blueprint

[gentle urchin]

Nah thats prob not it

Dunning Kruger*

[mental steeple]

So I'm new to unreal and I'm working on this gravity blueprint and I need a little help. The idea is that you can linetrace and on hit the orientation of the object is transmitted to this cube and it rotates to match it's orientation.

This is the first step, just getting the orientation correct before I mess with the actual z acceleration.

[gentle urchin]

It may sound stupid,

but could it be an option to rotate the world instead?

I've heard manipulating gravity in unreal is a pain to do without custom plugins and whatnot?

[mental steeple]

It's going to be a multiplayer shooter, so unfortunately not

[gentle urchin]

Ah

[mental steeple]

everything needs to be local to the player actor

I just need help with this one interface reference rn, let me snip and show

I know what I am messing up, just not how to fix it

so first is my thirdpersoncharacter blueprint for the linetrace, second is my rotatingcube to match the orientation of the selected object

and I guess to properly use the blueprint interface my target needs to be my cube. Usually most interface tutorials focus on interactables, which means the onhit actor is the target. This is not the case in this scenario, so how should I reference the cube?

[gentle urchin]

I would think it IS the case in this scenario aswell?

you're linetracing for the cube, are you not?

Or is the cube the "pawn" ?

[mental steeple]

the cube is an actor

[gentle urchin]

Somehow connected / related to the player ?

[mental steeple]

uh

it's just a cube, I suppose not

[maiden wadi]

How does the wall looking thing relate to the cube, is the disconnect.

[gentle urchin]

^ Exactly

[mental steeple]

the idea is that I take the orientation of the wall and translate it to the cube

[gentle urchin]

its hard to guess how they're related, or how you'd reference it if they're not

Right

But is the Cube player specific?

[mental steeple]

nope

[maiden wadi]

So, look at the wall, press A, look at the cube, press A?

[mental steeple]

no, look at the cube, press E, and the cube rotates to the orientation of the thing you hit with the linetrace

because the next step is that I use my blueprint logic for the actor, so that you can look at a wall and press E and your character orients itself to the wall so you can wallrun and stuff

[gentle urchin]

Look at cube -> Press E -> Save Ref (player now "controls" the cube?)
Look at surface X -> Cube rotates to the linetrace hit?

Ok nvm

im 99% not getting the scenario here

[mental steeple]

Am I not explaining well?

[gentle urchin]

It might aswell be me just not getting it

[maiden wadi]

The impression I'm getting is that you want the cube to be some sort of attachment that looks at the player when they attach to it and if that is happening then you can wall run.

[mental steeple]

No, because gravity is so complicated

I want to do it one step at a time

so as far as I am aware, there are two steps to this

I get the orientation of the surface I want to run on

[gentle urchin]

The thing that confuses me is the cubes relation to any of this really

[mental steeple]

and I apply that to the gravity of the player actor

It's about translating the orientation of the selected surface to something else

because then you can take the vector/quat orentation of the object and apply gravity in the opposite direction

[maiden wadi]

So if the player is near a cube thing, they can look at it and interact with it and then their gravity changes, that allows them to walk across the wall as if they were still walking on ground?

[mental steeple]

The cube is an analog for the player right now

It won't be in the final thing

It's how I can test getting the orientation of a wall and applying it to another object

[maiden wadi]

So the cube is just a bystander object?

Player causes gravity on the wall and anything nearby has their gravity changed?

[mental steeple]

1-> Player looks at Wall X,
2-> Player Hit E, linetrace to Wall X,
3-> Wall normal is transmitted to player
4-> Player gravity orientation changes

right now I just want to work with getting the wall orientation and applying it to another object

When the feature is done, the gravity change will be applied to the player, but right now I don't really know what I am doing so the cube is acting as a debug item

because I can look at the cube and see if the rotation of the wall is translating over to it correctly

[maiden wadi]

I mean. As far as general items go. It's likely easiest to disable their initial gravity and add force in the direction you need. This won't work for characters though. In singleplayer you can manage this pretty easy by just changing the character's orientation, but in multiplayer this is going to get a lot more difficult and may even require an overriding childclass in C++ for the CMC to handle some of the edge cases. CMC is designed for upright walking characters in a single orientation.

Actually even in singleplayer that might be difficult, I know walking on walls is pretty easy. But actual gravity might be a pain.

[mental steeple]

So I probably can't test this in Blueprints, I will have to code it up in C++?

[maiden wadi]

If you've ever seen the CMC class's code file, you'd know how difficult of a question that is to answer. 😄 That class is absolutely massive.

[gentle urchin]

Indeed, it does a boatload of stuff!

Never studied its custom movement mode etc, but still probably doesnt work well with custom gravity

[maiden wadi]

.h and .cpp files together, the class is 15,000 lines long. And that's not including the stuff it needs in the character class.

[mental steeple]

I'm still going to give it the good old college try I think, I've been collecting a small scrapbook of links for people who have done the same thing, albeit not replicated

I don't want to be the kind of person that gives up just because something might be hard. I really like the idea of expanding the multiplayer movement shooter genre a bit by adding extra mechanics

[earnest tangle]

There is a directional gravity plugin on the marketplace for free, might be useful to look at

[mental steeple]

I think the gravity discussion is putting the cart before the horse though, I haven't even touched gravity yet 😅

I just need the orientation of the object I am looking at translated over to a different medium for testing

[mental steeple]

which you can see I am grabbing the impact normal here

[gentle urchin]

For very simple testing you can use the normalized hit result as an input to the "cube" per tick "add actor location" f.ex

if its just the math you wanna test

[mental steeple]

Right now I just want this interface to print out the hello world in the cube class

and it doesn't printout anything because the target node isn't attached to an instance of the cube I assume

[gentle urchin]

At beginplay just do a "get all actors of class", filter by the cubes class , and save the reference (assuming its only 1 instance, index 0 would be it)

quick and dirty

[mental steeple]

worked

[gentle urchin]

You dont need the purple node there, nor send the info to everyone (i assume that's what would happen here(?))

[mental steeple]

😮

hold on let me check that out

nvm fixed it

[gentle urchin]

I cant remember toggling it on but maybe? 😛

[mental steeple]

I just missed it

[gentle urchin]

ah

[mental steeple]

what is that node coming out of out actors?

[gentle urchin]

"get"

its used to get a specific index from an array

[mental steeple]

If there is only one item in the array you wouldn't have to worry about the get right?

[gentle urchin]

Not sure ,

[mental steeple]

I assume it's best practice though to be specific?

[gentle urchin]

usually one cant "talk" directly to an array like that

seems interfaces are different,

so i got no clue what the result would be

[mental steeple]

beautiful

I'm getting exactly what I need

[mental steeple]

Thank you very much, I greatly appreciate the help.

[onyx token]

shit doesn't work for me

i got an AI character (just the basic third person template character) that has this blueprint

works fine, if i just place it in the level

But when i spawn it via blueprint - it doesn't work

[gentle urchin]

are you sure its spawned within range of the nav mesh?

[onyx token]

yea, i made the navmesh gigantic, and if i place an AI character exactly at the spot where i place the spawner- placed one works, spawned one doesn't

[gentle urchin]

Change to placed In World or Spawned

[onyx token]

that did it

thank you so much, i would've literally searched days for this

i think i rewrote my blueprint algorythms and AI stuff like 6 times now, desperately searching for the error

[gentle urchin]

All these small things huh

Devils in the details !

[onyx token]

big true

[maiden wadi]

Also depends on how you're spawning it. Often times you need to call SpawnAIFromClass instead of SpawnActorFromClass.

SpawnAI will create a controller for the AI and possess it automatically as well.

[gentle urchin]

^ the more you know ! Didnt even check for that being an option :p

[dire frost]

can you play a sound cue in blueprints?

[odd ember]

yes

play sound

[dire frost]

...

didnt think it was that easy...

all the time i was like "it's not that easy"

but thanks cranz i really appreciate it

[wise raven]

Theres a bug with traceforobjects on my player pawn. my characters skel mesh is assigned with "PhysicsBody" collision type. but any traceforobjects function just wont detect my players skel mesh collision as "physics body" , however if i assign that mesh's collision as pawn or anything else, the trace detects the mesh as "pawn" object type etc. how can i fix this? do i need to refresh/replace something?

[wise raven]

anybody else having or has had this prob?

[median jay]

What would be the best way to obtain the size of something that is a component (or part of the map), if I wrap it in a debug box can I get the size from this or is there some other easier method? -- doing this in blueprint of course

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z64_Ke3MSPY
I figured out a way to get the object collided with's dimensions, however I cannot seem to separate the X Y Z

[crude birch]

Hey there.

I am building something with blueprints only and I have been reading a blogpost regarding the "Set Input Mode Game Only Node" as I had the same problem:
https://superyateam.com/2019/10/01/problem-with-set-input-mode-game-only-node/

Actually there is a node called "Set Viewport Mouse Capture Mode" that you can put behind the
"Set Input Mode Game Only Node" which fixes the problem.

However, for me it only fixes the doubleclicking issues - there is another behaviour that seems to be different from the default (when not having set any input mode), which is when the mouse button is held and the mouse is moved around while holding the button:

Without the "Set Input Mode Game Only Node" set, when I click and hold my mousebutton, i can still move my cursor around, but with the node being set, the mouse is locked in the place where i clicked. Do you have any idea how to solve this, ideally with blueprints only?

[glass stump]

do i have to use EventTick for a continuous event? i have code that's meant to play a sound every 5 seconds and i have it plugged into EventTick.

But apparently that's not a good thing to do. what's the alternative?

[median jay]

do something when something meets a condition

then it will only trigger when the condition is met

[glass stump]

well it's meant to just do it straight from the start. hmmm, i guess i'll have to use Event Begin Play. it just confuses me the way you can only have one pin from it. XD

i guess i've got to use a branch I think.

no not a branch.... something.

[odd ember]

you could start a timer or a timeline

on beginplay

[glass stump]

ah that's a good idea!

i'll try it out. thank you. :)

[median jay]

these functions are getting kinda big lol

[jaunty solstice]

noob question. Is it possible to get a reference to an existing Direction Light in your scene , from within a Construction script?
Trying to create an effect that depends on the light direction and works without PIE mode.

[faint pasture]

Look at the default sky sphere, it does that.

[jaunty solstice]

Thank you! Also discovered Editor Tick https://youtu.be/HDFvh-CYIGA

[spark cliff]

in the blueprint window we have the option to 'simulate'
but focusing the window and pressing input mappings or hotkeys doesn't work. is there a way to make them work?

[crude birch]

i guess what you are looking for might be a "sequence" node. you can add as many pins as you like

[hearty hearth]

Hello friends! I have a problem. When the FPS in the game drops below 30, the blueprint cannot determine the distance to the object. Are there any options on how to fix this?

If FPS is more than 30, then branch = true
If FPS is less than 30, then Branch = false

[junior ember]

Does anyone know if the blueprint ninja thing sends a conformation email? Because it really feels like I didn't sign up and you can't sign up after the 13th. Ping me if you do

[eternal drum]

why does this not work? (more screenshots coming)

i can fly it around but when i collide with the map it does not register

[glass stump]

yeah, that worked! thank you. :)

[eternal drum]

do trigger boxes work when placed inside actors

?

[pale orbit]

what do u guys think is the best way of doing a model viewer in game where i can rotate it and such with my mouse?

[atomic salmon]

How are you flying it around? By setting its world position?

[worthy tendon]

cool trick. never thought it would be possible in blueprint only.

[gilded rose]

Hey, i just started with unreal engine and i need a little help, i was trying to make a main menu, but it is not showing up in the variables ( main menu is a vertical box) i found this thread: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/794805/main-menu-variables-not-showing-in-event-graph.html but i don't know where the "is variable" box is, can someone please help?

[eternal drum]

Using AddActorLocalOffset

[atomic salmon]

Did you check the Sweep option?

[eternal drum]

Yes

[atomic salmon]

Second keep in mind that only the root component is checked for collisions

So you want the collider around your plane to be the root component

Third the collider and the environment have to be set to block each other

[eternal drum]

Got it

one proplem is that i cant resize the collider without resizing the whole model since the collider is the root

anyway to get past that

[atomic salmon]

You can resize the whole actor inside the level if needed

But yes you will have to set the proportions again if you move the collider to be the root

[eternal drum]

the collider resized to its original size

so when I try to scale it just scales all its ancestors

[atomic salmon]

In an ideal workflow you don’t want to resize parts/components within Unreal but do that in your external DCC application and import them already with the proper size

[spark steppe]

you may be looking for a sequence

[mental steeple]

I'm back at it again with the gravity shenanigans

So I get the direction of the gravity perfectly and everything is working find except my while loop crashes unreal because it is an infinite loop.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to constantly apply force to simulate gravity?

maybe hook it up to event tick with a delay node?

[gentle urchin]

I suggested a method last time 😅

[mental steeple]

lemme scroll up hold on lol

[gentle urchin]

Using a normalized direction vector

[mental steeple]

sorry, just got back from the gym and am rebooting brain

[gentle urchin]

On tick, just for quick and dirty tests

So the linetrace result sets the direction.(which in cube by default is 0,0,0)

[atomic salmon]

You don’t need all that code. Just add a force of 980 cm/s^2 with acceleration change ticked.

[gentle urchin]

This interface call isnt called on tick, so would that even work?

[atomic salmon]

If you want the standard gravity the force (actually acceleration vector) has to be [0,0,-980]

@mental steeple

[mental steeple]

The problem with using just the add force node is that it only applies the force once, so I'm trying to apply once each second

and so I thought I could use a while loop or something like that but it is scuffed and crashes because of an infinite loop

[atomic salmon]

Every AddForce or AddTorque node must be called On Tick

[mental steeple]

let me fiddle for a while and get back to you

[mental steeple]

worked like a charm, still getting used to using ticks and stuff, thanks for the help

[desert storm]

I'm making a game where to pick-up and hold an item, the player has to hold down the E key. I start by checking if the item has the correct interface, and if it does then I perform this function (in the player BP) to pick it up:

And the following function for when the player lets go of the item:

And that works fine. Problem is, I call another function after pick-up that (in the item's BP) disables physics for it, and another after being dropped that enables physics for it, so it falls to the floor.

After that, I can't pick the item back up. Holding E still disables physics for it and letting go still enables physics, but that's it. If I remove the simulate physics entirely, it works fine - minus the lack of physics. I can't figure out why.

[high ocean]

Can anyone pls explain this to me?

It's not the only DMI in this blueprint, the other is working just fine - created with the same functions... I don't get it 😒

[gray chasm]

Does anyone have strong feeling about subclassing UObject to create self contained blueprint classes? Eg. An Inventory object with its own self contained functions and data that can be added to any character.

Ie. define a HasInventory interface that returns an Inventory object that lets you apply state changes to the character externally, and each character only has to implement GetInventory.

(Ie. a work around for blueprint functions being unable to return refs)

[odd ember]

try using an isValid node with a branch and see if you still have the issue. sometimes macros are no bueno

[icy dragon]

Isn't everything in UE subclassed from UObject?

[gray chasm]

No, I mean like, instead of having a variable on your character which is a struct, have a variable which is of type Inventory, where Inventory is a blueprint subclass of UObject. like... the wheels for vehicles.

[prisma stag]

Hello, I am creating this menu to select quantity and show the total price after the quantity for each item. Now right now the numbers are to represent as if the quantity had a value, but I would be given a text value which isn't anything I can do anything with when adding to the quantity. Should I create a variable for each product and when the plus and minus buttons just affect the variable and bind the text to the variable?

[civic briar]

So are you just trying to show the total cost of the item * the number of items selected ?

[prisma stag]

Yea. I did make 3 variables, one for the price, the quantity, and then the total which seems to work but when I add more of them I don't know if it will be too congested?

[civic briar]

Just use a data table if you plan to expand more

[eternal drum]

Waht node would i use to make the propellers spin?

[prisma stag]

Uh oh. This is new territory for me. Ill have to watch a tutorial explaining them as I see it asks for a row structure and dont know what that means.

[civic briar]

I can show ya

[civic briar]

Are they a spereate mesh ?

[worn kernel]

right now im possesing from one object to another but when i posses it, it spawns me at zero location

[odd ember]

rotatingmovement component

@eternal drum

[civic briar]

Do you know where the pawn you are possessing is located when you posses ?

[eternal drum]

Yea

[worn kernel]

yes. i have it set so i get all the player starts. i spawn the character and i zoom into it. (Battlefield spawn system kinda) and then when i posses it, it moves it to zero. i even delayed it and it still moves it

[civic briar]

Then use rotating component like he mentioned

Or

Use add relative rotation and do it over a timeline or lerp. Or just set a timer

[bold phoenix]

How can I get the static mesh of an actor inside a class when casting the class ?

Or access to a variable inside the actor

[solar dawn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjFUqverTio&t=28s

hey guys, I'm following this tutorial now. May I know how do I make the actor teleports on random points instead of keep making it Play/Stop to respawn again

[little storm]

Im trying to make an array of string names, that can contain another array of string names, im not really to sure how to do this with blueprints

[icy dragon]

Just lay it out in a single array.

[gray chasm]

@little storm If you desperately need to, create a struct with a single element that is array and make an array of the struct. You can't make a multi dimensional array in pure blueprint.

[woven lance]

am i mistaken about something..? can you not set variables inside AnimNotifyStates?

[gentle urchin]

What variables are you talking about? But yes, I'm atleast doingnitn

[woven lance]

my own variables being added to a blueprint child of, say, AnimNotifyState

[icy dragon]

In a sense, Anim Notify BPs are functions.

[woven lance]

i can understand animnotify not letting you set something, since it'll be gone right after executing

but i would've assumed animnotifystates to be different

since i can save something in the begin, then perhaps use it during the tick, etc etc

[gentle urchin]

Guess i havnt tried to save stuff in the state itself beyond edited varibles from its instance (in the anim graph) ,

But atleast i've been successfully able to do that + edit stuff in the avtual char bp..

Didnt even consider if there would be issues setting 'internal' variables in the state itself

[woven lance]

yeah, that's the workaround i'm expecting to have to use

saving it on the char, but kind of pollute-y

[gentle urchin]

What exactly would you save in the state if i may ask?

[woven lance]

my use atm is to slow down an animation inside the ANS

and remembering what play rate it was before entering it

[gentle urchin]

Ah

Then yeah that'd definetly pollute the char bp 😅

Ill give it a test in a sec

[velvet dagger]

I'm wanting to make a 2D tower defense game and don't know where to start :(

I've never worked with 2D

[storm dove]

hi guys how do i deal with my vectors being jiggle when far from center (0,0,0) in the level?

[velvet dagger]

And the fact it's in a 3D world is super confusing

[gentle urchin]

Yepp, it's definetly like a function. Cant set a variable in there at all

Setting up mine, i just followed the ActionRPG template from Epic, which just forwarded the entire state to the character bp

[onyx token]

is there a way to activate and deactivate parts of an actor?

i got a building, which spawns an ai, and a wheat field, which contains a waypoint - that the AI walks to.

But when i spawn the field, and drag it around to place it - the field waypoint of course instantly exists, even though i'm still just moving it around.

Is there a way to temporarily deactivate the waypoint scene object in my wheat field actor - and only activate it again once it's placed?

for explanation:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/847253861403197471/896672144505860166/i3xsJ2gc8i.mp4

if i could deactivate the "waypoint scene object" in that actor, my AI wouldn't recognize it and wouldn't immediately start walking

[undone kiln]

how can i create a variable in a blueprint character class?

there is no any area for functions/variables

nvm. window -> my blueprint and it appeared

[robust condor]

Does anyone know if this is an efficient way of regenerating foliage health? Im not sure which way is more performant. This method shown in the picture or just simply looping through all the foliage data and adding health to the damaged ones.

[gritty elm]

you need to be more specific here. you can also set visibility to hide of components or changing scale to zero, or disable collision

[onyx token]

well- the way my ai works is this:

i just get the location of my waypoint

So if the waypoint doesn't exist, it's null

[gritty elm]

sure, so when it is null then what should happen

[onyx token]

nothing, i'll just replace it with the current AI location

so the AI won't walk

because the waypoint doesn't exist yet

as soon as i click - and place down the field - the waypoint exists - and the AI starts walking

[gritty elm]

so what needs to be fixed

[onyx token]

right now when i place a wheatfield, it first hovers over my mouse (the hovering is just a change location to mouse cursor on tick)

So it's the normal model.
But i would like a way to disable the waypoint scene object in my wheatfield actor

so my AI just gets null when it looks for the waypoint - since it doesn't exist

otherwise i'll have to make a boolean in my field that says "still hovering / placed" - which means i'll have to cast on each and every AI update...

and that'll become expensive real quick

[gritty elm]

components can be deactivated as well

no it will not be much expensive, creating bool is fine approach. unless you have many AI

try to make bool, and see fps and also use profiler tool to see the tick updates, if it doesn't make any difference then this approach is fine

[onyx token]

well i'm trying to kinda keep it optimized so i can have as many ai as possible

still kinda figuring out what's fun and what's not

ok i solved it

i gave my AI a "maximum search radius" and put this in my wheat field now.

stupid solutions best solutions

[gritty elm]

Great

[spark steppe]

i wouldn't hesitate to put the bool in there

like isPlaced

first of all, your AI is not gonna search every tick for new fields, but just when they try to find a new one

so the performance "impact" isn't anything to be concerned about, as long your AI doesn't stupid things (but then other stuff will hit you harder) 😄

those "workarounds" are hard to keep track of, you'll forget about them in a year, and wonder why stuff breaks if you change something related to it

[gentle urchin]

^

The waypoint could be added at runtime, or exist i the cornfield itself (if that's where it would be)

You can also connect things up here a bit for easier handling ;
MasterBuilding knows of all sub-buildings and related corn-fields and whatnot
NPC/AI farmer asks the Building for references to the cornfield(s) etc

So instead of doing some trace/collision overlap test to find cornfields, the npc would know which building it "belongs" to, and asks said building for references

[spark steppe]

that sounds also good

probably better as you won't have to deal with AI running to enemy field 😛

[gentle urchin]

Cornfield would be genericly replaced by "work area" or something like that. would work for any job

yeah exactly^^

[onyx token]

that sounds complicated

[gentle urchin]

complicated setup < complicated use

[spark steppe]

let's say you have a town hall

all buildings register to said town hall on placement

AI gets building data by querying said town hall

it's not that complicated

[gentle urchin]

^Exactly

could ease handling quite a bit aswell

[plucky harness]

how can i set single member within a struct without resetting all others?

[spark steppe]

set members in structname

then in the details panel of the node you can toggle which values you want to set

[plucky harness]

ty

[onyx token]

hmm...
So i give the townhall an array of building actors - and all of my AI actors all get coordinated by my townhall?

[spark steppe]

they get a list of the actors, and the location from the actors themself

[onyx token]

and then i just cast every time my actor does something?

[spark steppe]

yes

if the action requires a cast

[onyx token]

like i got "Farm 1, field1_1, field1_2"
And each time my actor reaches a waypoint, it asks my townhall what to do next?

[gentle urchin]

Probably wouldnt need to cast but yeah i guess

[spark steppe]

everytime your AI is idle

[onyx token]

but don't i need the locations of those waypoints from my townhall?

[gentle urchin]

Then later on it should be quite straight forward to add on to that funcitonality

[spark steppe]

the townhall could also be the AI

[gentle urchin]

like letting the player set priorities for the buildings f.ex.

[spark steppe]

and give jobs to actual entities

[onyx token]

oof

i feel like i'm diving into a big world here

[spark steppe]

well, see it like this, you place a field, field tells the townhall "hey i'm there, i need a worker"

townhall searches for idle entity and sends it to the field

done, no pulling, all event based straight to the point

[onyx token]

but i don't know how i could do this without a bunch of casting every time tho...
Like in my mind it goes like this:
I spawn the farm, the farm casts to the townhall, and adds the "farm building" counter by +1

The townhall says "every farm has 3 workers, currently employed are 3, i have 2 farms now, so i need 3 new workers. So it casts to the workers, and makes them into "farmer""

The farmer says "I'm a farmer now, so i will search for a field near a farm, and start farming it"

or am i getting this wrong?

[spark steppe]

i would add an enumerator to define what job a worker has, to not have dozens of worker classes

[onyx token]

ok sure, i spawn the town hall first then.
Then i spawn the farm.
How is the townhall gonna know the farm exists?

[spark steppe]

you could go as far as saving the townhall reference in the player controller

if you are afraid of getAllActor(s)OfClass

[onyx token]

well- what i wanna do is i wanna make it as simple as possible, but try to have it a little optimized...

Since an RTS with a maximum of 20 units because my code is shit, is probably underwhelming

hmm i actually heard of having like a central "ai manager" in some tutorials

[spark steppe]

yea the townhall was an example, an invisible manager would work, too

https://tenor.com/view/viva-la-dirt-league-vldl-gif-19768362

fields are like^

[onyx token]

idk how you manage to communicate between blueprints without casting tho

show me your magic

wait wut? I can get variables from other blueprints without casting?
I always thought you gotta cast for that...

[spark steppe]

worst case scenario

actually, you would add a enumerator to your actor base class like "job" which is set by the childs defaults

so you can get the job from the basetype without any cast

[onyx token]

so to put it concrete, if my variable is of the type "wheat field actor reference" instead of just "actor reference"

I don't need to cast and it's way cheaper?

[spark steppe]

😄.

[onyx token]

it will be slow anyways

good bye 100 ai actors

wait behavior trees are faster than blueprints?

yea, that's why i thought bp would be way better, because i thought behaviour trees would put additional overhead ontop of blueprints...

unreal engine = loopy land

alright i'll do a tutorial on behavior trees and see if i can get some neat stuff that i can utilize in my rts project...

thanks!

ooh that looks neat

[spark steppe]

i would recommend to watch a few, some are very specific and don't cover all the features imho

[onyx token]

also daedalic is cute

not all needs to be bear. Bear must be used extensively, but not too extensively

[spark steppe]

yea joby, you are only allowed to use bear emotes if you have a bear profile pic

it's a unwritten rule

don't get him confused too much yet

[faint pasture]

Can behavior tree nodes be written in c++?

So what would an ai manager subsystem look like, sorta like a quasi ECS or data driven setup with the subsystem calling all the shots?

[spark steppe]

what's ECS?

[faint pasture]

Entity Component System. Basically your game world is made up of Entities which are bundles of Components which are manipulated by Systems

[spark steppe]

so everything can be everything

[faint pasture]

Nah it perfectly explains it.

In OO style you'd have a component ProjectileMovementComponent which, on tick, traces through the world checking for hits and moving it's parent Actor

In ECS, your projectile would have components Position and Collision and ProjectileProperties, and the ProjectileSystem would update all Entities with those 3 components all at once in a big fat loop. Not exactly the most elegant or fine grained way to put it but you get the picture.

[onyx token]

hang on, one quick question, i have an idea:

Let's say i have 100 AI actors, like units that i wanna send somewhere...

How about, i split those up into like 20 groups of 5
Then i make an AI tick every frame
But each group just gets a tick every 20 frames- since there's 20 groups

[spark steppe]

that's what you would do if you screwed up already 😄

[onyx token]

shit

[spark steppe]

or if an task is reallllly taking that long that it would make sense

but for simple AI stuff like "move to", no

why would you have to send 100 units btw? for soldiers?

[onyx token]

sure

[spark steppe]

yea you could group those into units

sure, but they had quite some specific tasks each, other than attack entities

[faint pasture]

Just stick to BT and watch your service tick rate

[spark steppe]

well, he seems to try to understand how to implement it reasonable, nothing wrong with that (imho)

[onyx token]

well-
In general-
I'm a bigtime ue4 noob
I'm just happy when shit moves

fair enough

[faint pasture]

Ya I would never unit merge unless it's a major part of the design like Civ. If units are mostly independent like AOE don't try any merge stuff

[spark steppe]

well, you can merge them on selection, and send them the same commands

[faint pasture]

I'm sure total war does something in the middle of those extremes but that's beyond you if you're a total nub to this. Get one dude to attack move for starters.

[maiden wadi]

At least on a PC with the right unit setups, you can manage 500-1000 simple AI above 60FPS. 😄 BP Only. Non Networking. Fun times.

[spark steppe]

however, lorash has a point, get started and come back if you fail 😄

[faint pasture]

Well yeah but that's more like grouping. They aren't being merged to one entity under the hood, just grouped. In almost all games the AI is still at the individual level when grouped.

[onyx token]

ok i shall go on my quest to make a duder move

[maiden wadi]

Amusingly enough, you're going to hit the CMC wall before you hit the AI optimization wall.

[spark steppe]

CMC?

[maiden wadi]

Sweeping movements the CMC uses for default movement are insanely expensive.

[spark steppe]

oh

character movement component

yea

[faint pasture]

Link? Never heard of it.

[spark steppe]

yea by that garage company

[onyx token]

every time i hear fortnite, i get reminded that blender wouldn't be as awesome as it is now-
If not for millions of 9 year old fortnite fans

thank you 9 year olds

[spark steppe]

but honestly, phones these days have insane amount of cpu power

[faint pasture]

Legendary Games I think. They make Real™ Engine™

Epic gave major moneys

[onyx token]

yes but they played fortnite, and epic took their fortnite money and invested some of it into blender

[faint pasture]

Ty based zoomers

[spark steppe]

😄.

[onyx token]

take that back

[faint pasture]

Nah it's 100x better now.

Works for me

[onyx token]

in that case we should go back to how it was in 2.5
I liked it more.

[spark steppe]

xD don't quote me on it without context

the problem is, make an good UI that gives you access to that much features

because blender is literary everything (ok they took BGE out, but still)

is it still for video editing etc.?

[onyx token]

i don't like how it looks

[maiden wadi]

Personally, I prefer Autocad 3DSMAX But that shit is expensive. Much more intuitive UI though.

[onyx token]

also it has less keyboard reliancy which i also don't like

[spark steppe]

ok, took a look. looks like blender with candy

[onyx token]

and i always loved how blender didn't waste screenspace with completely useless shit such as

[faint pasture]

Literally shaking rn

[late cave]

Blender just wastes your time in 1000s of other ways 😉

[onyx token]

yea like the stupid simple deform modifier

which sucks so much

[late cave]

Anyway, this is #blueprint so, why can't I save a soft class reference to actor components in structs?

No error. I can save soft class references to actors just fine, but my component classes don't show up in the list...

[spark steppe]

welcome to BP structs, the pita of UE blueprint stuff

[late cave]

Oh wait... they DO show up when I make a new struct member... but not when I try to adjust the old one... whaat?

[spark steppe]

now cross fingers that the engine doesn't crash when you save your struct changes 😛

[late cave]

ok, and now that I added the soft component class reference to the new member, it shows up in the list for the old member too... wtf... the list just decided to take a nap, I guess?

Again, #blueprint 😛

I will add C++ to a project the day Epic removes the "something went wrong, please recompile from source" message... until that, FUCK C++! 😛

[spark steppe]

yea but i heard that they also aren't bulletproof when used in blueprints and you change something on the struct

[maiden wadi]

To be fair. When you start using C++, you just start the project from VS and it compiles it if anything has changed each time you open it.

[spark steppe]

not a tie if one comes with a UI 😛

[maiden wadi]

I don't think I've ever even seen the message mentioned above.

[spark steppe]

well ok, we just got a demo of what the UI is capable of...

[late cave]

Cool, but I'm taking it as a challenge now to finish an entire game in 100% blueprints (and complaining about Epic every step on the way) 😉

[spark steppe]

you need the coffee while you wait for your c++ structs to compile?! right?

yea, but you got to restart the engine once

[late cave]

My day job is in an industrial design firm, and there's 0% chance anyone there would ever come near anything C++, so it's not just a self-imposed problem

[maiden wadi]

To be fair. With your project set up correctly, restarting the editor takes <20 seconds.

[spark steppe]

you haven't been to linux land without some patchery 😄

it takes literary 5 minutes without patching a core lib -.-

[maiden wadi]

I have never once been interested in linux. I don't run servers. 😄

[spark steppe]

but yea, with the patch it's also ~10-20 seconds

[maiden wadi]

Paper2D

Sensible. BP Structs are for ease, and they're not often used seriously. Paper2D has the chance to steal a lot more Unity fans who think 2D is too difficult in Unreal.

[spark steppe]

structs are an issue since forever?!

actually, haven't tried in ue5 yet, maybe they fixed them silently?! 😛

[maiden wadi]

Besides that, I imagine that fixing BP Structs is a fuckton of a larger rabbit hole than Paper2D.

[bright frigate]

Hello, can one explain what the sweep clockwise means in this context?

in the clamp node

[spark steppe]

i think the big problem with structs comes up when you split their output on something

[bright frigate]

does it have anything to do with physical direction of something rotating? Example here, I want to open a door towards me, which would be anti clockwise from my POV, is that waht it's talking about?

okay so my door will open towards me at -115 degrees and its original position is 40 degrees (absolute world). I don't want it to go beyond 40 (so it's only allowed to open towards me)

I did, both were wonky and have my brain broken 😄

although I'm disconnecting some of the other nodes to simplify it all

[spark steppe]

well, you have to consider the base orientation of the door

[bright frigate]

base orientation is 40 degrees according to the details panel

[spark steppe]

it's the opposite for one direction

[bright frigate]

and the limit I want it to open is going to be world location of -115

[spark steppe]

should it always open to the same side?

[bright frigate]

Z axis

[bright frigate]

yes, only towards me. Should not go away from me (after 40 degrees, its original closed position)

[spark steppe]

what if you go through it from the other side?

[bright frigate]

so I'll be pushing the door out if on the opposite side. Wouldn't the absolute world rotations stay the same?

[spark steppe]

no

also consider making the door an actor with a static mesh component which is the door

that way you can work with 0 rotation as base orientation

no matter how it's placed in the world

[bright frigate]

Yes this is what it is, it's a BP

Here's my code, following a tutorial

basically rotation is fine, it's just this clamping/min/max logic that's not working as I want it

so is it because I'm doing in a BP that it must be local rotations?

I have a print string at the end that is printing absolute world locations so it seems to be absolute that's going into the logic so I'm a bit lost (since we're using local rotation nodes too lol)

[bright frigate]

I have disconnected the clamping logic in this, but assume the NOT is hooked up to that 3rd Branch node

uh oh 😄

it's cause I want an Amnesia-style mechanic

mouse click drag

would that still work?

I mean I know I'm torturing myself but I can't help it, I must have it! 😄

if I know which values the engine wants (absolute or local) then I should be able to figure it out.

oh yea, I forgot to check that

well either of them show the same values lol

but coming back to the clockwise thing

if I want it to open to -115 and it begins from 40 and the door is opening counter clockwise looking from above, which goes into which pin?

ok let's see what happens, the F1 race on the other monitor is distracting so maybe I'll be a bit later 😛

I think one of the problems is when the NOT is false, that is, if the clamp values become true, then it has to stop the door opening. The tutorial uses a positive open angle and mine is negative, so there is some opposites going on that I have to figure out

okay

[late cave]

My poor #blueprint eyes... 😝

[viral bolt]

Hey everyone, I'm interested in learning some different techniques in creating a "Theater mode" using UE4. This isn't discussed very often. When I say theater mode I mean any type of replay or way of recording gameplay to view afterwords.

[earnest tangle]

iirc unreal has a system to record and play replay/demo type info builtin but I'm not sure how much of it is exposed to blueprints

but beyond that it would pretty much just be a question of having a UI where you can play/pause/seek

[viral bolt]

Thank you

[silver agate]

I believe it's not entirely plug and play, you need to set the game up to actually make it replay. Here's some documentation about it 😄
https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/TestingAndOptimization/ReplaySystem/

[viral bolt]

This looks promising. I'd like to create a way for players to record video and Saving it simultaneously while in-game. Then later than can view that content in-game as well.

[icy dragon]

Fortnite has the same replay system (and in turn what the Replay System is based off of)

[ruby meadow]

How can I hide a **bone ** from the character's owner, but not for other players?

Bone is hidden for everyone.

[rancid steppe]

how can i add this mesh to may character in unreal

[ruby meadow]

Well.

[dire frost]

so i noticed that when i play a sound in unreal it adds an object (Probably the sound itself) but this causes a memory leak. is there a way to remove the instance of the sound when it's done playing?

[ruby meadow]

Add Component: Skeletal Mesh.

And add this mesh to your character.

[ruby meadow]

I solved this. Simple and stoopid duplication, but this works!

How to hide mesh, but keep shadows?

Nope.

[rancid steppe]

thaaaaanks bro i will try it now

[ruby meadow]

Render Main Pass.

[dire frost]

ok nvm, it turns out my AI was just adding to the vector array for no reason which caused the memory leak

he was adding the sound location to the array which made it look like the sounds were the ones causing the memory leak

[cinder raven]

If I wanted to begin programming attacks would I need the character model and animations I plan to use to build them around? Or could I use placeholder stuff and easily slot in final assets later?

[trim matrix]

anyone can help me?

[bright frigate]

ok I'm at my wit's end

lol

why doesn't this work? Door doesn't move

rather, I should say it gives true or false correctly from the print screen at the ended connected to that AND boolean, but the door isn't actually moving which is totally bizarre

[earnest tangle]

If the execution reaches the rotation node then the problem is probably either your rotation value is wrong, or the component is not movable

[bright frigate]

it's movable so no issue there

Earlier, I just couldn't get it to stop within the max open values, but out of nowhere now it's not even moving, I don't get it

[earnest tangle]

add a breakpoint and check what the rotation value is, or add a print node that prints it

[bright frigate]

the condition seems sound, if the rotation is between those two values (default is 40, open angle is -115), then keep adding rotation

[earnest tangle]

yeah you need to verify the values that are being used for rotating if everything else seems to check out

[bright frigate]

so is it that it reaches the false branch and dies because I've disconnected the false branch?

If I connect the false branch, then this happens. Upon click it instantly locks onto this weird angle that I haven't put anywhere

[earnest tangle]

Yeah it's kinda hard to say without knowing what all the values in the code are, so you just need to find out why it's producing incorrect values

most likely your math is wrong somewhere

[bright frigate]

all I'm doing is this: reducing the angle by 1 at both extremes so it can allow me to continue moving the door but bounce off the limit

this is the full thing

sorry a bit messy

been trying lots of things

[earnest tangle]

Tbh it would probably be a lot easier to just Lerp between the min and max rotation and apply that as the rotation

[bright frigate]

so place lerps in front of the branches?

[earnest tangle]

this is a bit for a simple door I'm using

[bright frigate]

I can't use a timeline as this is a mouse-buttong kind of thing

but I'll see what I can do

[earnest tangle]

"mouse button kind of thing"?

[bright frigate]

sorry I mean amnesia style

[earnest tangle]

I haven't played it

[bright frigate]

4.20 AM lol

[bright frigate]

you click and drag to open a door

[earnest tangle]

ahh I see

I guess you could use the mouse to run the Alpha value that goes into the Lerp in that case

instead of the timeline

[bright frigate]

yea thanks lemme try that

ok I'm stuck at which node to use for the lerp

I'm getting the make rotator output that goes into the addlocalrotation in the original thing

for a normal lerp that takes floats, its output is also float, so I will use a set relative rotation node

but then I cannot input the make rotator output which is using a scalar for sensitivity from the mouse

this guy

[earnest tangle]

Well for the Lerp you would need to calculate a value between 0.0 and 1.0, where 0 would move the door to its minimum position and 1 would move it to its maximum position

[gentle urchin]

Would just clamp the set rotation i think

[earnest tangle]

you might be able to use a Rinterp node instead for rotators but not sure off the top of my head

[gentle urchin]

As you suggested, use mouse to add alpha to it

Or add rotation delta**

[bright frigate]

yea I just read that I need to normalise

[gentle urchin]

Input axis value rarely needs any normalization if at all

[bright frigate]

but what about the A and B values?

They need normalisation right

[gentle urchin]

So the door has a set rotation, which is fed from a clamp, which is fed from a target rotation which axisninput is added/subtracted from

Lmb down -> select actor to recieve relevant event

Then on mouse input trigger related event (or reverse bind the door to the input binding instead, or enable input on it temporarily)

My explanation is pretty bad, not at pc yet so cant show you examples

[bright frigate]

if we go back to this, why doesn't it respect the max/min angles? Why does it snap to this uncalled for angle and then refuse to move? It doesn't make sense

I'm removing the lerp stuff as it's made it really messy and complicated and I'm already noob

Hope it's a bit cleaner

[trim matrix]

Hello guys, I have little problem with my project, I am working on theinventory system, I have this: when I get item, it is in the bag, okay, I want to make when I have 2 items in the inventory and I want to exchange the one item with the other item without moving the one slot and make it clear and then put the other. I want to do it when I select item, then press a key and it switch their positions.
https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/q8z7eh43/
when I test this system I have problem with the "Remove Items" node

[bright frigate]

The door in world space is sitting at 39.999
DefaultAngle is set to 40
OpenAngle is set to -155 (the angle I want it to open towards me).

I want it to NOT open beyond 40, so it's an open-towards-me-only door if I'm outside and open-away-from-me-only door if I'm coming from the inside.

I forgot to connect one line, which was a comparison in the very last branch at the bottom right, but that was because I was rearranging things so it doesn't matter, but here it is all connected up anyway

so with this right now, if I move towards the -115 direction (opening the door towards openAngle) then it works fine

but if I push it out to touch 40 degrees (original starting angle) then it snaps to the strange angle much greater than the allowed angle

[tawdry surge]

Hey dumb question but how do I get the correct object reference for my user widget?

[fallen glade]

is it possible to have a master AnimInstance?

[fallen glade]

missing object

[trim matrix]

someone who can help me with my drag and drop system? it is related with drop actually, I want to make it when I have 1 weapon on the weapon slot and want to put other, I want when I click on the first item to press button and they to change their positions instead of removing the firstweapon and then put the other, this system is started but I can't find the action which is related with the button T in the whole project, lol
the other bug that I see is that when I change their positions the widhet doesn't update, hmm

[tawdry surge]

I know.. How do I get the correct reference?

I cant find where the lil daisy chain starts

[bright frigate]

This is what is strange. How is it managing to get into 43 degrees, when the conditions are to not allow it to get there?

if rotation >= defaultAngle (which is 40)
then defaultAngle = defaultAngle - 1 (i.e. do 40-1)

the same logic works fine for the -115 part of the door, but for this part it's not working

[gentle urchin]

@bright frigate

[bright frigate]

how u do dat

what's also strange is that instead of doing -1, my door is jumping like 20 degrees

[bright frigate]

this is really really really weird to me

[bright frigate]

the jump of anything other than 1 degree I mean

[gentle urchin]

There's a minor flaw regarding rotation in my setup,

i thought i'd get away with just setting relative rotation

but i was wrong

[bright frigate]

what's that coming out of the default scene root -> and then has the three relative x y z output pins?

[gentle urchin]

Get relative rotation?

[bright frigate]

okay my setup has getworldrotation

[gentle urchin]

there we go

adding a root to the door itself

[bright frigate]

So what was the flaw?

[gentle urchin]

setting relative rotation to root seem to be not relative (sorta makes sense)

rest is the same

[bright frigate]

this is mine

should I change anything

[gentle urchin]

In the PlayerController, all i need to do is enable these

Depends, if your mesh has proper axis root, then no

i just used a cube mesh with weird scale, so i had to just hotfix it

original axis root of the door

would be a mess to calculate the offset -

[bright frigate]

mine has the pivot in the right spot

[wet patrol]

Hello guys so I asked this question days ago but I got it for a specific state change. Now it comes where I need the macro but more expendable and not limited. How would I make this where I can go 20 and or 40 (flip flop) on press but hold to go 60 on a vehicle and go back to normal(20-40)?

[gentle urchin]

So then you can just set the relative rotation to the door instead

If you're wondering why relative, its because we want it to work regardless of the doors rotation in the world

[bright frigate]

okay so then -115 and 40 don't make sense and it would be from 0?

actually -115 would be correct

[gentle urchin]

That's up to you

I just used -90 to 90 as example values

[bright frigate]

this is my mouse setup btw

I am doing linetrace for the mouse

[gentle urchin]

mouse already sort of handles linetracing by itself

[gentle urchin]

It's presumably how it knows when its hovering/clicking collision objects

So I prefer just using the door collision directly

in the playercontroller you can define how this works, and which channel it uses (+ distance)

[bright frigate]

is this okay?

so it's working for the +ive angle, but it's going right around and resetting to the beginning

so it's doing a full 360

[gentle urchin]

I cant see whats going on in your code

But the clamp..

[bright frigate]

my bad I had the pins in the wrong slots

[gentle urchin]

Seem wrong pinmed

[bright frigate]

omg it works

I'm crying

thank you senpai for noticing me

[gentle urchin]

Np kohai

You got this

[bright frigate]

shinpai shimatta ne

btw, where do I get to those player controller settings?

I looked around and I couldn't get to them

is there some bp class?

[gentle urchin]

Yeah usually one likes to create custom ones from the base playercontroller class

[bright frigate]

ok I have no idea about that unfortunately at present

[gentle urchin]

For this you only need to create it, and swap those settings

Rest can just be left as is

[bright frigate]

I think for now I'll leave it as is

except I want to take this out of event tick

and put it into timers or something

since I have a billion doors

[gentle urchin]

Use the axis input instead

Its tick-like but not really

[bright frigate]

Do you think you could make a short do this do that for an ultra noob like me 😄 I have never touched anything regarding input other than action key mappings in the input section of project settings so I don't even know where to start

[gentle urchin]

This is part of the project settings ^^

The mouseturnx is just a project input axis event

With the key "mouse x"

[bright frigate]

this?

[gentle urchin]

Y

So event would be turn in your case

[bright frigate]

Do I need to do the on clicked enable and disable input like you?

or is mine enough?

[gentle urchin]

Like mine yes

You only wanna override the turn event when the door is clicked (and held)

[bright frigate]

I can't find this

otherwise, I am unable to move the door right now

the clicks are not registering

(they were before I setup enable input like you)

but then my whole perspective was locked

[gentle urchin]

Missing the setting in the playercontroller

The enable click events

[bright frigate]

I'm stupid, where do I get this from lol

[gentle urchin]

Well you could just set it at beginplay in the character

Just use the get playercon5roller to find the set bool

[bright frigate]

but how do you have a whole menu for it? I can't find a single entry for 'mouse' in any of the blueprint classes

neither in first person nor in door

[median jay]

Is there any way you can set a heightmap on your level without generating any kind of terrain?

[gentle urchin]

Its in the playercontroller class

[bright frigate]

I don't even seem to have that 😵😵😵

[gentle urchin]

It always exist

But its part of the default engine classes

[bright frigate]

nothing comes up

[odd ember]

controller is a cpp class

[bright frigate]

but he shared a screenshot of a gui panel, like a details section

I can't even find a cpp class in my engine content with player or controller in it

[gentle urchin]

Create new actor bp, parent class playercontroller

Ta-da

[open crypt]

Is it possible (or do you know of a MP plugin) that can send an alt-tab event to windows?

[earnest tangle]

You would probably need to use UE's C++ level platform libs, or the windows api

[odd ember]

yeah BP doesn't support system calls I don't think

[earnest tangle]

this sounds vaguely like what that guy was asking the other day about making a launcher for his 100 projects, he was also asking about alt tabbing

[odd ember]

I doubt you could even wrap them but then what do I know

[earnest tangle]

:D

[late cave]

👺 👺 👺

[earnest tangle]

You probably could wrap it, I don't see why not. You might need to trampoline it or something but it should be possible

[bright frigate]

okay but don't I need to assign this now/

[odd ember]

you assign it in project settings

[gentle urchin]

You probably need a custom gamemode aswell

[bright frigate]

I assigned it in world settings

[odd ember]

you should assign it in project settings

[bright frigate]

but sigh now I can only turn the camera while right clicking

[odd ember]

otherwise it's only per level

[bright frigate]

once more I cannot find any field or entry where I can select it in project settings

there are just checkboxes and one gizmo library thing

ok used default to search instead

but it's greyed out

[trim matrix]

and the other that I want to make is when I get item and paste it in chest to put it in the first free item but idk how to do it

Does anyone know where or who i ask for help?

[gentle urchin]

Depends on help for what

Just ask and aee how it goes

[bright frigate]

man it's not working out, I can't figure out how to do this game mode class stuff. I made a new game mode class and assigned it in project settings, nothing happened. I reset, put the custom game controller in world settings, that's the only way I get something changed, but then it acts like it's the editor with the right click move of the mouse

but even then, there is no interaction with the door

[gentle urchin]

Did you enable the click event like i showed you?

[open crypt]

The world settings will override your project settings, every time

[odd ember]

the world settings will also need to be set per world

which usually means per level

[open crypt]

Yes, this is how you can download a project from marketplace, open it up, and it works, because you are using THEIR demo level, and it has it's own world settings

[odd ember]

but that wasn't the question

[bright frigate]

yup just like this

[gentle urchin]

And that playercontroller is set in the gamemode ur using ? Or world settings

I did nothing else than this in a new project and it worked right off the bat

[bright frigate]

I set it in world settings because I can't set it in project settings as it's greyed out

so I made a new gamemode and set it then, but then nothing happened,

it was as if there was no change from default

all greyed out

[gentle urchin]

In the gamemode

[bright frigate]

and I cannot find it browser the default player controller if that's required

[gentle urchin]

You can set these default classes

[bright frigate]

but what baout the fact that in world settings, by default, the gamemode override is set to firstpersongamemode?

[odd ember]

you need a custom game mode I believe

[gentle urchin]

Probably because your using the firstperson template?

[odd ember]

once you set that they won't be greyed out

[bright frigate]

also, I cannot find GameModeBase even if I click on the magnifying glass

[bright frigate]

yup

[odd ember]

it's a CPP class

[gentle urchin]

Gamemodebase is a cpp class

Just like playercontroller

[odd ember]

you need to create a class

[bright frigate]

I know I tried that but then nothing changed, it was as if it were default

[gentle urchin]

And really the rest of those base classes

[bright frigate]

ok but after I create the custom game mode class, it's as if nothing happened

[odd ember]

did you replace it in the project settings?

[bright frigate]

yes

[odd ember]

you can also change it in the custom gamemode directly

in the class defaults

[bright frigate]

If I do all this

then it still is stuck in the "right click to look around" mode

the door works

but it's right click to move around the camera

instead of just mouse movement

[odd ember]

I don't know what your custom logic is doing

[bright frigate]

I have no logic for the mouse

as in, everything is default

why does it rotate the mouse on right click?

the only functionality I have for right click is zoom in

so it zooms in fine but I can only look around whilst zoomed in

[open crypt]

I'm having to use an OnMouseMove event binding - what is it looking for in the return mode - it says "Event Reply" but none of the other structures are accepted - I made a variable of "EventReply" but couldn't access any part to see what it wants, nor split the one from the return node - the compiler wouldn't accept an empty return mode (even though I just want to fire something)

[gentle urchin]

You need to add logic for the right click and look around

Handled/unhandled, isnt it blake?

Handled consumes it, unhandled passes it down the chain

[bright frigate]

what do you mean? I'm saying that I just made a new game control and mode class like you said, so why by default is it binding the camera to right click?

I haven't manipulated the right click other than zoom in

this is in the first person character bp

[odd ember]

that updates every frame

I can imagine it interfering with other inputs

[bright frigate]

yes but why is the regular mouse movement detached from the camera movement? It's not making sense lol

[gentle urchin]

The right click to look around most likely is from input mode plus default behavior in the pawn

Show mouse cursor makes the mouse being unconsumed, so when right clicking it consumes it and allows the llooking around

Horribly explained but

[bright frigate]

makes sense what you say

[gentle urchin]

Something along those lines

[bright frigate]

possessed would be a better word lol

any idea where I can find this setting, is it in yet another cpp class or hopefully a bp

player controller had nothing come up for input mode

[gentle urchin]

Just override it in your class, the turn axis event

In the character probably suffices

[bright frigate]

so undo all the custom controller game mode stuff?

[gentle urchin]

Nono

[open crypt]

I see those as acceptable event replies - thanks - I'm confused about how to make this On Mouse Move more event based - do once doesn't seem to work, so I can't make a bool to block it from continuing easily - it keeps firing

[gentle urchin]

What are you using it for?

Since you wanna reduce the call frequency

There's probably more suitsble functions for your usecase

[trim matrix]

does anyone know how to do this, so i type a word into an editable text box, is there a way to execute a console command using that word, so "summon the word i typed" without having to put summon into the text box

[earnest tangle]

you can just convert the value into a string, then use the append node to append your string after "summon "

[drowsy flame]

hey is there any way to get Static Mesh Component Object Reference with just a name?

[bright frigate]

@gentle urchin ok so to override ... what do I actually do in BPs 😄 I mean I know how to do it in C++ (or did, 10 years ago) but as I've found out, BPs is a different world

just create the node?

[trim matrix]

this right?

[earnest tangle]

yep something like that

[bright frigate]

or put this thing in the player class?

[earnest tangle]

if you know which actor it's in, I think you can iterate all the components in it and compare names

[bright frigate]

but it still doesn't make sense how it'll solve the lack of mouse movement! This is so confusing!

[drowsy flame]

do you know what function to use to get all static mesh object references?

[earnest tangle]

From a single actor?

Or from everything?

[drowsy flame]

yeah from a single actor

[trim matrix]

yep this works

[earnest tangle]

@drowsy flame You would probably need to just do Get Components with a for each and a cast

Unless there's a get components by class (not sure if there is)

[odd ember]

in editor blueprints, is there a way to get cursor? or cursor location?

I've seen there is something called GetCursorWorldRay but I'm not sure it's the same, and there's no documentation

[drowsy flame]

Do static meshes have classes? It doesnt seem like they do

[earnest tangle]

What do you mean?

If you're trying to cast the components from Get Components, just do a Cast to Static Mesh Component

[odd ember]

nevermind, apparently that works

[drowsy flame]

ok this is so confusing I will try to come back after I watch a video or two about casting and all about object references etc. Thank you D

😄

[earnest tangle]

sounds like a good idea :)

[trim matrix]

is there a way to make the same thing but i press a seperate button to execute the command?

[earnest tangle]

Sure

You can just put the logic into the button click event instead, and read the value from the textbox

or store the full command into a variable in the commit event, then read it from the variable in the button click event

or any variation of something like that

[bright frigate]

I have also noticed that it's not just right click but also left click that turns the camera

[trim matrix]

would any of these help

[earnest tangle]

one of those is probably your textbox yes

if you go into the UI editor view, you can click on the textbox and then rename it, it has a box on the right side panel for the name

probably makes it easier if you call it something more descriptive :)

[trim matrix]

ok so it puts this here

[earnest tangle]

Yeah if you drag from that pin you can do Get Text which should give you the value in the textbox

Usually the nodes are called something descriptive like that so if you have an idea what you want you can just try it and see

[bright frigate]

@gentle urchin this is completely strange. If I disable show mouse cursor, then I can move the mouse camera freely. But then dragging on the door, while it works, locks me in it. Then I can't detach from the door

and it seems to work on a click basis rather than a keep-clicked case

@gentle urchin if I keep show mouse cursor enabled, then it will click and drag as expected, but it doesn't allow free movement of mouse camera when playing the game

If I disable Show Mouse Cursor, then it only uses click-drag to activate the door code, after that I can rotate the door without clicking and I have to click again to "exit" this, although it takes a few clicks to do so.

Did you test yours out in actual play mode? You will definitely have missed it in just the simulation or editor

[gentle urchin]

I did it in avtual play mode,

But in a tps template

[bright frigate]

what can I do now?

I'm trying to put the original stuff into timer off tick so it doesn't chew processor time unnecessarily

[gentle urchin]

Test it in a new template to understand whats going on is what id advice

[bright frigate]

now even with default game mode and controller class and original event begin play dealing with enabling input, my camera is stuck looking up or down, can't look side to side

just great, just freaking perfect

things are exactly as they were before I tried the input axis stuff, yet everything is broken. I just don't get it sometimes. I keep original node configurations so I can avoid forgetting things and yet here we are

[gentle urchin]

Sounds like it may still be overridden

[bright frigate]

omg wtf is going on, everything has messed up! Now my jump sound is playing in my left ear

literally things I haven't touched are messed up

[bright frigate]

I can't see anywhere where it's not set to what it was originally

I feel like jumping off a building at this point

[gentle urchin]

I think it'd be a good idea to figure out how / why it worked in the first place

Or how to make it work yourself

To better understand whats going on

Starting with a very basic character with no extra logic,

[bright frigate]

I fully understood what you had me do regarding the clamp and it worked

I then moved onto the custom game mode and controller thing

then reverted

and everything has broken since

[gentle urchin]

Doesnt make sense for it to break because of a new gamemode alone

New playercontroller, possibly,

But there's gotta be more stuff that has been added/shiftet

Atleast thats what im thinking

The engine rarely if ever does things by itself

The templates usually has some basic logic setup tho

[bright frigate]

I just restarted the engine and the jump sound is playing even more to the left mono

[gentle urchin]

Could your default character class have ahidtet,

[bright frigate]

everything is default

[gentle urchin]

Defaultpawn is not the same as firstpersonpawn

[gentle urchin]

This looks more like it

[bright frigate]

this is in project settings

[bright frigate]

this is in world settings

[gentle urchin]

I bet the firstpersoncharacter has the camera logic

Add yaw and pitch is probably existing there

[bright frigate]

it's shifting randomly. I am doing nothing other than playing and exiting and sometimes the jump sound is in the left, sometimes it's in the middle as it should be. Completely insane.

[bright frigate]

I can't see anything there that isn't waht it was

I didn't touch anything

[gentle urchin]

Honestly it sounds like very fragile logic, barely working... could be wrong tho

[bright frigate]

does this seem fine?

[gentle urchin]

Looks pretty standard

Whats not working atm?

Looking side to side?

Side to side relies on mouse X (the turn axis event)

Which is what the door overrides when clicked

Are you enabling input on the door at beginplay by any chance?

[bright frigate]

yeah

this is how it was before I tried the axis mapping version

and it was working fine

I'm sleepy so maybe I'm not seeing something but so far it doesn't look like it

[gentle urchin]

You should enable input on the door at beginplay tho

That wouldnt work with multiple doors , atleast not directly

And it will cause complications down the line

[bright frigate]

If i do this then my axis is back

but then I also don't have any interaction with the door, even if I enable the input axis instead of event tick

[gentle urchin]

Check that the click events fire in the first place

Add print strings to them

[bright frigate]

This is what I had, remember? It was working! Why would it mess up now lol

[gentle urchin]

Because the two methods aren't interconnectable

[bright frigate]

nothing printing on screen

but my right click zoom works

[gentle urchin]

With custom gamemode with custom controller?

[eternal drum]

why cant you get local rotation of things?

[bright frigate]

all original

[gentle urchin]

Original doesnt have the click event enabled , as we talked about

[bright frigate]

Original had event tick and it was working with the click

with the event begin play enabling input

[trim matrix]

is there a way to show/hide the mouse with a button?

[gentle urchin]

Get playercontroller -> set show mouse button

[bright frigate]

this prints hello, but then nothing. No side to side and no more click hello

[gentle urchin]

See this is part of the problem ur facing now. Ur going back and forth between methods. If you prefer your own method, then work from that and fix the issues you're facing :p

[gentle urchin]

Generally i've shown you a method of updating/setting the rotation, with the use of a clamp atleast, so that part can be used onwards

[gentle urchin]

Ur context must be playercontroller

[bright frigate]

I'm going back and forth because I'm trying both and all possibilities where we know what happened or didn't happen and yet now results are different

[bright frigate]

yes and this was working. When I tried the custom game mode stuff, nothing has been the same despite setting everything as it was before

[gentle urchin]

This is "get show mouse cursor". You want the "set show mouse cursor"

[bright frigate]

remember when I said I wanted to move off tick? You said try the input axis version. When I did that, I had to then make the custom controller and game mode. Since then it's all nuts.

[gentle urchin]

Have you tried adding several doors with your old logic btw ?

Just curious what problems that may cause

[bright frigate]

no, haven't done anything except this one door

[gentle urchin]

Regarding a bunch of input enabled doors listening for the same input

All consuming it

So last one goes first

And the rest is ignored

[bright frigate]

I haven't put any other doors

[gentle urchin]

I suggest you try it so it may illuminate some issues with your current iteration of code

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/InteractiveExperiences/Input/

[bright frigate]

I can only look left to right using the arrow keys

this is crazy, 2 years of work is going up in flames'

astonishing

[languid spear]

hello, chat! I realize this is a long shot, but maybe somebody can suggest where to start looking. I am working on a multiplayer game with pickup items, which are skeletal meshes. The meshes are assigned sockets, and work fine for the listen server as well as the owning client. However, the other clients see the socketed items out of place. Quite confusing because I rarely see issues like this that don’t apply to every single client. any ideas? thank you 😄

[bright frigate]

it's broken already for literally no reason

as I keep saying, I reverted everything I had to default, and yet it is not behaving according to its OWN DEFAULTS

how doyou mean? Console commands?

seems fine

actually this is in the original backup file I had
GlobalDefaultGameMode=/Game/FirstPersonBP/Blueprints/FirstPersonGameMode.FirstPersonGameMode_C

[gentle urchin]

Ganemode should still be fpgamemode, not gamemodebase

[bright frigate]

even replacing that line from original to current, no change

anything wrong here?

[zinc portal]

TLDR: How do I get rotation along one axis only from a look at rotation?

I have a suspension with a typical piston and cylinder of a shock. I want to use "find look at rotation" to tilt these parts to point at each others pivot.
In a totally planar situation it works but if the vehicle tilts in any direction funny stuff occurs.

In 3D software look at controllers are simple and you can simply choose active axises and pick an "up node" a reference orientation that helps solve weird gimbals and units flipping from positive to negative.

That being said this has to be super common thing to do but despite my googling efforts I was left confused.

any pointers to good tutorials or documentation would be super helpful.

in my image I want the red and blue to point towards each others' pivots.

[burnt trench]

Hello Everyone!
My question is: I have a level with a nav bounds generating the navigation data for the AI
Now I have an actor with a navmodifier component it. On runtime I change the area class of the modifier but it does change anything on the navmesh. It only changes before playing and not runtime. Is there a way to generate the navmesh on runtime?

please tag me if you know a resource or know you to fix the issue

[bright frigate]

@gentle urchin If I delete the door BP from the level/viewport, then my mouse is coming back

freaking hell

it's just that node alone

InputAxis Turn

just leaving it there with no connections was locking the mouse AND stopping interaction with the door

deleting the node has fixed everything

[gentle urchin]

Ye it overrides

[bright frigate]

my God, this was a horrifying experience. Unsurprising since this happens so often but still ... bloody hell

[worthy tendon]

next time you know. so it wouldn't be as horrifying as now 😉

[slate apex]

It's a dialogue class seperate from other stuff.

Part of the actual plugin

its essentially just a branching dialogue builder.

i just need a reliable way of calling dialogue for specific characters

after interacting with them

[gentle urchin]

Theres a free cpp dialog plugin that handled this quitr well imo

Dialog nodes its called

Guess its a cpp/bp plugin really

[slate apex]

I mean

i already have a really good one

but

[bright frigate]

trouble is, it always ends up being something completely different next time 😅😅

[slate apex]

i just need to know more or less what i should do

to yknow.

actually make it appear on screen.

[gentle urchin]

Well

[slate apex]

Let me elaborate

[gentle urchin]

https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/dialogue-nodes-open-source-c-4-20-4-22/120041

[slate apex]

This is essentially what i've done

simple but it works

[bright frigate]

now the only thing I need to do is take it off tick and put it into events/timers, except my brain is fried and I need suggestions on where I should put the timer (event beginplay or at the end of the input of the mouse button) and then where the actual event would go too

[slate apex]

now, i need a way to make the main character detect which character its speaking to, and initiate dialogue based on that.

could i store every single dialogue option on every character?

[gentle urchin]

This is usually part of the dialog systems job really

[slate apex]

sounds a bit simpler

[slate apex]

Well, usually.

but.

[glossy bane]

Anyone that can advise why I would get a warning when trying to delete a variable that it is in use, but when I check its references it will show 0 results?

[earnest tangle]

Click the binocular icon, it might be in use in other BP's

If you still get nothing then you might have removed the previous refs and not recompiled/saved and it thinks they still exist

[glossy bane]

Yeah I checked with the binocular, still says 0 results

Would it be safe to assume I can delete it even though it is warning me then?

[tight schooner]

@zinc portal I may not have wrapped my head around the nuances of what you're doing (gimbal issues aren't my forte), but if it helps, I'd suggest doing your rotation/vector math in relative rather than world space and doing whatever conversions necessary to make that happen. For example, rotating a local-space vector by the parent will make it world space and vice versa (unrotate vector by a parent's rot to make it relative). And there are a slew of other nodes to convert rotators and transforms and stuff. I'm not an expert so you'll just have to Google and experiment with local/world conversion.

That's my read of a situation where stuff works until the parent component or actor deviates from a specific orientation and then everything spins apart — it sounds like too many things are happening in world space.

To avoid gimbal issues entirely there are quaternion rotators but I never looked into those.

You can also try parenting a problem component to a dummy Scene Component that's pre-rotated in a useful way to fix a gimbal issue on a specific component, and then doing your operations in that component's relative space (Set Relative Rotation, etc). So if your red & blue components are typically working at extreme pitch angles, that could be a way to claw them back from that gimbal lock threshold.

[open crypt]

is there anyway to send an ALT-Tab event from the game itself? (I have a special use case where I spawn a popup file browser box put it is put behind the game window (it's not a fullscreen/windowed issue) - and if I alt-tab, it immediately goes to that popup window (since it was the last window that windows recognized) so sending alt-tab would be a natural workaround. \

[tight schooner]

@open crypt I googled some stuff out of curiosity. https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/BlueprintAPI/Focus/SetFocustoGameViewport/