blueprint

[cursive apex]

I see, so he solved my problem. All I need to do is instead of calling a character function to the pool, I call a pool funtion to the character ?

[brazen merlin]

on the pool bp

on enter overlap - start

on exit overlap - stop

[cursive apex]

Thank you both!

[maiden wadi]

@odd ember@native willow On a side note, since you guys were mentioning engine wide FNames. Cause I haven't praised GameplayTags enough today... If use a meta specifier, or set the value of the Categories for the property to a tag base, only that tag line will show up in the tag selection.

[odd ember]

that's what I was saying. it's functionality that engine side would have been great to have, especially for tools in engine as well

[cursive apex]

what kind of variable is regen timer ?

it's something related with time but idk what

[brazen merlin]

its a timer handle, you can make it easily by dragging off from the "return value" pin on the timer node, then choose make variable

[novel robin]

ohhhk so i know this may go in another channel but the fireparticles i am trying to work with (which are awesome) are only cascade...

which are not rtx supported for reflections...

any suggestions for some good and/or free fire effects that are dx12?

[icy dragon]

#graphics
Though I assume material for particles were RHI agnostic 🤔

[brazen merlin]

#visual-fx also

[novel robin]

thank you may i cross post?

[brazen merlin]

probably delete whats here if you do

[novel robin]

was this the right channel to come to for cvar questions?

[icy dragon]

Depends on the cvar context, but generally it's #ue4-general

[novel robin]

ahh lol ok thank you for answering mine here earlier!

ima get back to it
il report if i found a fix for my fire

[icy dragon]

I never do anything with RTX, so I have no idea about it.

[keen wedge]

Random question.... UE4 first person template, the player character has a "Mesh2P" component... anyone know why its called that? e.g whats the "2P" bit about?

[round shale]

hello everyone i am generally new to unreal, i need help with a problem about spawned enemy collision

[brazen merlin]

its' not first person nor third person its...

[brazen merlin]

sounds like a bp problem, you're in the right place

[keen wedge]

So the "inherited" mesh is the first person?

[brazen merlin]

hahaha, that is a good question, is there anything hooked up to it?

[keen wedge]

its just the default template example... but that Mesh2P thing has been bugging me on this project for about 7 weeks now! 😄 I know I can rename it, but I wanted to know what it has 2P on it...

surely cant be "second person"... wouldn't make a lot of sense..

[round shale]

cool, the problem is that the all the actors from the pawn class that my enemy spawner makes all clip through each other, even though in the pawn bp the capsule collision is set to block everything

[brazen merlin]

i dont use that template, if at all, so i dunno much about it

[keen wedge]

No worries... 🙂

[brazen merlin]

you're spawning a bunch of pawns but they overlap? check out the spawn actor node settings, i think one is "try to spawn and adjust position" otherwise you need to program that logic in as Spawn Actor simply does just that

[round shale]

yes i have it as adjust location but always spawn, the problem is that when they start to follow me (via ai moveto) they start to clip through each other

like so

[timber knoll]

that doesn't seem right...

by default the standard characters don't clip into eachother when using them as AI

you must have changed something that broke it 🤔

[round shale]

it was always like that

[final python]

what is the marketplace thing that lets you bend the execute lines at 90 degree angles and such instead of smooth curves called?

[maiden wadi]

Electric Nodes I think.

Electronic Nodes.

[final python]

just bought it, thanks

[spark steppe]

you did what...

ok

you are aware of what is happening, in the capitalistic world we live in, this week?

[maiden wadi]

The same thing that happened last week? 😄

[spark steppe]

yes

but with glitter

[maiden wadi]

Vaguely curious now.

[spark steppe]

ok, rather next friday/monday

but some can't get enough and already started

[timber knoll]

seems just fine to me

using the base character blueprint

[round shale]

heres the bp for the pawn

[icy dragon]

Oh, Black Friday.

[spark steppe]

let me once riddle authaer 😛

[maiden wadi]

I'd have never gotten that. 😄 I'm stingy, and sales just means that shit wasn't worth it in the first place most times.

[timber knoll]

hmm well the only thing that could be wrong would be the collision here...

since they do move

[round shale]

its a pawn class not character btw

[timber knoll]

right, then I would check what differences you have with the standard character

[timber knoll]

I would recommend turning off can character step up on

but that shouldn't make a difference for this case

the default character just uses pawn collision preset... 🤔

really weird that yours isn't working

[round shale]

im not using default character, im using pawn with just the mesh and anims of the default character

[timber knoll]

yes yes I know

but I'm wondering what makes yours different

[round shale]

i think its better if i show you on vc

[mystic mist]

Does anyone know why Splines dont properly scale static meshes the same way?

[onyx violet]

is it just me or do the remove axis and action mapping node act really weird? I've had a bunch of bugs with them and had to really mess around with it to get custom keybinds not to be bugged

[mystic mist]

Im trying to figure out how to get a Static Mesh Ive scaled down in the level to be the same size in a spline, but its not working.

[round shale]

nvm i cant stream on the channels

[timber knoll]

lol didn't know

[odd ember]

probably not enough vertices

[timber knoll]

my pawns are also working fine btw, with any movement component really

so it might be the way you move your pawns?

[round shale]

i dont know, i just use ai moveto and rotation

could i send you the files so you can test them?

[timber knoll]

well when you are using a pawn

you will have to implement your own movement / use one of unreal built-in movement components

is there a reason why you're not using a character?

[round shale]

animations wouldnt flush well with the movement, and the actors wouldnt move at all

so i use pawn and movement is floatingpawnmovement

[timber knoll]

that would also work yes, but keep in mind it doesn't implement gravity

[round shale]

i dont need the gravity

theyll just be moving on a flat plane

[timber knoll]

then it should be all fine

[cursive apex]

I did what you said

and added this

so that I an set a mana value to be used for each diferent spell, and if the amount of current mana + the min mana needed or that spell it gets the animation

[brazen merlin]

the math kinda looks like its gaining rather than being spent, also all timers have a time of 0 and are not set to loop

[timber knoll]

also, clamp your spend function

so it can't go below 0

this should be after

unless you have some at runtime draining besides this

[cursive apex]

I have a question about set time by event

the time that I set would make it so that x amount of mana is spent for every y seocnds that I put in ?

[timber knoll]

it will just repeat the event every x seconds

how much mana spent, is up to you

[maiden wadi]

If you set it to looping.

Also why is the timer on that 0?

[cursive apex]

so if I want one spell to continue spening while pressing I set it to loop, and if I want it to only when pessing a key I leave it ?

[cursive apex]

because I have that doubt about what it would do

[brazen merlin]

to clarify, when you call the Timer it will wait for X Time and then execute the connected event

[cursive apex]

so it does the same as a delay ?

[brazen merlin]

the loop check box will repeat the Timer function until it is stopped

[brazen merlin]

yes, to understand it that way, it's like a delay but with better control. In general delays are bad to use as they cause other problems.

[cursive apex]

I see

[brazen merlin]

since it outputs its timer handle, you can do things like check its curent time or see if it has expired already for different reasons

[maiden wadi]

Honestly, this is a very complicated topic. Personally I feel handling gameplay attributes is a massive undertaking once you start going past health/stamina/mana.

[brazen merlin]

I understand that it's setup feels bulkier, but its good to use them over a delay when and where possible

[cursive apex]

ok so I still need to work on that part a little .... I'm thinking how a spend function would be created

[round shale]

is there a way for getdistanceto to affect a different actor of the same bp?

[cursive apex]

last time I had done this

[maiden wadi]

@round shale What do you mean by different actor in the same bp?

[round shale]

i want to check the distance between two spawned actors, both of which use the same pawn bp

[maiden wadi]

Where ever you need that distance needs a reference to both of them.

[brazen merlin]

not to add too much to the fray, but you should get one of these working before assuming they will all work and duplicate them

[round shale]

is there a way to get a reference to it if it isnt spawned yet?

[odd ember]

both of them need to be known somehow

doesn't matter how

there are good ways of doing it and there are terrible ways of doing it

if it isn't spawned yet, no

it has to be in world

but you can consider the spawnpoint

[round shale]

i want to check the distance between the object and a spawned copy of itself is what im trying to say

[odd ember]

the object doesn't exist in world?

[round shale]

trying this didnt work

[odd ember]

what are you trying to do

describe in concrete terms, what kind of thing you are expecting

not technically what you are trying to do

[round shale]

the enemies that i am spawning, when moving towards me are ignoring collisions with each other, so im trying to make it that they dont get near each other to begin with

[odd ember]

they shouldn't be ignoring collisions

[round shale]

see my previous messages to see pics and such

[odd ember]

this is a bandaid on a broken leg

you should be fixing the root issue

[round shale]

which is?

[odd ember]

them not colliding with each other

[round shale]

i have the collision component to BlockAll

[odd ember]

what is the name of the collision component?

[round shale]

Capsule

[odd ember]

I haven't seen your logic, but that needs to work

regardless of anything else

and what you're trying to implement is like a primitive RVO avoidance system

[cursive apex]

I changed it to this

[round shale]

?

[odd ember]

look it up

but the collision not working is an issue you'll have regardless

[cursive apex]

does having two events , each linked to a cast to character cause recurency ?

[odd ember]

I have no idea what recurency is

[cursive apex]

... that thing where it is calling to the same thing at the same time

[odd ember]

recursion?

[cursive apex]

ah yes

and yes I have realized that what I made makes no sense

[glad compass]

hi, I am very new to UE, I come from a Unity background, I the vr template in UE5 setup, and I want custom hands, I have a model, and a action sequence that makes the hand turn into a fist, how do I trigger that action sequence on grab? I have a function that gets called on grab button, I just dont know how to call the animation switch.

[odd ember]

recursion is a thing calling itself. and it is a desirable state. it's not something that happens by accident

unless you do infinite loops

[odd ember]

#virtual-reality

I would ask there

[glad compass]

ok

[cursive apex]

I have to delive this poject in less than 3 hours and I don't think i can make it work

F

[odd ember]

F indeed

what's missing

[cursive apex]

huh ... mostly making it so that when he steps into the pool it triggers the recharge mana

I was going to make it so that it alls a function from character on pool

but am too confused now

[odd ember]

shouldn't be too hard

what's wrong currently?

[cursive apex]

like before it that part worked, the problem was making it stop when it leaves the pool

now that is what is missing

beause I ccan't diretally turn this into a separate function

[mystic mist]

Does anyone know why I cant use multiple media players in one level?

[odd ember]

that sounds... like it works like it should? when leaving the pool it stops?

[mystic mist]

1 media player works just grand. But even if I copy and paste it, it doesnt work.

[odd ember]

never used media players

[cursive apex]

I'm sure the part that is shown woks, but currently there is no way to make it only charge whle in pool

[odd ember]

there is

where is your pool blueprint

[maiden wadi]

@mystic mistWhat do you mean by multiple media players?

[cursive apex]

currently I have this on pool

[odd ember]

on exit, use the StopRegenTimer event

and that should be it

[mystic mist]

@maiden wadi so I have a video media player. It plays when I click on it (blueprint). When I duplicate the blueprint, that one wont work. Only the original works.

[odd ember]

ah, you should also you equivalent events

you have actor end overlap and box end overlap

use box for both

[cursive apex]

yes, it would if I had what I have on the character event inside the recharge mana function

[cursive apex]

can't find end box ovelap

[odd ember]

right click on box > events > on component end overlap

[cursive apex]

I can call that but can't all the stat regain

currently the restore mana function being called does nothing beause it is empty

[odd ember]

just call the StartTheRegenTimer event from the overlap

and StopTimer on end overlap

[maiden wadi]

Oh. I think I see what you mean. I don't know if it works if you make another media asset in the content browser.

[cursive apex]

to call start regen timer in the pool don't I need to have it like this on the character ?

because I don't seem to be able to call it while only having it as a custom event

[odd ember]

you can call it from the cast node

[cursive apex]

if that will work, now I just need to make it so that the spend mana works as well

like so ?

[odd ember]

yeah see if that doesn't work

[cursive apex]

can't because I haven't set a proper spend mana system and what is done or the recharging checks mana levels

it works

but I don't think I can use the set timer by event because I doesn't let my animation finish

[brazen merlin]

well, this was originally proposed to regain lost mana in a pool, not for casting magic which uses mana

for that, it would be less complicated, simply call the spell and subtract the spell cost from the mana

[cursive apex]

alight

a way to set a mana spent would be this

?

but with a current mana - spell cost ?

[brazen merlin]

so to understand, this spell flamethrower is where the player holds down the cast input?

[cursive apex]

yes

and I need to set up a spell cost variable, and then check if current mana - spell cost is not < than 0, if it checks true, then it proceeds to spend the mana and leads to the animation ?

[brazen merlin]

to be frank, a held down action is harder than a one shot

the logic is close, but for me, the unknown is the animation

[cursive apex]

it is what I was asked to do but tbh If i can get the rest of the mana system to work I don't ae about that pat

[brazen merlin]

well, if i might suggest, why dont we get a one shot spell working so that your mana regen system can be tested

[cursive apex]

sure thing, I have one on the side of it

[brazen merlin]

and btw, if you set the player's mana to a value that isn't max, you can test the regen system regardless

so for the one shot, again simply put, when the Input event fires, you call the spell function and do the math to spend the mana, no timer needed

[cursive apex]

currently it starts doing the rehage animation when it entes so I think I need to add the check mana here beause now it just starts regen time one it enters

damn my keyboard isn't woking well

[brazen merlin]

too much coding 😛

from what i gather, it sounds like there is some trouble with the bp logic added to managing animation calls

[cursive apex]

not complete yet, but it is looking better

how do I set up end mana use so that it actually stops me from using it when no mana ?

[round shale]

look, heres the bp code, how do i find/implement what you were talking about?

[odd ember]

why are you setting physics enabled as a node?

[round shale]

i set collisionenabled to see if that solved the issue

it didnt

[odd ember]

clear and invalidate timer by handle

[odd ember]

try ticking stop on overlap

[round shale]

doesnt do anything

[cursive apex]

even tough there is no timer ?

[odd ember]

my bad I thought it was the issue from before

[odd ember]

can you as a player move through the enemy?

[round shale]

no, that part works

[odd ember]

so this might be an RVO issue then. go into each actor, in the details panel, there should be a section about navigation

in that, set the enemy actor to be Dynamic Obstacle

go into your project settings > navigation > set your navmesh to be dynamic

[odd ember]

what do you need stop when you have no mana?

[cursive apex]

nvm .. thank you all for the extraordinary help today

[formal marlin]

hello

Im new to coding

Im using metahuman creator

[round shale]

i cant seem to find that particular setting, even with searching it

[odd ember]

Navigation Mesh > Runtime Generation > Dynamic

[round shale]

thank you

[odd ember]

if that doesn't work

the character movement component has an actual RVO option

[round shale]

i dont have a character movement component

it wont let me put one in either

[odd ember]

somehow that explains a lot

[round shale]

i kept trying to say its not a character class

its just a simple pawn

[odd ember]

any reason it's not a character?

[round shale]

im more familiar with it, and when i tried the same code with the character class it showed a bunch of errors with the animation and wouldnt move at all, even with no animations

[odd ember]

then I'd suggest you try again, as this is one of the few options available for RVO. if it doesn't work otherwise, that is

[round shale]

do you know how to make the character pawnsensing visible in the editor viewport?

[odd ember]

I don't know anymore

I have my own component for this

[round shale]

idk its the one im learning rn in school

[odd ember]

like java, lmao

I keed

[tawdry surge]

Hey does anyone know why I'm getting the error " cannot force a cast between non-numeric types" when I convert my vec4 node into a parameter?

[knotty sequoia]

is there a way how can i create variable that can be used in all blueprints?

[odd ember]

looks like this is for #graphics

[odd ember]

just to be clear: what do you mean? global access?

[knotty sequoia]

yes, something like global variable

[odd ember]

put it in the game mode, or in game instance

actually game instance I think is more correct as game mode might flush between levels

[knotty sequoia]

and how do i access it from different blueprints?

[odd ember]

GetGameInstance() > CastTo<YourSpecificGameInstance>() > GetVariable()

[knotty sequoia]

ok i will try it, thanks

[round shale]

tried it in a character class, doesnt move at all

[odd ember]

what doesn't?

[round shale]

the actors

[odd ember]

you copied all your logic over?

[round shale]

yes

[odd ember]

did you assign an AI controller and made it possess the character?

I think you can do that per automata in the default settings

[round shale]

yes, just the standard aicontroller

[odd ember]

debug it with breakpoints

AIMoveTo also offers an enum you can print on to figure out what's going on

[round shale]

got the movement to work, but animations still arent executing

[odd ember]

under Animation you need to set the Animation Instance

[ancient atlas]

hey guys quick question. i have a projectile firing and i want it to collide with my enemies. The enemies collision settings are set to block all and yet they go through.
I have it set up so the projectile cannot go through walls due to them not having the "enemy" tag (which works) but that also doesnt work on the enemy. can post images if needed

[hushed pewter]

What are the projectiles collision

[ancient atlas]

they are set to block all except it is set to overlap pawn (it was getting blocked by my character) could this be why the enemy isnt blocking it?

[hushed pewter]

Well is the enemy a pawn

[ancient atlas]

created it as a character so yeah.

is there a way to destroy the projectile when it overlaps with the enemy? would it be begin overlap

[hushed pewter]

Begin overlap

Then pull the overlapped actor into cast to

If the cast fails do nothing

But if the cast works then cast it too the hit actor. With that actor being "Enemy"

[ancient atlas]

ah i got it to work.
i have it set up so if it has the tag enemy then the projectile gets destroyed. i originally set it up so if it didnt have the enemy tag it was destroyed. i.e when it hit walls etc, but that also means my character so i think if i give it its own tag to ignore the projectile it will be perfect. thanks for your help

am i going something wrong here? should those branches be laid out like that? Because at the moment, the projectile doesnt get destroyed when it hits anything with out the "player" tag..

[tawdry surge]

You didn't connect to target pin

[odd ember]

I would not use ActorBeginOverlap

[tawdry surge]

And it looks like you wanna destroy any but the player so one branch will do

[odd ember]

it's another newbie trap 😔

[ancient atlas]

yeah the issue i was having was if it had the tag enemy it would do something different than destroy actor like play a sound or whatever. how would i set that up but also keeping the "destroy actor if not player"

[faint pasture]

You would need 2 branches for 3 cases.

[ancient atlas]

its odd, it get destroyed when it hits walls etc but not when it hits the enemy i have in the level.

which doesnt have the player tag 🙂

[odd ember]

the only thing that doesn't get destroyed, according to your logic, is the player

or rather, whatever has the player tag

[ancient atlas]

yeah i have it set up so if the projectile hits something which doesnt have the tag "player" then it gets destroyed. i have dropped any enemy into the level with a collision box etc and it just goes right through them

[odd ember]

if they don't collide in the first place because of collision settings, that'll be why

[odd ember]

.

[odd ember]

.

[ancient atlas]

it is currently set to event hit

[odd ember]

none of that matters if the collision settings are wrong

[ancient atlas]

within the collision settings it is set to block the projectile

[odd ember]

if you read what I wrote consider using a collision component that is set up custom for this

yes but you're using OnActorBeginOverlap

hit and overlap are two different things

[ancient atlas]

no now im not, its event hit. i changed it 🙂

[odd ember]

cool, so ensure that your collision settings are both setup correctly

on the projectile and on the actor

they have to match their channels

collision is a two way treet

[ancient atlas]

okay i will check

[odd ember]

both collisions have to work for it to function

[ancient atlas]

okay so i had it set to overlap pawn on the projectile mesh and now i have set that to block (as needed) and now it clips into my character. i was hoping the branches i did earlier fixed that

[odd ember]

have you set it to Generate Hit Events

[ancient atlas]

i had that turned off but now its on and nothing changed... i feel like im missing something simple ha

[odd ember]

well if it goes through with that, your collision settings aren't properly setup

[ancient atlas]

oh i found it

in the collision settings the projectile object type was set as worldstatic instead of projectile

slaps forhead

so now it gets destroyed when it hits anything which isnt the player including the enemy. phew

thankyou for your help

[barren flower]

Hey so I saw a video of this blueprint someone has, you can slap down the blueprint which is a cube, and it has this diamond you can select when the blueprint is highlighted

and if you move it, it sizes the cube to that point

what is that?

[odd ember]

a socket

[barren flower]

Is that all? I wasnt aware you could manipulate sockets like that from outside a blueprint

Why thank you good sir!

No, its not

Its an exposed vector variable with show 3d widget enabled

[odd ember]

socket has the same diamond

so eh

and an "exposed vector variable" sounds a lot like a socket

although I think sockets use transforms since they likely have to carry direction too

[barren flower]

Its on screen

its literally a vector variable

You just click the little eye to expose it to the details panel when you click the blueprint in editor

and if you set its own settings to have that 3d widget, you can set it manually with that transform

which is pretty fucking ninja

[faint pasture]

Why TF does the stock projectile movement even use a collider. Causes so many problems to new ppl.

[barren flower]

Agreeeeeed

[odd ember]

does it?

but I mean UE's full of newbie traps

[barren flower]

calculate projectile collision I think its called

[odd ember]

so apologies if it sounds unsurprising

[barren flower]

what else do you want

Can we talk about on tick

as a default node

I see established users running tutorials using on tick

Bro you really gonna attach game logic to frame rate?

And make it a default node

And THEN

IN YOUR LIVESTREAMS

SAY IT SHOULD NEVER BE USED

Fucking epic, man

[faint pasture]

Yes I've found the stock projectile component to be ass compared to just doing line traces per frame instead of sweeping a collider per frame. You'd avoid the dumb stuff like projectiles hitting each other or stopping movement.

[finite fulcrum]

Is there a decent way to support multiple game modes in a map without needing duplicates of the map?

[faint pasture]

@barren flower tick is great and necessary

When you need stuff to happen PER FRAME.

Anything smooth is happening on tick.

[odd ember]

UE4's logic is frame bound anyway

[faint pasture]

Any continuous thing evolving over time

[odd ember]

even timers and delays only update per frame

but tick running rampant and being on from the get go I don't think is right

[faint pasture]

Once you know what you're doing it's just intuitive what belongs on tick or a tick like function and what doesn't.

[barren flower]

NO

Never ever

[odd ember]

yeah but once you know what you're doing you're not a newbie

[faint pasture]

Please give me a counterexample. Tell me something that would update smoothly over time that would not use tick.

[barren flower]

Just have the game logic run at the rate you want, and draw it when a new frame comes up

Litterally run bullet logic at 10,000 frames a second

Dude, 140fps is glacially slow

[odd ember]

technically timers don't run per tick as they accrue updates that get released on the next tick

[barren flower]

There is no reason, ever, to use on tick

[faint pasture]

Sure let's re-engineer the entire engine. You need it to at least run at framerate unless you like aliasing and stuttering. So you're back to single variable tick with extra steps.

[barren flower]

Do not tie a CPU to a graphics card bus, its actually retarded

Why are you getting stuttering?

What are you doing on the cpu that cannot compete with frame rate?

[odd ember]

technically he's right on this one: you can make multiple computations between each tick on e.g. a timer and then release them on the next tick

[barren flower]

What, you can draw when you want with on tick, but it cant run at speed without it?

[brazen merlin]

gunna go ahead and throw this idea out there, for short tasks that would otherwise operate with tick, you can use a frame-dependent timer

[barren flower]

Bro you can update the position of a bullet litterally hundreds of thousands of times in between frames

The very idea it wouldnt be ready with a new frame draw is a non starter from the beggining

and you are actually DELAYING logic taking place for a poor framerate? Please. Just no, not ever

[faint pasture]

If game state never gets rendered, does it ever exist? Short of physics there's no real need to update above framerate, and updating below framerate requires interpolation. What's the fucking point then?

[odd ember]

well no timer is frame dependent, as we've established. the calculations happen between ticks, but they only update together once they sync with tick

[barren flower]

I mean, the underlying simulation still needs to be accurate. It 100% exists

[onyx violet]

how can I open a level with seamless travel in blueprints

[odd ember]

seamless travel requires cpp currently

[faint pasture]

If you can't make a 60hz bullet and 1000hz bullet move exactly the same then you need to learn more numeric methods.

[odd ember]

but you can mimic it with streaming volumes perhaps

[barren flower]

But its literally the one thing you dont control. You have no idea whats going on in my pc. Hit some thermal throttling, open some machine learning software. You have NO IDEA what my framerate will be. I could be running at 5fps for minutes, or a billion in the year 2072. You have no idea

The sim should run at the rate the sim runs, the frames should come as they come

thats how computers work

these are seperate hardware

[odd ember]

well you usually put a max limit on frames

[barren flower]

you are ductaping together with a single node

[odd ember]

for the game

[barren flower]

You dont know that

I disable that shit for some VR games I play made in the 90's

and some of the logic breaks in them

[odd ember]

if you're making the game

[barren flower]

ever see mechs fly into the sky, try running mechwarrior 3 an 144

[odd ember]

you decide whether or not that is exposed to the player

[static charm]

you guys can argue in another general channel, this is little to do with blueprints.

[barren flower]

they never thought that would happen

[odd ember]

I certainly wouldn't expose it

[onyx violet]

could I make a c++ class with a void for seamless travelling and call it from blueprints?

[odd ember]

yeah so on the gamemode there's something get seamlesstravel actor list or some such, I think you can expose that function from cpp

[barren flower]

The new holographic displays on the starships when we are all 1000 years old after aging was cured. You have no idea. Its the one thing you dont control as a game dev. Use timers, ontick is fundamentally, at a computer science level hardware bus, flawed idea

[odd ember]

... we do control it

we literally have that control

to limit max frames

[barren flower]

You have games flopping from this. Fallout76, game logic tied to frame rate. Dead game

[odd ember]

yes but you're conflating two things

logic tied to framerate, and a frame rate limit

[barren flower]

You can patch things, and even if you control max frames, you do not control minimum

[odd ember]

true, but it's one less case

[barren flower]

Hell, what happens if I unplug my monitor?

Your game just crashes?

Or i fly into the moon

[odd ember]

and no limit for max frames is much more dangerous than low frame rates

your monitor doesn't control the internal frames of the game

[barren flower]

Epic formally reccomends its never been used. And with that im done. If you cant see the problems you shouldt be in this industry, its that simple.

[odd ember]

you're conflating two different things

[static charm]

stop responding to him

[odd ember]

many games out there run on frame rate limits

for good reason

[onyx violet]

would I be able to use a blueprint gamemode class that I've been using? or do I need to make a new one in c++?

[odd ember]

you might need to make one in cpp, but you can just inherit your BP one from the one you make in cpp

I have that for a few classes where I got a cpp version and a BP version

if not else, BP version carries default values

for stuff that can't easily be set in cpp

(hi curves)

[onyx violet]

I'm looking at a video right now and this guy is using execute console command "servertravel levelname" this won't work?

pardon me if it's a dumb question

[odd ember]

who knows, it might? server travel is technically a console command. but you still want to know which actors are persisting across server travel, otherwise everything is getting flushed

[onyx violet]

well

im actually doing it before any player connects

it's to switch levels when the server starts

[odd ember]

Open Level not good enough?

[onyx violet]

I'm not sure exactly. I'm using AWS gamelift with a plugin, it could be an issue related to that

[odd ember]

seamless travel is usually only for when you want things to persist

but who knows, maybe there's some hidden multiplayer use for it as well. I haven't looked into it that much

[onyx violet]

i'm having an issue where the way I setup opening a new level, could end up initializing with the gamelift service twice and I thinking this is causing other issues potentially, so I'm trying to find a method to open levels when the server starts where it doesn't do the intializing twice

and so if it persists with seamless travel that should fix it

[odd ember]

it could be that seamless travel is also used to persist players so they don't disconnect

[static charm]

according to the docs, thats the definition of seamless travel - ie seamless for the player

[odd ember]

you'll have to find out what that gamelift service adds and persist it manually though I'd imagine

[onyx violet]

im not sure really trying to figure it out

[round shale]

@odd ember i made it work! 😁

[ripe lake]

Can I use SpawnActorDeffered in a blueprint?

[dusk cave]

Why aren't my colors changing?

This is the ThirdPersonCharacter actor

[tawdry surge]

Source material is blank maybe

[brazen merlin]

i dont see a source material.... select asset?

[tawdry surge]

That's what I meant if it wasn't clear

[dusk cave]

ive tried that but it didnt do anything

[brazen merlin]

🤦 you did say this

[dusk cave]

i chose M_Male_Body

[brazen merlin]

ah, you've not applied this material to the player; the DMI is made, but not assigned - i would also not do this everytime it is called, but once at begin play

[tawdry surge]

Could probably even get the reference in the construction script really

[onyx violet]

is it just me or is adding and removing axis/action mapping really screwy? it seems so buggy like it's not removing the keybinds sometimes and not adding the newly set ones

[brazen merlin]

iirc changes to an input (the input event) do not update

[onyx violet]

Can you explain a bit more?

so like the nodes in my playercontroller class for action events, those don't get updated when I do add/remove axis/action mappings?

[brazen merlin]

no i dont believe so, if you have "MyAction" and rename that input to "MyBetterAction" it will not update the nodes where "MyAction" is used, but someone correct me if im wrong

[onyx violet]

they're using the same name

[brazen merlin]

hmm?

[onyx violet]

i'm not renaming the actions

[brazen merlin]

two inputs with the same name?

[onyx violet]

you're saying if I rename the bindings

I'm not renaming them i'm using the same name

[brazen merlin]

i misunderstand, this is about the bindings themselves?

[onyx violet]

it seems to me when I go to remove bindings, then readd them with different keys, they seem to be buggy like not removing all of them, and not adding some of the new ones

so players could rebind a key

but then the old key is still bound

for example

[brazen merlin]

uhh, you ahve functionality to change a keybinding within game and that's the screwy?

[onyx violet]

it's blueprint nodes

[brazen merlin]

then you are correct and that, as far as i've tried, is annoying to test

i think best result is to build and test

allowing player rebinds was not fun when i tried it

i think cpp allows for a smoother workflow

[onyx violet]

i mean idc about workflow i just want to know why they don't seem to work consistently

[brazen merlin]

i think its because its the editor keybinds vs game keybinds

[devout crow]

Guys,I'm working on a roll system that like DarkSouls, but I'm getting sidetracked by the directions, how can I get my character to roll in the right direction inputed?

[supple bane]

how can I go between values 0 and 1 (as a float) smoothly?

using it for the alpha to go back and forth between colors

[tight schooner]

@supple bane if it's just a discrete thing that begins and ends, right click on your graph and Add Timeline

[supple bane]

I want it to go back and forth

so once it hits 1, start going back to 0

and vise-versa

[tight schooner]

Forever? Maybe a sinewave on tick, though you can also make this happen directly in the material graph too.

[velvet dagger]

Would I be interrupting if I asked for help?

[supple bane]

go ahead

[tight schooner]

Something like time —> sine —> + 1 ÷ 2

[supple bane]

this isnt for a material, its for a particle effect

[tight schooner]

... will give you an up & down wave every second

[supple bane]

sine?

[velvet dagger]

Sooo, I'm making a collectathon game and I want to make it where when you collect a collectable it will no longer be in that level once you leave and come back, or quit the game and open it back up while it loads some save data that's updated when you collect a collectable. How would I go about doing this?

[supple bane]

and how do I access time?

[tight schooner]

@supple bane get world seconds

[supple bane]

I found a picture of what I kind of want to do, but Im not too sure how to access someone these things

[tight schooner]

Plug that into sin and ostensibly that'll produce a float that goes from -1 to +1

[supple bane]

got it

[tight schooner]

Then you need to add 1 and divide by 2 to get it from 0 to 1

Can also be done in Niagara directly too. Dunno about cascade

[supple bane]

what is the difference between degrees and radian?

[tight schooner]

Now I remember why I hate doing sine waves in BP lol

Degrees want a 0 to 360 value and radians are something weird.

Whereas the sine functions in Niagara and Material expect 0 to 1 which is handy for 1-second oscillations

[supple bane]

I am using niagara

[tight schooner]

In Niagara, time would be non-normalized particle age or system age or w/e

I forget what the sine wave module looks like in Niagara. I think it had more options

If worse comes to worst, use degrees and multiply time by 360 lol

[supple bane]

so how would I just use this way? how do they get time?

[tight schooner]

That's the material node graph. There's a time node which outputs the current time as total seconds (float). The problem with the example in the screenshot is the sine will produce a -1 to +1 value without scaling, and plugged into a lerp, it'll do negative interpolation which means weird stuff happens

[supple bane]

alright

[velvet dagger]

Replying to this just so people see this

[tight schooner]

@velvet dagger you're pretty much looking at making a custom save game object that saves the names of the collected items into an array per level, and upon load, some way for each item to know if its name is recorded in the save (upon which it'll suicide). I never built such a system so idk what's the best approach. I suppose the simplest approach is for each item to load the save individually. If there are performance implications to loading the save dozens of times at once (again, idk) you need to do it in some manager class that loads the save, gets all actors of class, and reverse-loops through the array, destroying upon match.

[velvet dagger]

I appreciate your response so much :)

Didn't know what to search up

I'll look into this!

[tight schooner]

Yeah, look up Save Games. UE4 has a readymade system for writing data into files on disk.

Its basically a struct. People have made much fancier savegame systems in the marketplace but I couldn't say anything about them personally

[velvet dagger]

For a collectathon it should be very simple

[gentle urchin]

Edited; noticed i didnt read your entire post where you pointed this out. Sry about that

Not sure what issues loading hundreds of times would arise , if any

[finite fulcrum]

https://youtu.be/avwVygn97N4

[visual vigil]

any1 knows how to prevent camera from moving inside char. Right now when i punch my camera just goes inside char for some reason

[icy dragon]

How do you set it up?

[supple bane]

i got it working

tysm

[visual vigil]

right now i have a camera on a empty object. Camera is always postioned between my char and enemy char. If i move too close to enemy camera kinda goes inside

[timber knoll]

Did you clamp the distance?

[visual vigil]

ya

[timber knoll]

How does it clip then 🤔

[visual vigil]

i have clamped arm length

[fiery glen]

but where does the actual arm pos go?

[timber knoll]

Increase the min value of the clamp

[visual vigil]

k

doesnt work even if i set minium to 1500

[timber knoll]

Can you make a short video of what happens?

[visual vigil]

k

[timber knoll]

That’s confusing hahaha

Yeah has nothing to do with the clamp as it doesn’t move closer

It makes a sudden jump

Try turning off the collision test on the spring arm

[visual vigil]

k

That fixes it but i do need collision

[timber knoll]

Yeah I think your characters are in the way of the spring arm

So you should either move it back a bit to avoid them colliding

Or you remove collision from the characters with camera

That way you can still keep the general camera collision on

[visual vigil]

chaning probe channel to visibilty seems to fix it. Thanks

[timber knoll]

Might be a better idea to remove characters from camera channel tho

So it doesn’t get too confusing what channel the camera is on later 🙂

[visual vigil]

k

[quasi frost]

Hey guys, for some reason my brain isn't working here. How do I connect the get each materials loop to the set material. I tried index and it didn't do anything.

[timber knoll]

That should work afaik

Altho a for each loop might be a bit overkill

Are you sure the rest of your code works?

[quasi frost]

Ah the issue was something I didn't think about. The material doesn't have time to load in properly. Looks like I need to preload it.

After hitting 0 hp I should "Dissolve" but it goes to this. Which either means it isn't loaded yet or at all.

Hmm okay I added an Async Load Asset for the mat and still getting checkerboard which means the dynamic instance I am creating is not working for some reason.

[timber knoll]

Try creating both your materials as dynamic instances in the construction script

[quasi frost]

I did that here but it apparently isn't working. Not sure why, it seems pretty simple.

[timber knoll]

Is that in the construction script?

BeginPlay will be called when launching the game, construction is called before

[quasi frost]

No it is after I take lethal damage. Should it be done in construction?

[timber knoll]

Yes since you don’t have anything else with that material

That should make sure it’s loaded in etc

Then you can just change it whenever you need it

[quasi frost]

Okay, so just slap it in like this?

Okay slapping it in like that didn't fix the issue :/

[timber knoll]

🤔

The only time I had that checker was an issue with my material

It must be failing to load in properly somehow...

[quasi frost]

Mat works fine in preview (Dissolves correctly as I increase the fade param)

[timber knoll]

Don’t use base materials btw

You should make a material instance and use that one

[quasi frost]

I am

[timber knoll]

Then I’m unsure what the issue is atm, sorry 😔

[quasi frost]

Actually I take that back, when I create the dynamic instance I am using the Base Mat. It doesn't give me an option to use the MI if that is what you mean.

[icy dragon]

Oh shit, I just remember about Async Load Asset.
Guess it's time to improve my ability system.

[quasi frost]

So I changed the mat to another one and it is also checkered, which means for some reason this create dynamic mat inst node isn't working or something

Maybe this is the part not working?

[brazen merlin]

Here's my working setup, same situation: need array for multiple mat slots on character

[quasi frost]

Thanks I will try that out.

[visual vigil]

Is there anyway to pass a variable in set timer by function

[quasi frost]

Wait I am confused. Where do I actually change to the material that I want to change to? This just seems to be making a dynamic mat out of the already used materials right?

[icy dragon]

Can you get a variable in the Event itself?

[visual vigil]

what do you mean??

[icy dragon]

My bad, I misread the function part.

[fiery glen]

hmmm... if you only need one of these running at a time max you could just have them read from a value in the same bp

or if you need more I suppose the timer handle could serve a as a key in a map or something

[tight schooner]

@visual vigil No, you have to save the data into variables for later retrieval AFAIK. Set Timer By doesn't support functions/events that have data inputs or outputs.

And I think setting a new timer on the same function/event overwrites the old timer so in the scenario where you need to have multiple parallel timers... Idk what you'd do short of making your own custom timer system

[timber knoll]

C++ 👀

[earnest tangle]

Yeah multiple delays, timers, etc., becomes a bit messy... Easier to manage in C++

You can alternatively create an object which handles the timer related logic and you can also have it carry the data for it

[timber knoll]

Definitely hard to manage and becomes a cobweb real quick in BPs

[earnest tangle]

so when you want to kick off a timer you spawn that object, stick the data into it, and call a method on it and so on

you can then easily have as many of these as you want

[visual vigil]

I am using timers to handle melee collision trace. starting timer when attack starts and ending it when attack ends

[timber knoll]

I would just do that with a simple boolean

and while bool is true just trace every tick

[fiery glen]

you could even drive changing the tick boolean from a track on the attack montage

[topaz plover]

Hi there!

I'm making a keyboard with a key blueprint. There are many different meshes inside the key blueprint, depending on the selected keyboard, and the position of the key on the keyboard.

all the different meshes for different keytypes are defined inside this key. I'm having trouble dynamically switching them though, the visibility, collision, material properties etc are annoying to turn on/off when switching the keytype. would you recommend keeping it like this, or making 10 or so "subclasses" of the main key blueprint? the only difference between them would be their meshes i think, but it would solve the issue of toggling visibility / collision if i can just destroy and replace them instead

your thoughts? 😄

[icy dragon]

Could be improved with procedurally creating the static mesh component.

[topaz plover]

oh! yeh that seems obvious now 😄

[timber knoll]

and you could store each layout type inside a parent

[topaz plover]

a visual aid to illustrate what im doing

[timber knoll]

which would give duplicates and more memory usage, but easier to manage

[topaz plover]

yeh i've been flipping back n forth between hardcoding layouts and my super flexible / confusing programmatic version

[timber knoll]

for sure don't need to hardcode it

usually you first make things from scratch to get the idea

and then translate that into procedural generation

makes it way easier to iterate upon at a later stage

[topaz plover]

i jumped straight to procedural 😄 im building a sandbox where you can customise the layout so it seemed only sensible way

some of the static meshes have weird offsets / scale - if i was creating / destroying them, where would i save the transform data? just in a map structure in the key maybe?

[timber knoll]

if it doesn't change at runtime, just fix the mesh 😂

[topaz plover]

😡

thats too sensible

[timber knoll]

if changes at runtime, hierarchy based

so if key would be destroyed/created with different transforms every time it wouldn't be able to store the data on itself

so you would have to move up to it's parent

and store it somewhere in that

[topaz plover]

nice nice makes sense

i have another related question - id like to "morph" the board between this 1:1 grid to a "natural" keyboard layout ( skewed keyshapes in offset uneven rows )

how would you approach that procedurally? or would you hardcode all the transforms?

[timber knoll]

🤔 that is a good question

[topaz plover]

hmm actually looking at it.. its pretty uniform

[timber knoll]

I'm sure there's a certain way you can generate it procedurally

[topaz plover]

each row is just offset a bit

[timber knoll]

yeah except the bottom one

[topaz plover]

which i conveniently skipped 😄

thanks eezeh and hoodieguy , you saved me much time 😄

[dense nebula]

hey guys. i have problem with (add force) it is working good when i hit enemy ai it goes knockback but working good with 60 fps if i set it to 30 fps or less the force go very far like x20 knockback with less than 30 fps anyone know how to solve this pls?

[atomic salmon]

Typical of using Add Force outside of Event Tick

[maiden wadi]

AddForce seems a little odd for this. Is this a character AI? If so you should probably be using LaunchCharacter, otherwise something like AddImpulse.

At least that's how I interpret knockback. One hit, send them flying. AddForce is meant to be more consistent, like constant gravity.

[atomic salmon]

I recommend Add Impulse. LaunchCharacter changes the movement mode so it may alter the animation (e.g. the standard mannequin shifts to a jumping animation)

[dense nebula]

thank you guys ! i tried LaunchCharacter it is working well 😁

[burnt barn]

is there a way to know which bone got hit, when using on component hit for a ragdoll mesh?

my ragdolls break into parts and i want to add impact sound effects when they hit the floor

[tawdry surge]

Does anyone know how you'd handle switching from a menu/character select area to 3rd person gameplay when you are not changing persistent levels (so I can't swap gamemodes)

[maiden wadi]

@burnt barnThe HitResults struct should have a HitBoneName in it.

[burnt barn]

that returns the bone of the other object (the floor), i'm looking for the hit bone on the ragdoll

[hushed pewter]

Anyone had trouble complaining about a variable that dosent exist

[obtuse herald]

Check if it's an inherited variable

[hushed pewter]

Its not a child its a standalone pawn

I deleted the variable

The deleted the struct it was refrencing

And now its stuck with that

[obtuse herald]

You can try reloading the blueprint

Or reloading the project

[hushed pewter]

Aye trying that that rn

Ok yeh it worked wew

Sorry lol

[obtuse herald]

You're welcome

[blissful widget]

Maybe I'm missing something, but how do you go to the full BP view, for Blueprints you saved without logic? Believe it gets detected as a data only BP, but the UI just opens up to a blank editor with no obvious options to revert that.

[topaz plover]

any practical advice on destroying->creating static meshes? I'm trying but it seems a bit messy

im thinking something like this could work but practically deleting the previous mesh and then adding a new one im not sure what the exact balance of static mesh / static mesh actor i need is 😄

[earnest tangle]

Why do you need to do that anyway? If you want to replace the mesh why not just... set the mesh on the component to change it?

[blissful widget]

Hmm so there is. Not 100% sure what caused it yesterday, but when my friend ran into it there was literally nothing there, but the toolbar up top. When I tried to re-create it, there was that text about data only BP, offering to switch to the full editor. Will ask him to figure out what he did so horribly wrong, cheers.

[topaz plover]

🤯

[maiden wadi]

Haha. Get used to that feeling, you'll have it often for the next few months.

[topaz plover]

just the next few months? 😄

[maiden wadi]

After that it becomes facepalms and "dur" moments.

You start understanding things, but you're not sure how to fully implement them. And when you figure it out, it feels so obvious that you just facepalm.

[topaz plover]

😄

its funny cuz im a programming teacher but my domain is fullstack js

and there teaching proper structure and flows of stuff is super obvious

but in a blueprint i lose my brain

this is my first real attempt at making a game with UE 😄 its going good though

[earnest tangle]

I always thought BP's made it pretty obvious what with the giant lines going between things

:D

[topaz plover]

somehow not 😄

sometimes its nice and snappy

i guess i just have to get exposed to each case until im familiar with general patterns

[maiden wadi]

It's just environment and familiarity. It's taken me.. Almost a year now of learning how to read C++ comfortably. Nine-Ten months ago I could write it, make it do things by translating calls from Blueprint to C++, but actually following it was still very difficult if I just had to start reading something someone else did. Blueprint at the time was just a breeze because I had a year or so into it. C++ looks pretty obvious these days. 😄

[topaz plover]

yeh sounds right

im struggling to switch a static mesh for a while now

[timber knoll]

We all struggle with new things 😄

[topaz plover]

aandddd ignore me i just got it 😄

holy crap that was simple

🤩

now i can program a bunch of weird key caps to make the game even more unplayable

[timber knoll]

talking about struggling, how would one properly go about attacks with animation BP?

I've got my animation and boolean to start/stop attacking

but not sure how I would go about starting the attack animation and letting it switch back to the old states

[earnest tangle]

I guess those would usually be done using a montage

so you'd put a slot for it into your anim graph

[timber knoll]

a montage you say 🤔

welp guess I've got some researching to do, never used those

[maiden wadi]

Down the rabbit hole.

[timber knoll]

it does seem to be what I need indeed, so thanks 😄

[timber knoll]

had to happen eventually.

can't create a full project from scratch not expecting to learn new stuff and have obstacles along the way

[tawdry surge]

Sure you can.. You'll be wrong, but you can do it

[maiden wadi]

Or you can make a calculator. 😄

[timber knoll]

Depends how complicated you make the calculator 🤔

[tawdry surge]

Commercial ones have funny errors so maybe not that easy

[pallid gate]

can blueprints run .lua ?

[earnest tangle]

Not out of the box

[dawn gazelle]

Not natively, but there is a paid plugin in the marketplace that allows you to do so.

[pallid gate]

okay thankyou

[blissful widget]

Or just wait for Skookum/ Verse :p

[maiden wadi]

As someone who has use Lua in the past, I strongly recommend just learning to use C++ with Unreal. It's incredibly similar.

[pallid gate]

hhm, my only attraction for Lua is from playing with it for FiveM. but i have heard from a lot of people Lua is much simpler and runs faster

im not that good at code anyway so it wouldn't hurt to learn C++

[topaz plover]

is there a way to "update" a for each loop to a new class

[blissful widget]

I'm a software engineer and I'm scared of C++ lol. I've worked with C and Java, just scared the chaos is going to lead to me seg faulting constantly, particularly with others. Go, Kotlin, and Python are more my jam ATM

[topaz plover]

i dont wanna rewire all this

😄

[dawn gazelle]

I wouldn't want to either.

[hasty wolf]

my eyes are ded

[maiden wadi]

The only reason I've ever heard of someone being scared of C++ is because of stuff like memory leaks or garbage collection, and that's not really an issue if you follow the Unreal guidelines for it.

[blissful widget]

For an example of one, here's my Viking buddy's attack combo system! Pretty basic, but hopefully understandable 🙂

[blissful widget]

NPEs are my primary concern, though I've heard RAII can combat them in C++. I haven't looked at UE C++ yet, will have to in due time for sure, but for now I'm blissfully prototyping in BP.

Once I have a firm design and idea in mind, would start looking at C++ yes. Pointers and memory leaks are one of those things that people always say are a non-issue if you do the right thing, but doing it is usually a fucking pain.

[maiden wadi]

Could drop this into a function, and set local variables from the loop and use them instead.

[blissful widget]

@timber knoll couldn't attach image to OG message sorry. Open to feedback on if I'm doing something horrible here of course 🙂

[maiden wadi]

Admittedly, my general terminology is a little bad. I assume this is the act of using pointers without checking. I've never once had an issue with that. You just check them before using them. Classic examples are usually like object pointers. You can just do "if (ActorPointer) {DoStuffWithActorPointerHere}" And anything in the brackets is pretty much safe. For baser types, you tend to just pass them by reference or copy. But even for like datatable lookups, which return pointers, it's as easy as just

if (FMyStructType* StructPtr = DataTablePtr ? DataTablePtr->FindRow<FMyStructType>(RowName, "") : nullptr)
{
  Use StructPtr to get data here.
}```

[blissful widget]

Sorry mate, but yeah you guessed right. NPE is Null Pointer Exception, though they may be named differently in C++. C# and Java have some nice features, where you can do things like sketchyPointer?.startSelfImplodeSequence(), which only calls the method if it's not null. The constant safety checks and all got really tiring to me, but I've also switched day jobs from Go to Python, so maybe I have some tolerance for verbosity again 🙂

Oh, just saw the edit. Interesting, seems like there's a form of null coalescing operation in there. Do you happen to know what C++ language standard UE supports?

Marketplace spring chickens 😄

[maiden wadi]

Uh. I dunno. C++ people talk about C++20 or something sometimes. 🤷‍♂️ I never care, I just follow general engine style.

Except StaticMesh.h, screw that file.

Er.

[gritty elm]

does this return direction or a location vector?( the subtract output)

[maiden wadi]

StaticMeshComponent.h

[maiden wadi]

Lengthened direction.

[gentle urchin]

Theres a get unit direction if you need normalized

or .. normalize it

[timber knoll]

by the looks of it, I'm going for something similar

[maiden wadi]

Yeah. It does the same thing as above. (Target - Start).GetSafeNormal() I think.

[timber knoll]

a simple 3 hit combo for melee attacks, animation depending on the type of weapon

so heavier weapon will have slower stronger looking attacks

nothing too fancy

[gritty elm]

get actor location is the position vector, right?

[gentle urchin]

Yepp

[gritty elm]

but how this converted into direction after subtraction?

[gentle urchin]

the remaining vector value is the offset between them.. which can be interpreted as a direction ... if that makes sense

V1 : 0,0,0
V2 : 0,10,0

V1 - V2 = 0, -10, 0

Directon Normalized = 0,-1,0

not sure why i added a math example. feels like if the explanation doesnt work out, then tossing numbers at it wont make it more sensible ^:P

[gritty elm]

so after subtraction, it never location vector, it will be always direction

[gentle urchin]

Offset is what it really is

atleast, thats how i think of it

maybe the direction term is more "accurate" , dunno

Offset, or relative location

B relative to A

[maiden wadi]

You're basically just asking where the target is relative to the starting point.

[gritty elm]

got it thanks

does from and to takes direction or location vector?

[gentle urchin]

direction

[gritty elm]

so the above image is incorrect?

[gentle urchin]

you can translate it around and around if you wanted to

relative location would be direction * distance

[gritty elm]

what does this function exact does?

[gentle urchin]

It returns the normalized direction from "From" to "To"

awkward sentence..

The image above gives you the direction from the other object towards self

Normally one goes from self to other, but this could be used in some situations

[gritty elm]

what is the best way to learn and understand this kind of vector math? is there any specific tutorials for that

[blissful widget]

I keep returning to this for quick reference: http://www.jmargolin.com/uvmath/uvmath.htm

And if you want to make your eyes bleed:
http://programmedlessons.org/VectorLessons/

[spark steppe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9pkcjFfKNQ

[gentle urchin]

just what i needed ! 😄 Hopefully..

[blissful widget]

I'd encourage you to dive in a bit deeper than you think you need. Your needs will likely expand over time, and you always forget the periphery of what you learn, so might as well give yourself some breathing room!

[gritty elm]

ok thanks. Yes it will helps.

[gentle urchin]

Anyone got a quick formula for checking if a vector is between two vectors with a given tolerance in uu ?

[earnest tangle]

like a distance check?

or angle?

[gentle urchin]

think spline. A way to check if a vector is within to spline points

[frozen spear]

how would I go about using a blackboard variable as the context of my EQS...Im trying to find an example i can study on how I could use the "Enemy target" in my BT as the location to cast the EQS around. Im trying to find spots around it.

[earnest tangle]

@gentle urchin if it's for splines, use get closest point on spline, then compare its position on spline to the points you want

[frozen spear]

I dont want to use "get player 0" as this is a multiplayer game and I want it to go after its current target not a random player

[earnest tangle]

you would need to create a custom EQS context which accesses the value you want to use for it

[gentle urchin]

Perfect! Thanks ! 🙂 Thats exactly the usecase

[frozen spear]

I tried that with no success, I exposed the variable in the custom context but on the BT it was never displayed as a drop down

[earnest tangle]

Yeah they unfortunately don't work that way, so you'd need to put the value you want somewhere, and then read it in the logic in your context

[frozen spear]

so store the "enemy" on the ai controller as well as BT, then access it from the ai controller? that seems so hackish

[earnest tangle]

Yeah as far as I can tell this is how it works, it is definitely a bit weird it's not parametrized better

[frozen spear]

Im surprised there isnt a way to pass variables to EQS directly from BT, and finding info on EQS is just facepalm city so far

[earnest tangle]

I always did wonder the same. There might be a way to do it in C++, but I never dug into it too much there

[frozen spear]

I dont mind making a custom EQS class, but was hoping there was just some secret mojo i didnt know about so i asked :/

[earnest tangle]

EQS is handy for a whole bunch of things but at least on BP side the usability feels like it was kind of halfway done and then they didn't think of it too much

[frozen spear]

yup 100% my experience, I already had an intricate BT working just fine, but thought I would make the ai seem a little more clever...its been a 3 day headache so far based purely on how poorly they implemented the BT->EQS data binding

[tawdry surge]

Can you not make a BP child class of the character movement component?

[odd ember]

seems that you can't. but probably for good reasons as it doesn't really make sense to extend it in BP

[tawdry surge]

I wanted to add an external curve to the jump but the cpp file is 3000 lines and I just don't wanna

Was gonna try through a BP child but that's not happening either

[odd ember]

12000* lines

adding a curve wouldn't be hard in a cpp extension though

you could even make it one of those built in curves

like this

[tawdry surge]

ugh, fine..

[viscid blaze]

I've tried this a thousand ways. What is the proper way to Attach, then later Detach, a Physics Actor to a Component of the Player? What are the proper nodes, and what is the correct order of operations (disable collision->disable physics->attach?)

I've got the Actor attaching to the Player's Component using this, but none of the ways I've tried to detach it have worked.

[odd ember]

looks as right as it can be

I'd use snap to target and have sockets ready for it

but that's just me

[lime gazelle]

I'm having massive trouble trying to hide components (like deactivate them or make them invisible).
For example I want to turn a particle system on and off, so like a burn effect on a character after they have been hit by a fireball to show they are burning.
I have tried SetActive where target is an actor component, but that doesn't seem to work and I have also set the transform scale to 0,0,0 and then up to 1,1,1 when required.
This transform method works quite well, however the particles start at where it was last active and then go to the new location, but I want it instantly at a new location, can anyone help?

[gusty shuttle]

@lime gazelle Have you tried SetVisibility?

[lime gazelle]

ill try it now but that didnt work earlier, maybe i messed it up earlier

[gusty shuttle]

Yes, it should be set to false

[lime gazelle]

yeah that worked, i must have messed it up b4 thanks alot!

[viscid blaze]

Attaching is working just fine. It's the detach that's the problem. Of all my attempts this is the one that seems like it really should work, but the item just remains in place and attached, :|. It does change it's rotation a bit, so...something is happening, but it's definitely not detaching.

[gusty shuttle]

No problemo

[odd ember]

you're detaching it directly from where it is in world. which means it's probably going to collide with the actor

you probably want it to adjust its spawn somehow

or think about how it handles physics and collisions until it hits the ground

[viscid blaze]

That could be it. But the Actor still shows as Attached to the Player Actor in the World Outliner, so i'm thinking it's actually still attached. But it seems like setting "Simulate Physics" on it should have detached it alone, which makes this all extra confusing.

The Component I'm attaching it to is linked to a Physics Constraint? Maybe I need to do something special when detaching from a Physics Constrained Component... 🤷‍♂️

[native willow]

you want to replace UCharacterMovementComponent in character for your derived class?

[odd ember]

I don't know. I don't think there's any special rules for physics constraints in this case, but again it's just a case of where you adjust its position

it is a bit strange that the DetachFromActor node doesn't have a case to accommodate this, like the SpawnActor node has for instance

but equally it's valid to consider using a SpawnActor node too and kill the attached actor

[brazen merlin]

Are you sure detach is right like that? Dont you need to tell it what to detach?

[odd ember]

well yeah good catch, the actor pin needs hookup

doubt it'll solve the issue though

[viscid blaze]

This is the description of that node,

[brazen merlin]

I dunno, uncheck weld simulated bodies?

[odd ember]

ah so this is on the physics actor itself?

in that case it's fine

[brazen merlin]

Im finding that out too

[odd ember]

like I said, you'll likely have to manually move the detached actor outside of the collision of the parent it is detaching from

and then enable collision, physics etc.

[viscid blaze]

Yeah, it's firing about 1 second after the Actor is Attached to the Component on the Player.

Yeah, i'm anticipating needing to deal with the players collision (had to do that when i "grab" it). What i don't get is that it is just not detaching. Here in the world outliner it shows it getting attached, but never appears to actually detach.

[odd ember]

just to be sure: you're not trying to detach a scene component on its own, right?

[brazen merlin]

i think its because you are attaching actor to component, so you need to tell it to detach from component

[odd ember]

doubt that. if you are targeting the actor, it will understand to detach from the other actor regardless

doesn't matter where the component is nested inside the actor's hierarchy

[brazen merlin]

you saw this? https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/attaching-and-detaching-actor-on-character/67739/5 @viscid blaze

[fallen glade]

how do you lerp quaternions? I can't find the lerp node for them

"check "shortest path" on the Lerp node to use quaternions rather than rotators." is this true?

[paper galleon]

You can only do it in cpp or expose the cpp function to bp

Shortest path removes any winding. Could be the same as a quat lerp but I wouldn't know

[odd ember]

convert quats to rotators and lerping them would be the same as lerping quats

shortest path would handle any ambiguity

[warm ermine]

Can anyone tell me how I can set this up correctly? 😮

[odd ember]

are you referring to your smiley?

[warm ermine]

@odd ember Oh man - all the time 🤣 Sorry I was getting some example pictures ready. thought I did already

So, I have my hitboxes set-up like this. The effect I wanted to create was damage based on weapon for rapier.

The problem is - if I hit in the middle of the two hitboxes - min and max damage occurs

[odd ember]

handle hit and damage separately

[warm ermine]

@odd ember Like this?

[odd ember]

I don't know where you have your stuff for min and max damage

but you're also not checking if you actually hit, and you're only applying one set of damage. what's probably happening is that it hits twice

I don't know if you have two separate hitboxes, it would seem like you do

[gentle urchin]

Sweep trace -> hitlocation -> distance from hilt as alpha for a dmg lerp between min an max?

Or distance from mid or whatever

[odd ember]

my point is just that having two hitboxes isn't good

[warm ermine]

Yep two different hitboxes 😮 My min and max statscomes from the third person equipment variables. I'm kinda new to dealing damage. What would you recommend for this?

@gentle urchin At what point in the code would that go?

[odd ember]

and I'm sure something could be said for the size of the hitboxes as well

[odd ember]

single hitbox, that is much larger than the weapon

damage is a random float between min and max values

that's the simplest implementation

for something more complex you can scale damage based on a heuristic

[warm ermine]

@odd ember Think I'll go with the heuristic route - thank you 😄

[blissful widget]

If it's just two layers, you could have different damage percentages for both hit boxes.

So if min damage is 50%, and Max is 100%, do 50% damage each for min and max damage. That way you keep two hit events, without dealing 150% damage when both are hit.

Lerp above sounds like the solution someone with a functional brain would suggest though, so your choice 😅

[odd ember]

it's generally bad practice to do 2 hitboxes

[blissful widget]

I mean the original commenter already does, but that's good to know for sure. How come though, too error prone, or does the physics engine not like it?

[paper galleon]

I would even do traces. The sword could at any point hit the holding character or any unintended target even without swinging. I would only do traces at the specific point in the animation using notifies. Much lighter than an entire component for detecting hits

[gentle urchin]

traces can get a tad complicated compared to a sweep

handling different framerates and whatnot..

[plush swallow]

is there a way to scan which blueprints have compile errors?

[odd ember]

yeah and one of the things I said is to remove one hitbox and handle damage by heuristic, for this reason. physics are fairly unreliable over short distances with physX, but this may change. then there's all the interoperations between hitting once with one collision andthen ensuring you dont hit again with the other actor etc.

it's just a really error prone approach

it works for hurtboxes, but not for hit

[paper galleon]

The anim notify state should take care of that. Ticks at the animation framerate. I think it's independent game frame rate. Need confirmation on this though

[odd ember]

plenty of games use collision components

dark souls famously uses cylinders for weapons

[blissful widget]

Hmm fair enough. And if you want to know the transform of the hit event, would a trigger box on a weapon be able to give you that?

[tawdry surge]

@native willow I want to extend it with a Blueprint child class and add an external curve without hiving to dig through the c++ code, but that doesn't look possible

[odd ember]

it gives you the same amount of information as anything else

[blissful widget]

As cryptic as Dark Souls 🤔

[native willow]

how did I ended up in this conversation?

[gentle urchin]

I dont think it is, but as you say, needs confirmation. Where would you trace then? straight forward? 90 degree from sword? 😛 Sweep overlap feels alot safer handling all that already . Activated by notify state ofc

[paper galleon]

You were summoned like a genie

[native willow]

I grant you 2^3 wishes

[blissful widget]

So my remaining wish count is 8!?

[native willow]

0b1000

[blissful widget]

You are too wise to fall for my traps. Oh well 😕

[paper galleon]

True. It isn't difficult to pull off the trace though. Just pull off the transform of the weapon. It's only one approach in any case. A collision component is also valid.

[odd ember]

trace usually isn't broad enough

which is the issue

[gentle urchin]

Exactly

I tried to work around this a while ago

but man it got ugly fast

[brazen merlin]

trace is per frame, fast attacks can easily miss. using a collider has sweep which will check the entire path

[paper galleon]

Any shape trace can do the job. Box, capsule, even a sweep sphere

[paper galleon]

Only if using CCD

[brazen merlin]

not true

[paper galleon]

Sweeps also miss frames.

[odd ember]

that's true, a form trace might work

[paper galleon]

I think? The small object problem of projectiles come to mind

[brazen merlin]

compared to using line trace, collider sweeps are fare more reliable, they are already a feature, they're cheap vs. some complex multi-line web trace

[brazen merlin]

for projectile, line trace is more optimal, i agree, but melee weapons are heavily dependant on animation frames

[paper galleon]

True. I agree on that

To be clear, I'm talking about shape trace sweeps. And I'm sure hitboxes can also miss frames the same way as traces especially since the movement comes from the animation and not a setactorlocation function with the sweep bool true

[gentle urchin]

How come a sweep can miss?

like, isnt that the point of the sweep? to not miss?

[odd ember]

no collision is perfect

[brazen merlin]

yes, shape sweeps and line traces have their good and bad, for melee weapons shape colliders are still more reliable

[odd ember]

physics tick don't update per frame

[gentle urchin]

doesnt it like... reverse check somehow?

[brazen merlin]

physics scene, as EFoolType says, it's calc as close to it, gets worse with mp, fast moving objects in general

[gentle urchin]

or is it just substepped ?

[paper galleon]

Only with CCD enabled

[brazen merlin]

its hard to have absolute precision even with processing of today, too many other things going on

[gentle urchin]

Sounds like a sphere trace from last loc to current loc is safer then.. altho delayed

guess its safe enough

[brazen merlin]

trig is honestly the best solution, but that requires getting anim curves of each one, talk about a fun weekend, and tweaking the params for each curve

[paper galleon]

And sweeps with setactorlocation.

[brazen merlin]

collider sweep essentially does this check "per frame"

[gentle urchin]

guess im just happy im not doing bullets

[brazen merlin]

line trace is better for bullets 😛

[odd ember]

colliders are still bound by physics check

so not per frame

[brazen merlin]

and trig calc is also more viable

[odd ember]

unless CCD is enabled

[paper galleon]

In any case, I'd still use traces. My animations are not do fast they'd miss collisions

[brazen merlin]

yeah, i went back and put it in quotes

i have a melee attack anim that fires for 3 frames and works reliably with collider sweep fwiw

[paper galleon]

Unless you're manually setting the location of the weapon using set location those three frames, the collision only snapshots the location of the hitbox each frame and does checks. Not much different from a trace.

I'm not bashing your design, I'm just pointing out the similarities.
I'm open to correction if I'm wrong

[brazen merlin]

sweep is on. when i was using line trace (using anim notify state, which should be per frame) it was missing between one frame and another of the attack anim

sweep checks any overlap between last and next frame

[paper galleon]

You were using setactor location?

[brazen merlin]

no, its just a collider on an object

[paper galleon]

How did you set sweep on?

[brazen merlin]

ehhh lemme pull it up

[paper galleon]

Rather, where?

[odd ember]

sweep is what hapepns when a collider overlaps

[brazen merlin]

yeah, im looking around, its just on by default, i tihnk...

only thing i changed is shape size and collision channel

and technically not using physics, its just an overlapping, but im pretty sure thats still using the same system

to put it this way, i saw how it was setup in the ActionRPG, they're doing the same thing

[paper galleon]

Hmm. Yeah, I was wondering if there was a setting somewhere that specifically sets 'sweep'

[native willow]

if I set the location of the weapon each of those 3 frames with sweep on, the sweep will capture the collisions between the locations right? and what about OnBeginOverlap/OnHit event? will they fire?

[paper galleon]

Depending on collision settings, One or the other will fire.

Or both

[brazen merlin]

im probably thinking of things like teleport where there is that check box, but i remember reading that overlap performs it, and after looking around, inherently at that

[native willow]

yeah, but will they fire only if I set the position with sweep test? or regardless?

[brazen merlin]

set location should have a sweep checkbox, so i would assume by the same logic

[paper galleon]

Regardless, they will fire.

[gentle urchin]

Any obvious reason for frametime to go up while mouse is standing still?

[brazen merlin]

you computer is breathing

[native willow]

okay, so I don't quite understand what the discussion is about, when will the collision skip anything?

[paper galleon]

Okay. I was sure that a collision box will miss checks on movement other than those with the sweep boolean true.

[brazen merlin]

to catch you up, line trace check is not so good on melee attack actions, its better to stick with collider. line trace is better suited for "fast moving" objects like bullets which often go through things because physics isn't that precise be default

[maiden wadi]

Personally. I feel like overlaps are perfectly fine for melee weapons in most cases. They only fail 'sometimes' during framespikes. I've seen people do hundreds of traces per frame. The only time this is not true is for extremely fast melee strikes. In which case a specialized collision check or s few traces is perfectly fine. If your game has FPS problems that are messing with overlap checks, you have bigger problems.

[brazen merlin]

yeah, set movement is kinda wierd to do in regards to melee attacks, the attack anim is drive by the skeletal mesh, so this starts to get into edge cases

[native willow]

oooooh, thanks

[odd ember]

if you have some action that is accumulating when the mouse is still

[paper galleon]

In other words, either overlap or trace is fine?
That's what I've been trying to say.

[brazen merlin]

and there is Rama's weapon plugin thingy out there which is meant to be a robust solution to this conversation