

[trim matrix]

in 2018 there is a variable called Track. What is it called now?

[dry pewter]

I guess so, never played it but google says yes

Also i remember a workaround to this by sending the variables to a gameinstance to make the variables "golbal"?

[maiden wadi]

@dry pewter There's a lot of different ways to handle it. In Divinity battles are localized, so you'd draw a large sphere and use the ones in the local area. You could add them all to an array at level start too if you levels are small. Is your game turn based or real time?

[dry pewter]

@maiden wadi Real time, the map is large but the characters are not allways present, the player contorls the #1 in the party and when it comes to certain locations in the map the enemmies and the rest of the party Spawn in place

[maiden wadi]

In that case, you might be able to just do this stuff on enemy spawn. You could probably keep the variable in the controller, or make yourself a manager actor for it. Either way, you can make an array somewhere with the class type, and on the enemy begin play, get player controller, cast to your custom controller, and add self to enemy array.

[narrow kelp]

Does anyone know if ue4 has any input smoothing options for mouse / gamepad

i can't find any

i can make my own, but i want to see if there is something built in first

[dry pewter]

@narrow kelp Not sure if it's what you are looking for bu in Edit>Project Settings there are some settings for input and controllers

[narrow kelp]

okay so actually i misspoke

what im actually looking for is mouse acceleration

[dry pewter]

@maiden wadi Then using the gameinstance to store the array is viable?

[narrow kelp]

gamepad acceleration

you're right they have mouse smoothing

[maiden wadi]

Mouse acceleration is on by default.

@dry pewter Sure, it's doable. I might recommend game mode though unless you're never switching maps. Otherwise you're going to be needing to clear that array every time you switch maps.

[dry pewter]

I thought GameInstance was persistents beetween level loads

But yeah i might use Gamemode too

[mild pine]

Hey guys; I'm struggling with connecting some dots here. I've followed an archery tutorial and customized it to fit my needs. However, I'm struggling to cast to my Actor and reference one of it's static meshes. If anybody wants to help out, DM me and I can send images, so I don't flood this chat with screengrabs 🙂

[odd ember]

@dry pewter game instance persists above all else. game mode you can switch out dynamically, but is otherwise persistent

[dry pewter]

Thanks for the clarification

[dry pewter]

Allright it looks like i'm going the right way, managed to get one specific actor of class based on a variable, and show it's info in the widget
Thanks @maiden wadi @mild pine

[formal blade]

I feel like this should be really simple, but is there a way to stop variables from being accessed outside of the class?

I have a lot of stuff that only the class itself needs to access, and it's creating clutter when another blueprint tries to access it

[odd ember]

privatize them

as in, make them private

not as in, make the government sell them to the highest bidder

[formal blade]

I don't know why I thought that would hide it from the blueprint itself

since the tooltip set derived blueprints I thought it just mean 'don't inherit this if you're a sub-class', but looks like that also has the functionality I want, thanks!

[odd ember]

if you want it available to all derived classes (but no one else), protected is what you're looking for

[low lotus]

Why doesnt my text widget show up in graph editor as a variable?

Do i have to enable something to show it?

[inner ginkgo]

On the designer tab, there's a "Is Variable" checkbox. You need to tick it for most things that you want to show up in the graph.

[low lotus]

TY

[formal blade]

is it possible to have overlap events in screen space?

basically I need to check if an object is within a certain radius to the center of the screen, and run logic on entering that radius as well as exiting it

[inner ginkgo]

Is there a max distance in mind for this? A rather simple solution is to attach a capsule to the camera, give it the proper rotation to extend away from the camera, then give it the radius and height you want for the interaction limits.

[formal blade]

no max distance in mind

[odd ember]

@formal blade there is very limited screen space collision. I recommend setting up your own math, especially if you're looking for more complexity

[formal blade]

capsule attached to the camera seems like a better option

that way I can hook into the overlap events and make my blueprints significantly cleaner

[odd ember]

not sure what you're talking about

[formal blade]

since I'm meant to be intersecting with stuff in the world, it makes more sense to have a really long capsule attached to the front of my camera so that when the items I'm looking at overlap with that it triggers the right events

[inner ginkgo]

Keep in mind that a perspective view is going to reduce the accuracy at further distances.

[odd ember]

but what do you want to do?

generally I wouldn't recommend doing anything like that

your results will be very inconsistent

if you're just looking for the center of the screen you can project screen coordinates to world

[formal blade]

run logic upon begin overlap and end overlap when the object gets within a certain radius of the screen

that's what I was doing before but I can't hook into a begin or end overlap event there, which is what I need

[odd ember]

there isn't really any shortcut here

overlaps tick every physics tick anyway so you're not saving performance, you're just setting yourself up for some very inconsistent behavior

especially if you consider that stuff like FOV or resolution can change

[formal blade]

I'm more worried about readable code than better performance atm

I'll try it, if it sucks I'll go back to my previous method

[odd ember]

I'm just saying you're setting yourself up in a position where you are going to paint yourself into a corner

[formal blade]

only one way to find out

[zealous moth]

anyone know what this means?

[odd ember]

looks like it's in animation mode

it wants you switch animation mode in order to use the animation asset

[vocal urchin]

Is there a way to get the primitive component out of an "Actors in Selection Rectangle" node? I'm wanting to put an object outline around everything the user clicks and drags over.

I can do it just fine by mousing over it, but as I think about it, this is a little more complicated

[rough wing]

Why does my cable componenent do this? its not colliding with anything

[odd ember]

are you setting up your cable component manually @rough wing ?

[rough wing]

Yes

[odd ember]

I mean with math?

because it seems like a question best aimed elsewhere than here. perhaps #graphics ?

or perhaps #legacy-physics

[rough wing]

NvM it was colliding with something

Thanks tho

[dry pewter]

When adding a widget to screen, can i make it have an offset along X or Y axis?

[formal blade]

how would I make a collision preset that ensures colliders will only generate overlap events with another collider of that same object type?

[odd ember]

set both to overlap to each other's type

[formal blade]

I can't turn off the overlaps for the other object types though

[odd ember]

you can make a new custom collision type or channel

[formal blade]

an object channel you mean?

[odd ember]

yea

[formal blade]

oh I'm dumb, it has to be either ignore, overlap, or block, you can't just untick something lol

with the 'CollisionEnabled' parameter, if that's set to No Collision will that still generate overlap events?

[odd ember]

nope

query collision is overlap

[formal blade]

gotcha

[rose spire]

Is there a way to call a post processing volume that's in a scene in blue prints ?

[odd ember]

sure in the level blueprint

[rose spire]

how do I call it

[formal blade]

@inner ginkgo thanks for the suggestion, works great.

@odd ember thanks for the help with collision, also works great

[odd ember]

select it > open level blueprint > add reference to post process volume

alternatively,

select it > open level blueprint > add post process volume event

[rose spire]

Thank u !

I have it right now where a UI pops up depending on how mad the player is (madness). I want to change it to this ppv. Like when they're more mad, I want the motion blur to go up. I've never worked with ppv before. Is this possible ?

[stuck hedge]

If you want to have two different game modes for a map is the only way to do that by having two copies of the map? There is no way to load a level and say "load with gamemode A"?

[atomic prairie]

Hey! Is there a node for resetting conditions?

[odd ember]

@rose spire cameras have postprocess settings, you can use those instead since it's a property of the player and not of the world

@stuck hedge there probably is... in cpp

@atomic prairie that's too ambiguous, what are you trying to reset?

[atomic prairie]

I have a lot of conditions which activate gradually, after my condition R14 I want to reset to start again with my condition R11

[odd ember]

if you want to reset your logic you'll have to turn off all your variables and start again

[atomic prairie]

THANKS!!!

[trim matrix]

hey is anybody able to use GAS in combination with ALS?

[quick imp]

Hey can anyone help me? I packaged my game and everytime i open it... it just blackscreens... idk if this a package thing or blueprint thing?

[empty fiber]

Can anyone explain this behaviour?

The cube is the DefaultPawn class. A regular pawn can be jumped on fine, but for some reason the DefaultPawn bounces my character controller off of it?

[dry pewter]

@empty fiber Maybe somecapsule component for the box is colliding your character?

Question, do "get all actors of class" works only with already spawned actors? can't i get an actor that has not been spawned (a child class in my content broser) from it?

[inner ginkgo]

Get all actors of class will only work on spawned actors. What are you trying to do with your child class?

[dry pewter]

I've made a widget, and i have some variables in my gamemode blueprint,such variables are "thirdpersonpawn" as every chracter im gonna use is a child of "thirdpersonpawn", the variables are P1, P2, P3 and P4, if P1 is anything other than "nullcharPawn" (a child whose only purpose is to be a flag) then a copy of the widget is placed into the screen

i was trying to target a "nullcharpawn" but non has been spawn, so i used another methood to stop aditional widgets from appearing

[inner ginkgo]

Why not just set P1 to null?

[dry pewter]

I'm using this setup to assign the P1, P2, P3 and P4 according to the value of a variable called "ID"

IDK how could i set the variable to NULL

[inner ginkgo]

NULL, Empty and Valid are kind of interchangeable here. You just call set and don't give it a value, then it's null.

[dry pewter]

oh, didnt know that

[inner ginkgo]

However, that code you show is kind of wonky. At the point you assign P1, Array Element shouldn't be defined. Unless it is giving you the last element?

[dry pewter]

Yeah i iddn't think it'd work as i need it but i tested it iwth 3 different pawns, ID 1, ID 2 and ID3 and it worked... might be torublesome in the future

[vocal urchin]

Kinda got lost earlier, but does anyone know how to get primitive components out of an array of actors?

[inner ginkgo]

@dry pewter If I'm reading the code and intention correctly, I think what you would want to do is set P1 to nothing prior to calling Get all Actors. Then run your loop and set P1 after the True of your branch with the Array Element and break. And then remove the set after the completed.

Then for your widget logic, where that is, you check if P1 is valid with an Is Valid node.

[dry pewter]

Thanks for taking the time to do such thing! Will try those and report back

[inner ginkgo]

@vocal urchin Actors have a Get Components by Class. I'm not sure on your use-case, so at a high level, you'd probably loop through that list with a for each loop. And then call Get Components By Class, setting the class to PrimitiveComponent. You'll then need to do something with those results (which might be an empty array if that actor didn't have any primitive components).

[vocal urchin]

It's a selection box RTS-style.

Basically, as you drag over units, I want them to highlight.

[inner ginkgo]

If your method of highlighting them involves a component, then that should work.

[vocal urchin]

Like this?

Cause I'm still not able to get the array element to connect to the set render custom depth node

[inner ginkgo]

Try dragging out from the loop and creating a new one. I just tested it and it worked for me. The node you have there might be busted.

[vocal urchin]

It's actually Get Component By Class, Apparently

But good call. I'll see if this works.

[inner ginkgo]

Both should have worked. But if you only have 1 primitive, then that's the way to go.

You'll want to add some null checks, too.

[vocal urchin]

I'm actually not sure what I'll need in the end. I'm prototyping this with just cubes on the ground lol

Aaaand, it did not work.

[inner ginkgo]

Do you have primitive components on your actors? That's the suspect part for me.

[vocal urchin]

Well, they're just static mesh actors

And regardless, is there any other way to set a custom render depth aside from that note, which has a primitive component target?

[inner ginkgo]

The mesh should be a primitive. But there might be others, which is where the plural form would come in handy.

Personally, I think this is a good problem to involve interfaces and messaging with.

Create a highlight interface. Add it to any of your unit actors, then they can implement their highlight method how they see fit. And in the code you showed above, you just call the highlight interface on all of the actors you found. It'll just work for the ones that have it implemented.

[vocal urchin]

My other thought was that I could use a box line trace to do the same thing, but I absolutely could not figure out how to draw a box trace accurately, so that became a dead end.

Annoyingly, I'm able to draw two line traces in the exact positions I need - one at the click start, and then one at the click release for the drag, but I couldn't do the box.

[dry pewter]

@dry pewter If I'm reading the code and intention correctly, I think what you would want to do is set P1 to nothing prior to calling Get all Actors. Then run your loop and set P1 after the True of your branch with the Array Element and break. And then remove the set after the completed.
@inner ginkgo

Like this @inner ginkgo ? i don't quite understood what to put on the break

[inner ginkgo]

I was suggesting to keep the break on the 'true' like you had it. Although, it might not actually be necessary if only 1 object will match the ID.

Otherwise, that's pretty much what I suggested. Does it work?

[dry pewter]

At least for that part, it works perfectly, and i think it will no longer be a future problem, also yes only 1 object is supposed to match

[inner ginkgo]

Excellent. Glad to hear it.

[dry pewter]

Thanks a lot

I was googling something else but maybe you can help me with a yes/no, Can i make a blendspace with an animation that does not loop?

[inner ginkgo]

Sorry, I'm good with programming. Terrible with graphics and related disciplines.

[dry pewter]

It's ok, you've helped me a lot already

[stuck hedge]

@odd ember Turns out you just need some arguments when you load the level. MyMap?Game=/Game/GameMode/BP_FFA.BP_FFA_C this in your "open level" string will do it.

[dapper kiln]

I set an animation sequence variable and want to get that animation inside my animation blueprint and play it, but you can't plug in that variable to anim bp nodes. Am I going about this the wrong way? The animation is an aiming animation and will change based on what Weapon I have equipped. https://i.gyazo.com/b06d66d46144560be425e0311df989d0.png
https://i.gyazo.com/4c5bd8c22360b1d8a7917188b3cdf36c.png

The variable is set inside a data table for each weapon. I'm just trying to make the AnimBP play it now. Ideas?

[formal blade]

how do I pass in a delegate as an input to an event?

for example, pass in an event that will execute at some point in the called event

[inner ginkgo]

@formal blade I don't believe that you can do it with events, but you can with functions. But only in limited cases. You create a bind to event node for an existing event, then instead of creating an event for it, drag the event pin to your function input node. It should give you the option to add it as a parameter pin.

[formal blade]

yeah, I had to get around it by binding the event to a dispatcher on the thing I was calling the event for

[elfin current]

Came across a problem, hoping one of you can help sort it out. This code works for the ALS mannequin character. However, as you can see, for our characters after swapping the skeletal mesh the animBP works briefly and then freezes.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/671140338521341952/694391941865144413/unknown.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/671140338521341952/694394328897814598/CharacterSwapTest.gif

Tried setting the new master pose component but that didn't work

[inner ginkgo]

Is the animation set to loop in the anim BP?

[trim matrix]

how do i divide 2 world rotations?

[sharp juniper]

What is your goal for the operation?

[trim matrix]

i have a rotating niagara system in 1 direction (clockwise) and when i move around with my character when its attached it rotates with the character

i'm trying to negate that rotation so my character rotation does not effect it

[sharp juniper]

If you're operating in quaternions, you want the inverse. If you're operating in pitch/yaw/roll, just negate the axis/axes.

[trim matrix]

k

[sharp juniper]

You could also calculate the rotation for the niagara system using a worldspace reference, and set its rotation to that value instead of adding rotation to it, then it would orient independently of your character, attached or not

[trim matrix]

that sounds better

[elfin current]

@inner ginkgo yes, it is set to loop. It works perfectly for the first mesh with the gauntlets as you can see before the mesh swap

[atomic prairie]

Question, I'm a beginner in ue4 blueprint, I want to do a ''verification node'' and I want to hide my component only if there is a False. So i made this:

i tried to link the False with a DestroyComponent, but but when the condition becomes True again, my component does not reappear, logic.. So i tried the Set Visibility and it's perfect! But i've a lot of error ''Blueprint Runtime Error: ''Accessed None trying to read property CallFunc_SpawnEmitterAtLocation_ReturnValue10''
Do you've any idea why? or an alternative to the SetVisibility? I work on my Level BP, my target is a Spawn Emitter at Location.

[atomic prairie]

I think the problem come from my Event Tick?

[vocal urchin]

Continuing to evolve my outlining system - got it working much better now from a conceptual level and moved the outlining to the target blueprint class itself (yay). The problem now is that I am having a hard time getting them to stop outlining. I tried setting the variable and then removing that index, but that's not working. What's the trick here?

[hallow night]

why are you making an array of 1 index?

you're just changing the actor in index 0 everytime

[vocal urchin]

Because elsewhere, it can be used to select a group.

but thank you for pointing that out. I need to just add it to the array

[hallow night]

so this is what you wanted?

[vocal urchin]

No, but it did help improve it

So now I'm here

[hallow night]

if it isn't valid ( your branch ) then the cast would fail anyway

[vocal urchin]

Hmm. Well all I need to do is to see if the object that the trace is currently is the same one as before.

[hallow night]

use the ==

[vocal urchin]

But where?

[hallow night]

it will always be the last element of the array if that what you want?

[vocal urchin]

No, in the HUD I use the "Get Actors in Selection Rectangle" to do the same thing.

So potentially there could be a set of actors in the array.

[hallow night]

you can save the last actor hit in a variable and check if its == to the selected actors if it is you can cast

with the for each loop

[vocal urchin]

Would that work if I select a group?

Using the selection rectangle?

[hallow night]

i mean if the last hit actor is inside that array it should work

[vocal urchin]

Hmm, not sure where I'd put that, to be honest.

Cause it's only one trace event

it's not like there's a second trace to check and see if it's the same actor

[hallow night]

use a for loop with the array

for loop with break

[vocal urchin]

But...what does that do? Sorry if it seems like you're having to spoon feed me here, but I've never had to do this before.

[hallow night]

it checks the whole array

if there is 20 elements in an array it will fire the for loop 20 times giving you the element 1 then 2,3,4,5,6...

didn't you study java in school? its the same thing

[vocal urchin]

I understand what the for loop does, I've already been using them. What I don't understand is how adding another one is going to allow me to check the same actor in the same line trace...against itself?

To see if it's the same?

And if it's not? Then what?

It's...always going to be the same. It's the same line trace.

[hallow night]

in the branch you're checking if there is a hit or not, right? if there is no hit what do you want to happen?

[vocal urchin]

To set "Unit Can Outline" to false.

[hallow night]

to what object ?

or everything in the "selected actors"

selectable*

[vocal urchin]

I guess it's the last actor added to the array, yeah

[hallow night]

from selectable actor array drag and type get a copy

in the index drag from selectable actor array and type array length

this will give you the last actor in the array

[vocal urchin]

Ok, I can do that, but I still don't know what to check it against.

[hallow night]

you don't need to check

just get the last element of the array and set "Unit Can Outline" to false

[vocal urchin]

Off the "False" branch?

[hallow night]

yes

the first branch

[vocal urchin]

Like this?

[hallow night]

yeah is it working?

[vocal urchin]

No

[hallow night]

add a print string

and check if the variable is being set to false

[vocal urchin]

The problem is that after I've moused over, they still stay highlighted

Yeah, it's not being set to false

[hallow night]

substract 1 from the length ?

or just save the actor that you casted to in the True branch

because its saving everything you hit

[vocal urchin]

Will anything even come out of going off the false branch? I feel like it doesn't make sense in the first place, the more I look at it

idk, gonna call it a night on this one. thanks for your help anyways.

[signal cosmos]

Is there a better way of getting a data table index than that?

[hollow cape]

?

@vocal urchin You're going to get a nullref error on false. You need to use last index not length if you want the last index of the array. Length = Last Index + 1, which will be out of range

[odd ember]

@odd ember Turns out you just need some arguments when you load the level. MyMap?Game=/Game/GameMode/BP_FFA.BP_FFA_C this in your "open level" string will do it.
@stuck hedge seems hacky at best. I'd have it done through code

[stuck hedge]

@odd ember UE4 doesn't support changing the game mode at runtime, the only thing you can do is tell it to open the level with the indicated game mode. You can't open a level and then pick a game mode after it's open as far as I've read.

[odd ember]

sure but putting it in a string is just not something I would do

I'd do an asset reference at the least

[stuck hedge]

Cool, good for you

[odd ember]

it's just setting yourself up for having issues down the line. what happens if the game mode isn't present or is misspelled?

[stuck hedge]

Then you have larger issues in your game.

and it doesn't matter how you reference it, in the end, it still needs to come out the same way and be fed into the open level node the same way.

[odd ember]

that's only if you use the open level node

but having a wrapper for it is the least I'd do

just to catch anything

[verbal bolt]

How to create a BP function in C++ that accepts multiple variadic arguments list?

[odd ember]

ask in #cpp ?

[minor cliff]

so, been trying to make something for a few weeks now and i just cant seem to figure it out, but what im trying to do is make a camera movement similar to that of Zelda wind waker, where the player is moving left or right the camera will rotate on its axis

[odd ember]

@minor cliff do you have an example?

[minor cliff]

well Zelda wind waker was the only game i can think of that does this

but basically, the character will use the camera as a pivot point to run around and the camera will just look at the character

[odd ember]

if you can post a video reference I can probably help you out

[minor cliff]

https://youtu.be/b0PvJ4AWvWQ?t=32 so this video is pretty much what im looking for but this is in unity

[odd ember]

right okay, so if you create your own version of the player camera manager, you'll get a camera that is unbound from the player character

in the camera manager class there is a function you can override called BlueprintUpdateCamera or some such

that function gets called every frame and allows your camera to do stuff as you want while being untethered by the player

you can then combine this with the normal third person camera by setting the location of one camera to the location of the other

when you set the bool return value in that function to true, it'll use the untethered camera, otherwise it'll use the tethered camera

that's the basic setup

you get a few parameters in the function you can use that'll help you out

[minor cliff]

ok il try it out

[zealous moth]

Nintendo Cameras are as old and perfected as super mario 64, you will have to do lots of work to replicate it. That tutorial has some good points you can apply in unreal since both engines use litereally the same logic

[dapper cradle]

Can I ask a question about making a menu system (with widgets) in this channel or is another better ? I looked in the guide and cant really tell

[odd ember]

it's really not difficult to replicate

the way UE4 is structured makes it way easier to focus on design than on the code behind it

here or #umg is fine

[dapper cradle]

I feel like it is porbably a simple problem..

I Have looked up a tutorial for making a menu system and it has the use of a menu switcher.

problem is when i drag my widgets into it, they are all visable regardless of which is selected.

[odd ember]

oof

I'd say that's definitely more of a #umg layout issue. I have no idea about how that works

[dapper cradle]

thank you, i think i can feel a solution coming to mind actualy

[odd ember]

amazing how just mentioning a channel can do that to you

😉

[dapper cradle]

😛

[fallen karma]

Hello!

Working on a topdown shooter and i want a enemy that follows the player around and shoots at the player, but if the player gets to close it backsoff, anyone got any tips? Im thinking that i need to compare the player position with the enemy position and check if it is too close. But I realy dont know how to go about this. I've tried googling it but havent realy found a solution i can understand! Anyone can help me out a bit? 🙂

[odd ember]

many ways to do it, simplest is that the enemy follows player by default and stops only when hitting the closest range it wants to be in. a really simple way of doing it is by having a sphere volume with a radius of the distance that checks for player overlaps, and when the player overlaps, it performs the backing off functionality

[fallen karma]

Yeah i tried that using pawnsense and it seems to override the overlap if it can still see the enemy 😦

[dapper cradle]

How can I make a widget spawn at a certain place in the level for every time the level is opened ?

Just place it when im in eddit mode im guessing ?

[odd ember]

well widgets aren't actors in the world

they only exist in screen space

[dapper cradle]

I have given it an actor, so it is placeable

[odd ember]

it won't work like that though

consider that a widget needs a screen space to spawn in

you place it in the world

which screen space does it spawn in?

[dapper cradle]

https://gyazo.com/c1ad3be0432df7d48fe0a47ad6c403b5

I would say my viewport ?

[odd ember]

are you using something like a render target?

[dapper cradle]

I just attached it to an actor widget, then dragged it into the scene

[odd ember]

ah I see, like a component

placing it in the world will work, not sure how interaction works with them

interaction usually works with owners

in this case they don't have (player) owners

[dapper cradle]

Ive given my vr hands a widgetinteraction component so it seems like it now needs some BP loving

[odd ember]

oh it's VR

I don't know if there's special stuff going on with VR, might be best to ask in #virtual-reality

I was wondering why you didn't have a UI

but it makes sense

[dapper cradle]

Oh Ive learned in my journey so far, Theres not really any difference

[odd ember]

there is when it comes to screen space effects

[maiden wadi]

It's not really a VR question. It's just making the WidgetInteraction component work with the Widget Component. I had a lot of fun making world space pop up widgets a few weeks ago with those.

[odd ember]

I don't know that widget interaction component exists outside of VR

[maiden wadi]

Well, if it doesn't, I am hacking something. Was using it with a mouse. I can't even open a VR template because it'll crash my editor. No VR equipment. XD

[odd ember]

I see in the doc there is documentation for using it outside, but I've never seen this before if I am honestly I'd say it was created for VR use really

otherwise in most cases you can handle all of that outside of VR through screen space projections

like with 3D menus

that is impossible in VR though

yes it is:

[maiden wadi]

Dunno. It works amazingly well attaching it to an FPS pawn with it's orientation matching the camera. Didn't even feel hacky, it just worked.

[odd ember]

I mean the point is they wouldn't have made this if there was a different way to access it

[supple steeple]

Hey sorry if i'm interrupting, I've got a question where i cant find the answer to, how would I access the Camera rotation and the capsule of the playercharacter's rotation in a playercontroller? 😅

[zealous moth]

get controlled pawn

[odd ember]

get control rotation && get controlled pawn -> get actor rotation

[zealous moth]

cast to it

[dusk dust]

How can I make a procedural cube with an adjustable resolution? I want to normalize it to make a cube sphere

[supple steeple]

im sorry big noob here, how exactly?

[odd ember]

@supple steeple those are functions in the player controller

[supple steeple]

yeah ive got those but how do you refer to the camera of the player and the capsulecomponent?

😅

[odd ember]

@supple steeple I told you

find those functions

[supple steeple]

are those functions relative to the world?

or to itself?

[odd ember]

you asked for the player controller

I gave you functions for the player controller

[night grotto]

Question about blueprint function libraries:

I have a blueprint BPObject that is a child of Object. It doesn't seem to be able to access functions in my library. Other blueprints can. This makes me sad as I like having a light-weight parent.

What determines whether or not a Blueprint can access blueprint function library functions?

[supple steeple]

okay let me rephrase cuz i really dont get any of this, im sorry, but im trying to get this part exactly, so not sure if i asked the right thing...

[odd ember]

@night grotto objects don't like blueprint function libraries. you'd have to derive your own class in cpp from object and allow it to access BP function libraries

@supple steeple maybe try the functions I gave you

[night grotto]

oh great I can do that Cranz, thanks!

[odd ember]

@night grotto I recommend you look at what game instance does to allow function libraries, perhaps it is as simple as being as UCLASS() or some such. not entirely sure what the mechanic for it is

[night grotto]

thx

[supple steeple]

It's kind of working now, still doing crazy weird things that ill have to look into, thanks @odd ember sorry again 😅

[dapper cradle]

What Is the easiest way to make a Widget menu switch between sub menus (But preesing the options button, change to options widget etc..)
Im watching Tut's on this and its rather confusing, I already have all my menus made

https://youtu.be/lXrK2ywouX8

I have been following and trying to addapt this Tut but its not going well.

[odd ember]

well you're doing stuff that is rendered in the world

so it's different

[maiden wadi]

@dapper cradle WidgetSwitcher is probably the easiest way I know of. Just need to change one value and bam, new menu. Assuming your menus are of generally the same size or can occupy the same space. Full menu switching is easily doable too, just means more work associating buttons with which panels to hide or show.

[dapper cradle]

Thank you @maiden wadi that is used in the tut I just watched, the problem is i cant figure out how to program it so i can click individual buttons, leading to their respective menus.

[odd ember]

each button should have a set of events, one of which is called something along the lines of "OnClick"

[dapper cradle]

as an example
I migh select "Skill support from the menu" that leads to choose equipment, of 5 pieces I choose "Floor" ( I was hoping this next menu would be a panel menu filled with all the skills for the floor)
the skills will be chosed from their which will spawn in their characters/animations.

Yes, they do, ON click will work great for me if i can use it to close the current menu and open the next.

[maiden wadi]

In your Widget designer, your menus should be the direct children of the switcher. On button click, set widget switcher's ActiveWindowIndex.

Er, ActiveWidgetIndex even.

[dapper cradle]

should i be able to highlight/select individual buttons from the widget switcher ?

because i cant, so i cant bring up a on clicked event

[odd ember]

you probably need event dispatchers

that are set up from the widget switcher

so that when a child's specific button is clicked, that information is passed to the widget switcher

but I don't know

just sounds that way

[maiden wadi]

Yeah, wasn't sure how to explain that one. I just know how to do it, not the terminology.

[odd ember]

honestly if you're doing stuff in the world just spawn each menu in an individual space next to each other

you don't really need to switch since you've got plenty of real estate

[dapper cradle]

Well the area that i need the menus to occupy is very small

[odd ember]

is that a restriction you set yourself?

[dapper cradle]

Ill show you a screen shot

I have modeled my work place, there is a small areas that us coaches stand when we are watching the floor, I really want the menu in that space

with the blue outline

the animations for floor moves will play here on the red floor

[odd ember]

usually you build your space last since then you know how much size you need for everything

in this case I'd suggest trying the event dispatchers if you don't have the real estate

[dapper cradle]

sorry, i know it sounds awquard, but i modelled it as true to real life as possible

[odd ember]

yeah no such thing in games

the camera you have in game doesn't correspond to real life, so the metrics won't either

[dapper cradle]

well, when i turn on VR preview it feels acurate to actually being at my work place

kind of surreal

[odd ember]

for interactive elements in you case it would make sense, but for the general space it could be anything you wanted it to, within reason

anyway just saying you could give yourself some leeway so you wouldn't end up bottlenecking yourself

you have options either way

[opaque blade]

Can you enable complex collision for a single static mesh component 🤔 ? Or does it have to be asset-wide ?

[spark steppe]

how would i abstract something like camera stuff from the player character?

i've tried to make an actor which spawns a spring arm + camera, but wasnt able to use the spawned camera

(and attached that actor to my player)

[exotic warren]

Bois, Why are these array indexes jumbled each time

Like I wanna get the index at 0 and set that to scale 1 everytime

and then index 1 set to scale -1

but it's getting the wrong keys per axis because the indexing isn't consistent? :/

[opaque blade]

@spark steppe you could use Set View Target (player controller function) to set the camera to your custom spawned camera, or look into CameraManager from the player controller.

basically the cameramanager spawns the camera on possession iirc

[spark steppe]

i've tried that, but theres no way to pass the spawned camera to set view target

huh, but how does the top down example has cameras in it? i thought they are used actually

it shows fine in the viewport/editor, but as soon as i start the game i'm stuck on the shoulders of the player

[opaque blade]

what is the second sreenshot below it looks nothing like your character above it

[spark steppe]

thats only the "camera actor"

[opaque blade]

your character has 2 capsules around it, the spring arm traces so it doesn't clip into walls

yeah don't give it a capsule

[spark steppe]

but that was my intention

to have the camera in my camera actor, which i can then put on different characters

[opaque blade]

your characters capsule is blocking the camera

if that is what you intended then it works as expected

@spark steppe this works fine for me

[spark steppe]

oh, so the spawned camera has a collision, too?

[opaque blade]

you use the spring arm and it has a capsule probably you inherit from Character which is unnecessary
use a blank actor

[spark steppe]

whats the parent of your class?

[opaque blade]

Spring arm traces collision from pivot to attached objects by default and adjusting the length so it "automatically" prevents clipping into walls or other objects

whats the parent of your class?
@spark steppe AActor

[spark steppe]

yea that gives me another result, looks like something i can play more with

thank you

[opaque blade]

but it's getting the wrong keys per axis because the indexing isn't consistent? :/
@exotic warren Get once and store in a variable

[exotic warren]

What do you mean?

[zealous moth]

how are you building your array? on the fly or static?

[exotic warren]

On the fly, It litterally just getting these values

[spark steppe]

ohhh, set view target just moves the camera to whats passed as new view target

so it doesnt really use the camera that i've constructed in my actor

[exotic warren]

But like you would think it would make the arrays like this

But it doesn't it just gets them in a random order

[spark steppe]

wait it uses the camera.. it just ignores the spring arm

[trim matrix]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB_YSTRe5P4

Why the weapon's plane is jittering when I just turn ?

Is there a way to fix that ?

I hate these small annoying details, it prevent me to continue my projects...

[spark steppe]

ah i figured out, the actor itself collides, neither the camera or the spring

but i cant disable collision for it

[solemn dagger]

hello, is there any way to make a mesh that will work like a mask ? for example if i have a terrain and want to place a pool how to make the terrain mesh hollow ?

[spark steppe]

can i disable the collision for Actor A with Actor B?

or is it self colliding if actor b is child of actor a?

[keen goblet]

@solemn dagger You could make a simple vertex-painting system where your material turns the vertex colors into spatial offsets, meaning the vertices you paint would sink down. There's a tutorial where that's implemented w/ snow that sinks where a character steps on it, but I can't find that :/

[solemn dagger]

alright sounds interesting i will google it

[frigid salmon]

hey - do you know of anyway of having a "static" BP class? or do you know if the factory pattern to spawn various items works well in BP?

I tried doing the following but new object from class doesn't seem to work if said object is an actor

And I wouldn't make the factory an "actor" but if I make it an object I can't seem to access "spawn actor" inside it

^ the ss above is in the gamemode btw

[keen goblet]

@frigid salmon Unsure how ConstructBPFromClass works. Will SpawnActorFromClass do what you want?

[versed sun]

shouldnt in construction script

[frigid salmon]

@keen goblet I don't have access to it

shouldnt in construction script
@versed sun oh, I seem to have access to it in the event graph, did not know that

[versed sun]

yah , spawning actors in construction script is bad, because it updates every time something changes

[frigid salmon]

ok, got it

what about the idea of a factory pattern in BPs, any experience with it?

[versed sun]

whats factory pattern? maybe i call it something else

procedural generation ?

[frigid salmon]

kinda

[odd ember]

what are you trying to make

that requires a factory

[frigid salmon]

it's a class who's responsibility is to "spawn" items

an items system

[odd ember]

that's vague

[glacial oar]

Hello, I'm new to UE and have a problem with control rotation, it works with main player but not with IA pawn, anybody got an idea ?

[frigid salmon]

@odd ember trying to send you a diagram in DM if you'd gladly accept ^_^

[odd ember]

@glacial oar control rotation means the rotation that the player controller uses

[versed sun]

i think AI always are rotated 1,0,0

[odd ember]

so your AI won't have that control

@frigid salmon ah man can you post it here?

I don't do DMs if I can avoid it

[frigid salmon]

fair enough

[odd ember]

it's for your benefit

[glacial oar]

So basically this will only work with main player?

[frigid salmon]

the lines before the view / business layer represent communication - nothing UML

[frigid salmon]

I was thinking that would be a decent architecture for a items / inventory system

[odd ember]

@frigid salmon you don't really need a factory separately for that

[frigid salmon]

then what approach would you take?

[odd ember]

even the inventory would have to be a component class, not an actor

[frigid salmon]

yep, the inv is a component

[odd ember]

seeing as you're stuck with UE4s EC(but not S) use entity component relations

spawning is relatively secondary

storing is primary

you also can't write to data tables

only read them

[frigid salmon]

yep - I know

[exotic warren]

can to Data Assets tho 🙂

[odd ember]

other than that it looks fine

[frigid salmon]

might change that DT in the future tho

[odd ember]

inventory slot is also not a subclass, it's an array most likely

ideally you would want a heap

but take what you can get

technically TArray does have heap functionality

but it's not BP exposed

[frigid salmon]

a heap would help with sorting, what else tho?

[odd ember]

retrieval

[maiden field]

theres a way to remove all spaces before a string?

[frigid salmon]

since adding is O(log(n)) instead of O(1)

hmm

[odd ember]

if you're boggled down with performance I'd recommend doing it in cpp

[exotic warren]

@maiden field trim

[frigid salmon]

ok but would you still suggest on having some class / component to extract info from the DT / DB?

[maiden field]

@maiden field trim
@exotic warren what it does exactly?

[exotic warren]

@maiden field exactly what you said

[frigid salmon]

I don't really care a lot about performance, the other person I'm working with does a bit and he is stuck with BP - just trying my best in those constraints 🤣 - but yeah will use an array

[odd ember]

you also don't really want separate widgets like that, but rather store icon data in the DT then use retrieval for the widget as well

[exotic warren]

@frigid salmon what's the scale of your game?

[frigid salmon]

I was having doubs about that slot thing

[odd ember]

your equipment icons are just arrays of textures

[frigid salmon]

he did make part of it, got it working - including the widgets. I'm trying to refactor as little as possible

[odd ember]

a single widget will do as a container for the slot, then a slot widget that can be populated with icons

all managed by the container widget

[maiden field]

@maiden field trim
@exotic warren the problem is the output of the string is:
<html>
<body>

and here the result. < that can be a lot of things:

i just want to remove
<html>
<body>

and also that space

[exotic warren]

@maiden field use replace them

[frigid salmon]

yep, that's what I would do - he split it into 2 since 1 in the actual inventory and the other one is the view where you have the character behind, the slots are manually put etc.

[exotic warren]

and replace <html> with nothing

[frigid salmon]

I'm not trying to remake that part, just trying to get all the logic in one place and separate it as well as possible

[exotic warren]

@frigid salmon how big is your scale, and why do you need to use a database for items

[velvet viper]

yo, can someone help me out with implementing an addforce to my player while he wall runs? I want to mimic something seen in SM2 where the player can wall run, but the force is exponentially determined by the player's velocity - I'm not struggling with the actual wall running logic, just the add force logic I would need to achieve a similar effect

https://youtu.be/OF5dQN9dLAc

[maiden field]

i try

[odd ember]

it's good future proofing

to use data tables

[frigid salmon]

@frigid salmon what's the scale of your game?
@exotic warren I'd say too small for this but using it as a learning oportunity as well so meh - expecting @ 50 items

[odd ember]

projects become extremely scalable with them

[exotic warren]

@frigid salmon then don't use Data Table

[frigid salmon]

it's a combination of learning + helping someone make a game

[exotic warren]

Use Data Assets

They are much better imo for item data

[odd ember]

right

what exactly do they provide?

[exotic warren]

Here's the data for my weapon structure

[frigid salmon]

I was thinking about using some sort of DTO so I can separate the database with the rest of the game

[exotic warren]

It's based on the general item structure

[frigid salmon]

so then I can just switch between DT / data asset / mongo whenever I feel like it

[exotic warren]

So each item can just be a new data asset

I would say don't bother with Data Tables for this

[odd ember]

you can import DT assets from .csv

[exotic warren]

Data Assets much more powerful

[odd ember]

if you're so inclined

more powerful but less scalable

[frigid salmon]

I'd say both of them have pros and cons

[exotic warren]

and from jason

[odd ember]

or idk, the information remains the same

it's just data

[exotic warren]

Data Asset can also import from JSON / CSV

if you want to

And no it's not

You can base Data Asset on a blueprint class

so it can include code

Data Table is just raw tables

[frigid salmon]

well I wouldn't want my code sitting with my data together

I'm trying to separate them

[odd ember]

it's just a different way of doing it

[exotic warren]

Yes

[frigid salmon]

yep

[exotic warren]

So what you should do

[odd ember]

you're going to use the data to fill out the same blueprints anyway

[maiden field]

snaps

you saved my life

xD

[exotic warren]

Or atleast what I do is have have components based on UObject

and then I create them on the actor

or you can just use actor component

whatever works for you

[maiden field]

😎

[exotic warren]

and then you set in the Data Asset which component you use

So all the code for your item is self contained

for example here

[odd ember]

not sure why the code wouldn't be self contained otherwise

[exotic warren]

This is where I define my Weapons script

[odd ember]

it's just a different way of writing it

[exotic warren]

Yeah i'm not saying you have to use this way, I'm just telling you as it might be helpful

I've built these kind of systems lots of times and this is the best i've discovered

as it's super mallable, You can make the item do whatever you want

and it's not restricted in place to predefined code

[odd ember]

I reckon if we factored performance into it data assets would come out more expensive. they seem to be made in the case you have a few items that are well polished, as opposed to an item system

[exotic warren]

and doesn't need to load anything it doesn't need

[odd ember]

likewise importing data assets mean you'll have to save data assets

you don't have that with data tables

just saying

[frigid salmon]

ok, I will check Data Assets out aswell but other than that, how does that architecture look? Would you still have some sort of a DTO between the data / items or just make the items construction retrieve their data from the DB directly. if going for the first approach, would some sort of a "static" DTO instance on the game mode be a good idea?

[exotic warren]

They are slightly more expensive but they are way better at doing this kind of thing imo

[frigid salmon]

as it's super mallable, You can make the item do whatever you want
@exotic warren I'll check it out and play with it - but trying to take it one step at a time. The game I'm working on has only pretty much melee weapons with nothing special

[odd ember]

I wouldn't run anything like this on the game mode

[frigid salmon]

then where would you put it?

[odd ember]

use it as a subsystem

[frigid salmon]

a subsystem of the playercontroller?

[exotic warren]

I just have an actor "ItemBase"

Or "WeaponBase"

That constructs the component from the data

and sets all the variables on begin play

[odd ember]

subsystem is a separate paradigm you can invoke @frigid salmon

[frigid salmon]

that's what I'm trying to avoid - but it might not be a bad idea to do so

[exotic warren]

and then you just spawn that actor in and tell it the component on spawn

[odd ember]

it mimics some of the functionality from the missing S of UE4's EC

[exotic warren]

Why are you trying to avoid it

You only need to do it once

You make an item base that just constructs your custom code

and then for things like weapons that work a bit differently

you make a child base of item

[frigid salmon]

I have that

[exotic warren]

None of the code goes in those base classes

it goes in the components that get constructed

[odd ember]

generally the base of any item shouldn't be responsible for handling code for that item

[frigid salmon]

I'm just trying to not make them access the database to setup themselves

[odd ember]

a manager should

then we get back to an itemManager, which is pretty much a factory at that point

[exotic warren]

@odd ember why?

[frigid salmon]

good SOLID principles

[odd ember]

because it would imply you need to know what the data points to before you read the data

[frigid salmon]

you want the item to be the item - that's it's own responsability

it shouldn't care about where the data for "making" it comes from

[exotic warren]

It doesn't?

[frigid salmon]

if I change the datatable and link it to a SQL database later, I shouldn't have to change anything in my items

[exotic warren]

It's litterally a plugin data asset

Oh you want SQL

You mean you need to store the instanced actor states into SQL?

So like say for example an item like a weapon

you save ammo ect into SQL?

[frigid salmon]

@odd ember You mentioned something about subsystems, I'm not entirely sure what those are in unreal and if I can make one using BP only (as I mentioned earlier I'm a bit stuck to BP only)

[odd ember]

oh you can't make them in BP

[frigid salmon]

@exotic warren maybe, or maybe in a mongoDB or maybe in a csv

[odd ember]

but you can expose their functionality to BP

[frigid salmon]

I can't go in cpp sadly

[odd ember]

ah

that's unfortunate

[frigid salmon]

this is more of a "how can I do all this in blueprint only"

yep

[odd ember]

DT is still the "cleaner" solution

[frigid salmon]

maybe I should use the gameInstance to keep the manager/factory?

[exotic warren]

Hmmmm