blueprint

[brittle fiber]

haha youtube is outranked

@elfin inlet

[olive sedge]

@elfin inlet I see.. I just can't figure out how to get this to work. My Manny just collapses and spazzes 😆

[elfin inlet]

@olive sedge come VC and lets talk about it

i'm sure we can help

[olive sedge]

Can't right now but in an hour or so maybe

[chrome quiver]

I have a top down camera, you can rotate it's spring arm by 45 degrees left or right. I want to have this rotation happen over the course of a couple of seconds. I've tried timelines and RInterpTo as forums recommend but can't get them working. Any recommended way to accomplish this?

[turbid rapids]

any suggestion?

[chrome quiver]

@turbid rapids You only need it for specific edges right? Maybe just put an invisible collider at the edge that shows the icon when player is within. I also haven't played the games though :P

[turbid rapids]

No I want a method for every edge of models in the scene
I saw this method in a tutorial but not only it's not optimized also if there be a lot of building it'll be too hard to put a collision in any edge

[maiden wadi]

@olive sedge For an AI to move somewhere, it just needs to be a Pawn or Character class, and have an AI controller possessing it. Most pawns placed in level are auto possessed, if you spawn it from blueprint make sure you use SpawnAIFromClass and not SpawnActorFromClass. Pawn also needs to have a movement component, Character comes with one by default. If you have that set up, you also need a NavMeshBoundsVolume in the level. If you have one, press P while in the editor and it should turn green where your AI will be able to move. Assuming all of that, you just need to call AIMoveto with a valid location that the AI can reach and it'll move there. The movement does not require a blackboard or behaviortree, both of those are for more complex AI.

@chrome quiver The only way to have that happen over a time distance is via Timelines/Tick/Timers. In your case, not timers. Do you want to allow full 360 degree movement, but only 45 degrees each button press?

[chrome quiver]

Yes that's correct.

Like Don't Starve if you've played that

RotateCameraRight shows what I'm currently trying (and is def not working, lol)

This vid show's what I'm going for, should start at 3:28

https://youtu.be/kXNwZ16zCCM?t=208

@maiden wadi

[maiden wadi]

Still depends on a few factors. Do you want consistent movement like disallowing another button press until the camera is finished rotating, or would you prefer if say.. two button presses would move 90 degrees, but faster?

[fair sun]

Does this return velocity in local or global space?

[chrome quiver]

Just one per, but it might be nice to move back the other direction mid rotation, and have it stay on the snapped 45 degree angles

[maiden wadi]

@fair sun Velocity will be a length vector relative to 0,0,0, but it's relative to global space. Not compared against the velocity of anything else so to speak.

[fair sun]

thanks

[dusty ibex]

is it possible to set exponential fog's Fog Height Offset from Blueprints?

[hollow drift]

how can I send information from a bool to another bp

this seems not to work. the object is an actor

[maiden wadi]

@chrome quiver I find this worked pretty well. Could suit until you find something better. Could also break it apart a little with some extra events/functions.

@hollow drift What does PuzzelBlockRef point to?

[hollow drift]

to an actor

idk what to point to

[maiden wadi]

Have you set it anywhere?

[chrome quiver]

Gonna try it now 👌

[hollow drift]

yes

where i am casting to

[maiden wadi]

You're not setting it there. You're getting it. If you haven't set it anywhere, it'll be pointing to nothing, and you can't cast nothing to something.

[deep elbow]

hello, i have a variable in BP_01 that is being updated and set from BP_02. the var is set to RepNotify in BP_01 but that isn't being triggered. any ideas why that would be the case?

[maiden wadi]

@deep elbow It's for sure being set on the server?

[deep elbow]

It's actually single player, I'm just trying to pass on some info when the var gets updated. If i update the var directly in BP_01 the notify gets triggered, just not externally

may be using notfy in an unconventional way and should change how that is updated

[maiden wadi]

Ah, if I recall right something stops OnRep from being used in singleplayer reliably. I'd honestly just make yourself a function to call when you want to set the variable. The function can set it and do what you need. For example, in BP_01 just make yourself a function with the property type as an input, and set it in the function, and do whatever you're doing in the OnRep.

[deep elbow]

yeah i've just made that change and it works as expected, thanks for the help!

[spark bridge]

Hello ladies and gentlemen. A smol question if I may.

Is there any way for Unreal Engine to NOT compile all blueprints at startup?

Thanks in advance!

[supple night]

Hey, anyone has an idea why FInterpTo would interpolate up, but not down?

I'm using it to smoothly set a progress bar's progress. setting it to e.g. 0.5 works fine, but setting it to 0 (while the current value is 0.5) won't do anything. in theory it should interpolate down from 0.5 to 0

[deep elbow]

looks like it, my brain too slow to see anything wrong with that

[supple night]

yea its weird

[deep elbow]

it IS getting updated to 0 right, like

[maiden wadi]

That should work perfectly fine as long as ProgressTarget is definitely 0.00

[supple night]

It is, I'm calling it with 0.0 to reset the bar

[maiden wadi]

Can you disable anything calling the SetProgress, and start your progressbar at 0.5, and let the tick run with default values on the Target at 0.0?

If that works, it might be probable that something is affecting your ProgressTarget.

[supple night]

yea running it in the sandbox works

oh let me check a thing

yep that was it

stupid me was recreating the widget everytime, so the progress bar theoretically was updating right, I just didn't see it because everytime a new bar got overlayed

[deep elbow]

boom

[maiden wadi]

Been there done that.

[supple night]

Thanks! Sometimes a simple push in the right direction is enough 😉

[thorny cedar]

can somone help me with Physics?

i spawn an object and lerp it from left to right, then stop the lerp and active set simulate phys, but nothing happen :/

this seems to do the job, if i spawn the object with physics on the physics are active :/

[chrome quiver]

@maiden wadi Thanks a ton! Really appreciate you even showing me the blueprints needed, was hard trying to figure it out on forums. I didn't add the StopRotating function as I didn't know what you had in it, but it works just fine without it it seems.

[maiden wadi]

Ah. I forgot to finish that. Was supposed to close the tick gate when the rotation reached the right point.

[odd ember]

can you double check that your physics are actually set to active when you're doing it after the lerp?

[thorny cedar]

will do that

Î activate it right before i grab my cube

when my Interactor overlaps the cube it stops lerping

[thorny cedar]

got it working made a mistake when copy paste and forgot to edit the static mesh component names

[modern root]

So I'm getting a super weird behavior within Unreal Blueprints

I have two rotators, LastRot and CurrentRot (Last and current rotation of the pawn) - and I'm tracking the different between each frame to calculate the rate of change

if I do it manually, I can save it as a variable and read that variable anywhere in my blueprint. However if I pass it through a Delta (Rotator) to normalize it first, and save it as a variable it shows up as 0 everywhere except within the function it's being processed.

I've logged the Delta, and the Rotator both in and out. And it only doesn't save the variable if it hits the Delta (Rotator) function - even though printing the results of the Delta() is good, and even printing the variable being set comes good. As long as I print it in the same function, any other function returns 0

[earnest tangle]

Show a screenshot of your graph, otherwise kinda hard to say

[modern root]

Green is outside the function, blue is inside

[marble tusk]

What does the function look like?

[modern root]

The top screenshot is the function

[earnest tangle]

That's peculiar... you sure "Rot Test" is not a local variable? Not sure what else could cause that 🤔

[modern root]

I did check, but regardless of what variable I set if it runs through the Delta it doesn't work outside the function scope

I even tried breaking it and setting each as its own individual float variable, same result

if I just do CurrentRot - LastRot and save that to the same variable, it works

[tight schooner]

Why is your blue colored print showing up twice with different numbers vs your green colored one?

It's like you're running that function twice, and it finds a delta of 0 after the second run

[modern root]

I think it's the preview instance

but that's a good question

[maiden wadi]

You're sure you don't have a third printstring somewhere?

[modern root]

blah

Looks like I'm calling it twice

yeaaaahhhhh. That fixed it. Thanks guys!

[hollow drift]

@maiden wadi sorry did not respond. I had to set up a ganestatem then i could cast properly 🙂

[lusty escarp]

Hey, Not sure if this is the right place to be asking this, so hopefully someone can show me where. I am using the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction category instead of the Games one (not sure if that makes a difference). When playing the level, the screen is white and fades in, How can i remove this fade? I don't have a Post process volume in the world and there isn't a camera on the pawn

[maiden wadi]

@lusty escarp Unless it's something specific, there's a chance it might be exposure. You might try simply adding in a PostProcess volume, setting it to infinite extents, and turning the exposure up and down speeds way up.

Besides that I'm unsure. Never used anything but Game.

[lusty escarp]

@maiden wadi ah yes, setting the speedUp to 100 completely removes the white fade

Cheers

[maiden wadi]

@trim matrix How do you mean?

More specifically, what kind of vectors are they, and what are you trying to do with them?

Most people just call those two with AddMovementInput separately. Though if you still need the vector math, I would assume that adding them together, dividing them by 2, and then getting the unitvector from 0,0,0 to the new vector would give you the correct facing vector.

Vector with a length of 1.0

Facing vector, or normalized direction vector.

Something like this, I imagine would get your correct unit vector to the front right of the character.

[tight schooner]

Wouldn't there be cases where adding two vectors results in different vector lengths?

I'm no math whiz but I'm thinking like if one vector was 270 deg rotated from the other

It'd probably add up to a length less than 2?

If that's the case you'd have to re-normalize the result

[odd ember]

it would but forward and right vectors come prenormalized

and the length would be exactly 2

[tight schooner]

Does a vector of 1,1,0 have a length of 2?

Or like... 1,0,0 + 0,1,0

[maiden wadi]

Can think of it more like this.

If red is forward, green is right. Orange dot is added then divided by two. Purple is the new unit vector.

[river seal]

quick question about function calling. how can I call a function which exists in several actors but another actor/BP decides which actor will be called. (hope i am explaining it right)

[odd ember]

yes

[tight schooner]

"UE4 Blueprint is the only scientific calculator I know how to use" struggle life

If I'm wrong then there's something I'm fundamentally misunderstanding

[maiden wadi]

@tight schooner Actually a vector of 1,1,0 has a length of just under 1.5

[odd ember]

yeah I forgot that the distance formula actually makes it the square root of 2

[tight schooner]

but yeah if you add normalized vectors you have to renormalize it AFAIK

cuz the result will have a different length

@river seal Are you asking how to do that without a chain of cast-to nodes for every class?

If the classes (can) share a common parent class, then you can cast to the parent class and all the child classes will inherit that behavior

If they're disparate BP classes, you can have them implement a Blueprint Interface

[river seal]

oh! parent class sounds interesting, if I understand correctly what you mean. will give it a quick try and let you know. thx 🙂

[wooden rapids]

Hello is there a limitation of using Play Montage , after using multiple Play Montage in my Characters Blueprint some of my Action Events or Animation for Attacking doesnt work , the funny thing is if i remove 1 of the Play Montage its gone work , overall i have maybe 8 pieces of Play Montage , does anyone have the same conflict?

[tight schooner]

yeah, the premise is the parent class has the function, then you can cast to the parent and call that function. All the child classes will inherent that function (but each child class can override the behavior if desired). And in that way, the manager actor doesn't need to know about every single child class it's talking to.

[gusty shuttle]

You guys have any tips to not have any texture bleeding?

[tight schooner]

@gusty shuttle looks like a #graphics question

[gusty shuttle]

I already posted there man, I figured I would open the question up to more people

Why? Because I am irrational and pissed that my texture import is doing wacky things haah

[tight schooner]

not my area of expertise but if your texture map has a blue BG for the unused areas

maybe your texture map needs a larger skirt around the textured areas

so that when UE4 makes MIP maps it doesn't blend the background

that's my guess as to what's happening

[gusty shuttle]

Yeah, I know I made my UV's too small, it's a 4k texture, tried to jam as much as I could on it. But I mean, wtf does UE4 do to make it bleed. I tried no mipmaps, tried other texture settings in ue4 and still, it bleeds

https://tenor.com/view/justice-league-bizarro-not-superman-superman-joss-whedon-gif-17800743

UE4 to my texture^

[odd ember]

clearly #blueprint is the correct place to ask

[wooden rapids]

Overall if imported Model to U4 from Blender , and if i change before the Uv`s scale in Blender , it doesnt import correct in U4

[gusty shuttle]

@odd ember If you know the answer, let's move the convo to Graphics then 😉

[odd ember]

I don't

that's why I'm not active in graphics

[wooden rapids]

Hello is there a limitation of using Play Montage

[odd ember]

goes without saying that people with appropriate expertise hang around the appropriate channels

[wooden rapids]

i wrote above but no one answer

[gusty shuttle]

Aye, fair enough, no need to get snippy @odd ember

[stray island]

Hi , I am trying to change the main player actor to change the main actor to a selected other actor

Whats the best method? Changing meshes? This would require changing many character attachments

If i want to change change an actor to its child actor , what should i do ? Spawn ? Or what method

[trim matrix]

I am new to Unreal Engine and am currently looking at tutorials. But I have a problem that I can't find this Defualts window anymore because the tutorial is old.
I'm using UE4 2.25.4

[tight schooner]

isn't that icon somewhere in your toolbar?

[stray island]

I think it used to be under blueprints?

[trim matrix]

I cant find it

And "Class Defaults" is not the right one

[stray island]

Class defaults?

Then what window are u trying to find

3d view?

[trim matrix]

like this windows

this is class defaults and its not the right

[stray island]

Window > details?

[tight schooner]

it is the correct window though

[stray island]

Ya class defaults should be the one

[tight schooner]

In your previous screenshot dude typed "wheel" into the search box, which limits the view to just the wheel stuff

[trim matrix]

I already got the other one but I don't know how I did it

[trim matrix]

yeah ik

[stray island]

Defaults , or class defaults is dependent on your blueprint so maybe the one you’re editing doesn’t have the options you want?

[trim matrix]

It's a normal Blueprint

[stray island]

What option exactly are u trying to find

[trim matrix]

I want to know how to open this tab

[odd ember]

you can open that tab

in version 4.4

or thereabouts

[trim matrix]

yeah but how in 4.25

[odd ember]

it doesnt exist as a separate tab

[trim matrix]

hey guys I already have my save load system, I just need to implement a system that will save the location of the objects in my map, and if we destroy them and then save the destroyed objects remain destroyed, you can make a special offer for that. **I don't know where I should say **it but if you can help me in voice / teamviewer to do that.

I obviously pay for the support and help.
I've been stuck for several days, with the docs I'm lost.

[stray island]

This is probably some car blueprint? If you have some default car in your project open it and press class defaults or click car movements , sorry never dealt with cars

[odd ember]

you will most likely need c++ to implement that @trim matrix

[trim matrix]

Wait i'll send link and time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ariPx6M33o&t=189s 12:38

@odd ember someone tell me we can with bp save (struct), i have learn but its not possible for me :/

[amber marsh]

for some reason I am having trouble with a simple thing right now where I want triggers that only overlap players. I made the player character custom collision type of overlap. But the player does not overlap with this trigger. What am I missing?

[odd ember]

it's not really possible in general. you really need to use c++ to make it work

[wooden rapids]

guys i didnt know really ,do i need to repeat everytime my Question here or if someone join later and know a solution

[trim matrix]

@odd ember You can for me ? 🙂

[stray island]

I think its possible with blueprints

[trim matrix]

yeah

i just need to save all location objects and if destroy

[trim matrix]

@stray island Do you know what I mean now

If I load a part I have the position of the objects of the last save and if some objects were deleted then they are no longer there.

easy to write but not easy to make lol

[odd ember]

well if you think it's possible then good luck trying

[stray island]

Get all actors of class > get world location > save that locations , and create some boleans for destroying

[stray island]

I will check out

[trim matrix]

@stray island we can go PM do explain me ?
easy to write, but to do its not same choose

[stray rock]

Hey not sure if my issue should be in multiplayer or here so I'm having an issue where if the player1 for example gets a weapon its added to his view and the weapon is also added the the others people view and i want to disable the other view for player1 and so on (i don't get why disable for others or only owner see isn't working maybe im using it wrong)

i think its more connect to blueprints than actual networking stuff

[stray island]

Did u create a vehicle wheel and go to its class defaults

[stray island]

Alright

[trim matrix]

I have done everything like in the video

[stray rock]

can some help :P?

[stray island]

Then someone with car experience should reply to you

[trim matrix]

ok

[wooden rapids]

guys i didnt know really ,do i need to repeat everytime my Question here or if someone join later answer me here, thanks

[stray rock]

what?

[echo snow]

If it's been a while and your question was drowned out, it's best to ask if anyone knows vehicle stuff and then ask again

[stray rock]

hey do you know how to fix my issue?

[echo snow]

Questions can be passed by very easily due to the speed in which the conversations flow.

No I don't, I have a question of my own and am waiting so I don't interrupt anyone)

[wooden rapids]

because i didnt find anything on Google , is there a limitation of using Play Montage

[echo snow]

@trim matrix if by BP and you've set it up already, run the simulation)

Sorry for asking this in multiple places ahead of time, it falls in two categories so I don't know if the graphics channel will know.

Does anyone know how to grab the light value on an object, possibly per pixel or tri / quad. The value can be either a float or vector. If anyone has a BP or cpp solution I would be very grateful.

It is to override the shading on an object without adjusting the shading model itself or adding a post process material. The object is a planet from above so it doesn't need to be perfect give the distance to the camera.

The example here is using the atmosphere lighting but I will need to use my own mie ray solution

[maiden wadi]

@wooden rapids Limitation like what?

[wooden rapids]

a limitation of using Play Montage , after using multiple Play Montage in my Characters Blueprint some of my Action Events or Animation for Attacking doesnt work , the funny thing is if i remove 1 of the Play Montage its gone work , overall i have maybe 8 pieces of Play Montage , does anyone have the same conflict?

[echo snow]

If anyone has an answer to my question, please @mention me when you write, I have a meeting in a few minutes. Thanks a lot!

[maiden wadi]

@wooden rapids Have you actually set it up correctly in the animation blueprint for the montages to blend in?

@stray rock That's not an easy question to answer, partially because there are a couple of different methods. In short, you need to first make sure you're only spawning a replicated weapon on the server alone. This is important so that you don't end up with client copies. Second is the difficult to answer part. Some people attach them differently. Some simply attach one mesh to different skeletalmeshes from an onrep pointer of the weapon on each client. So the owning client would attach it to the first person arms mesh any other client would attach it to the third person mesh. Alternatively, you can also do as Epic does. Two different meshes in the weapon, one for first person, one for third person, and simply attach these to the correct mesh and set up the correct OwnerNoSee, OnlyOwnerSee on the correct mesh.

[wooden rapids]

Its worked before like a charm and i have multiple Animations , just when i use Play Montage not Play Anim Montage , because Play Montage interrupt my keys or event on my gamepad just severall button , its very funny because they have no relation to each in another graph and i have the limit of 7 if i use the 8th than i get the problem, thank you again Auther for reply

[maiden wadi]

Okay. But my question was if you set them up to play correctly in your animation blueprint?

Do you have something similar to this in your animbp?

[rough jay]

no lol

[stray island]

Montages sometimes have problems if you dont set up the correct correct slot did u check these?

Default slot and so on

[maiden wadi]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Animation/AnimMontage/UserGuide/index.html
https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Animation/AnimHowTo/AdditiveAnimations/index.html

I would read over both of these if you're going to start working with montages. Pretty much everything you need to know is in those two links.

[river seal]

@tight schooner working perfectly with parent/child actors. thanks a lot 🙂

[wooden rapids]

Yes but not all , i just use some Hurt Animation inside the Animation Blueprint all working perfect and so on, thank you Auther i will check out all these you send me , maybe i miss something there

[maiden wadi]

@wooden rapids Initially I would ditch the LayeredBlendPerBone, and change your speed >0.0 to something more like Speed>1.0 or 5.0. >0.0 for something like this is a bit razor's edge.

[tulip iris]

Anyone have a Blueprint nativization standards guide? Unreal's documentation doesn't seem to be complete in this area. Unless I'm missing it?

[maiden wadi]

Nativization made me learn C++.

[tulip iris]

🙃

[maiden wadi]

Dunno. I've never looked for much on it. The little research I did more or less painted nativization as a halfway project that never quite worked correctly. Has it's small uses here or there I suppose, but I just assumed by the time I learned the quirks, I'd be able to translate most of my blueprints into C++. Only took a couple of months to get comfortable with it. Very happy I did too. Opens up a lot of avenues.

[wooden rapids]

Ok thank you really much Authaer , i will check it soon , i come from Blender Game Engine to Ue4 and its my 8 month and i am really happy with Ue4

[maiden wadi]

@trim matrix Should work fine. How did you set it up?

[wicked dock]

Hey guys, i have problems constructing an object from a class :/
I have no idea what im doing wrong, any help appreciated.
The outer is just a normal Blueprint Class

http://prntscr.com/vt1kbx

what ive read is that the Outer has to be a blueprinttype Uclass or something but i have no idea what that even means or how to change that

[maiden wadi]

@wicked dock What is CardBase? What does it inherit from?

[wicked dock]

its an actor...

[maiden wadi]

Don't use Construct, use Spawn.

[wicked dock]

i got it wrong i mean

i want it to be an object that i can place into an array

and later spawn as an actor

sorry for confusing u

[maiden wadi]

Can't you simply make your CardStructure struct an array, and spawn it from that?

[wicked dock]

the cardstructure is just an a table with all the card types etc

i guess i could make a cardstructure holding all the different "owned cards" but then i wouldnt be able to shuffle them, right?

actually i could.... This is a total different way to do it. it could also be a better way runtime wise

[maiden wadi]

Generally you should only use Objects in place of struct data if you specifically need an array of objects. Like for differentiating between a simple inventory object and a gun actor. But if you don't have different classes like this to differentiate, it'll be a lot easier just to use an array of structs.

[wicked dock]

this makes a lot of sense

so this would be a workaround to the problem, but why do i even encounter the problem?

[maiden wadi]

Which you can certainly shuffle. Quite easily actually.

[wicked dock]

this makes a lot of sense. thanks a lot authaer!

[rough jay]

anyone got an example of adding more items to an array

[stray rock]

sadly the owner see no, see stuff isn't working as i spawn the guns into the players hand however i found a cheat if i make the third-person model the first-person too than i only need 1 gun but than i get character legs and it looks weird xd

also he can put his head trough walls ._.

so i dont think this will work

[maiden wadi]

@stray rock The OwnerNoSee stuff works fine if you set it up right. How is your player character set up?

[wicked dock]

@maiden wadi it worked instantly. thanks for the help

[maiden wadi]

@wicked dock Also for future reference, the general guideline for creating classes is:
Actor = SpawnActorFromClass
AI = SpawnAIFromClass
UObject = CreateObject
UserWidget = CreateWidget

[wicked dock]

here is where my thought process went wrong: I thought i can create an actor as an object first and set up all the variables and then later use it as an actor

but thats not how any of this works haha

[tight schooner]

@tulip iris re: nativization... Delay nodes are sometimes buggy (use timers instead) and collisions are sometimes buggy (if so, spawn collision components on BeginPlay). Make sure there are zero warnings or errors in your BP. BP Interfaces are kind of weird with nativization so maybe avoid those on your nativized classes unless you're doing total nativization.

Those are the hurdles I had to jump through in my project

[late cloud]

Yo guys, do you know whether there is a way i can render my sequence in HEVC?? All i see is .avi and probably using H.264. Files are huge and compression ruins them. And .avi? like seriously, can i change that?

oops wrong channel sorry

ignore lol

[spark steppe]

can i assume that in a map the last added value is always the last item?

[trim matrix]

So I want to be able to change a sprite in my behavior tree is there any way to do that?

[vivid fog]

Hey everyone! Does anyone know if there's a way to search for one specific item in an array, rather than having the entire thing required to be an exact match?

Like if I have an array of structs and I only want to search the string values within those structs (and not the other data they contain like ints and objects, etc) is that possible?

[maiden wadi]

@trim matrix You might be able to store that as an object in your Blackboard.

@vivid fog That requires a custom implementation. You'll need your own function for that which loops over the array, breaks the struct to compare it's string.

[spark steppe]

or refactor to a Map if you have unique strings

[tulip iris]

@vivid fog Use the "contains" node on a branch

[maiden wadi]

Contains compares the whole struct.

[odd ember]

you'd need something like a dictionary tree if you're looking for partial matches

[vivid fog]

@maiden wadi I think that did it! I've at least got a true/false return value now for whether or not the struct array contains this one string; thanks so much for your suggestion(and everyone else who replied as well)

[spice sequoia]

What is the best/most efficient way to always have an actor always pointing down? I have a BP in my scene (basically a cannon) that is attached to the underside of another Pawn BP that moves (a floating ship). I want it so whenever the top BP pawn tilts/moves that the cannon hanging underneath is always pointing at the floor, sort of gyro'd?

Have tried turning physics on with rotational constraints in the child but the Child BP no longer moves with the adult

[paper galleon]

@spice sequoia
If you want it pointing straight down, you could do a line trace to the ground and use the look at rotation function so that the cannon is always rotated to the hit location of the line trace

This is one way to do it though

[maiden wadi]

You can pretty much get away with vector math too. Down is always the same direction. But in short you're going to need to update it on tick in the actor that needs to face down.

[trim matrix]

So I have added a image variable in my npc blueprint but I can´t see anything to add to it

[paper galleon]

@maiden wadi
Exactly. I wanted to point out that it could cause a performance drop.
Although he could use a time line that is set to looping

[maiden wadi]

@trim matrix Try UTexture2D

Er, Texture2D, blueprint.

[paper galleon]

@spice sequoia
Hope your question was answered?

[spice sequoia]

I guess I would need to do this on Event Tick all the time?

[maiden wadi]

@paper galleon Timeline is the exact same thing as tick, there would be no operational performance difference between the two.

One update per frame drawn to screen.

[paper galleon]

True that. 😅😅

But he can end the timeline

[trim matrix]

Is this the right way getting image object from a object variable?

[maiden wadi]

Can disable tick at runtime too.

[spice sequoia]

I actually just set the world rotation from Relative to 'World' in the child BP and that seems to have done the trick - Is the BP/tick version more efficient than this?

[odd ember]

timeline is more efficient

if you're interacting with it

[paper galleon]

Yep

I actually just set the world rotation from Relative to 'World' in the child BP and that seems to have done the trick - Is the BP/tick version more efficient than this?
@spice sequoia
I'm not sure exactly how your cannon works. But if what you did works, go for it.

Tick is almost always never efficient especially with complex calculations

[maiden wadi]

@spice sequoia What did you change?

[spice sequoia]

@maiden wadi

Changed to absolute rotation

[paper galleon]

I assume you are not changing the rotation at runtime, like swivelling the cannon

[old grove]

I am starting with UE, and I have a silly question. how do I mmake the hand to move on the blueprints screen popup? I am struggling to navigate that window

[spice sequoia]

So to do the same with a timeline would I essentially connect a 'set rotation' node to the update node and constantly check this against a down vector and leave this looping forever?

[paper galleon]

Yep, in theory.

[spice sequoia]

@paper galleon The cannon basically stays fixed in one direction (down) and the airship moves it around

[paper galleon]

Not sure about performance though. But this is a relatively small calculation, so you good.

[spice sequoia]

Sorry - just to get my knowledge straight - is a timeline more efficient than a tick?

and why?

[paper galleon]

@paper galleon The cannon basically stays fixed in one direction (down) and the airship moves it around
@spice sequoia
Is the cannon a component or another actor?

[maiden wadi]

If you use it constantly, no. They're the same thing. If you want something that only happens sometimes, yes a timeline is better than tick.

[spice sequoia]

@paper galleon Cannon is another actor

Ok got it - thanks for the help

@maiden wadi -so for example I could have it on a timeline that only runs when the actual ship moves

to keep its use minimal

[paper galleon]

Sorry - just to get my knowledge straight - is a timeline more efficient than a tick?
@spice sequoia
The delta time of a timeline that enables it to run comes from tick.
But the timeline has some added functionality that allows you to determine when to start it, stop it, what to do while it is running, what to do when it is finished e.t.c. as far as I know, tick has only one function to disable it.

[maiden wadi]

Not really. Because you'd need something checking when the ship is moving. Unless you want to rely on Action events. Axis events are the same as tick as well.

[paper galleon]

to keep its use minimal
@spice sequoia
Yeah. Good idea actually. You could start the timeline when the ship begins moving and stop it when the ship stops

[maiden wadi]

How are you planning on checking for when the ship is moving and when it stops?

[spice sequoia]

Ahh - ok. makes sense. I always thought of them as two different things. Makes sense it runs off the tick

[paper galleon]

He should be able to handle that.

[trim matrix]

is there any way to get a image object variable from a object variable?

[spice sequoia]

I guess I could cast to an event in the cannon every time the ship recieves an input as one option. For now will just use the relative rotation fix as it seems to work great and so far having no negative imacts impact.

[old grove]

I have a silly question. how do I get the hand to move on the blueprints screen popup? I am struggling to navigate that window

[maiden wadi]

@trim matrix Cast the Object to Image.

[paper galleon]

I have a silly question. how do I get the hand to move on the blueprints screen popup? I am struggling to navigate that window
@old grove
🤔🤔 What hand? Could you post a pic?

[trim matrix]

@maiden wadi the cast failed

[tight schooner]

right click and drag?

[paper galleon]

If you are talking about event graph or any graph for that matter to pan around is holding right click

[maiden wadi]

@trim matrix Then your object wasn't an Image.

Or it was null

[old grove]

@paper galleon

I know its a dumb question, but I am struggling to move trhough the bluespring window without it xd

[tight schooner]

Right click and drag

[old grove]

askljdhasiudhasdjasd

wheel buttom wasnt doing it

and I tryed like

control click, mayus click, alt click

except that

xD

ty tho

[paper galleon]

Right click should work

[old grove]

yah it works

[trim matrix]

@maiden wadi Yeah my object was a texture 2d but is there any way to make a texture 2d to image?

[old grove]

the begginings of everthing are alwaays a struggle

T_T

everything*

[maiden wadi]

@trim matrix UImage is a widget. UTexture2D is a texture. I think you're looking to set the UImage's brush from the UTexture2D

[paper galleon]

I think he's trying to get a texture asset from a texture class🤔

[trim matrix]

Found the node thx

[maiden wadi]

@paper galleon Here is your Timeline vs Tick. First is timeline. Second is tick. 10,000 actors with timelines vs 10,000 actors with tick. All doing the exact same thing, just setting a single float variable.

Note the extra spawn time on the Timeline ones, because a timeline is an extra component in the actor. Other than that, they're nearly identical.

[tight schooner]

👀

[paper galleon]

Yeah. I see that. That's what I told him. I just prefer timelines because of the extra functionality added to them. Also, the curves are super convenient. But in terms of performance, I guess you've enlightened me.

[amber marsh]

anyone here know why this does not work?

can an actor properly get the player controller somehow?

[maiden wadi]

Is that component on the ElPlayerController class as a component?

[amber marsh]

the elplayercontroller is just the default player controller for the game mode

[maiden wadi]

What is this component being put on?

[amber marsh]

and this is a trigger to change music

[maiden wadi]

Which actor class?

[amber marsh]

its a actor that has a trigger box to change music

[maiden wadi]

If that actor is not the player controller, that call will never work. Owner is the Actor that the component is added to.

Is this in multiplayer?

[amber marsh]

yes

[maiden wadi]

Does this only happen on a client? Or do all clients need to hear the change?

[amber marsh]

oh good point. so is it possible for a regular actor to get the local player controller?

only on the client

[maiden wadi]

Just use GetPlayerController0 then.

[amber marsh]

how do I get around the issue where testing in the editor will mean each local player is a different index on that node?

[pastel tiger]

Guys I Need Help I Was Using Unity PlayMaker Then I Changed To Unreal Engine Blue Print I Want A Tutorial For Third Person Shooter Game Pleasssssse

Help Me Help Me

[amber marsh]

So I guess the real question is. How do I make it so a trigger will only trigger something locally? Is this default behavior if the actor with the trigger event is not replicated?

[maiden wadi]

@amber marsh GetPlayerController0 is always the local controller.

If you use this on a client, it will always be the local controller. If you use it on a Listenserver, it will always be the listenserver's controller, and if you use it on a dedicated server, it will always be the first player connected's controller.

[amber marsh]

This game is built with listen server only

so this seems like it should work

[sonic crescent]

Hi there. What is the best way to do a big RAZ bomb, where all enemy died? like in retro Shoothemup?

an event dispacher? a big overlap collision?

[amber marsh]

oh wait this means that getting the player controller on random actors is not an easy process then.

[maiden wadi]

Why?

[amber marsh]

My goal is to have this run locally. Music only changes for the client that touches the trigger.

not for anyone else

[maiden wadi]

By client, I assume you mean their character?

[amber marsh]

yeah

Play A is listen server. Player B joins and runs into town. Player B should hear town music play locally

[maiden wadi]

Use GetPlayerPawn and == it to the overlapped actor in the trigger.

GetPlayerPawn is the same thing as GetPlayerController->GetControlledPawn. GetPlayerCharacter is GetPlayerController->GetControlledPawn->CastToCharacterClass

[amber marsh]

kk thanks!

[void oak]

Hello All,
I am trying to save each individuals player options into an array.
My issue is the number of players in a game can differ.
Is there a way to make an array variable with its name being the same as the "Players name"?

[maiden wadi]

You could make a map out of it, and make the Keys the player's name.

[void oak]

I have 6 variables i need to save per player. Don't maps only save 1?

[maiden wadi]

One Key, One Value per entry. Could always make a struct out of the variables and make that the Value.

Alternatively an array of structs, with one of the variables being the name and a function to parse the array for the correct struct.

[void oak]

Didnt know you could make an array of structs

[maiden wadi]

Your world is about to change my friend.

[void oak]

for sure, thanks for the wisdom

[brittle shell]

Can anyone tell me how to reset the animation whenever I press the "E" key and how to trigger this just from the triggerbox area and not from the entire scene ?

[void oak]

stop anim montage

Built in node

Also you would have to make your "use button" check for event overlap.

[brittle shell]

Cant use the anim montage :<

[wooden rapids]

Hello have someone stuck on these problem , i have 7xPlay Montage and 6 x Play Anim Montage with different Animation Montage all work fine..after i add the 8th Play Montage as on the Picture below node in my Characters Blueprint , 4 of my 6 Play Anim Montage wont work correct anymore, so i am ask is there a Limit to use Play Montage as on the Picture below , because its stupid i try everything but when everything work just the 8th Play Montage make trouble

And there is no Solution no Solved on Google anywhere , if i use Play Anim Montage all works fine its very strange

[trim matrix]

Is there a node to check if the unreal engine 4 game window is running in the bg?

i.e. you tab out to a different program? 🤔

[rough jay]

is the addforce node the same thing with unities addforce?

[random hill]

Hey, I just found this problem... I have a character that rotates towards a cursor. He has a weapon actor attached. When I shoot the weapon using a Trigger Event (aka, left mouse button) it works perfectly and shoots where I am aiming.

But when I want automatic fire, it always shoots straight forward. I have event tick with two gates. One is opened / closed by left mouse button and the other gate works on a delay, acting as a cooldown.

any ideas what can be wrong / how to fix it?

[pale blade]

So I have this radar system. Actors implement BPI_Marker to be able to be picked up on radar. Radar BP component attached to player that will scan and update the distances of the cached actors that implement BPI_Marker.

Option 1: Tick
Tick in BPC_Radar that will loop through the cached actors, for each movable actor will get the distance and update

Option 2: Timer with movable flag
Every time you add a movable actor to the radar to follow, it will set a timer to run and update each movable actor (similar to Tick). Will stop timer when the last movable actor is removed from cache

Option 3: Timer with flag called from actors
Each actor will implement BPI_Marker and when they move, they will manually call the character's Radar component to set the timer flag to start updating, for example "OnMove"
Timer will update for a second, but will refresh duration until after a second of no more "OnMove" then it will stop timer

Basically, I want to do Option 1, it's the most simple but it is not efficient.
Option 2 is also not as efficient because as long as there is a movable actor in the cache for the radar to follow, then it will keep updating even if no one is moving
Option 3 is the most efficient, only starting the timer if something moves. However, this requires the actor to send its own update (OnMove), rather than the radar component scanning for any movement.

What do you guys think is best or if there are any issues?

[proud hull]

@pale blade you can use option 1 and set a custom tick interval so it doesn't run every frame. Somewhere between 0.1 and 0.5 seconds is probably good enough.

[pale blade]

I think then that's like Option 2, it'll run even if nothing moved. Isn't that kind of inefficient?

[proud hull]

Not saying it is most efficient, but for simplicity it can then be made a bit more efficient.

Like you mentioned, option 3 would be most efficient since it is event driven.

[neon sorrel]

Anyone know why this cast is failing? The widget's parent is user widget, so should work.

@trim matrix Just make it a widget for the texture, fairly easy to make one and then just put it on the players screen.

[royal cedar]

I've created a new player controller and a new gamemode and when I try and get references to the player controller I'm having an issue stating "Accessed None trying to read property..." when trying to get a reference to the player controller as well as when using the Add to Viewport node, could anyone help point me in the right direction please?

[maiden wadi]

@trim matrix If by shooting him, you mean with Line Traces, LineTraces don't cause EventHit to run.

[random hill]

@royal cedar Can you show us a bit of the code or at least the error message?

"accessed none" means that you either forgot to set the variable up, or that whatever is calling it gets initiated faster than it's stored (that happens).

[hollow jackal]

Does anybody know if there is a blueprint-friendly way to pull "child" GameplayTags out of a container and store them separately for use, by using its parent tag as an input and reference?

Example: Container contains "A.1.Cat, A.1.Dog, B.X, A.1, A.2, A", and I use a reference of "A.1". In this situation, I would JUST want A.1.Cat and A.1.Dog.

The screenshot below is as close as I can get, but it fails because it also matches "A" and so returns "A.1.Cat, A.1.Dog, A" when I want just the first two (or just the children). Is there any blueprint GameplayTag pattern matching functionality I'm unaware of, or am I going about this the wrong way?

[royal cedar]

@random hill Yeah sorry forgot to include that in the original question, one sec

I'm also following along with the Ability System from Ryan Laley on Youtube if anyone is familiar as well

[random hill]

Bruv

That looks a lot like what happens when I make the gamemode create widgets that access players hp.

Im not familiar with him

If this is the case, there's 2 options

Either try in game mode Delay 0 before spawning the widgets

Or spawn widgets from the player bp

Gamemode is created before characters are spawned. So at that very moment it can't find player because it doesn't exist

If your player holds the abilities, that would also cause the second error your are getting

@royal cedar try it and see

[deft zealot]

Anyone knows how to check if the object is visible to the sky or if it's blocked by something above it?

[hollow jackal]

Easiest way is probably to spherecast the bounds of the object you want to detect for 10000 straight up and check for collisions on the profiles you want to detect

Further filtering can be done by tagging blocking objects and comparing the actors on the hitresults

[royal cedar]

Adding the Delay and switched over to the player bp helped, and turns out I had not selected the default values for the ability class to get, but fixed that up. Only issue now is with the following sc

[random hill]

Just for future reference - you have to either add the delay OR move the bp. No need for both.

[royal cedar]

I tried adding the delay in the gamemode bp and it didn't help, but adding the delay will allow me to do other functions later on that I have planned as well

[random hill]

@royal cedar can you show that script too? Btw if I go silent that means I fell asleep

[granite verge]

Hi, anyone know how to flip a sidescroller character when the cursor is on one side of the screen?

[royal cedar]

Right there with ya lol

[random hill]

Scale.y * -1?

That should do the trick @granite verge

[hollow jackal]

Depends, you probably want projectcursortoworld and normalize the difference of the character's y/z positions with the projected mouse, then multiply it by the scale like krit said

That way if you're using damping on your camera tracking it's always based on the character's actual position relative to the screen

[random hill]

@royal cedar the only thing that comes to my mind is that you have some bug in the widget class, so it doesn't actually get created and hence the error.

Or there's some bug in UE4. For that you can try restarting the IDE.

one more thing, maybe the error refers to some variable inside the widget?

Either way im too sleepy to look into it more

[royal cedar]

Sounds good I'll take a look into it, thanks for your help I appreciate it!

[random hill]

Trying my best!

Good night :p

[deft zealot]

Could you provide a little general example of how one would do that? I am assuming you mean the SphereTraceByChannel blueprint function? Also, why a sphere and not just a line trace?

So start would be the worldposition of the object i wan't to check

[hollow jackal]

I'm predicting your use case is all. If you use a line trace, you won't be able to set an "area" that needs to be open above the object, it'll just be a point, which can lead to a buggy implementation

[deft zealot]

and the end would just be the worldposition x and y of the object plus the z (10000)

[deft zealot]

gotcha

[hollow jackal]

Yep

Assuming you're using a capsule collider, you can look at the radius of the collider component and use that to set your sphere radius

[deft zealot]

well

who knows what kite demo assets use for collisions... 😅

oof

[hollow jackal]

Nah, that's a mesh, if this was CPP I'd tell you to grab the automated bounds that get generated for collision efficiency but I think that's impossible in blueprint

[deft zealot]

btw the context is i am making a rain system, and I kind of have materials with rain shader for every object

But obviously I don't want to switch materials if the object is blocked

by the roof or something

[hollow jackal]

In Blueprint it might be impossible to do dynamically, so if you're okay with an approximation as far as shape and size, I'd just hardcode a value per actor and multiply it by one or a ~~normalization ~~ **average **of the x/y scale axes

Err, not normalization, average

[deft zealot]

so something like this

?

for each object respectively

[deft zealot]

yeah, I am a total newbie so i as long as the concept of the logic works somewhat - it's good enough 😆

[hollow jackal]

If you're brand new then don't worry too much about dynamic integration then! Yes, that should work fine

Your return value boolean should be fine for determining which shader to use

[deft zealot]

So it would only generate a hit if the object that it's colliding with also has some sort of collision right? What I am trying to clarify is that it will NOT generate a hit event if there's no collision on the object

[hollow jackal]

That's what channels are for

It can theoretically still generate a hit if you set it for the right kind of channel

[deft zealot]

You mean the trace channel? The one I currently have visibility set for?

[hollow jackal]

Yep

Check this out

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/collision-filtering

[deft zealot]

So at the moment It would still generate a hit even if the roof is set to no collision

[hollow jackal]

Correct

Well, depends on the object response and type of your roof

I would read through that article for a quick bit of knowledge

You've got the general idea, I've gotta go, but generally (at worst) you may have to toy around with the channel of the trace and the object responses, but for your case you can probably just select the right defaults

[olive sedge]

thanks!

do I need something to make my character stand?

cause still, the problem is it just falls to the floor and spazzes

[maiden wadi]

Are you simulating physics on it? What base class is it?

[olive sedge]

what I did is add an empty character, set mobile manny as mesh, enable physics simulation and set it to physics actor in collision. also I added a blueprint on it that I extended from AiController

@maiden wadi

[vernal wind]

I have a hierarchical instanced static mesh grid and need to separate position in world space from the grid index position to enable scaling and other things. Think Minecraft but with the ability to scale the blocks apart. So I need to know that e.g. instance 42 is at grid index 2,3,4 and this maps via scaling to 300,450,600 and the other way around to know that the instance at world space x,y,z is actually grid index 2,3,4. How do I do this the best way?

Options that came to my mind so far:

• Trust to not have any math glitches or implement everything based on integers so Position/Scaling=Index works?
• Custom HISM components with data?
• A general data lookup set by instance index for the whole grid?
• The new 4.25 SetCustomDataValue option for instanced static mesh? (seems to only allow floats and be designed for materials, not real data)

[maiden wadi]

@olive sedge Simulating physics will detach your object from the actor. So they won't be able to move with the actor.

[olive sedge]

@maiden wadi ah ok I see. It's just for ragdolling and such, I understand

[maiden wadi]

What's your end goal? Ragdolling is usually used for death and such.

[olive sedge]

Yes. No, that wasn't my intention

I just figured I needed that so he could fall down when going over a ledge

right now he just hovers in the air

[maiden wadi]

Ah that kind of effect. I'm not sure how Unreal handles that. You could probably do some form of ragdolling effect and reattachment. I imagine a lot of people handle that with animations, but I can remember a few games that did the ragdoll fall and get back up.

[olive sedge]

I don't even want him to ragdoll, just not float through the air

just.. be grounded, essentially if that makes sense?

[maiden wadi]

Are you looking for something like animation changes while it's in air, and some form of landing animation when it hits the ground?

[olive sedge]

no, a lot more simple than than that. I just the character to be on the ground. for example if I spawn it at z=1 I want it to fall down to z = 0 or whatever ground level it

no animation, just be on the ground, brother

[maiden wadi]

Ohhh. That's pretty much just a quick sweep movement.

I'm fairly certain, let me test really quick.

[olive sedge]

I mean.. What's the default procedure here?

I just want my characters to be on the ground..

and vehicles too

let them tilt a little to the left when they're sideways on an incline

do you know what I mean?

I figured, that's physics but not in the sense of the engine I think

@maiden wadi

[untold quarry]

Anyone have an issue where the simple jump blueprint for the third person controller doesn't work? The debugger shows the input is correct and goes into it and the box that allows jump is ticked in the character movement component.

[maiden wadi]

Tilting while on an incline for vehicles is a little different than characters. Characters often do this sort of thing with animblueprints, unless you're looking for some form of non gravity runner, that's a whole other issue with the CharacterMovementComponent.

[olive sedge]

ok, I see

but yes, basically I just want gravity

[maiden wadi]

That's usually on by default in characters.

[olive sedge]

well, yes it's on but he's floating

oh.. wait

[maiden wadi]

Have you disabled any world gravity settings or anything? Cause Characters shouldn't float.

[olive sedge]

he is actually falling but not all the way to the floor

something seems to be in the way

[maiden wadi]

Haha.

Oh, that.

[olive sedge]

maybe my path finding box?

[maiden wadi]

Nah. You probably have the mesh offset. Been there a time or two myself. The Mesh default spot is... off.

[olive sedge]

aaaah

ok then

he's not falling all the way to my static mesh floor

oh man 😄

[maiden wadi]

Does your character look like this?

[olive sedge]

no

it's all good now, actually 😄

oh, wait

I know what you mean

the capsule

at some point I disabled visibility for that

yes, that's exactly what it looks like

and seems I can't move the capsule independently

[maiden wadi]

Nah, you have to move the mesh down. The root component can't be moved because everything else is supposed to be relative to it.

[olive sedge]

I see

so 0 is the center of the capsule, makes sense

[maiden wadi]

Most times when you use the default mannequin, you have to move it down about -90.0 on Z, and then rotate it's yaw -90

[olive sedge]

yes, that works well

Thank you, @maiden wadi. Appreciated!

[deft zealot]

Do i need to rebuild the project/level in order to update distance fields?

i.e if I have rain particles (gpu) and then I add a roof somewhere for example, do I need to rebuild the level in order for it to not rain under that roof?

[olive sedge]

I have a pawn blueprint in my scene in which I want to handle the click of the mouse button but it's not triggering. Is there restrictions which kinds of blueprints handle that?

[maiden wadi]

@olive sedge Player Controller needs to have click events enabled, and the clickable blueprint needs to have the OnClicked event overridden.

[olive sedge]

ah ok, thanks

[worn nebula]

Hey guys, just wondering, what's the best way to do something each time the same action happens? For example, each time there's a lightning strike, I want it to print string "1", then the next lightning strike it prints "2" and so on? I thought a sequence but obviously they print all at the same time

[maiden wadi]

Pretty much just keep a counting integer and ++ it every time you call the lightning strike.

[worn nebula]

Sorry, the print string is just for testing purposes, I will need it so a lightning strike does something, then the next lightning strike something else will happen, and so on

This is what I had so far

[maiden wadi]

Same thing. Either an integer or an enum. ++ it when the lightning strikes then do a switch on int or Select from int to choose what you want to do.

[worn nebula]

Ah a switch on int, I see thank you

[tough geyser]

Hi guys,
In (ALS4.25) I added (new notify) to the (Run) animation and I named it (left leg) after that I connected it with (print) but the problem is that the (left leg) keeps showing (print) throughout the game and it supposed to show (PRINT) only when the (Run) animation is active anyone has an idea what's going on? thank you in advance.

[olive sedge]

before I continue here, I have a general question: is it foolish to want to use UE4 for a strategy game?

it does seem a bit like it is heavily geared toward a single playable character in 3rd or 1st person

[flint surge]

IIRC there's even an example strategy game in the Learn tab of the launcher

[olive sedge]

yes but still

[maiden wadi]

You might want to also define strategy game. That's an incredibly large genre.

[flint surge]

As far as I can tell, they're trying to make the engine suitable for everything... but yeah it's historically been less suitable for 2D stuff and such, not sure what the current state is

[olive sedge]

well, strategy in the sense that I want to spawn units and control them

[maiden wadi]

Are we talking like Stellaris/EuropeUniversalis4, Starcraft, XCom?

[flint surge]

We use UE for various traffic simulations and other miscellaneous things, I haven't tried making a game with it personally

[olive sedge]

starcraft probably if I had to pick from that list. world in conflict / ground control is closest though if you know that

[flint surge]

But from what I've gathered so far working with the engine, I can't see any obvious reason why it would be ill-suited for strategy games

[maiden wadi]

Starcraft style is pretty easy to accomplish I'd say.

[flint surge]

It's a general purpose engine -- everything is possible but some things take more work than others (our use case for example takes quite a bit of coercion to get working, it's somewhat atypical)

[olive sedge]

right. and I kinda feel that

like I'm working away from the original intended purpose

or working around it

[maiden wadi]

Just looked up the other two. They'd be fairly easy to accomplish as well. Very traditional RTS style.

[olive sedge]

yes, @maiden wadi

[flint surge]

It seems to fall squarely within the purview of their intended use cases

[olive sedge]

alright. I take your word for it, thanks guys

[maiden wadi]

But yeah, like Lurk said the engine itself can accomplish a lot of things gaming wise. It just depends on how far you want to take your learning. For example, blueprint could likely handle a traditional singleplayer RTS fairly well. Multiplayer might be a bit rough depending on scale. But looking at something like Stellaris/EU4, you need C++ and some very crafty work for optimizations.

[olive sedge]

Multiplayer for sure

I haven't done much C++ but I'm an experienced programmer so I think I could work myself into that

[maiden wadi]

I strongly urge you to spend a month or two learning some C++ for Unreal. Don't ditch blueprint. It's still very useful, but for networking efficiently you're going to run into some trouble in blueprint. Not to mention it's just simply faster over all.

Not to mention it makes blueprinting a lot easier when you can write your own blueprint nodes.

[olive sedge]

right..

Yes, I will do that

but I don't think I'm there yet

I'm still struggling with the actual engine basics. For example I'm wondering how to implement unit selection and ordering. I have 2 mannys on my board right now and I want to draw the rect to select them.

I would imagine I need a blueprint that works with the LMB press event but I can only draw the rect on HUD

so this seems to become a bit of a mess

because I would need to interact between the player controller and the hud blueprints

which originally sparked my question if it even makes sense to do what I'm about to here

[maiden wadi]

Hah. So. That's a fun one. So... I actually broke my selection grid up a bit.

For example, my controller just does a click and release. Click sets the viewport location clicked, released calls the event to select units in the selection rectangle. My HUD is what draws the rectangle based on the values from the controller.

[olive sedge]

yes, that's what I was heading towards too

[maiden wadi]

Now. This gets tricky when you actually need to select the units.

[olive sedge]

so how do you implement that? controller accesses variables in HUD?

[maiden wadi]

Well, to start with, lets just start on the rectangle itself.

Do you have a Player Controller and HUD class set up?

[olive sedge]

yes

[maiden wadi]

Key. Start in the controller. You'll need a Left Mouse Button event and a Vector2D variable. Something like MouseFirstLocation or something.

[olive sedge]

I actually have most of the work done

but my issue is that HUD doesn't react to clickLMB

it should anyway, shouldn't it?

[maiden wadi]

I personally do this in my own strategy HUD.

[maiden wadi]

Never quite finished converting hud to C++ there.

Ah, that's why. The DrawRect needs to be on Event ReceiveDrawHUD

[olive sedge]

ok.. but the clickLMB isn't triggering

[maiden wadi]

Usually you'll need to enable input in a blueprint for that. I'd recommend just doing that in your Controller, and getting the values from there into the HUD for use.

[olive sedge]

ok.. how do I pass them on? can I call a function inside the blueprint or something?

[maiden wadi]

Just set it locally in the controller and get it like I'm doing up above.

[olive sedge]

hmmm

[maiden wadi]

You can also use the IsInputKeyDown in the HUD for checking if you should be drawing it or not.

[olive sedge]

gonna try this out

[maiden wadi]

Note that the GetDrawRectValues is my own C++ function. In blueprint it'd be...

[olive sedge]

I would like to try to make the HUD clickable

[maiden wadi]

Just call EnableInput on it. Needs the PlayerController as an input.

To be honest, I'm not sure how to make that function in blueprint...

[olive sedge]

it kind of works, just the coords are off

and obv. it's a full rect instead of just edges :>

[maiden wadi]

For the mouse up, you're probably looking to use GetActorsInSelectionRectangle, from the HUD class.

[olive sedge]

ah, ok, cool

thanks

[maiden wadi]

I personally don't care much for it. I wrote my own that projects my units to screen space and tests if they're within the rectangle.

[flint surge]

w.r.t. the coords being off, I had to get view scale or something to scale things by, because apparently in PIE the viewport is scaled in some weird manner

[maiden wadi]

It should be fine with the draw even with the scaling. How are you doing it right now?

Cause remember that it's a point, and then the size of the rectangle, not two points.

So like.. Size would be something like MouseLocation - 1stClickedPoint or something.

[olive sedge]

the initial point is off. so getMousePositionOnViewport really does seem to scale in a weird way

like it's x2 or something

[maiden wadi]

Oh, yeah, that one does. Use the function from the PlayerController for that.

PlayerController->GetMousePosition should return correctly with scaling.

Otherwise you get to GetMousePositionOnViewport, GetViewportScale, Multiply mouse position by viewport scale, etc.

[flint surge]

Hmm, I wonder if that's what I was using as well

It was ages ago now

[maiden wadi]

Oh, I remember the scaling part being more complicated. Then again I was using Widget stuff at the time and probably needed it to be more complicated. I suppose it's not that bad to multiply scale. I'm fairly certainish that these two are the exact same.

[feral ice]

what does calculate direction do? Doesn't get actor rotation do the same

[white crypt]

for example if you were running backwards, then using direction you will be able to play the correct animation, but the get actor rotation will tell you which direction you are looking at

[maiden wadi]

I didn't actually know that existed. I always did it manually.

[feral ice]

hmm ok. Gotta look into to that

im trying to learn the maths behind some of the code

for example find look at rotation

[white crypt]

take a look at Mathew Wadstein

he covers these type of things

[feral ice]

ah thats actually really smart. Why didn't i think of that xd

[white crypt]

ahh he didnt cover this one 😦

[feral ice]

ah sheit

[white crypt]

he covered get unit direction vector

or hover over that node and read the description, could give a better explanation than i did

[feral ice]

yeah

i see

[white crypt]

if you want to go even deeper, double click on that node, then it will open visual studio

and will show all the math

[feral ice]

ohh

thanks for the help

@white crypt sorry for all the trouble. If i double click on it i just says reading c++ symbols. How do i open visual studio? I have it downloaded

[white crypt]

this is a bp project right?

if so then you might need to add a "dummy" c++ class to generate visual studio solution

just right click on the content browser and look for c++ class

[feral ice]

ohh ok. How do i do that? Never heard of that "dummy" before

ah ok

[white crypt]

by dummy i meant a class that you wont do anything with it

its just for generating visual studio solution

[feral ice]

ok what

[white crypt]

just click next

doesnt matter what you do here

[white crypt]

yeah create

[feral ice]

ok nothing to change then

[white crypt]

nope

after that look inside your project folder and double check if a new visual studio file appeared

if so then it should open when you double click a node

[feral ice]

inside here?

[white crypt]

inside main folder

where your project application is

[feral ice]

?

[white crypt]

where your project application is

inside main folder

[feral ice]

this one?

[white crypt]

yup, it didnt generate i see. right click on watchdogs and generate

[maiden wadi]

You also need to have Visual Studio installed if you don't have it.

[feral ice]

i have it : D

@maiden wadi

i will just search for a turorial on youtubr

instead of wasting your time

it seems to have some trouble

[white crypt]

your visual studio is missing some packages i believe

[grave relic]

Does anyone know what setting there is to change to get the navmesh to the edge?

[white crypt]

isnt that agent radius?

also you might want to play around with tile/cell size

[stray island]

Is there a way to change a static mesh attached to an actor publicly in the editor? Without having to go to the actor blueprint?

[white crypt]

you can expose that component on spawn and change it in your world outliner

same thing as you would do with floats/booleans etc

[stray island]

Alright Lets try thanks

[white crypt]

or wait, you will need to create a new variable

and set that to be exposed

then use that variable inside your construct script to set the mesh

https://prnt.sc/vtkgdx

and when you select that actor inside your level, you will see a new setting for that mesh

[stray island]

Oh yes that worked , thank u so much

[olive sedge]

this should definitely print something, yes?

[white crypt]

the array is empty

so no

or array is full of invalid elements

[olive sedge]

yes but why is it empty?

hm, I'll try to get array length

[white crypt]

i never used selection in rectangle, wouldnt you need to specify the class?

what are you trying to accomplish?

[olive sedge]

yes, length: 0

I want to select whatever is in my box. I figure if I don't filter, it should return everything?

[white crypt]

see if it works with class filter

[olive sedge]

ah, yes

that's it

thank you

[white crypt]

np, you could try selecting a higher hierarchy class

lets say you have bunch of actors, so just filter the default actor class

or make all your actors into childs and only filter the parent class

[olive sedge]

right

the real problem is that appearently get actors in selection rectangle calls draw

when I call it: bp_HUD_C_0 Canvas Draw functions may only be called during the handling of the DrawHUD event

[white crypt]

cant you move the logic to your widget? since widget has pre/construct

oh but that wouldnt work too since its only added after game starts

so really not sure what you could do, maybe blutility could help in this case

[olive sedge]

hm

I wonder why it calls draw at all

it's just a selection

[white crypt]

another option could be if you moved all the actors under one folder/group inside world outliner

but it wouldnt be a modular system, you would have to add each one manually

[north bay]

Hi Guys! I'm trying to find a tutorial on how to set up that when a player walks to the edge of the right side of the screen it will come back on the left side (and the other way around). Is there a new for this? because I'm struggling to find sanything about it.

name*

[white crypt]

make a portal

should be a similar approach

[north bay]

Yeah was just thinking about it, I guess its a logical way to do this, thanks!

[lime lichen]

Can you have too many Blueprints?

For example does it have an impact on performance when you have 10k blueprints in a project

ofc not running at the same time

[violet girder]

how do i set the visibility of a child actor component to owner no see?

[stray island]

In cinematics is how to hide an object in a level

?

[violet girder]

?

[tight schooner]

@lime lichen if a blueprint is just an asset then I would suspect not, but I don't actually know. If you have a poorly managed dependency web (blueprint classes that reference too many other blueprint classes via casting and whatnot) then you end up in situations where huge chunks of the game are unnecessarily loaded into memory.

[trim matrix]

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask but I have a persistent level which has 10 sub levels. In each of those sub level I want to press button and make the character restart at player start. Is it possible? or do i have to manually set the actors location? I would want to not destroy the player actor on reset. I am really struggling with this.

I know that in my gamemode BP there is restart player at player start node but I don't know how to reference that player start in the level

And If I cast it in the PersistentLevel it just resets the players location where the player is at the moment..

[upper adder]

Just reload the level?

And save the stuff you dont want gone in the game instance

But im not sure too..

[earnest tangle]

@trim matrix just move the player back to where it started. There's no reason to overcomplicate it :)

[upper adder]

But you have to get the location of the start in each level manually..

[earnest tangle]

Depending on how you have it set up, you could save the player pawn location on its Begin Play

[upper adder]

Or get the location of the player start now that i think about it..

[earnest tangle]

Yeah that would also be an option

[trim matrix]

hmm

I have one system already that just sets actor to locations and have rotation set

but it would be nice to have system where I can just reset the player at player start

then I dont need to think about making different variables for rotations and what not locations

[upper adder]

Just get all actors of class (player start), get index 0 and set the new player location to that..

(if you just have 1 start possibility per level)

[earnest tangle]

@trim matrix on the pawn's begin play, just save the current location and rotation to variables. You can then give it a function or custom event "MoveToStartLocation" that just puts it back there

or something along those lines... that's about as simple as it gets I think

[upper adder]

yeah do one of those

[trim matrix]

zomg exactly how I did that except take begin play off cause it will not work with my project

but i need to have different locations and rotations

cause the there is 10 sublevels

[earnest tangle]

Ah, so you want to update the start position based on which area you're in?

[trim matrix]

yes

[earnest tangle]

You could probably use some logic to determine when the player has entered a new area, and set their start location

[trim matrix]

@upper adder -How do i get from array to restart player at player start..

Zomg I know but the main question was that How can i have a character start at player start

there is a node called restart player at player start. it doesnt work for me

I would like to know why because it would be the easiest way for me

[fierce birch]

@trim matrix what do you have, can you show me what you are trying to do

Btw I have this character switch system, but confused on what the best way to save characters data before I destroy it. I could make functions, but I would have to add to them and they would be big, and suggestions

There’s no exec pin

[trim matrix]

@upper adder yes I did now the get actors thing but still doesnt work.

[fierce birch]

For 1

Or if you plug it in that’s the error

Ok

One sec

Is percent at the 0 index

Or why don’t you just get the index and set the struct

?

What did you do

[upper adder]

take the node "get all actors of class"

and then plug "get" into the array output

[trim matrix]

yes i did

Does not work

it behaves same. just restarts at the same place the player is at

@upper adder

[gritty elm]

need help, i want to translate any text into other language when hover on text

is there any default translator system? or should i need any external api or plugin?

[worthy frost]

use localization?

built into UE4

you have to translate it yourself.

[gritty elm]

thanks, does it convert any language into other language?

because i need to translate any words to other language

[white crypt]

he told you that you have to translate it yourself

unless you manage to integrate some kind of translator

[worthy frost]

could try integrating https://cloud.google.com/translate/docs/

[random hill]

Can anyone take a look at my issue again?

[worthy frost]

Delay on tick?!?

you mad?

show us your nodes

[white crypt]

on mouse button down you open gate, on mouse button up you close the gate

why you need tick in the first place?

what purpose does it serve?

https://prnt.sc/vtqayj

https://prnt.sc/vtqbb7

@random hill do it like this

you can change these two events into 1 left mouse button

[worthy frost]

retriggabledelay?

would that not keep resetting?

[random hill]

this is what works, but it's ugly:

[worthy frost]

if you spammed it

[maiden wadi]

Ya'll need TimerJesus.

[white crypt]

i have a system that doesnt allow to spam

[worthy frost]

i use timers

[random hill]

@white crypt Did you read what the real issue is?

[white crypt]

its probably because you are using tick

oh you showed some code

[random hill]

@white crypt you asked "why use tick". Uhm, because I am doing automatic fire.

and I mentioned that the problem is with the rotation.

[worthy frost]

right but what is wrong with the rotation?

[random hill]

@worthy frost I'm pretty sure I wrote it in the OP.

[maiden wadi]

Your arrows should be firing from another arrow in the direction that it's pointing.

[worthy frost]

right, so have you drawn any debug lines?

[random hill]

@maiden wadi yes, that's the whole point

[maiden wadi]

What is the whole point. What is it doing wrong?

Is the arrow where you're aiming or not?

[random hill]

and that's what isn't working right now, and I feel like I'm writing the same thing 3rd time

[worthy frost]

you said Straight Forward

straight forward from what?

straight forward is very vague when we can't see what you mean

[maiden wadi]

@random hill A better more direct question is where do you want it to shoot, towards where the center of the screen is pointing?

[maiden wadi]

Are the two things you pasted the two different shooting methods?

The tick and the timer?

[random hill]

You're seriously making me type all that again.

[maiden wadi]

I'm just asking you to type "Yes", or "No" actually.

[unborn maple]

question im trying to make a cube kinda move. like when i press D i want the cube to flip over on it side to the right and as well as move to the right. what node should i do. i try local rotation and the rotation component but it just keep spinnin

[worthy frost]

@random hill if you would have posted proper information at the start and a proper description then people would not have needed to ask. Also don't be rude, we don't get paid to help you nor are we obliged to help you. We help for free and because we enjoy helping.

[white crypt]

@unborn maple 10 seconds of google

showed this https://cybereality.com/tutorial-how-to-make-a-cube-roll-on-a-grid-in-unreal-engine-4/

[maiden wadi]

I don't see anything that would make a difference between the Tick and the Timer. Which is why I was asking to be certain.

[white crypt]

wait, we dont get paid for this???

bummer

[maiden wadi]

Unless those are somehow two different blueprints and Arrow is facing a different direction, they should be shooting the same place.

[random hill]

I have a character in a twin stick game. (almost) top down view. The character rotates towards my cursor. That works fine. The character has a blueprint of a weapon attached to it. When given a mesh, you can see that the weapon is rotating along with the character.

When I use semi automatic fire, it works perfectly. The gun shoots exactly where the cursor is pointed. Just a simple "right mouse button" + spawn actor.

When I want to make an automatic weapon, shooting with a cooldown - things go wrong. The bullets spawn in the right location and with right scale. But always pointing forward. World forward, no matter how I rotate.

The problem doesn't appear when I use any other method, like timer.

I think this is as clear as I can get it

This doesn't work. Location / scale are good but not the rotation. Bullet goes forward in world space.

[white crypt]

@trim matrix window-details

[random hill]

This has proper rotation.

[unborn maple]

i didnt know it was c alled grid i was search the wrong key words lol i just search for rotation actor

[white crypt]

i searched for cube movement

[unborn maple]

gotcha.

thanks tho.

[random hill]

They should, but they're not, and that's the whole issue I'm asking about. It's the exact same code. The mesh / arrow component ARE rotating along with the character. I didn't use debug lines but I did print the forward vector value of the arrow component. And it showed the exact situation I described. Perfect behavior on click or timer, bad behavior on tick.

[maiden wadi]

Are those two methods on the same actor?

[random hill]

Yup.

But just for fun I tried it on the character - I accessed the weapon attached, took the arrow and printed forward... and same deal. On tick, always shows world forward. On timer / click - shows proper direction.

I would say that it's a problem with how I attached the weapon to my character. But then it shouldn't work at all.

[white crypt]

so drag it into the correct place

[maiden wadi]

I'm at a loss. Unless you're somehow doing something else somewhere different that affects them, the two things you've posted are identical. I recommend a Priest. It's possessed.

[random hill]

@maiden wadi That's exactly what I'm thinking. And that's why I turned in to forums.

[white crypt]

then click window - load layout

hmmm

restart the editor?

[random hill]

This is how I spawn the weapon:

This is how I attach it.

(if I don't show something, it means that it's trivial)

(so in this case, target is the weapon)

[white crypt]

@trim matrix

🤷

sec, should be the same

@trim matrix

[random hill]

@maiden wadi the really weird part is that the location and scale work fine. Just the rotation is messed up, and only when shooting from a tick. Any other combinations don't have this issue. Shotting with timer or button press give the right rotation.

And just to make extra sure - the same problem doesn't persist when I put the shooting loop directly in the character blueprint. Then it works with tick AND with proper rotation.

[white crypt]

if you want to drag it you do have to click and hold it 🙂

np

[random hill]

@maiden wadi Is it possible that the rotation updates later, after the tick / button presses are handled?

[maiden wadi]

Those gets are all at the time of the bullet spawn.

[astral fiber]

"Function may need BlueprintThreadSafe metadata adding."
Does anyone know where I can add that metadata?

[random hill]

@maiden wadi I even tried playing with the tick settings, or to make extra extra sure that the rotation is updated - I made a variable for it. Set up the variable just before spawning the bullet, and THEN using that variable. I also added an ugly mesh (because I can't make a pretty one) to the weapon, to see if it's really rotating.

Which is pointless, because of course it's rotating if it works in other cases

[olive sedge]

how do I get a blueprint off a character instance? (I need its AIController)

[upper adder]

I have many nodes that use event tick.. Is hooking event ticj to an event dispatcher to use it then at multiple places a clean/safe way?

[maiden wadi]

@olive sedge Just drag off of the character/pawn reference and GetAIController.

[olive sedge]

ah, ok, thanks!

[random hill]

@upper adder I'm no expert, but I would reduce it to a minimum

every element that affects other elements, increases the complexity of your game, so keep things like that to a minimum

@maiden wadi You won't believe it. But I fixed it. And it was what I was thinking of when I messaged you.

[upper adder]

So you would just use sequencer?

[random hill]

@upper adder it's really hard to tell. Can you give at least a bit of context? Like what kind of actors are you talking about, how many, what kind of events

[maiden wadi]

@upper adder Sequence. Sequencer is a different thing. But what all are you doing on tick?

[white crypt]

following tutorials prob

[maiden wadi]

@random hill What was it?

[random hill]

@maiden wadi I want to see if I can post more than one pic in a single message...

[upper adder]

I just have a lot of things that need "event tick" and to not have a wire chaos to all those nodes from event tick i thought about using a event dispatcher, now im wondering if that is performance safe and clean

[random hill]

Basically, going from this:

to this:

Or even to just "during physics".

@upper adder nothing wrong with event tick itself, as long as you don't put heavy computing into it.
Event dispatchers are very good if you can keep them under control.

There might be a problem if you add listeners to many objects where you start forgeting what is listening to what. Suddenly you get extra events you didn't even realize about

are the listeners in the same actor or not?

[upper adder]

yes same actor

[random hill]

@upper adder then it should be a problem unless you do something really weird. You can use simple events and listeners just as a way to organize the nodes better.

@upper adder I don't wanna be rude but are you a beginning programmer?

[upper adder]

you meant cant?

[random hill]

@maiden wadi Now I have a different question. Since this problem was so annoying and so easy to fix once I figured it out, what should I do about it? I'm sure someone will one day look for this solution. Should I post it somewhere or?

@upper adder Nope, I mean "can". I think it was even recommended in one of the basic UE4 tutorials, that instead of having a lot of long "cables" its better to use events

[upper adder]

but thats what i wanted to do??

[maiden wadi]

I'm honestly not sure. I still don't even understand what happened. I mean I use tick constantly and I've never ran into an issue where my rotators were wrong. I don't think I've ever even changed an actor's tick group.

[random hill]

@maiden wadi I'm pretty sure it's because it was on an attached actor. I think I mentioned that when I copy pasted dthe same loop to the character (instead of the weapon) it also worked properly

@upper adder yes and you asked if it's a good / clean solution... I think it's much cleaner than the alternative

and it won't cause more issues than using the long connections

[upper adder]

My question was more if it would bring down the performance..

[random hill]

(making a literal spaghetti)

[upper adder]

because the stuff hooked up to tick is so sensitive

[random hill]

@upper adder you asked if it's clean also, and for that I would say it's cleaner than the alternative. And about performance, I don't think it will matter any more than the actual tasks you put in there.

It should matter if you use normal nodes or events in tick. What matters is, do you really need to put it in Tick, and what is that thing actually doing? Making a print or variable assignment won't cause any issues. But recalculating all the colliders in range of a particular class will

[upper adder]

yeah yeah i know that

thanks

[random hill]

@upper adder If you have "light" tasks attached to tick, using events won't break it or make it sluggish. And on the other hand, if you put a lot of heavy calculations to tick, making small changes like not using events won't speed it up

may I ask if you are new at coding?

[maiden wadi]

Using an event dispatcher will bring down performance. They're not meant for that kind of use. Dispatchers are meant to call multiple random events in unknown places whenever a blueprint does something. They're slower than simply calling an event. Which is meant for cleaning up large chunks of code into smaller ones.

[fierce birch]

trying to delete an actor but ue4 crashes if i do, anyone know why

[upper adder]

If you include Blueprints as coding im not new to it, i just never used event dispatcher and just learned it..

[maiden wadi]

On a side note, I'm willing to bet that if your tick is massive, that you either need to reconsider if half of it needs to actually be on tick, and if it does, if you should move it somewhere else like a component in the actor.

[upper adder]

Besides Blueprints i cant code tho..

[upper adder]

I dont waste my ticks man..

xD

but thanks

[random hill]

@maiden wadi Yeah... even something as simple as running a task once every 10 frames instead of every frame is a huge difference

@upper adder Ok simple advice. Be careful when you watch youtube tutorials, you never know if someone making it is actually good 😛

I see a lot of tutorials literally avoiding using tick and trying every trick to use something else. Tick is there to be used as long as it's in moderation

[upper adder]

just like everything in life..

tick wisdom

[maiden wadi]

What are you doing in this crazy tick though?

[random hill]

@maiden wadi I was a bit hasty and made a mental shortcut that @upper adder thinks of events when saying dispatcher

my bad if that was wrong

[upper adder]

I made a flight simulator with own physics calculations..

So i need to update all the forces every tick

[random hill]

@maiden wadi I decided I will at least post my solution to stack overflow. This way someone might one day google the same problem and find an answer.

[maiden wadi]

Events are just functions without return values. Dispatchers are delegate driven calls that can call the delegate, which other actors/objects can bind into to be notified when the dispatch is called.

[random hill]

@maiden wadi I'm pretty sure that you can always use events instead of dispatchers when talking about the same actor

I can't think of an example when that's not the case

dispatchers are only needed when it has to communicate with other actors?

[upper adder]

but then ill have to do eventtick1 eventtick2 eventick3...

because you only get one output

[random hill]

@upper adder what about using a sequence, as you mentioned before?

that pretty much acts the same

[upper adder]

yeah ill probably do that

but then the wires are all ver the place

[random hill]

thats why you can use events

(not dispatchers)

[upper adder]

but then were here again

[random hill]

@maiden wadi since you are knowledgeable, I have another question... it probably doesn't have a simple yes or no answer though.
When I have my array of weapons in the character blueprint - is it better to store them as classes, and spawn whenever I switch to a certain weapon, or store them as actors and hide / show the mesh when needed?

Using classes seems cleaner. And would use less memory? But using actors could allow easier storage of bullets in a clip etc.

In the end, the differences are probably pretty small.

@upper adder but events are alright...

[maiden wadi]

Hmm. Hard to say. State probably says typical weapons exist better not being destroyed because you can keep bullet counts on the actor itself. Alternatively, if your weapon is just a "Dummy" and your actual data like uses of the weapon or bullet counts, are in the inventory as data, There's no problem with destroying and spawning a new one. I do the second version myself because my inventories are all pure data, no actors or objects.

Spawning is "Slow". But that's more in regards to something like Don't create a minigun that spawns 2,000 bullet actors a second. Won't really apply to switching weapons in a game.

[random hill]

@maiden wadi That's my dilemma too. Seems like storing all the info on the character is a bad practice. I mean, I don't have 7 bullets in the clip, but my gun does.

I have a gun that has 7 bullets. Hence, storing the ammo in the gun seems much better.

but then... I have a backpack full of ammo. So a hybrid solution?

Character has a dictionary (or map, however UE4 calls it) of ammo types and count... and the guns have clip information

And yeah spawning one gun every few seconds won't break the game that already has who knows how many polygons and visual effects on.

[maiden wadi]

Yeah, if you're keeping state on the weapon itself, it's likely best not to destroy it between uses. There's nothing wrong with just disabling it. Kill it's collisions, set it to hidden and disable it's tick if it uses it. On equip, reverse.

[random hill]

If I go with character having all the data about bullet counts, the gun will definitely need connection to the parent. Not a big problem but not a "perfectionist" solution. But judging by the fact that you are also hesitating... both solutions seem almost equally viable 😉

@maiden wadi That's what I thought. Except for a gun you probably wouldn't even have a collision most of the time

[maiden wadi]

Sometimes. You'd need a collision if you allow pickups.

[random hill]

Oh, I would treat pickups as a different type of actor

A WeaponPickup Actor that would only have a collider, mesh and some info on what gun it's holding. And that would use some method on the character like "AddWeapon(AK 47)" or so.

Again, not purist but it should work... 99% of the time? The only thing it couldn't do is like, advanced animations of picking the gun up and then shooting it without any cuts. But I think that could be fixed somehow, and my games are far from that level.

[maiden wadi]

Most games don't do that outside of cutscenes anyhow. You usually just press E/F, get a little hand forward "Pickup" animation, and a gun just gets Robin Williamsed into the character's hands.

[random hill]

yup. The magic hand wave of activity (TM)

But I remember that DOOM 2016 had this awesome animation of getting super shotgun which was pretty much seamless. So I was thinking about it