blueprint

[austere aspen]

yeah

[feral ice]

What is the difference between Hierarchical instance and instance mesh component? Tried googling it but it got too complicated

[gentle urchin]

Makes me wonder how you're adding it

[austere aspen]

I added a cube and that only rotates slightly too

[gentle urchin]

Doest the skeletal mesh rotate?

[austere aspen]

the same rotation as the sprite

[odd ember]

if the google description sounds too complicated, then what makes you think we can do it better?

[gentle urchin]

Do you have any tick stuff going on with sprite rotation

[austere aspen]

no tick at all in my character

[maiden wadi]

@feral ice HISM has LODs, normal ISM does not.

[austere aspen]

I think the rotation not working might be because my character is a paper character, because when I used the top down character template and added a sprite to that it rotated fine

[odd ember]

makes sense

paper 2d is legacy now

[austere aspen]

no idea why though

[odd ember]

paper 2d was meant for sidescrolling action afaik

but I'm not sure how it works

it got deprecated long ago

[austere aspen]

ah welp, I'll just redo it in a normal character

[feral ice]

Dude no need to get cocky with such an unnecessary comment. If one teacher fails to make you understand the explanation doesn't mean the other ones will. 🤦‍♂️

[odd ember]

it's the opposite of cocky

I'm saying we don't know, or we can't tell

[feral ice]

whatever... Thank you @maiden wadi

[feral ice]

That means that it is more expensive than normal instancing right?

[maiden wadi]

Vaguely. Depends on your definition of expensive. Slightly more processing at runtime, but it can save you tons of performance on your rendering.

[odd ember]

it's still going to be cheaper than a SM due to being 1 drawcall instead of multiple

[feral ice]

alright!

Now that im reading it seems to be better in my case. Works better with foliage cuz of the LODs

[maiden wadi]

@feral ice Consider this. You have two separate ideas. Trees and walls. Walls are simple shapes, and you don't really want to deform them much if at all in some cases, so a normal ISM is perfectly fine here. Cause most likely whatever you're using this for will be completely hidden when parts of it aren't visible. Making more versions of this to LOD it is probably going to be a waste. Where as trees, you want multiple scaling versions because having 10,000 trees all at 40k poly's and full textures is a little too much when you can easily reduce 9800 of those trees down to 10k-6(yes 6, not 6k) polys.

[atomic salmon]

Pluralis maiestatis

[feral ice]

Ok I understnad! Thank you for the explination

[atomic salmon]

A communist rabbit?

[odd ember]

ah it's a meme

[maiden wadi]

The realistic thing is that you can feel free to use HISMs for pretty much everything until you need to optimize(if you do).

[main orchid]

That should theoretically work provided that the Ai's anim BP doesn't have root motion from everything enabled and the animation that plays while the character is "stunned" doesn't have root motion. Keep in mind the launch character node puts the AI in a falling state, so your jump animations (start, loop, stop) should not have root motion either. What is your use case? Why is the AI being launched? Is it being hit by a projectile?

[sterile garnet]

getting hit by a sword and then knocked back

[maiden wadi]

Also. Since the topic is here. I'm still really sour that OnRep_StaticMesh in those classes isn't Virtual. :/

[past prawn]

Any one knows what happened to this plugin? https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/inside-unreal-getting-started-with-procedural-mesh-generation/153764

The download link no longer works

https://trello.com/b/HEBwnmYo/tree-tool

[odd ember]

you'd be better off asking in #plugin-dev or #ue4-general

[maiden wadi]

@past prawn Presuming from the name that you are in UE5? I'm not sure about there, but Procedural mesh is default in 4.27.1 at least.

[past prawn]

Thanks for answering. So it has the tree tool plugin natively in 4.27.1?

[maiden wadi]

Hmm. That I don't actually see anywhere. There doesn't even seem to be mentions of it outside of that Trello board.

@past prawn This might be of interest to you though? Unsure. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/mqa86y

I'm fairly sure that's the same thing, and the description to it has a download link.

[past prawn]

Thank you. I think the plugin is discontinued. There hasn't been any updates since last year. Just getting into blueprints of recent.

Btw is there an advantage to using procedural mesh generation over imported static mesh?

[maiden wadi]

Faster iteration I would assume. I don't think you'd want to use procedural meshes a ton in normal gameplay. Have never personally tested, but just generally I would assume that the performance for procedural trees versus imported HISM component based ones would be pretty drastic.

If you could generate in editor and convert that to a StaticMesh asset though, I assume that would save a ton of time to create dozens of types of foliage much quicker than in like Blender or 3DSMAX.

[past prawn]

Very True. So the advantage of procedural mesh generation is that its has a lot of flexibility and saves time but there isn't the best for performance compared to using a static mesh from Blender/3dsmax and using HISM? Generating static mesh from procedural meshes would be a nice feature.

[solemn zephyr]

why can't I split "out hits"?

[brazen merlin]

can't tell, but maybe disconnect everything first?

[solemn zephyr]

that didn't work

[brazen merlin]

I guess you'll have to break it

[solemn zephyr]

oh I was using the wrong node nvm I'm stink

needed regular not multi

[brazen merlin]

oh right, i get those mixed up too, couldn't see until i squint, but yeah, that's an array output

[polar stirrup]

Does anyone have an idea of where, if left blank, the location this will write to is by default? Or if I do give it a path, at which directory do I 'start'? "Content/whatever"?

[dark crow]

You can use Get Project Directory

There are other variations of it too

If you want it exported there, lol

[zealous orbit]

Default is a mystery... I have a few textures written somewhere on my hard drive because I only specified a filename (no path). They shall forever stand as the ghosts of my project.

I ended up sending everything to C:/Temp, because laziness. GetProjectDirectory node is a good thing to know about!

[polar stirrup]

Awesome, thanks guys! Well then, I too now have mystery textures hidden somewhere haha

[zealous orbit]

There are now at least 2 haunted computers

[dark crow]

There's stuff like

Get Project Saved Directory too

And you can Append a string to create a folder for it

GetProjectSavedDirectory + Textures/

Will be saved in ProjectFolder/Saved/Textures

[polar stirrup]

How do you name your file? Do you append ".png/jpg" to the name, such as in my example above, "biomes.png"? Trying both of these creates a file that when opened, Windows tells me that "we don't support this file format" .-.

[polar stirrup]

Awesome, thank ya!

[dark crow]

Yes, you gotta give the format

[polar stirrup]

Hmmm, strange that it's not working then 🤔

[dark crow]

Or wait

I think it's a HDR file

Not sure if windows can read that

[zealous orbit]

It was over a month ago I was working on this

Let me post the BP I ended up using

I can't guarantee this is the best way to do it

It's in functional test code that never gets shipped with the game, so I didn't care if it is the "right" way to do it

In my case, I'm creating a dynamic texture that I pass to Niagara and I needed a way to save the dynamic texture to file

Looks like I ended up detaching the ExportTexture2D node. I don't remember the reason though.

[polar stirrup]

Thanks! Likewise, this is for debugging purposes as well. It's failing to write, however this at least gives me a direction to go!

[zealous orbit]

I'll check how I wrote the path and filename in a minute. I'm making some C++ changes and can't open my project right now.

[polar stirrup]

I really appreciate all your help

[zealous orbit]

My pleasure. I remember this was more difficult to figure out than it should have been.

InputTexture is of type Texture2D

SavePath defaults to C:/Temp/export.png

Not sure why I have a filename there

Filename is export.png

This BP lives on a plane with a dynamic material instance that I can set the Texture2D to make it easy to visualize the texture in game

[main orchid]

That should be doable, but you'll have to do some extra legwork. If it's absolutely necessary to keep the root motion AI, then the knocked back or hit animations will need to have root motion as well. This is the only way I can think of to move the root motion AI in XY plane during a hit reaction. I'm not sure what kind of animation style your using, but you can add motion to the root of an in-place animation in editor. Here's an example: https://youtu.be/rSMqX7LLIuM I'd experiment with creating your own root motion animations or finding them via Marketplace, Mixamo, ect to see what works. The Launch Character node will give you the vertical velocity you need, and the root motion animations you create or find will give you the XY velocity you want. As an alternative, you could have the AI perform hit animations on damage that don't require Z velocity, and save the Z velocity for when the enemy dies. In that case, it'd be easier to simulate physics on the mesh and apply impulse. All of this assumes it's really worth keeping the root motion of course.

[zealous moth]

what is the vector 2D of the center of the screen?

[polar stirrup]

Okay awesome. Is there anything here that happens to look off to you, @zealous orbit ? The texture I'm using there is a default one that comes with UE. Figured I'd try that before my own. It's still unsuccessful for some reason.

[maiden wadi]

Depends on your viewport size and dpi scaling.

[sterile garnet]

I need to check what’s actually using root motion in my setup. I made all my animations from scratch so I could definitely remake or re-export if I had them set up incorrect. I’m not sure what benefits including the root motion at this point has to be honest

[zealous orbit]

That looks basically the same as what I have. Are you getting your message printed?

[zealous moth]

@maiden wadi

like this?

[polar stirrup]

I am. It's printing false, meaning the exporting failed

[sterile garnet]

Would root motion be required to have the enemies follow a “move to” command? Aka they currently find random locations and wander until they see the player and then run at them to attack

[main orchid]

@sterile garnet No, root motion would not be required for that command

[zealous orbit]

That's good, at least you know the BP is executing all the way through. Try a lazy temp path and / or print the filename. Also make sure your texture "Bad" is set.

[dawn gazelle]

Don't think you need to split it like that.. You can directly / vector2d by float

[maiden wadi]

That could work depending on your use case. What is this for? Crosshair or something?

[polar stirrup]

I tried just throwing it in C and that failed as well, unfortunately. The texture should be okay, at least I imagine so, since it's from UE itself

[zealous moth]

I'm doing a lock on system. @maiden wadi
@dawn gazelle good catch!
Basically I want what is rendered currently, what is closest to my character in terms of distance and what is closest to the screen center

[maiden wadi]

I doubt I'd use viewport space for that. It's much easier and programmatically quicker to dotproduct from your camera's forward vector.

[serene galleon]

Does anyone know how to make a child of an existing data asset?

[dark crow]

Probs texture format is not supported

[zealous orbit]

Texture format is a good point

[zealous moth]

dot product? I'm not sure why that would be relevant... I mean we could do a difference to find distance and compare.

[maiden wadi]

You get the direction that things are from the camera. You dotproduct that against the camera's forward vector. The one with the closest to 1.0 is the closest to the center of the screen.

[polar stirrup]

Just looked at the debug output. Says that an invalid texture was supplied, so you were right. Just not sure how that can be since it's showing up in the dropdown list for that BP node

[zealous orbit]

Since I'm writing a data texture for Niagara, I'm using a texture of format EPixelFormat::PF_B8G8R8A8. Probably won't matter but I'm also using TF_Nearest for filtering and TC_VectorDisplacementmap for the compression settings.

[zealous moth]

I mean, let's say I use the forward vector and dot product. Then I get a number based on how much of it is similar....

ooooooooooooooooooh

nice catch indeed

I did want to limit the loop to only those on screen though

[polar stirrup]

Hmmm, I have to be honest, I have no idea what any of that means. haha. Guess I should start researching more into textures and formatting and such. A lot of work just for 1 picture for testing .-.

[zealous moth]

but I can add that as a first pass layer

[main orchid]

@sterile garnet In general, I'd say if it's a multiplayer game, avoid root motion. If it's a single player game, only use root motion if you are using parkour animations, turn-in-place animations, or animations that have starts and stops. Root motion often looks beautiful and realistic in my opinion. But, I wouldn't use it unless you either have to or it makes a big difference in your project.

[zealous moth]

@maiden wadi

[polar stirrup]

So are those contained in some sort of struct that you're passing to potentially this export fuction?

[sterile garnet]

Thanks so much for the advice here. Gonna give it a shot

[main orchid]

@sterile garnet No prob. Good luck 👍

[maiden wadi]

Could work. To be fair, if it's dotproduct isn't > 0, it's likely not on screen The rendered should work as well though in cases where it's set to not be visible.

[zealous orbit]

No. Those are the settings on the Texture. In my case I set them in C++, but you can also set those parameters in the import settings for a texture.

Those settings are always determined at the time the texture is created

If using an existing texture, you can see what the import settings were when importing and reimport with new settings

I'm not sure the settings matter

[zealous moth]

Yeah, but since it's a loop, I don't want it to needlessly do the operation if several targets are on screen at once

easier to just jump ship

[polar stirrup]

Ah okay. I'm creating mine via c++ as well. Are you setting those in your FCreateTexture2DParameters?

[zealous orbit]

I'll DM how I create the texture because it's more #cpp

[polar stirrup]

Much appreciated!

[maiden wadi]

To be fair. In blueprint I can see that. I just randomly got curious. Ran the same logic from tick. One in a BP function, the other in C++.

AActor* APortalVillagePlayerController::TestFunction(const TArray<AActor*>& ActorsArray, FVector CameraDirection, FVector CameraLocation)
{
    AActor* ClosestActor = nullptr;
    float ClosestDotProduct = -1.f;
    for (AActor* LoopActor : ActorsArray)
    {
        const FVector DirectionToActor = (LoopActor->GetActorLocation() - CameraLocation).GetSafeNormal(); 
        const float LoopDotProduct = FVector::DotProduct(CameraDirection, DirectionToActor);
        if (LoopDotProduct > ClosestDotProduct)
        {
            ClosestDotProduct = LoopDotProduct;
            ClosestActor = LoopActor;
        }
    }

    return ClosestActor;
}```

Note that the array length of actors in both of those tests was 4,000

[zealous moth]

well in my case it's just a 1 time deal on input. find a target.

the test function up is cpp and the bottom is BP, is that it? @maiden wadi

[maiden wadi]

Yeah.

[zealous moth]

yeah loops are the worst

lol

that's why I made that extra check.

I'll probably construct it back into cpp later

[maiden wadi]

It's also the function overhead. C++ function overhead is nearly nothing. BP function calling is stupid expensive. So running even just the getters in that BP function is probably more expensive than that entire C++ function.

[zealous moth]

noted. I know all about expensive and loops in bp 😉 hence why i made all my stats and loops in cpp

for this case in particular, it was just a proof of concept.
and I wouldn't be too worried at the moment since it's on a single human input to toggle lock on

the tick will be to follow that target now

[maiden wadi]

Yeah. And I doubt you're going to be polling 4k actors. 😄

[zealous moth]

indeed. I'm assigning a BPI to potential targets also. but good job on the test! validates the performance check 🙂

[fallen glade]

Sometimes my pawn will take a random deviation from their forced path that I feed point to point. As you can see in the gif, the last green dot is missed. Use pathfinding is off

any ideas?

[zealous moth]

ewwwwww spiders

[fallen glade]

that's the spirit

[zealous moth]

looking at the behaviour it looks like it wanted to get it but skipped. is your acceptance radius high?

[fallen glade]

no, it's like 1 or 5

is it's the last point I feed it's 1

if not it's 5

[zealous moth]

what's the full logic? AI Behavior tree or just patterned?

[fallen glade]

Just patterned

go to point - remove point - go to point - remove point etc

[zealous moth]

show?

or is it a trade secret? 😉

[fallen glade]

no it's a bit big though 😦

[zealous moth]

https://blueprintue.com/

[fallen glade]

neat I always forget

https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/3jhibmu7/

this is the bit that's troubling me @zealous moth

[zealous moth]

yeah looking at it

thinking

[fallen glade]

I know it's a bit much don't waste too much time on it but let me know if you see some nonsense

[odd ember]

why don't you draw the path?

like the path that you want it to take

you'll be able to see the deviation then

we can also continue this in #gameplay-ai

[maiden wadi]

It's not a behavior tree though.

[odd ember]

AI doesn't have to be behavior tree based

utility AI exists

[fallen glade]

what's that?

[odd ember]

needs based AI

but like I said we can continue in #gameplay-ai

[maiden wadi]

Technically this could get thrown out of the AI channel. Doesn't have anything to do with BTs or EQS. 🤷‍♂️

[odd ember]

doubt

plus people post navigation issues in #gameplay-ai all the itme

it's almost like it's all connected

and is it really that much worse than solving plugin related issues in this channel?

[fallen glade]

Ok well I actually think this has nothing to do with the path itself but the way that I set and read my variables. There must be something I don't understand

[odd ember]

suit yourself

[fallen glade]

because if I don't update my path mid motion everything is fine

[zealous moth]

not gonna lie @fallen glade , the logic is overly complex using the structs.
I'd do 2 things:

1. on tick, make it print what its target is
2. once target is reached or aborted, print it

[odd ember]

chances are you'd have an easier time with BTs as well

they're quite easy to debug once you get to know them

[fallen glade]

No, I need to do some novel things without C++

sadly

[odd ember]

BTs can be done in BP

all my BT logic is in BP currently

[fallen glade]

Oh that makes sense.... what's the difference then?

[odd ember]

it's just a neat structure to avoid stateful AI

[sterile igloo]

Is it possible to add scene components (object reference) to an array variable (in the same blueprint) before runtime? When setting the "Default value" for the variable, I'm only able to select from content browser for some reason, and not from the list of components in the blueprint. Or is it disallowed because the scene components doesn't pre construct?

[odd ember]

you can do some pretty powerful things because of how the AI is structured

[fallen glade]

you can make an array and set it that way?

[fallen glade]

like what?

[worthy frost]

@sterile igloo that is not possible

[odd ember]

enact different behaviors seamlessly

[fallen glade]

never mind I'll shut up haha sorry @sterile igloo

[stuck plaza]

I have this issue where I created custom actor BP, added field Boxref and set its type BoxColliderReference. How I imagined this would work is it would ask me for a particular boxcollider within the world. It turned out to dont work this way. Instead it asks me for a class type or something? Is there way around this?

[worthy frost]

only chance you have to do that is via ConstructionScript @sterile igloo

[mint mica]

is there a known bug where you can make a copy of a working blueprint class that shows up in a set but the exact copy (different name) doesn't ?

[odd ember]

you can grab a box collider in the world

but you need to expose the variable

and the actor also needs to be placed in world, as an instance

[odd ember]

sets don't accept duplicates

by design

[sterile igloo]

Thanks! In that case, is it better to GET my array variable and ADD x objects to it, or to MAKE array and essentially replace my empty variable-array with this new array?

[stuck plaza]

I see. However i simplified my case a little bit. Because the actor with boxciloder reference is actually a child component of another actor that is being spawned dynamically.

[odd ember]

I mean you can just reference the actor type instead

[mint mica]

@peak wedge even still does it on newly minted ones

[odd ember]

and grab the box collider off the actor when you pass in the reference

[stuck plaza]

Cool didnt think about that, thanks

[worthy frost]

something like this @sterile igloo http://thegames.dev/snaps/UE4Editor-Win64-DebugGame_D7rHbeC9j8.png

[odd ember]

have you read this? https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/ProgrammingAndScripting/Blueprints/UserGuide/Sets/

I'm wondering why you even need a set

most likely you're running into this case:

[mint mica]

no, this is a different thing

[odd ember]

but again, is there any reason you need a set?

[mint mica]

the blueprint class should show up in that list but doesn't

[odd ember]

is the class marked as abstract?

[mint mica]

i haven't found that checkbox yet

[odd ember]

it's in the class defaults for all actors/objects in BP

[mint mica]

where do i find it, can't see it in class defaults

[odd ember]

might be in the other one, but it should be up top

let me boot up the editor

class settings

it's called generate abstract class

untick it if it's ticked

[mint mica]

already unticked

[odd ember]

ok, have you double checked that the parent classes are the same between the class types?

[magic rose]

Hi All. May be a simple answer but I'm a bit new. Is there a way to set a text variable in one blueprint, then cast it to an HUD class or would that all have to be done within the HUD class?
My main issue is there being no compatible nodes when I pull the "As Widget Class" node out of the "Cast to Widget Class" node. I have tried both the "Set Text Variable" node and executing a function and had no success so far. I think it is partly from not having the correct target?

[mint mica]

yes

the only difference between the two is name and one has a cube mesh and the other has a cylinder

[odd ember]

have all the classes been compiled and saved? could you reboot the editor and check if it's there?

[mint mica]

yes, , done it a few times,

[odd ember]

have you used cpp at any time?

[mint mica]

nope

all blueprints

[odd ember]

welp I'm out of ideas then

[mint mica]

same, i'm looking at it like its a bug

[odd ember]

sounds like there's probably a tickbox somewhere

[mint mica]

or that

[odd ember]

try deleting the class, restarting, and recreating it

[mint mica]

i', going to start a fresh project and see if it does it again

[odd ember]

well try deleting it and recreating it first

it might save you some headache if it works

[magic rose]

For reference on my above question. I'm thinking I am missing a step or completely missing the mark on what would go into those "Target"s in the first Blueprint

[dawn gazelle]

The "Target" on sets is the target instance of an object you're wanting to set the value on. Standard nodes will even tell you the class of what the "Target" should be just underneath the node name.

[magic rose]

Gotcha. Theoretically, would I be pulling the "As Asteroid Chaos HUD" into the target then? It seems to not be compatible

[dawn gazelle]

Probably not. That's not what casts are for.

Casting lets you take a less specific reference and get a more specific reference. Ie. a "Character" is a subclass of "Actor". "Character" has certain variables and functions within it that cannot be accessed if you're using an "Actor" reference.

[trim pollen]

I'm trying to make something that saves the transforms of My Actors for later recall. I have My Actors in a BP that spawns them, and another Actors variable in a Saver Blueprint class that I want to store them in. This snippet should set all information about My Actors into Planes, correct?

[magic rose]

@dawn gazelle Ohhhkay, I think I got it. Thank you so much for the help!

[odd ember]

try it?

[magic rose]

(Or at least enough to experiment until I do haha)

[trim pollen]

Yeah, it doesn't work.

But I don't know what part, hence the question.

[dawn gazelle]

You can't store object references in the save game.

[odd ember]

I think I said to you before that BP saves aren't really functional

so it might be that

[dawn gazelle]

You'd have to create a GUID or something for each actor and store the information about it that you want to save.

[odd ember]

it's another half assed system epic did 😔

[trim pollen]

wow, really

that's... embarrassing

[odd ember]

I tried using them once and I couldn't get results, so I opted to create a save subsystem instead

[trim pollen]

if I know I'm going to have a few, say less than 5 actors, and I'm only interested in storing position and rotation

can I just make 10 variables in the save game that stores those?

[odd ember]

well if it works, sure

but if it doesn't

[trim pollen]

thanks, very helpful lol

[odd ember]

it doesn't matter how many variables you have

that's kind of the nature of using a half assed system

[dawn gazelle]

Sure it'd work, but you'll probably have trouble loading the right variables for the right actor.

You need to have some kind of ID system otherwise you're going to end up with spaghetti.

[trim pollen]

they're interchangeable

but i prefer non-spaghetti

[odd ember]

I don't think that's necessary generally. but I am in doubt whether or not the built in save system will actually save them

if location and rotation work, you might as well store transforms

[trim pollen]

yea

[faint pasture]

That's not what casting is. Casting is not "send something somewhere"

[odd ember]

UE4 for the most part functions on name strings as UID

[faint pasture]

Casting is "Is thing A an instance of class B?"

[odd ember]

there's some true GUIDs deep down in the engine

but I'm pretty sure they're not exposed to BP

[trim pollen]

so instead of storing an array of actors

i can just hardcode X transforms?

[odd ember]

well you can try

be sure to tick the SaveGame box for each variable you want to save

[faint pasture]

@trim pollen you want a map

[trim pollen]

why would a map work but not actor array

[odd ember]

I hope you've done this @trim pollen

[faint pasture]

An actor or a just says hey, here's a bunch of actor references I want to hold on to. It doesn't associate it to your stored transforms.

[odd ember]

generally if you save an actor, you save their transforms as well

[trim pollen]

:/

[faint pasture]

@trim pollen you are trying to store a bunch of transforms for actors right?

[trim pollen]

yes

if I play and save them, then try to reload them, it prints the right values

only after exiting and replaying it loses them

[faint pasture]

Actor references won't survive a reload I don't think

If they're dynamically spawned.

[odd ember]

they should get serialized if you tick the SaveGame box

[trim pollen]

what does that mean exactly? @ ce

[odd ember]

but yeah it's a fickle system so it might not work

that means it gets converted to binary "save data"

[faint pasture]

When are these cubes spawned?

[trim pollen]

on a keypress

[faint pasture]

What I mean is you spawn cubes, save references.

Then you restart

[trim pollen]

I mean how do i "tick the SaveGame box"? I assume you don't mean every game tick?

[faint pasture]

Spawn cubes, retrieve references. New cubes don't match the old references.

[odd ember]

there is a checkbox on every variable called SaveGame

just tick it

[faint pasture]

Do you need to save references to specific cubes or just the fact that cubes exist there?

[trim pollen]

OK, done, didn't work tho

[trim pollen]

the latter

[faint pasture]

Ok that's easy. Save struct can either contain an array of transforms, 2 arrays (classes and transforms)

[odd ember]

BP structs can't be serialized I don't think

at least not from the side of BP

[trim pollen]

sorry, can you explain a bit more?

I agree that this should definitely be easy lol

[trim pollen]

Will try this now, whatever it is lmao

[odd ember]

did you restart the editor and get it to work?

I see you're not using the OnCompleted exec

[dawn gazelle]

One correction... Make sure you have the Async load connected to the cast on the "Completed" exec.

[trim pollen]

thanks, working on it now

what type is Actor Data?

[dawn gazelle]

I just used Name.

[odd ember]

Map<FName, FTransform> it would seem

[dawn gazelle]

^

[wet palm]

i create save game, i check if it does exist, on true, it set value, it save it, it print it ( it print the correct value ), when i restart level it reset to 0 ( default value )

any help would apprecaite 🙏

[trim pollen]

how do I get Actor ID and Actor Data into the target thing?

[odd ember]

MySaveData is an object with those fields

[dawn gazelle]

Those are variables I created in the character and the save object respectively.

[wet palm]

i have no such

[trim pollen]

ok so I have two blueprints here. The cube controller and the save game object

Actor ID and Actor Data should be in the save game obj?

[dawn gazelle]

Only actor data needs to be in the save game object.

Actor ID should be in the actor you're wanting to save.

[wet palm]

the save data is saving and working correctly 100%, but on level restart it restore all stuff to default

[odd ember]

I think you can just use GetDisplayName and convert that to Name

[dawn gazelle]

Sure you could do that too 😛

[wet palm]

ok

ill try that @odd ember

[odd ember]

but yeah, the lack of true GUID in BP is annoying

[wet palm]

does not work

[worthy frost]

using names for identifying objects is bad

[odd ember]

tell Epic

[wet palm]

@worthy frost my save level object name is level slot, do u suggest other names?

@worthy frostwhere i ask about my save game issue?

Help

[dawn gazelle]

Show some code.

[arctic radish]

is there a way to do this without running it every tick? i feel like the tick is gonna cause performance issues

[trim pollen]

I still don't understand how to make the target->ActorID node

[odd ember]

one tick isn't the end of the world, but you're right, it's not elegant

[trim pollen]

all I know is get/set

or right click that outlet and select promote

[dark crow]

Why you doing that in the first place

[dawn gazelle]

If you've created the variable in your actor, then drag off from the cast node and type in get actorID

[wet palm]

@odd ember @dawn gazelle

[odd ember]

using event dispatchers that you bind inside your widget is much more elegant, and will only fire whenever ammo updates

[wet palm]

thats false

[odd ember]

then you can start telling other people your project contains fancy things like indirection

[dark crow]

Anything but doing that on tick 👀

Just move it to a 0,0000000000001 seconds looping timer

[odd ember]

that's going to update a lot more often than tick lmao

[wet palm]

i did post code, what i do now

any help 😃

[dark crow]

Naah, it's gonna improve performance to extreme levels, real life simulator

[trim pollen]

:| sorry i'm being dense here... what is the cast node?

[dawn gazelle]

Sorry, I'm being dense... From your object reference, wherever that may be... So if it's off the save game object, or off the reference to the actor in the loop... That's where you drag off of.

[trim pollen]

I have a prefab representing my actor, a blueprint for spawning and executing the save code, and a save blueprint.

I know you can drag stuff in. It gives you options for "get" and "set". Neither of which make the target node that you have.

[magic rose]

I think I hit a wall and think I might be going about this the wrong way. Is there any way to take a Text variable from one blueprint and send it to a widget blueprint? The project I'm working on is 2d so I am trying to send it from a basic blueprint class

[dawn gazelle]

So where's your loading code that you see the value? The save here looks mostly ok.

[odd ember]

there are ways, but perhaps you can elaborate concretely on what you want to do in non technical terms

[dawn gazelle]

You have to create the variables in the actor you're using and in the save game object. Then you should be able to see the options when you drag off and start typing get...

[wet palm]

yes!

so u want to see where i load?

[trim pollen]

get gives me this.

[dark crow]

Is that in the SaveGame Class?
Or Character?

[arctic radish]

why is the type not compatible with the type

[trim pollen]

oops.

it wasn't

sorry 😛

[dark crow]

No no

The one in SaveGame is a Map

[faint pasture]

Save games are just saved structs really.
Lay out the struct to contain enough information to remake what you want saved. Class of actor and Transform should be enough for what you're doing.

[odd ember]

are you casting this inside the HUD itself?

[magic rose]

I have a text variable in a Menu Blueprint. I am trying to update a Text variable in another blueprint. Everything is set up in both blueprints already except for the communication between them

[arctic radish]

I don't think so

[dawn gazelle]

My guess is you made another blueprint named "HUD" which is already the name of another class.

[odd ember]

I did say non technical terms

[arctic radish]

yeah that's what I did

[magic rose]

Sorry. I have a username that I want to put on screen

[arctic radish]

bindings

[odd ember]

where is the username stored

[magic rose]

In this blueprint I am using for the Menu

[odd ember]

right that doesn't tell me much

[magic rose]

I guess I'm confused by the question

I have a username that I put into a text variable

[odd ember]

in what kind of class are you storing the text in? are you just storing it as a variable that you've written into a BP? do you have a string table?

ok

so this is user driven and you want to check it again the username

is that correct?

[magic rose]

It is stored as a variable in a blueprint. That variable updates when the user starts.

So when the user hits start, the variable changes to their username.

[odd ember]

cool, which class is it stored in?

game instance or some such?

[magic rose]

I think it says "Blueprint Class"

[wet palm]

@faint pasture

[odd ember]

what is the name and type of the class

[magic rose]

One sec. Ill investigate

[wet palm]

this

[magic rose]

WBP_AsteroidChaosMenu

Oh wait

Edited

[odd ember]

you should not be storing stuff like usernames in a widget or HUD class

send it below

[faint pasture]

Username lives on PlayerState and should already be a property

[wet palm]

so what do i do now?

[magic rose]

So, technically what I am doing is pulling a username from a twitch chat, and it stores it as a text variable

Which is set up already. It's not the official username in my game

[odd ember]

all I'm saying is

don't store it in the menu

or in a widget

or in the HUD class

[dark crow]

It's really vague what your intentions are

[odd ember]

yep

[dark crow]

And what's the problem

Aaand your current setup

[odd ember]

that's what we're trying to get to

[wet palm]

Help

[dawn gazelle]

Ok, so you're always printing out 1 when you reach there?

[wet palm]

thanks for ur help sir

[magic rose]

Sorry, I must be explaining poorly. I have a text variable in the HUD, that will display a username on screen (my intention is to put the username on screen, in the HUD)

[wet palm]

so it should print 1, but it prints 0

that is a diffirent level where it load the int

[odd ember]

is the username ever used for access?

[wet palm]

but in the level

[odd ember]

or is it purely cosmetic

[wet palm]

where i set my int

[magic rose]

No. Purely cosmetic

[wet palm]

it print 1

[odd ember]

ok that's fine then

[faint pasture]

OK, and where does it get the username from?

[wet palm]

what username 😮

u mean the level slot string?

[faint pasture]

responded to wrong guy but I'm out anyway, this is a spaghet clusterfuck in here lmao

[dark crow]

And what's the problem?

[wet palm]

Help

[odd ember]

he wants to set a name that the user can type in, in a menu to show up on the HUD

[wet palm]

no

[dark crow]

But we're talking about some twitch getter here?

From what I understood

[odd ember]

yeah I don't think that matters

it's not access related

[wet palm]

ok

[dark crow]

Yeah, but if he's getting the Username and he wants to display it, and it's already being received, then what's the problem in showing it?

[wet palm]

what username?

[magic rose]

My problem is that I am having trouble casting I guess. The way that I have it set up, is in one blueprint(that is already set up), I have a text variable. I would like to take that text variable, and send it to another text variable, within a widget blueprint,

[arctic radish]

binding

[wet palm]

maybe i have cast issue too?

[odd ember]

you have to send it through a controller

[arctic radish]

bind the username to a variable then make a function that sets it

[odd ember]

I suggested using GameInstance

[magic rose]

Awesome. I think I'm off on the right track with that. Thanks for all the help, its really really appreciated

[odd ember]

lmao what

[magic rose]

(responded to the wrong one, sorry)

[wet palm]

ok

[odd ember]

I was gonna say

[magic rose]

Hahaha

[wet palm]

hahaha

so what do i do now?

[trim pollen]

getting "prefab plane object is not compatible with actor Object reference" when i try to hook up the target to array element

[dark crow]

Are you trying to Connect Prefab Plane with Target of Actor Name?

[trim pollen]

i'm not sure if Actor Name is supposed to go in the prefab or the save file... I tried both and getting the same error

this is in the spawner blueprint

and I'm trying to connect array element-> target->actor name

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/221798862938046464/908829462425133157/unknown.png like in this

[wet palm]

@trim pollenhelp

[dark crow]

Then it would need to be in the class that gets looped

Aka Prefab Plane for you I imagine

[trim pollen]

I tried that as well

[dark crow]

You would need to call the one from Prefab Plane, not just try to connect again after creating the variable to the same one

[dawn gazelle]

You should have a variable named "Actor Name" in your Plane Prefab.
Hover over the "Target" pin on the below... It'll tell you what class that particular node is looking for.

Once you have "Actor Name" in your Plane Prefab, drag off from this and do "get Actor Name"

[trim pollen]

Should this node also be in Plane Prefab?

[dawn gazelle]

Which node?

[trim pollen]

The whole thing you drew up for me.

[dawn gazelle]

It should be wherever you want to do your loading from. End of the day, you probably want it to be in your gamestate or game mode or something like that... Not necessarily in a character.

Or some other actor for that matter.

[trim pollen]

Alright well, I have "Actor Name" in my plane prefab

[dawn gazelle]

Could even be controlled in UI if you really wanted to.

[trim pollen]

and another blueprint where I'm doing saving/loading. and a third bp of the saving class, I guess.

in the save/load blueprint, I can't connect the Actor Name node to the Array element outlet

[dawn gazelle]

As I've said... Hover over the "target" - it's probably looking for a different object.

If it is, delete it.

Drag off from the Array element on the loop and do "Get Actor Name".

[trim pollen]

Sorry, I think I'm following exactly what you're saying... I hover over "target", this is what I get?

when I drag off from array element (as in, click, hold drag, press enter to make new object), and then type get actor name, it creates the node without the connection

sry wrong variable

[dawn gazelle]

So when you're hovering on that target, it's telling you the class it's looking for. If the object you're feeding into it doesn't match the class or is a child of that class, you can't feed it in... Just like this.

[trim pollen]

right

[dawn gazelle]

So if you drag off from the array itself you're getting a direct reference to the object.

[trim pollen]

Yes, I've tried that

[dawn gazelle]

You're not doing what I'm saying. Drag off from the array element pin and start typing "Get Name Actor".

oh wait

I see

You have an "Actor" object reference

what is the array you're feeding into the loop?

[dawn gazelle]

Disconnect the array and the getactor transform from the loop

Once disconnected, connect the array from the "Get All Actors of Class" node and then connect the get transform and you should be able to plug the array element into your target now.

ie. make sure these two pins are disconnected.

then reconnect them.

but reconnect the array first.

[trim pollen]

lol ok, that seemed to work

[dawn gazelle]

It's one of the caveats of working with references and wildcards that you find on some nodes.... If you connect up the "GetActorTransform" first it'll end up making the array type and elements of "Actor" class.

[odd ember]

so after all that work... did the save system actually work out the saving?

[raven sentinel]

Anyone know how to find which montage is played when I use a Slot node?

[arctic radish]

I have a value of type ALS_Overlay, how can I compare the overlay state the function returns and the one it should be?

is there a way to make it a string or smtn

oh toString

[dawn gazelle]

drag from the overlay state and type == or !=

don't do toString. Enums don't convert to friendly strings in packaged builds.

[arctic radish]

oh

[sinful light]

Looking for the best way to implement multiple events for a single actor. I’m trying to create a actor which is a generator. It has two box collisions for the fuel on top and the on/off switch. Right now I have a line trace that looks for a interaction interface actor. But from there I’m lost.

[arctic radish]

thank you

[dawn gazelle]

Could do something like this (pass through the interacting character into an interface, don't use an event like I did)

[sinful light]

Ok I will try thanks

[trim pollen]

getting close lol

how do I get this "MyActorID" inlet?

[dawn gazelle]

On the Plane actor, set the variable to "Exposed on Spawn" and "Instance Editable".

After you compile, you may also need to refresh the spawn node if you already have it in the graph

[trim pollen]

think I have it exactly, but still no dice

refreshed all nodes

[dawn gazelle]

The loop on the top should be connected to the Add node, and the completed of the loop connected to the async save.

[trim pollen]

oops, soryr

trying now

IT WORKED

IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

🥳 YEAAAAHHHHH

thank you @dawn gazelle @odd ember @faint pasture 😛 thank you sooo much

hmm ok something is wrong though

they're all saved with the same transform

[icy dragon]

Well, that was anti climactic...

[trim pollen]

close enough, can probably take it from here :)

[dawn gazelle]

It isn't a full solution... Just the basics of trying to save data from multiple actors and spawning them. Eg. Is there something spawning the actors with an ID to begin with?

[trim pollen]

yup

[slate hound]

anyone else unable to add tooltips to variables?

oh it's only that variable

I can add tooltips to other variables in the same blueprint

oh it's a function variable that's why

forgot

why does it even have a tooltip text box then

[gentle urchin]

Prob some default details panel for the variable type or smth

[odd ember]

yeah it's boilerplate

[zealous moth]

Having a hard time setting the right rotation. I am using the fps template and i want to lock onto a target.
I managed to get a target and eztract the world location but i am not sure how to make the player aim and look at it.
I tried using the lookat and get the rotator and force both relative and world location of my camera component but it just wont do it.... am i missing something?

[odd ember]

can you show your code?

[zealous moth]

@odd ember

[odd ember]

looks correct enough. have you tried with breakpoints? does your bool ever trigger? you don't need both the bool and the validated get, one would be enough

[zealous moth]

all the variables are good, it's just the rotation that doesn't happen... now that i think about it I wonder if I have to get the player controller involved as well

[odd ember]

ah yeah

use set control rotation

since your camera is likely controlled by the PC

[zealous moth]

set control rotation?

gasp

ok! it aims at the sky

[odd ember]

probably you need to take a look at how you capture you lock actor

and again, that boolean is unnecessary

[zealous moth]

it has other functions as well

[odd ember]

for all of them you can just check if your locked on target is valid

that's the same as the bool

and why you can cut it

[zealous moth]

true and done

i still dont get why the rotation is off

[odd ember]

what is off about it?

[dawn gazelle]

This is what I do... Smooths out the transition to the lock on as well.

[odd ember]

I just got done building my camera system... and while I was wrapping it up I found out there might be a simpler solution that works better

so RIP

is there a way to recompile all blueprints?

[zealous moth]

no idea

and i redid it and it worked

no idea why 😄

thx @dawn gazelle

[worn plaza]

still need a bit of help regarding cine cameras and zooming in

no matter what i do the camera just does not seem to zoom in. i confirmed that the focal length is setting correctly and it appears to be according to print screen, but the actual view is unfortunately not that

[odd ember]

probably better to ask in #cinematics but have you tried adjusting the field of view?

[worn plaza]

i have not, i can try that, but i thought it was supposed to be done with tthe focal length

thanks

[odd ember]

I don't know how real cameras do it

[worn plaza]

hmm, yeah field of view doesnt work either

its very strange

[odd ember]

but generally zoom in virtual games is usually done by field of view adjustment

try with a regular camera first and see if that works?

maybe it's just the cine cam not behaving

[worn plaza]

same behavior with a normal camera

theres probably code somewhere int his project that is doing something to cameras 😦

[odd ember]

sounds like it

worth trying with a fresh project to confirm

[worn plaza]

going to try that now and let you know

worst part about working and nobody being online on a friday night is i have nobody to actually ask to see if they messed with any code related to the cameras lol

okay it works with a fresh project so it has to be something with the other project im working on. thanks @odd ember

[merry blaze]

So I'm trying to disable the CanDash boolean here whenever my character is in midair but it's not working

Any suggestions?

It seems that IsFalling is in the AI, so I don't know what conditions to put

[brazen merlin]

Looks like it should work as long as you check it often, I have this sort of check happening but it's done in the anim blueprint. If it's just not working for whatever reason, you can try out the EventOnLanded to see if you can set the bool

[merry blaze]

It's not working. My dash function is still runnign on the default value

[brazen merlin]

So is it ever being set false?

[merry blaze]

Nope

[faint pasture]

It's help if you called that node. What you have there does absolutely nothing.

[merry blaze]

Called the node?

[scenic kindle]

hey i got an issue

[merry blaze]

What do you mean called that node?

[scenic kindle]

basically I'm using a flying template for my game.
but when I replace the default mesh with my own static mesh, it's facing the wrong direction.
I fixed this by adding a scene and making it the root node
but if i do this, the collision stops working
any help?

[brazen merlin]

Chris, I assumed this was plugged in somewhere and you were just showing this as a sort of snippet, is this not connected to anywhere else?

[merry blaze]

I have a function in cpp that is supposed to be calling on that boolean

[brazen merlin]

You should look at the settings of the mesh, did you make collision for your own model? As for facing direction, you can change this in the import settings of the static mesh directly in engine

[faint pasture]

When does that set get called?

[brazen merlin]

that's got me more confused. there's a blueprint snippet with nothing connected to it and now you say that you're doing it in cpp, but there's snippet for that

[merry blaze]

For starters, I have no idea what I'm doing in blueprint in the first place

[brazen merlin]

it's not code, it's all in the static mesh editor - locator your static mesh asset and double click it, all the settings are in there

[scenic kindle]

I used the built in collision

[brazen merlin]

ah well, you need to hook the node up to something - if there is a white arrow, something needs to feed into it, such as an event

[brazen merlin]

lol, sorry Adriel, had you confused with Husaria

[scenic kindle]

these are the collision settings for my mesh

[brazen merlin]

if you swap the mesh for your own, the collision is being replaced. the collision is part of your mesh

[brazen merlin]

can i also see the model with collision turned on? there's an option for it at the top, use simple collision

[brazen merlin]

hmm, okay, now take a loot at the mesh where it used in blueprint, the settings of the mesh can be changed there too

[scenic kindle]

k i see them what about it?

[brazen merlin]

well it might have a different collision setting in bp than in the static mesh viewer

[brazen merlin]

and you said using a scen component fixes rotation but makes it so it doesn't collide?

[scenic kindle]

yep

[brazen merlin]

does that mean it will collide but be backwards otherwise?

[scenic kindle]

it will be sideways and offset

[brazen merlin]

but collision works?

[scenic kindle]

with the scene component, no collision

without the scene componenet, has collision

[brazen merlin]

if its just the transform we can fix that in the static mesh viewer, you won't need the scene component

[scenic kindle]

can't change it tho

[brazen merlin]

its this section in your static mesh viewer

[scenic kindle]

oh ok

i set it up how i want it and it works

thanks a lot

[brazen merlin]

awesome!

[merry blaze]

Managed to get my dash to work, now I need to work on my jetpack function

[orchid spruce]

Hey guys! I was wondering if someone would be able to give me some help with a project I'm working on. I'm making a game that requires a wall running mechanic. I've set it up following a tutorial, but I need some further help. I'm trying to make it so the player can only wall-run on certain walls. I was told that I would have to use gameplay tags to set something like this up, but they're a new concept to me. Would someone be able to help me out? Thanks in advance!

[trim matrix]

Not gonna lie man I didn't understand most of that

[atomic salmon]

In Unreal you can assign tags to actors and components so you can distinguish them from others and make them have special properties/bahaviors. Step 1 is to click on your runnable walls in the level, then go under details and set an Actor tag like “runnable”. Step 2 in code is to use Actor Has Tag(“runnable”) whenever you meet a wall to check if it is runnable, then activate the run on wall part of the code.

[orchid spruce]

Thanks for the response! Is it possible to apply these to brushes? or do I have to use a specific type of object to apply a tag to it?

[atomic salmon]

You mean BSP’s? You should be able to assign a tag to them too. Just check in the editor.

[orchid spruce]

awesome! I’m gonna try it out just now, thanks so much!

[atomic salmon]

Keep in mind that BSP’s are good for testing/blocking out a level but for the final game is better to use real meshes.

[orchid spruce]

I'll keep that in mind, thank you!

[trim matrix]

How do I get this to be a "Message" like the node below it

[orchid spruce]

is this what I'm looking for?

[atomic salmon]

Yes

When your character gets near that actor and hits it you can take the hit actor from the Hit Results and check if it has that Tag

That’s one way to do it

[icy dragon]

The message icon is just for interface message nodes.

[trim matrix]

I fucked up my widget

It wont show up at all now

[orchid spruce]

I think I may have done this wrong. See I was following a tutorial that had me set up my characters movement in a component class. I can't seem to make a reference to another actor inside of it to check if the wall I'm hitting has the tag or not

sorry if that doesn't make sense, I'm super new to this 😅

[atomic salmon]

You can use an extra overlap volume attached to your character and check what it is overlapping

But a hit event on the character’s capsule should work as well

[orchid spruce]

so would I do that in the playercharacter blueprint?

[atomic salmon]

Yes

Because that’s where you switch from normal walking to wall running

I assume

Or show some of your code so we can check

[trim matrix]

So I was tryna make it so when a "Teru" was collected, a light and particle system appeared, however now my widget wont show up at all and Idk what I broke

The collection system still works and goes up by 1, it's just the widget wont show up

This doesn't get called at all and I'm not sure how to fix that

[orchid spruce]

so this is the first part

and this is the vector it is checking for

[atomic salmon]

So do this

Drag out of Out Hit Actor

Then use Has Actor Tag with a Runnable tag

[trim matrix]

When I put a breakpoint here, and press play, it stops immediately
That shouldn't happen since the widget isn't inside the sphere, right?

[orchid spruce]

and do I want to attach that to this AND statement here?

[atomic salmon]

And do a Boolean And of its output with Out Hit Blocking Hit into the Branch node

I would AND into the branch node

So you can only run in the walls tagged as Runnable

[orchid spruce]

onto this one?

[atomic salmon]

Yes

[orchid spruce]

Awesome!

[trim matrix]

Can I have some help pelase

[atomic salmon]

Your sphere may be overlapping with anything

[orchid spruce]

So I'm getting a lot of errors with that

[atomic salmon]

Like?

Yes they is right

Because you are not always hitting a wall

[trim matrix]

How do I figure that out

[atomic salmon]

You can use a second branch after the first one to check the tag but only if blocking hit is true

[atomic salmon]

That logic checks if the sphere is overlapping anything but then calls the interface only if that overlapping actor implements one

It is like saying I’m seeing an overlapping actor let me check if it implements this interface

[orchid spruce]

So I added the second branch, but now I don't seem to be wall running even if I'm touching a wall with the Runnable tag

[atomic salmon]

Show code pls

[trim matrix]

Im trying to get my widget to show up when overlapping with the sphere again

[atomic salmon]

Second false should also go into the return node

[bright frigate]

is there a way to have a construction script be more "real-time"? As in, I wanted to have my lights react within the editor when I changed a value in the daytime. But I can only seem to get it to work if I compile the lights blueprint, otherwise it doesn't react to changes. But the SunBP for example, instantly reacts whenever you change any of the values.

[orchid spruce]

like this right?

[atomic salmon]

And use a print string after the second branch to show when you have hit a Runnable actor

[atomic salmon]

Yes. You can also just route both false to the same return node

If the print string never shows it means the tag is not being recognized

[orchid spruce]

okay so it doesn't seem to detect that I've hit a runnable actor. I put a print string and it doesn't print when I ran into a tagged wall

[atomic salmon]

And you tagged a BSP?

[orchid spruce]

yeah

[atomic salmon]

Can you try tagging a cube mesh instead

[orchid spruce]

going to try with a mesh

[atomic salmon]

And then hitting it with your character

[orchid spruce]

Works fine on a mesh, not on a BSP

[atomic salmon]

That was my doubt

It should work in principle

But I had never tried it on BSP’s

[orchid spruce]

so it seems to work on meshes, but not BSPs. It will work for what I have planned! Thanks a million, you've been a huge huge help 😁

[atomic salmon]

You are welcome!

@bright frigate check how the SunBP does it

It’s very likely in its own construction script

[trim matrix]

How do I make it so when the widget overlaps the sphere it becomes visible?

[atomic salmon]

How does the logic look like? Right now your sphere overlap is calling an interface.

You have to ensure that the overlapping actor (I guess your widget) implements that interface

[trim matrix]

The sphere calls an interface which has the following functions
And this is the logic for the desk of which is opened using the widget

And this is the macro

[atomic salmon]

Looks ok to me

But if the widget is already open it will never become visible

So make sure it is not open to start with

[trim matrix]

What do you mean by open?

Oh the "Open?"

[atomic salmon]

That Open?

Yes

If that is true the Closed macro goes to false and Set Visibility is never executed

[trim matrix]

So do I flip true and false?
Because it's not open in the beginning

This just stopped working randomly

[atomic salmon]

Learn to use Print String to mark certain parts of your code to see whether they are being executed

Maybe you changed something in the overlap settings and it doesn’t overlap anymore

[trim matrix]

I know that this isn't being called at all

[uncut lark]

Whats the difference between using components or just coding straight in the actors blueprint?

[atomic salmon]

Ok then the problem is before that @trim matrix

[atomic salmon]

Modularity

You can reuse the same component in multiple actors

[uncut lark]

Gotcha. Its not more or less taxing, is it?

[atomic salmon]

A tiny bit but you shouldn’t be concerned with that if it makes sense to use them

[trim matrix]

Okay I found the issue, I set it to "On interact begin" instead of "On overlap begin"

Except now when I try to put it back to the way it was, I can't plug in the target?

And that's how it was previously

[bright frigate]

yeah I've been looking at it but in the construction script it's the same as what I was doing, where I just put in the logic for when to set the lights visible and when not. But for me I need to compile. So I don't know where the SunBP is doing things real-time because that's the dead end for me.

There's also this but I'm confused because this is the parent construction script in the first place

[atomic salmon]

You are calling that event on the third person character. Is that what you need?

[atomic salmon]

Is it from one of the standard templates?

[trim matrix]

I needed it in the desk interface, but I figured it out, in order to connect the target I just needed to drag out from the target and search for it

It's the exact same as the bottom one but just "end" instead of "begin"

Thankyou for the help!

[atomic salmon]

You are welcome

[timber knoll]

You also in blueprints channel nowadays, marco? 😅

[atomic salmon]

LOL. When nothing happens in #legacy-physics 😜

[timber knoll]

Haha fair

[bright frigate]

the standard SunBP.
I have my own essentially duplicate class which inherits from SunBP.
ok I figured it out 😄 Thanks! It was straightforward just needed to reorganise my thoughts

[atomic salmon]

Ok! A case of rubber duck bug fixing.

👍

[bright frigate]

what does rubber duck bug fixing mean? 😅 Actually I thought I knew it upon a mention of this several weeks back but seems I forgot

btw, I have this logic where I can select a point light or a spotlight. Now this works, but regardless of choice, the editor always shows the associated properties of both lights.

[atomic salmon]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

[bright frigate]

For example, here you can see the attenuation radii of both lights even though one is enabled and the other is disabled. Is there a way to change this? Should I do something like set actor hidden in game or something?

[bright frigate]

Haha yea thankfully it wasn't required to do even that but I've realised that my standard practise is to do this where I have always been the duck myself 😄

[atomic salmon]

I see what you mean but I don’t think it is possible without writing a specific editor module.

Which means C++

[bright frigate]

ah okay, can do but I guess not that important. I'll try some things in the bps just for curiosity's sake

[atomic salmon]

Look also in BP Utilties and editor automation with BP’s

You can create your own editor widgets and use them to do settings etc.

[indigo quest]

Hello, I was watching Ryan Brucks Water stream on the Unreal channel, and he mentioned there was a blueprint function for querying wave height, normal etc. In a location or on overlap but I can't seem to find any more info on that.. he said it was in fortnite... anyone has some idea if it's out there somewhere or how I could go about doing it myself?

[bright frigate]

@atomic salmon is there a way I can convert this to a regular BP? This was once a point light to which I added logic using the add script blue button. So it was kinda unplanned but so much went into this that it would be useful if I can convert this to the usual format of "default scene root" and all that. Because in this case, I can only add things under Point Light Component and not outside/side by side of it

[atomic salmon]

You mean to have a scene component as root?

And the point light parented to it?

[trim matrix]

This function doesn't get called in my blueprint
But the breakpoint works here

[bright frigate]

ja like a regular BP for example

[bright frigate]

If I try to add a scene component here it can only come as a child

[atomic salmon]

You can take any component and drag it onto the root

It will ask you if you want to make it the new root

Voilà

[bright frigate]

yea but here it doesn't let me do that

[atomic salmon]

Ah ok because the parent class is a light

[spark steppe]

that doesn't work because you inherited it from a parent class

[bright frigate]

yea

[atomic salmon]

You can change the parent class under Class Settings

[spark steppe]

for your streetlight you may want to make an empty actor, add a static mesh component which has a point light component and the audio component as childs

[atomic salmon]

Make a copy of your actor first

[bright frigate]

yup that's what I wanna do

[atomic salmon]

Just in case it goes bad

[atomic salmon]

It means your Interact Actor doesn’t implement that interface or something is wrong with its implementation

[bright frigate]

ok so I made a copy and changed the parent of the copy. It lost the point light.

[trim matrix]

How do I go about fixing this?

[bright frigate]

so just a matter of adding the component back?

[atomic salmon]

Because it was the inherited root, but you can copy it over from the original actor

[atomic salmon]

Delete the interface events in your target actor and recreate them. See if that fixes it.

[atomic salmon]

Or just add one point light with the same name and remap the references

This is one of the cases where BP’s fall short of C++

[bright frigate]

true

[trim matrix]

Target actor being the thing that opens? or the widget?

[bright frigate]

I managed to do the replacement method, but is there a way to copy that exact point light component over with its settings? I could copy it but 'paste' was greyed out

[atomic salmon]

Target actor is whatever you call your interface on

[bright frigate]

thank you btw so far

[atomic salmon]

Did you copy the point light from the previous BP to the new one?

[bright frigate]

I tried to but I couldn't paste it

or I misunderstand how to

I'm still working with a copy so I have the OG BP as is

[spark steppe]

you could try drag'n'drop from one blueprint to the other

but i wouldn't expect it to work at all

[atomic salmon]

It may be because that was the root. Ok at least you should be able to copy the settings over from the old one. Open them side by side and copy directly on the settings.

[bright frigate]

haha dang oh well

[bright frigate]

yup 😄

[atomic salmon]

Yeah that’s the thing with inherited

[bright frigate]

For the new light component, do I just use the constructor like regular to expose all the light settings?

since the OG BP was inherited, these were all exposed by default

[spark steppe]

you can select the component in the hierarchy and apply your custom settings

theres no way to expose them to the blueprint root

[trim matrix]

I figured out the issue, not how to fix it

[atomic salmon]

@trim matrixwhat is the issue then?

[bright frigate]

I mean, can I do something like this

[trim matrix]

"Progress has begun" is set to false by default, which is good
But I need it to convert to "true" when I press the "E" key

and I think I do that with this

[bright frigate]

player character should have an on pressed E event that you can then flip flop between true and false with the progress begun variable

[trim matrix]

But that doesn't get called so the issue lies here

[spark steppe]

yes you can do it, but that's just a wrapper variable then

and prone to add multiple further issues

[bright frigate]

I'd never expect that, what kind?

[spark steppe]

just don't do it if theres no good reason for it

if you change that later on, you'll need to update the light, and such nonsense

if the light gets updated from somewhere else, the values don't match

[trim matrix]

It doesn't stop when I put a breakpoint so Im kinda stuck

[spark steppe]

just work directly on the light component

[atomic salmon]

@trim matrixI still think the interface doesn't get called for some reasons

so let's go back to the interface calling

[trim matrix]

Interface

[atomic salmon]

You should open Class Settings for your target actor

Make sure it implements the interface you are calling

[trim matrix]

Wait target actor as in the player or the desk

Desk holds the desk interface as well

[atomic salmon]

So the interact actor you are calling the interface on implements that interface as well?

[trim matrix]

Yes

[bright frigate]

well it broke my constructor for some reason. Now it doesn't react to changes in daytime set in the editor (it works fine in-game)

doesn't make sense, logic is the same, all that changed was the reference

[trim matrix]

Alright I did it

So the actor was the reason it wasn't working, cuz it had the interface implemented as well

[bright frigate]

nevermind, it was a dumb reason ... for some reason the editor has overridden the value of intensity even though it shouldn't have. I dunno why. But 0.4 meant I couldn't see it. Weird.

[trim matrix]

I've got this item here that you can "collect"
When you pick it up, I want there to be a particle effect that pops up

I've got a particle system set up but I'm not sure how this essentially works

Is it because the collectible actor is destroyed that the particles aren't showing up?

[gentle urchin]

Spawned at locationz so wouldnt thinknso

[trim matrix]

So what am I doing wrong

[gentle urchin]

Not sure. Is the sound playing?

[trim matrix]

Sound plays yeah

Point light doesn't seem to show up either

[gentle urchin]

Particle spawns at 0,0,0

World loc

Bet thats not where the dolls are

[trim matrix]

I thought it'd spawn at 0,0,0 of the actor location

How do I get it to the actor location

Do I need to make a particle system in the viewport and have it "auto play" in the blueprint?

[gentle urchin]

Just get actor location

Also keep in mind that you shouldnt destroy an actor you're still running code in

[trim matrix]

Oh

So would I hide the actor?

[gentle urchin]

That could be a way yes

Make sure you somehow block it from being picked up again

[trim matrix]

Is that the reason the lights not showing up, cuz the actor is being destroyed?

[gentle urchin]

It could be contributing to it, but for now the location is the main prob

[trim matrix]

Is it possible to offset the location?

Right now it's inside the actor

[gentle urchin]

Yes ofc

We litteraly just manipulated its location..

But if you hide the teru its sorta safer imo

Otherwise you have to do some extra steps to make sure it doesnt spawn in yet another blocked area

[trim matrix]

I know but how do I build off this into offsetting it?

[gentle urchin]

Youd use that as a base

And manipulate it further

[trim matrix]

how.

[gentle urchin]

With regular math

[trim matrix]

You're not being specific

[gentle urchin]

No.

[trim matrix]

Do you want me to use variables to manipulate the location?

[gentle urchin]

On purpose 😅

[trim matrix]

huh

[gentle urchin]

Up to you how you wanba do the offset

[trim matrix]

google time.

[atomic salmon]

@trim matrixyou should really take to time to go through a basic Blueprint/Unreal Engine course. There are great ones (for free) on learn.unrealengine.com

[trim matrix]

I have no time

[spark steppe]

xD

[atomic salmon]

Are we doing your school assignment here?

That wouldn't be very ethical

[trim matrix]

No

I'm simply asking for some help on my "school assignment"

[fiery glen]

dude, I assure you actually learning would be faster than asking for help every step of the way

[gentle urchin]

^

[trim matrix]

I know

[thorn ermine]

Ask your teacher or classmates for some help as well, I mean if we do the work, you get the grade.. yeah that seems totally fair

[spark steppe]

i want the good grade tho

[thorn ermine]

fo sho

[gentle urchin]

Earn it

[spark steppe]

me?

[gentle urchin]

Whoever wants it 😅

[trim matrix]

I'm not really able to go back to that class and my teacher knows fuck all as well
I'm going to sit down and learn myself properly when I get this out of the way

[spark steppe]

does your teacher sell the games you guys have to make as "homework"?

dang that sounds like a business plan

[trim matrix]

No

[spark steppe]

who wants to be my pupil?

[fiery glen]

there was a "gamejam" on here where the dude was going to sell all of the games wasn't there? lol

always on that grindset

[spark steppe]

i bet that happened before

[willow phoenix]

any ideas on how to call the "socketed" mesh on an other mesh? i don't want to spawn it, because i have different meshes on different sockets (or if i spawn it, i want to spawn the socket specific one :3)

[spark steppe]

you ask for naming suggestions?

[fiery glen]

make a ref to it a public value or make a getter function?

call it MyAwesomesocket3Final

[spark steppe]

why not MyAwesomesocket3FinalLatestAndReallyFinal?

[fiery glen]

I guess we should ask what "socketed" really means

[willow phoenix]

wait

xD

[spark steppe]

https://tenor.com/view/mr-bean-waiting-still-waiting-gif-13052487

[willow phoenix]

sad node spawns pebbles. thats fine most of the time, but sometimes i want it to spawn something else, dependend on the static mesh the sockets are on

== branches seem not to work with static meshes

[spark steppe]

wait, are you the guy with the 1.000.000 line traces from yesterday? 😄

[willow phoenix]

nope

[spark steppe]

ok

two options, either you iterate over all child components and look at which socket they are attached

[willow phoenix]

just 3 sockets on a few hundret meshes, so just ~300 times this gets called lol

[spark steppe]

option 2 is to store references

if each socket is only holding one mesh you could use a map which has FName, StaticMeshComponent reference

so the lookup is easy

option c.) add a scene component for each socket you attach to, and attach the mesh components to the corresponding scene

and there are probably 10 other ways of doing it

[obtuse herald]

I would recommend option 2

Performance wise the best you can do

looks clean aswell

[spark steppe]

yea, but 2. only works if you attach only one mesh at each socket

[willow phoenix]

hmm the map sounds good

but the "add static mesh" component spawns only 'one' type of mesh, i can't even use the value output to set it to another mesh

wait nevermind

wtf

[spark steppe]

sure you can change the mesh on it

[obtuse herald]

'set mesh'

[spark steppe]

thats the whole purpose of it

[willow phoenix]

i swear to the blueprint god, it did not work like 2m inutes ago

belive me smepais

thanks btw too 🙂

[spark steppe]

https://tenor.com/view/i-dont-believe-you-whatever-lies-gif-3602502

[willow phoenix]

works like a charmanda

❤️ ben

❤️ toyboy chan ❤️

[spark steppe]

i totally misunderstood your question before 😄

but glad that it worked out

i thought you wanted to store a reference of the component, not of the mesh to assign

but whatever, as long as it works out

and i would rather iterate over the keys of the map instead of the sockets on the mesh, but the performance difference is negliable

would just make more sense imho

[willow phoenix]

mean, using the index?

[spark steppe]

you can get the keys as array (which are your socket names)

you may then have to check if the socket exists on the target mesh tho

just keep it as it is for now, it's probably faster than checking each time if a socket exists

[willow phoenix]

right now it just gets all sockets on a static mesh, if there is nothing thn its already complete. or am i misstaken?

the "static mesh" gets spawned into the world, sometimes it has sockets, sometimes not

[spark steppe]

keep it as it is if it works

[willow phoenix]

sure, but im interested in the mechanics! 😄