blueprint

[fluid lance]

every level can have its own game mode override

[trim matrix]

oh well i have that

i thought that was only to overide whilst palying in editor not once packed it would still do the same job

[wheat herald]

Location 0 on all axis, and radius is 1500

So my target point should be placed in the space by using (x - x0)^2 + (y-y0)^2 + (z-z0^2) = r^2 somewhere in the transform tab ?

cause all i see is tutos showing predefined target positions, but i don't see any random positions into an area

[twilit heath]

@wheat herald RandomUnitVector * SphereRadius + SphereLocation

you might also want to save that RandomUnitVector into temporary variable, and then use it to MakeRotFromZ to get the spawn rotation of the Actor (its up vector would be facing away from the sphere center)

[wheat herald]

i'm trying that right now

[stuck plaza]

Are construction scripts supposed to run multiple times when I change position (not drag, type in new coords) inside editor?

[thorn ermine]

typically any change in editor to the properties of the blueprint should cause the constructor to fire. how that "change" is registered depends on how it was implemented, I dont know if it fires as you type, or if it fires onblur for example.

[spark bridge]

Greetings everyone. A smol question if I may.

I am getting a small fps spike due to an object getting loaded. I am having hard times about what's causing the spike.

Is there a way to find what Unreal Editor loads into the game recently?

Trying to track down the silly asset...

[odd ember]

if you give a bit more detail about what happens then perhaps?

[atomic salmon]

stat loadtime should give some indications

[spark bridge]

Unfortunately it is not telling me why the spike is happening. I need like a list of assets that are loaded into RAM, recently if possible.

[spark bridge]

I am loading an asset via "Load Asset Blocking", which is related to a soft reference.

However the first time I load it, I get a small spike.

However I already have the asset preloaded very before that so it shouldn't cause a spike.

[atomic salmon]

How do you know you get a spike? Did you profile it already?

You can also try with stat dumphitches

There is a way to profile AddToWorld but it requires recompiling the engine iirc

And why aren’t you loading the asset Asynchronously?

[spark bridge]

Yup, I know the spike happening, its very minor but it does.

[spark bridge]

It is a massive project, ofc I am not loading everything at once, and doing so when its needed.

[atomic salmon]

Load Asset Blocking causes hitches. I think the documentation mentions that.

[spark bridge]

It is NOT supposed to cause hitch when the asset is already loaded though.

I know because it never happens again, until I close the editor that is.

It is sad that I can't find out what Unreal recently loaded though, and I am unable to find it. Q_Q

[odd ember]

do you have a debugger running?

because this sounds an awful lot like an ensure message

not that it's relevant to blueprint in the slightest

[spark bridge]

nope afraid not

[atomic salmon]

http://sarcasticcoder.com/unrealengine/measuring-startup-asset-load-times-in-unreal-engine/

See if that helps

[spark bridge]

Thanks I will try. However they are giving as little as info to a newbie like me lol

[odd ember]

run a debugger. I'm 100% positive it'll throw an ensure at you, and you'll be able to find your issue that way

[runic nest]

What is processing exports? Saving my project takes forever when it hangs up on processing exports. I know it isn’t about exported assets because I was saving one asset, a Niagara system.

[odd ember]

how does this relate to #blueprint ?

[runic nest]

It happens with everything blueprints included.

[odd ember]

#ue4-general

if it's not blueprint specific

[spark bridge]

I found the culprit. Thanks for the help @odd ember and @atomic salmon

I still wished there was truly a better way of asking Unreal what it has loaded as asset recently for the first time into the memory...

(checked the debugger, didnt find anything much or I couldn't see it for being just a nodelinker myself 😔 )

[odd ember]

if you load through debugger you will see where it hangs

[spark bridge]

I know exactly where it hangs.

I can't see how to find what causes the hang exactly.

[odd ember]

did you run it from IDE?

[spark bridge]

I have zero clue on how to use Visual Studio etc my friend.

[odd ember]

I mean that's what you need to track down these issues

ensure is a cpp message

that just gets ran once

warning you about something or other, usually in good faith

[spark bridge]

I know but I don't need a specific warning.

[odd ember]

the ensure is what makes it hang

[spark bridge]

A list of loaded items in gametime could just be more than enough xD

[odd ember]

and you can trace backwards from there to find the object

so I don't see the issue

[spark bridge]

I see. I know there are many C++ tricks.

Issue is I only know how to link nodes to each other. :p

[odd ember]

ask your programmer

[spark bridge]

I am not in a team. :p

[odd ember]

I'd encourage you get familiar with the load process if nothing else, for this reason

debugging is a core part of programming, even on the side of blueprints

[spark bridge]

Mhm.

[tired sparrow]

How could I make it so my character turns into a ragdoll when it dies?

[odd ember]

SetSimulatePhysics

[autumn plinth]

got this https://i.imgur.com/F4Jh4al.png

and this in another blueprint https://i.imgur.com/4ioX0Qh.png

basically im hitting a target and i want it to spawn another target

but it doesn't seem to get past Cast To

idk why

[tight schooner]

is that in the same BP?

[autumn plinth]

no different one

[tight schooner]

oic

I'm trying to unravel what you're doing. In your second screenshot, you're setting a boolean on that actor but then immediately destroying it, in which case that data gets destroyed too

[autumn plinth]

i tried not destroying it as well

but it made no difference

[brazen merlin]

the question again, what are you trying to do?

[autumn plinth]

.

basically i want it to set a variable to true if the target gets hit

and in another blueprint, if that variable is true, spawn another target

[tight schooner]

I'm not sure why it's set up the way that it is. Is there a condition where the targets no longer replenish? Or do they replenish to infinity?

[autumn plinth]

and repeat the process

no im just trying to get them to respawn for now on a hit

this is the full code https://i.imgur.com/9dFhYmb.png

[brazen merlin]

hrm, so you want to spawn an actor on a bp when a different bp gets hit?

[autumn plinth]

exactly

if i remove the cast to

[brazen merlin]

can they not be the same bp?

[autumn plinth]

it just respawns it every tick

but i want it to check the variable first

they probably could

i could try that

[tight schooner]

usually checking the state of something on tick is bad practice. Instead you could drive things with events, and have more control over the exact sequence of events.

[autumn plinth]

yeah i know im just trying to get it to work for now and tidy it up later

[tight schooner]

I suppose one question is... is it easier to have the targets respawn themselves on hit? Or do the targets need to report back to a different, managing BP?

I suppose the spawner needs to have that "spawn area" reference

[autumn plinth]

exactly

that's why i tried to do it in 2 blueprints

but ill try to do it in one

[tight schooner]

If "spawn area" is an actor in the level, you could associate the targets with that actor in some way. If the initial target and spawn area is manually placed into the level, you could have a Spawn Area Object Reference variable on the target, make it public (eyeball icon), and set it in the level editor.

Or if they're dynamically spawned, you can set Spawn Area as the "owner" of the targets, and the targets can Get Owner to retrieve the Spawn Area.

Or have a separate manager BP that spawns the targets which report back to the manager on hit... lots of ways to set it up depending on needs/preferences

[autumn plinth]

yeah that's a lot

ill try the first suggestion

[crimson hornet]

Just a quick question so I am trying to make dark souls like ai should I use bp or behaviour tree?

[brazen merlin]

BT

[crimson hornet]

whats is really the difference?

[brazen merlin]

you'll need to learn this

[crimson hornet]

okay

[brazen merlin]

without being longwinded. I am making dark souls similar AI. I started with BP and now I'm using BT.

[crimson hornet]

Okay

Thx btw

[odd ember]

BT is hard to learn but ultimately rewarding as it makes everything super easy

[autumn plinth]

so i just added the target into the target spawner now https://i.imgur.com/WIC2fkl.png

but the event hit never executes when i shoot the target

[odd ember]

have you ticked Generates Hit Events under the collision settings?

[autumn plinth]

yes

under the target right?

[faint pasture]

Projectile or line trace?

[autumn plinth]

projectile

it worked before when it was its own blueprint

but now that i've put it in one it doesn't

[odd ember]

now that you what

[autumn plinth]

i had 2 blueprints before

for the spawn area

and the target

but someone suggested to move them to one

[faint pasture]

Try the event hit specific to the component it trying to hit. That's the actor level event hit. Not sure if it should also be triggered or if it only triggers on a hit on the root component.

[odd ember]

what exactly are you doing?

are you familiar with system architecture?

[autumn plinth]

i know of it

i just haven't done much with unreal before

[odd ember]

it's not unreal specific

there's well structured code

and then there's code

[faint pasture]

He had a separate target that gets hit and a spawner. Sounds like he rolled them up into 1 actor combining the trigger and spawner.

@autumn plinth Try add the event hit for the specific collider you want to detect

[odd ember]

yeah I don't know what you've made into one actor, but it sounds like it's something that shouldn't be by the way it's behaving

if it's as simple as a component, then you'll have to do the same for the component on the actor

if it's something else entirely, I'd suggest looking into how the actor-component relationship works in UE4

[autumn plinth]

what event is that?

i cant find it

[trim matrix]

is there a way to make sure a level has fully loaded before actually opening it ??

not streaming level as well

[odd ember]

not in blueprint

[trim matrix]

fair enough

[faint pasture]

Bottom of properties for the collision component

[odd ember]

well there is Open Level

but that's a hard load

so you can't do anything anyway

[trim matrix]

yeah it will load when called regardless whether level has actually loaded

[odd ember]

that doesn't sound right

can I see your code?

[trim matrix]

if I really want to I can fake a load level

[odd ember]

what do you want to do?

[faint pasture]

We only do a hard load at game startup and multiplayer join.

[trim matrix]

when open level is called it will load level and show the level

[odd ember]

yes but what you intending to do with it?

[trim matrix]

I know it can be do with streaming level you just load a loading screen whilst things load in background

[odd ember]

are you looking for a restart?

[trim matrix]

but I'm not streaming here hard loading the level

[odd ember]

oh you want a loading screen?

[autumn plinth]

I only see this https://i.imgur.com/4w5VltW.png

[trim matrix]

not really just thought i'd throw in a load screen which i can fake th

[faint pasture]

What component is it?

[odd ember]

there's no faking a loading screen in UE4

[autumn plinth]

https://i.imgur.com/F2vCL3k.png

[odd ember]

and loading screens are off limits for BP

[trim matrix]

I can just load the load screen level delay by so long then load the needed level.

but for this game it's simple enough it's not like defo needed

[faint pasture]

Only hard load an empty map, throw a widget on the screen, stream level, wait, profit?

[autumn plinth]

i do see it here though https://i.imgur.com/7bCvQr3.png

but that's not the blueprint where i want to have the event

[faint pasture]

@autumn plinth you can't hit a point/scene component

[odd ember]

sure if it's not resulting in anything breaking. you cannot guarantee actor order

[faint pasture]

Add a collider

[trim matrix]

when i say fake I mean load and empty level then like has been said above with loading screen widget

[maiden wadi]

@trim matrix If you have any basic C++ knowledge, a hard load loading screen is just two functions in GameInstance really.

[trim matrix]

as i say not absolutly needed for now was just extra feature I wanted to see about adding

C++ no knowladge haha

[odd ember]

I'd say not worth it

game is going to load instantly anyway due to size

[trim matrix]

for this agree tbf, was just gonna add it

[odd ember]

I got loading screens but I got about 500 actors in a level

[trim matrix]

oh yeah it's tiny in what it is loading so pretty much instantly does it

[autumn plinth]

i looked up how to add a collider but can't find much, what do you mean?

[trim matrix]

i'm guessing your streaming level as well

[odd ember]

nope

I got hard loading screens set up

and use SeamlessTravel for almost everything

[trim matrix]

ohhh

fairs enough

[faint pasture]

Box or sphere or capsule or static mesh

You can't hit a point

@odd ember Do you know of any way of hiding all hard loads besides initial startup for multiplayer?

[odd ember]

I don't do MP if I can avoid it

so no, sorry

[maiden wadi]

What do you mean by hiding hard loads?

[autumn plinth]

it's not an actual point it is a sphere

[faint pasture]

Our game involves teleporting from a ship to surface (that's base to dungeon) and joining a mtiplayer game should look like teleporting ship to ship

[odd ember]

so you want a loading screen?

that shows taht

[faint pasture]

No sphere in this BP

[odd ember]

or?

[autumn plinth]

there it is https://i.imgur.com/P0yTTBc.png

[faint pasture]

If we can keep everything in 3d that'd be awesome but we'll go with a 2d loading screen if necessary

[odd ember]

please for the love of all the good on the planet, never use child actors

[faint pasture]

Fully diagetic UI so everything is in 3d

@autumn plinth you are defeating the purpose of combining those two things into one blueprint.

Just add your red sphere to the other blueprint that does the spawning and you have a combined Target spawner thingy and then you can do your logic.

[odd ember]

I was thinking playing a movie clip of the teleport happening. but it sounds like you want to take control of the player's ship and stream in the next level as it is happening

[autumn plinth]

this is the blueprint that does the spawning

and sorry i know im super bad at this forgive me

[faint pasture]

Ship is more like a base or town in Diablo games.

[odd ember]

oh I see

[faint pasture]

Or hideout in Path of Exile

[odd ember]

so just have a transitional map

that's essentially what I do

and use seamless travel

I don't see an issue with this

even for MP

[faint pasture]

Teleporting to ground = teleporting to dungeon. Joining another game = teleporting to another ship = entering someone's hideout (PoE)

[faint pasture]

Since ships are all identical shaped, just decorated differently, I suppose our transition map would also include the ship, and do some sort of a fade or glare to hide the internals changing?

[maiden wadi]

Hard loading is pretty much 2D I believe. And as far as I'm aware, gamethread is blocked during load. Movies or material renders in a widget are available though.

[faint pasture]

Maybe just take a screen cap and animate blowing out the contrast on it or something

[odd ember]

potentially

[maiden wadi]

Not sure if you can avoid hard loading when joining a game. I know once in a game, you can seamless travel with servertravel.

[odd ember]

but seamless travel allows for a map to be interspersed between the origin and destination

so perhaps worth considering that

ah yeah perhaps not for joining a game

if that's a hard load

[faint pasture]

Ye we'll just live with the hard load for now and deal with it later. Just trying to go for as minimal cuts as possible. Theoretically the entire game has zero cuts if you're the host.

[odd ember]

even for returning to base?

or dying?

[faint pasture]

It's a rogue like so dying will be a cut, but going to base is just a z transition. It's a top-down rogue like so the entire game map is hidden beneath the ship floor and gets procedurally loaded in for traveling to a new area

Loading a new level = destroy and rebuild km beneath you as the globe circles by. Like the ship is in orbit.

[maiden wadi]

I have the strangest bug with my loading screen. :/ I add it to screen long before openlevel is called, it's supposed to have a black fade. I have it set up identical to another widget using the same struct in the same way. Breakpoints show it working correctly in all regards, visibility, render opacity, etc. But the black fade never shows.

[autumn plinth]

can someone tell me what to do to get it working?

i have 2 blueprint classes

i have this

how do i not use child actors?

[odd ember]

by not using them?

[wooden rapids]

Transfer my project to my new Pc with better components rtx 3060 i7 , my Camera in runtime gets flikkering at the part where Actor Face to Actor in BP and if i disconnect i havent this issue anymore, 4.27.1 version

[odd ember]

forget that child actors exist

[autumn plinth]

thanks it worked

but i still dont know how im even using them

or how to not use them

i just added the sphere to the spawn area

by dragging

and it did that

how do i unchild actor it

[odd ember]

ugh fine, but we're talking about the component

[odd ember]

kill the component

well it's a spawner

so technically it doesn't need a relation

just a reference

if even that

[odd ember]

#hardware

[faint pasture]

This is the sort of layout and transition

[autumn plinth]

sorry but how do i kill it https://i.imgur.com/EkuTTG3.png

[tired sparrow]

I did that and put it for ragdoll

[odd ember]

hide everything and make some fancy vfx. seems to work otherwise

[faint pasture]

Delete Target_point and add the red sphere

[tired sparrow]

Then also changed some stuff in the character section but when the player dies the characters keeps running instead of dropping dead

[autumn plinth]

target point is the red sphere tho

or do you mean add it not as an actor

[faint pasture]

No it's not, it's a child actor component that spawns your old red sphere actor

[odd ember]

and it didn't work? ask in #legacy-physics then

[wooden rapids]

thanks @odd ember you thing the Hardware cause the issue

[faint pasture]

Yes isn't that the whole point of what you're trying to do?

[odd ember]

I don't think it's BP. I would look into other issues before assuming that flickering has anything to do with software

[tired sparrow]

Thanks

[wooden rapids]

If i disconnect the part with Actor face another Actor its gone , in my older Pc its works fine

[odd ember]

you're changing hardware

[wooden rapids]

yes a new PC

[odd ember]

so again, why don't you try and see if it's a hardware issue first? make sure that your drivers are correctly installed?

[autumn plinth]

ok so now I have the on component hit event

which is great but

[tired sparrow]

It’s weird because i followed a tutorial and did exactly what the guy did

[wooden rapids]

ok thanks i will check

[autumn plinth]

now i can't spawn a new one because this thing only spawns actors https://i.imgur.com/7YwAIui.png

except if there's another thing that spawns non actors

[odd ember]

you want to spawn actors

not components

in this case

[autumn plinth]

okay

i was trying to do that

but there was no event that said if it hit it

[odd ember]

that's why it's better to ask in #legacy-physics. they'll know what to do

[faint pasture]

If you want this whole thing rolled up into 1 actor, you put all the components you need into one actor. If you want them split up for some reason (reusing targets for other mechanics or whatever) then you do seperate actors.

[autumn plinth]

i need to spawn an actor

but i also need to detect if you are hitting that actor

how do i do that

[odd ember]

I'd look in the pinned topics for this channel and pick up the blueprint communication video

2 hours and it'll explain everything to you in detail

seeing as you said you had code experience before it should be no problem for you picking that up

[faint pasture]

In the trigger actor, either have a reference to the actor you want to tell when it's triggered or use a dispatcher. But watch the BP communication video, you're lost as hell right now.

[autumn plinth]

if this is true

then whats the point

i tried doing this one little thing for 2 hours

ive tried suggestions

and nothing is working

[odd ember]

I think you need to look up some tutorials and how to

[faint pasture]

First off, do you want 2 separate actors or one actor total?

[autumn plinth]

i've tried both

whichever one works i guess

[maiden wadi]

@autumn plinth Is Targetpoint actually visual, or just for gameplay mechanics?

[faint pasture]

Which one do you WANT

[autumn plinth]

it's this sphere https://i.imgur.com/FSzblnh.png

ideally in one actor

but how

[maiden wadi]

So visual to the player in game?

[autumn plinth]

yes

[faint pasture]

Ok then just add the damn sphere to whatever also has the spawn area.

[autumn plinth]

"to whatever also has the spawn area." i have dragged the sphere into the Target_Spawner actor

[faint pasture]

The actor should have a spawn area component, and a static mesh component, and optionally a root scene component if you don't want either of the other 2 as root

[autumn plinth]

so that's not what i want

[faint pasture]

Do you understand the difference between a component and an actor?

[autumn plinth]

a component is a thing inside an actor?

idk

[faint pasture]

Yes. What you have right there is a actor with a component that is spawning another actor. Just add the sphere static mesh instead

[odd ember]

it's pointless trying to give you a step by step given that you don't seem to know the basics yet. IMO just look up some basic tutorials, or use learn.unrealengine.com to get up to speed

beats sitting here arguing over what you want

[wooden rapids]

@odd ember i found the issue it was the Custom Tick loop Time set from 0.01 to 0.001

[odd ember]

you have loops on tick?

[wooden rapids]

Sorry i mean set timer by event loop time , it is a custom tick,the funny thing is on the older Pc it works

[odd ember]

most likely it's a hardware issue still. tick less than DeltaTime aren't really useful as they will collate updates for the next tick

[faint pasture]

Y tho

[maiden wadi]

Why do people try to get around using Tick?

This will never stop baffling me.

[faint pasture]

Because they heard it's BAD(tm)

It's like you tell someone "hey stop eating so much fat" so they give themselves a vitamin deficiency by eating zero.

Use it sparingly and when it makes sense

[wooden rapids]

Ok i can use it but this is my last joker

[maiden wadi]

@wooden rapids You are aware that 0.001 is one thousand times per second? This still applies. If your game can even run at 400fps(which is rare), you're still saving more than twice as much processing on tick than with that timer.

[faint pasture]

Does a timer that fast really even do anything?

[maiden wadi]

It does.

If you have 60fps, you have one tick per frame. If you put a timer for 0.008333 which is 120 times a second, it'll simply run the timer twice every tick when the timer manager evaluates.

[faint pasture]

So a fast timer MIGHT make sense for certain convergent sims or whatever if you want to maintain a certain number of loops per second

Basically Auto tuning the iterations per frame to match the timer frequency

[maiden wadi]

Maybe, but at that point I think you're already in some deep coding territory and looking at some lower level C++ to handle this more correctly. 😄

[faint pasture]

Yeah you'll want something else + interpolation for that unless you like aliasing

[maiden wadi]

My general rule is that anything that needs to be updated more than 10 times a second should just go on tick, it's not worth messing with timers past that point. And to be fair I don't even bother with it then. Userwidgets don't tick when collapsed or removed from screen, and actors can have their ticks stopped or slowed. Using timers to avoid tick is usually just not the answer.

[faint pasture]

It'd be cool if we had constant update, but we don't, so live with it. Learn math and use frame time

[wooden rapids]

@maiden wadi i see its better to use event tick ,what alternative i have if i use my Joker

[maiden wadi]

I think I'm missing a conversation. I don't see anything about a Joker?

[wooden rapids]

sorry i mean if event tick already use in one graph , what`s is your advice what else i can use to save perfomance as an tick i just use these Custom tick

[maiden wadi]

A sequence on the original tick.

[wooden rapids]

ok thanks @maiden wadi , but when i must switch the Graph

[maiden wadi]

Right after the event I would assume. Sequence just runs one thing and then another.

[odd ember]

generally the answer in the past has been that timers could be turned off for actors in BP; whereas tick could not

I do use timers as tick equivalent as well due to for instance the CreateEvent node being able to tick functions for better encapsulation

also avoids weird macro based approaches

[crimson saddle]

I have a system where a bunch of items are combined together but players can drag them out of the group. I want an immediate click and drag to move the individual items but if they hold down the mouse before dragging I want them to drag the whole group at once

I know how to drag items around but i have no idea how I would do the logic for dragging just one item vs the whole group

[maiden wadi]

Save a float of current game time at mouse down. Evaluate that on drag detected. If CurrentGameTime - TimeSaved > HoldTime drag whole stack, if false, drag one.

@crimson saddleI also just assumed you were talking about widget dragging. Is this for UI or some 3d interaction?

[crimson saddle]

3d interaction, but knowing how to do widgets is also helpful since i may need it someday!

[maiden wadi]

Same concept though. Basically at mouse down on the object however you do that, you save a float of game time and make that comparison when you move the mouse to split the stack I assume.

[crimson saddle]

time held down would work but im not sure how or when to "lock" the player into dragging one or the other so that it doesnt switch midway

is there a way to make a "deadzone" almost so that players wouldnt have to keep perfectly still

[maiden wadi]

What is your case for dragging? Mouse movement, or object movement?

[crimson saddle]

im not sure I quite understand the question
I begin "holding" the item on mouse click

[maiden wadi]

What triggers the current dragging effect, or do you not have that yet?

[crimson saddle]

it isnt a widget so im not doing drag/drop operations, but basically the object follows the mouse while you click and hold

[maiden wadi]

What's the control scheme? FPS, RTS, etc.

[crimson saddle]

RTS

mostly custom blueprints but it is that kind of control method

[faint pasture]

This stuff should live in the PlayerController prolly

[fathom cobalt]

Can someone please help me? It won't let me save some of the assets for some reason, I don't have multiple versions of unreal running either. Whats going on!?

[maiden wadi]

@crimson saddle Hard choice. Personally I'd maybe consider dropping this into a component personally even if it's for this task alone. I'd just have click get the clicked object. Set the component's tick enabled, set the current mouse location into a Vector2D. On tick evaluate if current cursor location - first cursor location distance is > some amount like 5 pixels. If it is, do the splitting logic. Add the save current game time to this, and you can switch on splitting a single object off by making a new actor with the new value or whatever you're doing, or simply moving the full stack.

Definitely in player controller though, but like I said, I'd drop the logic into a component. It's likely going to get complex enough to start cluttering the controller. Who knows what else you'll want to do with it like other hotkey checks, etc.

[faint pasture]

Integrate your input to detect a drag. Or just check distance vs mouse down location, depends

Then when drag happens check time vs mouse down time and branch on that

[umbral ginkgo]

Quick question: How is the game mode blueprint used? Its just a black tab for me

[odd ember]

reset window configuration

[proper umbra]

Hey. I'm setting my navmesh generation to dynamic (so navmesh will form on spawned actors/generated areas.) However, it seems that a red zone in the Navmesh follows wherever my AI goes, causing them to be unable to move.

[umbral ginkgo]

huh thats a strange bug

[brazen merlin]

is your AI set to any specific navigation type?

[odd ember]

I think you might have killed off the tabs

[proper umbra]

Not that I know of

When I set the Runtime Generation to Static though it works fine

Just that the navmesh doesnt generate on stages (Actors) that I make

[umbral ginkgo]

I have run into another issue, how do you implement interfaces into gamemode blueprints

[odd ember]

class settings, it should be one of the icons above the event graph

[umbral ginkgo]

uhh this is what my gamemode bp looks like

[brazen merlin]

the blue text 😛

[umbral ginkgo]

I guess Im blind

[odd ember]

confirms my theory that people don't read 😅

[brazen merlin]

start at the top left, and read to the right - like all reading

[umbral ginkgo]

i prob need to start doing that lmao

[sand shore]

would be my first suggestion, yes

[tiny vale]

does anyone know why the input one works but the begin play one doesnt?

[odd ember]

player controller hasn't spawned

alternatively: player controller has spawned, but isn't hooked up

[icy dragon]

I don't think Begin Play is necessarily tied to Player Controller 🤔

And it's Add to Viewport, not Add to Player Screen.

[odd ember]

begin play on actors happens in arbitrary order. it's likely that this actor isn't the player controller. hence if this actor spawns first, then there is no player controller so it doesn't know for whom to spawn the widget for

[odd ember]

that's irrelevant, it works either way

[tiny vale]

It works when i dont create my main menu

[odd ember]

what do you mean by this?

[tiny vale]

i think this is rendering on top of everything

but i did this and it still not rendering on top

[icy dragon]

Show the screen in action.

[odd ember]

I don't think ZOrder works the way people think it works

I think it's only when considering them inside an overlay widget

which in most cases isn't relevant

[hard storm]

Does anybody know : If I have data (like, for example, niagara Systems) in a data asset, and I load that data asset, does the contents of that data asset get loaded into memory?

[hot lintel]

I am having a problem with drawing materials/textures to a render target. I have a texture and material for skin, and a texture and material for a tattoo. The textures are equal in width/height. I am trying to overlay the tattoo over the skin texture, then set the result as a texture parameter in my character material. The tattoo texture is already aligned how I want it to be painted onto the texture, and it is mostly transparent.

For some reason, neither draw material to render target, nor draw texture to render target are working.

I have tried doing so with a canvas and without making a canvas

Anybody have any ideas of what I should try to do to fix my issue?

Or a better way to achieve the result

[faint pasture]

@hot lintel start with making a material that just displays the render Target on a plane, and then make sure you can get drawing to work

Also make sure the material you are drawing to the render Target behaves as expected

[hot lintel]

As of right now I am testing by exporting the render material after drawing to it

None of the draw calls seem to be doing anything to the render target though

The export seems to be fine, it just exports the clear color

Wow I think I may have gotten it

I changed the render target format to RTF rgba 16f

Export stopped working, but in engine the render target appears to have been changed properly

[keen basalt]

They do get loaded into memory unless you use soft object references and async load the object

[hard storm]

So if the data asset gets loaded, and it has hard references, those hard references are loaded at the moment the data asset is?

[keen basalt]

yeah they do

it's the same for all blueprints with hard references

[keen basalt]

using a soft reference or interface is the best way to prevent extra content from being loaded into memory

[tropic pecan]

Hey there, can someone help me with making spawning actors from map variables with a widget? I want to make a character spawn and de-spawn such as like a Boolean trigger but done by widget. It's a little complicated to explain but I'll try to show.

[tropic pecan]

I anybody around?

[tight schooner]

What you're saying is possible but maybe the question is too vague / open ended

[drowsy ridge]

Hi all, I am not using a Behavior Tree for this AI but how can you create more distance between each AI? They are too close!

[tropic pecan]

Well, I'm not sure how your party member system works but how I've had mine is this where there are arrow points they follow and my player units are in map variable list.

I cannot say I'm good at helping but I can try. Do you know a setup of selecting units to spawn? I'm trying to do that myself.

[drowsy ridge]

Unfortunately I don't know @tropic pecan 😦

[tropic pecan]

It's fine then. If you'd like to know my intentions, I'm trying to recreate a game called Persona 5 with great improvements. I'm trying to look for advice since I'm not an expert in Unreal Engine, if your not interested than good luck on your own projects at least.

[sharp rapids]

Would you elaborate?

[tropic pecan]

I can try to show the structures but I can't say I can explain very clearly since I'm no expert at this. This is actually work traced and remade from a JRPG blueprint from the market.

[sharp rapids]

What do you mean selecting units to spawn? Do you mean selecting from a UI or something else?

[tropic pecan]

Oh, I though you wanted help with something like the structure of following I was showing the other guy, sorry about that. What I do mean is I'm trying to rig the player unit characters to spawn and de-spawn in from the menu widget I created though I couldn't create a very good control so far. I can make them spawn by the tool using Boolean branch rigs but actually from the menu itself, I can't figure it out very well and I do think I need help on it.

[sharp rapids]

Usually, you would have a different BP handling the spawning
Spawning objects from Widget Bluperints is generally considered a bad idea

You can have your menu select the characters you need to spawn, then pass it to the Blueprint handling the spawning which would spawn them accordingly

[tropic pecan]

Well from the game I'm trying to work on, characters following player are selected by the units menu.

[sharp rapids]

You can do that
For e.g. You have your Units Menu and a Spawning BP
Your units menu will only handle showing the UI
When the player selects a character, the units menu will tell the Spawning BP that a certain character was selected, then the spawning BP will handle what to do with that. Whether to spawn it or do something else

[tropic pecan]

Let me see if I can show how I'm trying to pull it off cause explaining by words is complicated.

[sharp rapids]

You compartmentalize your tasks
The widget BPs only handle the visual parts of showing the UI
any gameplay actions such as spawning, etc. are handled by regular BPs

[tropic pecan]

OK, the best I can explain my structures. My player units are a variable map containing the actor and structure for character stats, this should allow me if I want to add more player units or remove them.

This is the function structure I'm currently using to spawn them but I'd like to rig it in a way so we can control the spawning from the widget.

This is how the widget looks like and the ones mostly marketed should be the units spawning and following.

I've attempted to structure out the widget to control the spawning but I just have no clue how to nicely. I guess I need more studying in this stuff.

So, I'm trying to rig it in a way where you can select your member from the menu such as like how a Boolean but from the menu itself. I do understand I could make the structure in a blueprint such as like a controller blueprint like I've done but like how could I connect my widget to such as like a branch for example select it and have access, do you get me?

[sharp rapids]

So you have a map that tells which character is currently in the party and which one is not?

[tropic pecan]

Yes, the map does tell you which player units are with you and you see the markers place on them? Those are the ones chosen to follow while the others don't spawn to follow. Should I explain my structure a bit more? I don't have a structure to where I'd like but I can give what and were I've done at least.

[tropic pecan]

All I need is a way to trigger a spawn for a character using a widget. The original structure I had selected characters in the first row and I didn't want that. I wanted something like a check such as like those markers you saw to be the label for them such as like a true or false if you get me.

I don't require a big structure explanation, I just need a way to make a function trigger to control as I said.

[sharp rapids]

I'm guessing the widget already works as you intend, meaning it lets you change their markers
and you only need to connect between the widget and the controller BP

[tropic pecan]

Yes, I know that already. I didn't structure it to be connect to the units very well yet cause I don't have a full idea how to.

[sharp rapids]

Well, You can create a reference to the Controller BP inside the widget
Then when the player selects a new character, you call the Spawning function in the controller BP

[sharp rapids]

I'm guessing this gets called when the player confirms selecting the characters?

[tropic pecan]

Let me look into that quickly please.

[tropic pecan]

So, by variable. Do you mean like a cast or set in my JRPGControler blueprint? Do I structure it in any sort of way? I can't quite remember what was the reference.

[sharp rapids]

In your Menu Widget, Create a variable for your controller BP

[tropic pecan]

Oh, so a variable.

[sharp rapids]

Then in the Controller BP, you can have a function which handles the spawning

Once the player confirms selecting the characters they want to spawn, you call the 'Spawn Party Members' function from the widget

[sharp rapids]

You can put this in the 'Spawn Party Members' function

[tropic pecan]

Well, I've worked with it and it did a little bit of what I wanted just that it took and even could make duplicates of my party members. But still, its a hint of figuring out how to spawn a Player Unit. So, thanks.

[tropic pecan]

Do you think we can talk further about this later? Or would you rather move on and I find someone else? You already gave me a hint so I'm totally grateful already.

[sharp rapids]

I mean i cannot guarantee
But You could just ask it here and if i'm on i'll answer it

[sharp rapids]

You should use a check to see if a certain party member is already spawned
If it's spawned already, don't spawn it again
If it isn't spawned, then spawn it

[tropic pecan]

I'm going to log off so that's way I'm asking if we can discuss this again later.

[sharp rapids]

We could

[tropic pecan]

Alright, I'll search and text to you later if I require more help on this. Now that I have a hint of spawning, now I just need to tweak it for a bit until it's correct. Again, thank you.

[sharp rapids]

Ask it on this server
The more the number of people seeing your question, higher the chance you'll get an answer

[tropic pecan]

Alright, I will.

[sharp oar]

My project builds fine, then throws this assertion and closes when i try to load my main level

Only 2 models use blendspaces in the level, i tried removing them both and still got the error

[sharp oar]

Totally lost, just really don't know what the issue is. Unfortunately this is for a game jam due tomorrow.

[timber knoll]

well hard to solve without more context, also not really blueprint related

would be more of an #animation or #packaging thing

[crimson geyser]

I've made a blade that rotates on the Z when overlapping with a box. But now I want the same blade to rotate vertically. So I duplicated it and rotated the blade mesh 90 degrees and connected the rotation to the Y. But when i overlap the box it does rotate on the Y, but the blade mesh flips back to the horizontal position before rotating. I think it's something easy I'm forgetting about, but can't seem to find it...

[timber knoll]

instead of set relative use add relative

or save the initial relative rotation before using setter

[crimson geyser]

Saving the initial rotation worked! Thanks!

[light token]

Hello. I want to create a dynamic market in my game. Now how do I implement a model like this? Do I just create a blueprint inherited from an actor and throw it in the world?

Or is there some other way to do the calculations?

[earnest tangle]

the phrase "dynamic market" could mean quite a lot of different things so you're going to have to explain exactly what it is you want to do, and what the problem is with doing it

[light token]

I have Trade Goods (like Bananas), I also have warehouses where you can buy and sell your goods. Now I want to run calculations of the prices for the Trade Goods. I think I can do this with a component on the warehouses. But I want to learn UE architecture so I'm throwing this up here.

There is no problem with the implementation of the prices or something. I can handle that I think. I just want to be sure I do it "the UE way" and not some hacky method.

[earnest tangle]

Right

It probably depends on how you want to approach it. Eg. what sets the price for the specific good

[light token]

I just go for random values between a range for now.

Nothing really special at this point

The way I think I can do it

[earnest tangle]

Yeah I mean more as in does the warehouse set the price even if it's a random value currently

If so it would probably make sense for it to do calculations for it as well

[light token]

Yes I want the prices to differ at different warehouses

The way I think I can do it and please correct me if Im wrong

Is to create a Structure: price and a Structure: TradeGood. Then have a the Price Structure contain the TradeGood structure and a price. Then I have a component on the warehouse which has an array Prices which is of type Price Structure

[maiden wadi]

Sticking with the OOP method, your warehouses themselves would probably house a float value representing each trade good. You can store the base price in a datatable or data asset and look that base price up, modify it with the float connected to the trade good at that warehouse, and that would be your price.

Component works too if you're blueprint only. C++ structs are better. Much more lightweight for this sort of thing.

[light token]

Alright thanks a lot. Datatables or Data Assets are new to me so I'm going to dive into that. I'm trying to stick with blueprints for now. This is my second game I'm making so I'm doing it one step at a time.

[proper umbra]

Isthere a way to break this to get each column?

[maiden wadi]

What do you mean by column? As in another column in the table?

[proper umbra]

I have a float value inside each row and I wanted to see if I could make a check to see if random float = one of the row's floats

not sure if thats possible tho

[sharp rapids]

Use this
https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/BlueprintAPI/DataTable/GetDataTableRowNames/
Then run a for-loop on the output array

[maiden wadi]

It is, but costly. You would need to iterate over every single struct in the table.

If you're going to be using your data like this, you're better off converting to using DataAssets.

[proper umbra]

Would there be another way to do it? I only need to use this in one blueprint

I'm just trying to choose a random actor, whereas some have more of a chance to be chosen than others

[maiden wadi]

It may not hurt performance too much. Use the node SimpleOrComplex pointed out. It'll give you all of the table's names. Use that to loop and call GetDataTableRow, break the struct and compare your float.

[proper umbra]

Alright yeah I'll try it out. Thank you both

[faint pasture]

@light token For a dynamic market just have a data structure live somewhere, have functions to update it and interface with it, and you're golden. I'd put it in a component on GameState

[faint pasture]

It won't unless you do some rounding.

[light token]

Thanks a lot! Yeah I'm using the architecture you're describing. Thanks a lot!

But what do you mean with "I'd put it in a component on GameState"

I have a DynamicMarketComponent on my warehouses

[faint pasture]

Are you talking about having the entire market model centralized somewhere or having it exist spread out over all the interacting actors?

Like how are you proposing your market works, what does it actually do?

[light token]

No not centrilized at this point. Each warehouse has a different market

It's not a complex game, I just want to make first steps on implementing some sort of gameplay

[faint pasture]

Oh ok, I thought I were talking something like SimCity or Offeorld Trading Company.

[light token]

Yeah maybe it's going to be more like that, don't know it yet

[faint pasture]

Like give an example mechanic. What is something the system does?

[light token]

But I have a tradegood bananas and those prices should differ on different warehouses

You buy low and sell high

later on I want to have different island with different goods

But I want to keep it simple at this point to learn

[faint pasture]

Oh ok I gotcha. Yeah a Marketplace component on your points of sale would work.

[light token]

Awesome. Thanks!

[faint pasture]

Layer if you need some communication between them I'd have some sort of central manager like a component on GameState or GameMode or a subsystem.

[light token]

Is GameState the same as Level Blueprint?

[faint pasture]

No. Don't use level blueprint, it's a nub trap.

[light token]

Hahah oke I'll look GameState up

[faint pasture]

Level blueprint is a blueprint on the level/map layer, you want to put a central manager in game state, game mode, or in a subsystem. Subsystems are C++ only for now though.

You can even just make an actor if you want, and get actor of class to get it if you wanted to.

[light token]

Ahh alright, that's one step to far at this point in time. I'm using datatables over data assets for now for the same reasons.

Yeah. Let's get this market component up first.

[faint pasture]

Remember that data tables are for reading. They aren't for runtime writing. You would list all of the available goods in your game in a data table, but the actual live prices would live in some sort of data structure on the component

[light token]

Yup I have that

[faint pasture]

Probably a Map of Names to Floats

[light token]

My warehouses have a Prices DataStructure array

[icy dragon]

So in single player, what's the difference between implementing game memory on Game Instance vs Game State?

[light token]

Or the component has

Thanks a lot @faint pasture I can get to work now.

[faint pasture]

I'd use a map. Input name, get price

Input name, get quantity stored

[light token]

Alright, is a Map a blueprint type?

[faint pasture]

Yes

Think of it as an array with the keys being another data type, not an index

[light token]

Thanks, going to look up a tutorial on that

[icy dragon]

At the moment my implementation is using Game Instance to serve as the game's memory, mainly keeping track of data to save, and storing loaded save data. Is there any benefit to use Game State in this regard?

[faint pasture]

Game State shares lifetime with a level (maybe a match, not sure if it resets with a match) while Game Instance shares a lifetime with the application from start to exit

So it depends. If you were making Mario, your level score might be on game state, while your lives and mushrooms might live on Game Instance.

[icy dragon]

Got it. In my case, it's an open world single player RPG, with the game world and main menu are separate persistent levels, so my current setup should be fine.

[kindred marsh]

Hello guys i need your help! I have a gesture device (Myo Arm Band) and i connect it with my desktop and UE4 so i can make some experiements. This device sends me 8 signals in integers and I print them in a Widget that I have created and I have add it to viewport. It seems to work well but I want to be able to save these values and export them to a csv file. Could you guide me because my experience in Unreal and programming is quite small. Thanks for your time

[faint pasture]

https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/913886/is-it-possible-to-read-and-write-csv-files-during.html

Writing to data table seems weird but if it works you can output table to CSV

[dusty frigate]

Hello everyone, we have issues with weird and seemingly random DataAsset behaviour. First off, we're only reading from them and never writing to them. Now, we have a DataAsset that isn't loading correctly on the client - however the server gets it correctly.
The fix for this is to manually alter a random property and save. We use many of this particular primary data type and they work as expected.
This is one of a couple of weird happenings we've encountered regarding DataAsset blueprints. Any suggestions or help in the matter described? Are DataAssets broken and usually bugs out?

[frank salmon]

Hey all, can anybody help me out please? I am in a bit of a dilemma. I have the spring arm and the camera attached to the player character, do you know how I can detach it while in trigger and then move it on spline, and after the character exited the trigger to reattach it and have normal control?

There is this function called target view with blend, but I do not want to have another camera in the level. I only want to use this one from the third person character

[unique wasp]

I would like to store a table with how many points different combinations of an enum give. I can do that in a DataTable, but how can I easily read based on said enum? Or should I do this differently altogether? This is the table I have now:

I can read from that using a building type like this, but how can I select a specific output pin based on the type of the other building?

[autumn plinth]

How do I execute something every n seconds?

Maybe a better question, how do I make a timer?

[heavy lion]

I cant decide if its important for the day night cycle to look different in the morning verses the evening
Like, does the sun look different when it sets to when it rises?

[autumn plinth]

Sunset and sunrise are identical

[heavy lion]

In real life?

https://www.naturalnavigator.com/news/2019/09/the-difference-between-sunrise-and-sunset/

Could save me a lot of work AND allow for sunset and sunrise to be based on where the sun is in the sky as opposed to what time it is

[icy dragon]

He's right. As far as things goes, sunrise and sunset are pretty identical.
Even with Sky Atmosphere that's physically based AND also allows for day night cycle out of the box.

[heavy lion]

Awesome. Gonna redo all yesterdays curves! haha

Will make things easier going forward though. And allow for proper timed sunsets and rises

[icy dragon]

Set Timer By Event or Set Timer By Function Name

[unique wasp]

More info here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc5WpNq7RFg

[finite fulcrum]

Is there an updated article on diffing blueprints? This one seems out of date: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/diffing-blueprints

[icy dragon]

The best thing is that it practically just works. Proper lighting colour and all. @heavy lion

[heavy lion]

@icy dragon I am using that, but I have a lot of properties I need to change over time

Plus I am using a real calendar and time/date system to control it

[sand wasp]

what could be some reason, my AimOffset and some stuff in the AnimBP breaks when playing standalone, but not when playing in editor#

[faint pasture]

In real life, no, but also moonlight isn't blue. Art direction is personal taste.

[heavy lion]

Thats it. I'm after semi realistic

[faint pasture]

Can vary by location depending on atmosphere etc but it's pretty much the same. You'll have dustier air to the west vs east if you live at the beach for example.

[worthy drift]

does anyone know what could causer the jumping function of a character to not work? I have a third person character which simply won't jump. I switched out the jumping function with another way of working with it due to rootmotion animations messing up the jump, but now I'm trying to switch back to the regular jumping mechanic, but it doesnt work. As in nothing happens. And I'm using the stock input of the third person character. I have double triple checked that everything is in order for my character to jump in the blueprint. Any ideas what else could be making it not work?

[manic river]

Hello! How to use soft references with get actor of class?

[unreal quail]

can someone explain to me why this isn't showing up on my hit events?

it's never showing anything for some reason

it's working on simple blocking volumes but not with static meshes

am I setting it up in the wrong place?

well I guess the override only works on components that don't have a material

[faint pasture]

Is the event hit firing?

[unreal quail]

yup it's printing nothing

I tried changing the phys material of the material used and it works

it's the override that seems to be useless

I guess the override is for the simple collision only and the hits are using complex collisions

that's my wild guess

[rancid steppe]

any tutorial of inventory widget to display character preview with all of his equipment pieces

[heavy lion]

Yup

[maiden wadi]

That blueprint is a fantastic motivator to love C++. 😄

[faint pasture]

Can't you just blend weight the post process?

[sharp rapids]

@maiden wadi
More motivation 😄
https://blueprintsfromhell.tumblr.com

[faint pasture]

We need a pin covering what casting is and the fact that function parameters are already local references so no need to spaghet all over the graph

[maiden wadi]

To be honest, some of those don't look bad at all.

[neat prairie]

Ive made a ui widget, how do i add it to the level or game

[faint pasture]

Create widget, add to viewport.

[maiden wadi]

Just look up my name with the words "Memory Pointer". 😄

[faint pasture]

Or if you want it in the world, add a widget component to something

[sharp rapids]

I just saw the first one having get all actors of class connected to event update animation

[faint pasture]

I calculate TREE(3) on physics substep

[neat prairie]

That doesn't work for some reason

[faint pasture]

Show your setup

Typically "for some reason" has a very obvious reason.

[neat prairie]

@faint pasture

[marsh mantle]

would someone know what I need to feed into this ? I'm trying to access my UI from my player character

[faint pasture]

@neat prairie That shows literally nothing to diagnose the problem. Show how you're creating the widget and adding to viewport

[faint pasture]

Get controller, cast to YourPlayerController, get ui

Assuming that's where it lives

What spawns the UI?

[marsh mantle]

the level blueprint

[faint pasture]

Ya dont

[marsh mantle]

just spawn it in the player controller ?

[faint pasture]

Spawn it from pawn or PlayerController or HUD

[neat prairie]

you can see me trying to drag and drop into the viewport but the mouse is a 🚫

[marsh mantle]

aight will do, thanks

[faint pasture]

That's not how you do that. Create an actor with a widget component and give it that widget BP class

@marsh mantle Level BP is a nub trap unless you're doing level specific stuff in it. Like a scripted sequence.

"Correct" place for UMG handling is HUD, then PlayerController is ok, then maybe Pawn

[maiden wadi]

I don't even like widget handling in Pawn. Pawn should just exist and have delegates.

I feel bad putting widgets in Controller either. Feels cluttered and bad with all of the networking and non pawn specific controls already there.

[faint pasture]

Oh yeah for sure but he's spawning them in Level BP. Baby steps lol.

[faint pasture]

Do you want the widget to be in 3D space or on your hud?

[neat prairie]

hud

just a button in the screen corner the whole time

@faint pasture ?

[raw karma]

Hey all! Any advice on how I can toggle my flashlight on or off while running? I have it setup so F toggles my flashlight on and off, but once I start running F no longer works to toggle it. Any tips? 🙂 Thanks a bunch!

[faint pasture]

@neat prairie k then create the widget in PlayerController or Pawn and add to viewport

@neat prairie https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/InteractiveExperiences/UMG/UserGuide/CreatingWidgets/

[boreal barn]

hi y'all, I have a variable passed to bp as
UFUNCTION(BlueprintImplementableEvent, Category = Attack, meta = (DisplayName = ReceiveAttack))
void BP_ReceiveAttack(const FAttackData& AttackData);
How do I check if is valid? The general IsValid node seems incompatible...

[agile wren]

I had that same problem a while back, it on,y is like that in-editor, and if you launch or package the project it should work. My guess is shift + f is an editor command.

[raw karma]

Ahh marvelous, alrighty - thanks a bunch for the insight! Yeah, I reckon it probably is an editor command. Didn't think of that lol, I'm so new I assume I'm doing all the things wrong. Thanks so much!!!

[agile wren]

No problem!

[magic oak]

I’m assuming you’re argument is a struct so it’s always going to be valid. Since it’s passing by reference, anything calling it would be required to pass an existing struct

[zealous moth]

can you swap cameras and blend through them in the same actor? I cannot seem to get this to work with

this requires 2 actors

ugh looks like i have to use a child actor 🤮

[boreal barn]

except it throws an accessed none trying to read property error :V

[maiden wadi]

You can, sort of. It requires a second camera actor, and you have to disable/enable camera components

[zealous moth]

sounds like a new marketplace plugin for a free node....

[maiden wadi]

In short, spawn second camera actor at current camera location/rotation. Set view target to it. Disable all cameras on the actor except the one you want to blend to, set view target to blend back to the original actor.

[sharp rapids]

You could break your struct and check any one property for IsValid
If one of them is valid, then most likely all of them will be

[sharp rapids]

Which property can't it access?

[zealous moth]

yeah but there's a lot of issues in doing that. I'm gonna opt to make a new node and make it free instead

[maiden wadi]

Make it free?

[zealous moth]

yeah, free plugin on marketplace

looks easy enough to change imo: https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/API/Runtime/Engine/GameFramework/APlayerController/SetViewTargetWithBlend/

[boreal barn]

it's an actor reference, so probably I can check if that is valid

thanks mate!

[thorny rover]

Hi, is there a way to fake a left mouse click in unreal?
I have a pawn which camera view i can move by left-clicking (Add controller Yaw input for example), otherwise the view stays the same.
Issue is that when i first start the project either in Standalone Game or after compiling and running the .exe, before clicking the camera follows freely according to mouse movement. After the left-click in my case, it starts to work properly

Or any idea how can i stop camera following the mouse, it should not do that

My idea is that if i could fake a mouse click at the beginning of the game, perhaps it solves my issue

Although i think what's going on is that controller somehow has freedom to move however it wants, pawn gets executed later, so the camera movement somehow comes from there..?

[unreal quail]

does anyone know why the preview isn't working?

even though it's a correct bp with a mesh

[snow harness]

This what you're looking for?

@unreal quail or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX3gmcPOnYU

[unreal quail]

thanks!

[unreal quail]

yep

[snow harness]

It's difficult for me to imagine what exactly you're referring to. A clip of the issue you're having might better communicate what you want changed.

[unreal quail]

I don't have this for some reason

[thorny rover]

Sorry, my project is classified so i can't share. I'll try to explain one more time. I have a player pawn like this (image), basically just a scene root, springarm and a camera attached to the springarm. I spawn it using Player Start. And i turn the camera around using Mouse X input. Everything works okay, but before making the first click, right after starting the game, the camera turns around without the mouse X input, always following the mouse until I make the actual Mouse X input. It's like before a mouse click is registered, the camera does whatever it wants.. How to fix that?

[snow harness]

https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/capture-thumbnail-is-gone-at-different-bps/119253

"Ok I figured that out…

The “Capture Thumbnail” button is disabled when “Actor hidden in game” option is active

We have several actors that have representation in the editor but are supposed to be hidden in game, it would still be nice for them to have thumbnails though!"

"Found a workaround - if “hidden in game” flag is set on each component individually (as opposed to setting it for the whole actor) the thumbnails still work!"

That helpful?

[thorny rover]

Also i noticed that when i run my project in Selected viewport i have no such issue

[snow harness]

So if you launch in Standalone, before you click in the window and making the window active, it's already receiving mouse input?

[thorny rover]

it's following the mouse location, not sure if mouse location data is considered a mouse input

[thorny rover]

I've noticed something similar when you have an empty project and you launch the empty level, there's also some inherit mouse following logic, not sure if those are related

[snow harness]

Interesting. At least when windowed or play in viewport, I've never had an instance where my mouse is having an effect in game until I click on/in the window.

What if as a workaround you locked the rotation of the camera or springarm until input mouse click is detected?

I'd also ensure your input is only rotating either camera or springarm, and you have the other disabled from receiving input or control rotation.

[thorny rover]

Perhaps the workaround would help. Although i can recreate the issue when i launch an empty unreal project on an empty level in standalone.. so maybe the issue is that something very basic allows free camera movement? Although in empty i can also use WASD.

"and you have the other disabled from receiving input or control rotation. " Interesting, i have no idea if there could be any other things that receive control rotation

[winged sentinel]

Im using a menu system where I put my maps in a persistent level (loading screen) and then they’re loaded in. In that case, I’m stuck using a single game mode. What’s the best way to work with this? Could I change the player pawn and stuff right before starting the session?

[snow harness]

"and you have the other disabled from receiving input or control rotation. " Interesting, i have no idea if there could be any other things that receive control rotation
I could be wrong. Obviously it's possible for a mouse to rotate a camera, but I thought you could instead not rotate the camera and only rotate the spring arm around it's center point. Haven't tried that before. That may be a red herring anyways.
That's the only idea I have, sorry @thorny rover. If I had UE available I'd look through it more.

[thorny rover]

It's okay. Do you perhaps know what causes the camera to move in an empty level with player start? probably default pawn?

[snow harness]

Yeah DefaultPawn will be the default player character.

[thorny rover]

anyways thanks, i'll try to dig around a bit but probably will try the workaround you gave me an idea for

[gentle glade]

I'm pretty new to Unreal Engine stuff and I think I'm looking at something the wrong way but I'm not sure how to address it.

I want the AI to change their behaviour when the state of another pawn is changed... But getting that variable from pawn 1 to ai seems to be a thing my brain is struggling to understand

I thought you can just cast to... But I seem to be wrong?

[snow harness]

Yea you might have luck brute forcing something.

[unreal quail]

yup ! thanks

[snow harness]

Is that 2nd AI's state something changing in it's behavior tree (blackboard) or on the actor itself?

[gentle glade]

Basically, AI is attacking the player, when the HP of the player reaches a value, I want the AI to stop attacking

Or rather to execute a different action

Do I need to link the HP to the UI for the AI to be able to see it?

[mint grove]

So I've got a pistol everything works shooting reloading animations. When I drop the clip it falls to the floor and goes away when I pick up the new clip and get it near mag slot it despawns and reloads the gun but when this happens the clip doesn't spawn in the gun it spawn where ot despawned I've gotten it to spawn near the gun but it won't follow the gun if I move the mag just floats in the air how do I fix this?

[snow harness]

In your behavior tree task for attacking, can you Get Player Character, Cast To [playerActor], get HP. If HP below X, Finish Execute node Success bool = false? (Failing that execution will cause the task to abort, and your Selector will re-choose a task based on the conditions)

[gentle glade]

Maybe it's because I'm trying to use an existing target without recasting..

[snow harness]

Is that existing variable from your blackboard? (getting and setting blackboard values is annoyingly complex)

[gentle glade]

The guide I've been using hasn't mentioned Blackboard, there have been base classes and class defaults but not blackboard?

[snow harness]

Ah okay. So you aren't using Behavior Trees? When I saw the word behavior I made assumptions.

[gentle glade]

It mentioned animation trees but I am pretty sure that's not what you mean

[snow harness]

Is the attacking a single event, or is it something which loops?

[gentle glade]

It's a for each loop

I guess my biggest thing I'm trying to understand is.. what is the standard way to share a variable from one pawn to another

Is cast to a receiver or a sender? Like.. do I cast from where I want to the variable or do I cast the variable to where I want?

[snow harness]

Alrighty. You should be able to use a branch of gate to prevent the attack if HP below X.
But you're having trouble getting the HP value from the player?
If you're using a predetermined variable to Get from, and that's not working, you may not be assigning/creating that variable correctly.
But thankfully, getting data from the player is super easy with (on AI actor) Get Player Character, Cast To actor, Get variable.

[gentle glade]

So I need to do like.. Get Thirdpersoncharacter (or whatever)>Cast to actor>Get variable?

If I'm reading this correct then my issue was I was using Cast To in reverse and that's why it wouldn't work

[snow harness]

Sorry I don't have access to UE now otherwise I'd screenshot it.

Get Player Character node (who specifically we're asking)
Cast to [player character actor] (what type of actor we're asking)
compile
from the Cast To node, drag out and then type the variable you want. (what we want from that actor)

[gentle glade]

I was seeing it as a Cast to is sending the data out when actually it should be see as reaching out for the data.

[snow harness]

Yeah Cast To is a question/request (thinking about it now, that name implies sort of the opposite)

[gentle glade]

Which makes more sense from a performance standpoint.. there's no reason to constantly send out a variable to the void when realistically, it should be a query for the status

I saw it as like throwing a ball, when it's really like a fishing pole. :)

[snow harness]

Ahhh, yeah it's confusing.

The Cast To node is determining what type of actor
it's input is asking which one
it's output is asking what you want from it

Fair warning, best practice try hards will get upset hearing you use Cast To, because it's technically performance inefficient compared to Interfaces or other methods, but my personal advice is to not to worry about it early days.

[gentle glade]

Is there a big difference between calling animations vs building an animation tree? I assume it's probably better to build the animation tree as it would provide cleaner transitions..

Well I tried to create a tag on the third person character and then have the AI check for the tag but the tag wouldn't generate

[snow harness]

Animation trees are utimately more robust, and better for an actor which needs constant animation. If you're doing one shot stuff, it's probably not needed.

[gentle glade]

Like an event added the tag

[snow harness]

For sure. I adore interfaces now that I know how to use them. They're awesome.

[gentle glade]

Can you give me a light summary of interfaces so I can understand their place?

[snow harness]

So rather than asking a specific question to a specific actor, they allow you to ask premade questions to any actor

[gentle glade]

Oh that's so much better

That's what I want to do

But I didn't know how

If I would have known they were called interfaces lol

[snow harness]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_hLUkm7v44&t=79s

[gentle glade]

Nice, if you want, I can link the guide I was using

If it would clear up anything haha

[hoary junco]

Why cant I get the object to cast from game instance?

[faint pasture]

@hoary junco why are you casting a known reference? Do you know what casting does?

[hoary junco]

Sorry i should have been more clear

The first pic is from my character BP

Which tries to access BP_Material_Wood

[faint pasture]

What is the variable type of wood?

[hoary junco]

Second and third pics are from game instance

[faint pasture]

Show that variable in the game instance

[hoary junco]

Its just object referance

[winged sentinel]

Wait what

[dawn gazelle]

I think he accidentally had you on reply salzar but was trying to answer Wizurd.

[meager spade]

He's basically asking why it's an object to begin with

Oh he mentioned the wrong guy ^^

[faint pasture]

No I thought he was casting a thing to its own class, I've seen that a million times. Yeah I don't know why that cast would fail.

[hoary junco]

But i can and should use game instance for it right?

[faint pasture]

It's not exactly easy to tell what variable type a variable with the name of wood is

We don't know what you're trying to do here, but it is weird that that

Are you sure nothing is overriding that at run time? Check what it is during run time

[hoary junco]

How do i do that and does it affect casting succession anyways?

It just fails

[dawn gazelle]

So you're seeing it print hello on screen?

[hoary junco]

yes

[faint pasture]

I meant to say over right thing. Over right in. Overwriting. I used to be worried about machine learning but if this voice to text is the best that Google can come up with, we have no worries.

Just print the name of the object for s**** and giggles

[hoary junco]

?

[gentle glade]

Holy Jesus that was so incredibly helpful and useful to know that I makes me requestion so many things.

[dawn gazelle]

I think your cast is probably failing because you're using an object reference - The "BP_Material_Wood" is an object in so far that it's a blueprint class in the game, but it doesn't mean it's an actually spawned object that you can cast to like that.

[faint pasture]

Wait a second, what is BP material wood? Is it a class?

Cuz it kind of sounds like it would be a material but your naming conventions are kind of screwy

[snow harness]

Awesome, glad its helpful

[hoary junco]

It has to be spawned so i can use it as referance?

[faint pasture]

Yeah that's your problem. You're trying to cast a class reference to that class. When it expects an object/actor

[hoary junco]

Its just "object" which is not spawned

[dawn gazelle]

But that "object" isn't an object in the game.

[hoary junco]

no

its not

[dawn gazelle]

So you can't reference what it is in the game.

This is specifically regarding blueprint objects.... You can't reference them directly, you need to have an instance of them to work with.

[faint pasture]

Try an object class reference instead of an object reference

It sure is smelly though

[dawn gazelle]

That would seem to make more sense.

[faint pasture]

It's like the difference between casting an int to a char versus casting the int type itself to a char

[surreal peak]

I'm confused how they managed to set that as a default value

[hoary junco]

But then im not sure how to use this object class reference to get it connected

[faint pasture]

Maybe a blueprint class is technically a u object, i don't know. This is like some Duff's device s***

[dawn gazelle]

You'd change your inventory to use classes instead of objects.

[surreal peak]

It should reset when they compile

[winged sentinel]

Ohhh lol inwas confused

[hoary junco]

Oh yea ill try that

[surreal peak]

I mean, you can use a UObject Reference variable, but you will have to create the object at some point and save it into the varaible

Same as with Actors that you have to spawn and save into the reference/pointer variable

Only thing you can reference from the content browser are assets, like Textures, DataTable, etc.

At least, if we keep things simple :D

[gentle glade]

Hidden room references, eh?

[hoary junco]

But i have the inventory created in c++ so i have to figure out how to do actually do that XD

Ill do it tomorrow

[unreal quail]

I just checked, I don't have actor hidden in game enabled :(

in fact I don't seem to have it on any of my actors

[whole dune]

is there a way to convert texture 2d dynamic to interchange texture? help is greatly appreciated

[raw karma]

Hi all!! Super noob question, but that's level of education I have. I have put in a pick up system in my game, where you have to collect X amount of items to win the game, the usual shtick. What I'm wanting to now add on to this however is, each item is different, I'd like to set it up so the player can return to the spawn location and if they press the interact button, an item appears at the spawn. How do I go about adding something like this.. I'm thinking it's a bool of sorts, I'm just not sure how to separate my item pick up system for individual items. I'm confusing myself, sorry.. hopefully this makes a tiny bit of sense.

[brazen merlin]

some sense, yeah. since they're different, you'd need to keep track of how many of each have been collected. An int array could work. Let's say you have 5 different items, array index 0 represents the number item A, index 1 represents item B amount, and so on. If the player wants to spawn an item, you'd be defining which array index, check that index it see how many, then spawn that item based on that index and update the array

[faint pasture]

What do the different items do?

What's the game loop like for item A vs item B? Deliver to different locations or what?

[ebon viper]

Hello! I have 2 Editor Utility Widgets and I want to pass variables between the two. I was hoping I could use Cast To rather than Interfaces, but I can't seem to set this up properly. In My Main Editor window I have a Variable for another Editor Utility Widget, but how can I set that Widget in my Blueprint so it isn't set to None? I am thinking maybe I can just Create the other Widget inside my Main widget but I haven't figured out how to do that as well. Any thoughts or ideas on how to best approach this 😄

[faint pasture]

Widgets should share a common parent or one create the other

[tired sparrow]

Hey how could I create a zone that increases player speed and another that regens health?

For the speed increase I had in mind of representing the zone in green, and as long as you’re inside of it the speed would be increased

Health regen would be that standing in the bonus zone would resplendish 25% of your health over 10 seconds wether or not you’re still in the zone

[faint pasture]

The easy and crappy way is to set run speed on overlap and set it back on end overlap

[ebon viper]

Right, I don't know how to make another Widget through a Editor Utility Widget. I tried this, but Editor Utility Widgets don't really have a Begin Play, and don't really "exist" in the world.

[faint pasture]

If you have Regen already just set RegenRate on overlap and reset on end overlap. That'll work but it's shitty. The more robust you need to go the more complex it gets.

[tired sparrow]

It’s for a school project so I can be really basic. As long wow as the speed of the player increases or he regens health it’ll work

[faint pasture]

Can't you just include it in the parent one? Just like a text box or button or whatever

[tired sparrow]

I’ll try what you recommended

[faint pasture]

Yes then begin and end overlap are your keys. If you already have Regen on char then add to it. If not then use a timer to pulse heal or even heal on tick that'll be fine.

[ebon viper]

It's another Viewport and I am essentially changing the camera material that renders to that Viewport, so it needs to be it's own Editor Utility Widget. The Variable I need to share is really just a menu for selecting which cameras you want to to show in those Viewports. This will ultimately control more aspects of the scene which is why I would prefer the user to work with that menu rather than on each Viewport, if that makes sense.

[faint pasture]

This is for design time only right?

Not runtime

[ebon viper]

I am able to switch that material at run time, but this is for Virtual Production so all in Engine not really a game 😄

[tired sparrow]

Thank you

[raw karma]

Yeah I figured I may need to leverage arrays on this one, since they are all uniquely "different", which is to say.. they only have different images on them lol. They have no stats or consumption, just pages. Okay i'm copying and pasting your reply and dissecting it to try and put this into play.

[brazen merlin]

wait, are they the same class?

[faint pasture]

Do you need 5 of A, 5 of B, etc, or just 10 total for example?

[drowsy flame]

whats the deal with timelines?

[raw karma]

Right so, this is my first "game" on my own without tutorials.. Trying to break free of tutorial hell. So that said, I'm copying the Slender Man format, which in theory seemed simple enough.. However I'm adding my own flair to it.. So basically the player will obtain 12 pages, each page has their own symbol written on it, the player needs to return to the spawn and "write" the symbol on the ground, the symbols will form a circle, once all the symbols on the ground are present, the player can step inside the circle and, game over you win happens. That's the idea

[faint pasture]

No duplicate pages spawn right?

[raw karma]

nope

all individual

[faint pasture]

They should be the same class just with an advancing index or enum

[raw karma]

I think righ tnow they are, but I reckon they'll all need to be individual classes. I think

oh okay, well ignore me Conrad, adriel corrected me lol

same class okay

[drowsy flame]

If I increment a regular float and print it every time timeline updates.
Sometimes it goes up to 28 runs, sometimes 26, 25, 30...
Why are Timelines so inconsistant?

[faint pasture]

Class Page has field PageNumber

[faint pasture]

Same time, different framerates

Timelines fire per frame for a duration

[drowsy flame]

I see.. any way to make it have same result every time?

[faint pasture]

For loop

Or a timer maybe, what are you trying to do?

[drowsy flame]

booh

[brazen merlin]

Alright, sounded like it. Same class, different actors with different info

[raw karma]

YEah, that's actually hugely valuable for me to know!!! So thank you and @faint pasture ! Let me get to work on this and see if I can figure it out lol. Many thanks!

[drowsy flame]

im just animating a widget, I press a button and it slides up, also moving a camera component at the same time

[faint pasture]

Use a timeline. You want constant time, not constant frame count

[drowsy flame]

the curve timeline gives makes it easier to make the pop effect

[faint pasture]

Do you want it to take half as long at 120fps as at 60?

[brazen merlin]

Sure thing, but a correction to my suggestion is to use an array of that class instead of int. Since they are all the same class you can find more specific info

[raw karma]

Brilliant! Noted, array it is! Time to dig in

[drowsy flame]

do you mean timer?

[faint pasture]

Use a map of ints(PageNumber) to bools (page turned in). Evaluate map each time a page is turned in. When all bools are true you win.

[faint pasture]

No, a timeline with 2 vector tracks will do what you need.

One track for camera movement. The other for widget movement.

A timeline is basically an animation for values

[drowsy flame]

no, idc really, but the problem arises when i press the button again, it should go back into the previous position, but because sometimes my framerate differs it goes more or less back than forwards

[faint pasture]

That's a logic problem.

Store base position, timeline is additive.

[drowsy flame]

hm yeah im actually updating camera component not with a timeline i just stuck it after update

ur right thanks a lot

[unreal wing]

Hey Everyone! Had a question, is there anyway to increase the player's air control past 1? Or make it seem like the players control is higher while in the air? Im working on a gliding mechanic and in the air it moves generally well, I was just curious if anyone knows if there is a way to boost the air control of a player past 1, or at least make it feel that way. Thanks!

[prisma stag]

Hello, small issue. I have it so that there is a name array on my ai and what happens is a random thing is pulled from an array the ai is interacting with and adds it to its own array.

Then at the end just before the ai is despawned, it lists the items in the array. However, the items in the array at the end, dont match up to what was adding previously.

[cerulean mauve]

Hello guys, I have a modular character with a mesh component and 4 more sub mesh components. Every time I try to get the skeletal mesh of any of the sub components, it return the skeletal mesh of the parent, do you know how to get the right skeletal mesh based on the component?

I'm thinking I can have a map to keep those values but I don't like that idea since I already have the components there

[unreal quail]

when it's at 1 you move at your regular speed so you can modify the maximum speed to go faster

[unreal quail]

can't you simply drag and drop the component to the bp editor and then from the component do get mesh?

[cerulean mauve]

that's exactly what I'am doing

[unreal quail]

can you send screenshots perhaps?

[cerulean mauve]

sure, one sec

[brazen merlin]

that should give enough control that their movement speed is close to when they're on the ground. With 1 in air control, it should be possible to jump off a platform, move forward, then turn around and return to the original jump location.

[cerulean mauve]

I made it work using a map, I'm using replication and the components are not replicated, maybe that's the problem

the problem was also, when you set a mesh to none, it fails the execution with no error or nothing, it just doesn't conitnue

[quick lance]

I'm using a bunch of sphere traces for melee weapon collision - doing a trace every frame between the last position and the current position. I want to use physical animation to have enemy reactions based on where they were hit. Is that possible with the traces? I can't seem to get a hit bone out of the trace.

[brazen merlin]

the melee system i have uses a capsule collider around the weapon. I use anim notify states to turn it off and on. Capsule colliders performs sweeps so fast attacks still register

that will give you impact locations

[quick lance]

yeah I had originally had it like that, but was looking for more precise hit locations.

[spice lynx]

Capsule colliders can be very precise if you want to put in the work for granularity

[quick lance]

Yeah I mean if you manually spawn them at intervals along your weapon or whatever, but at that point why not just use a sphere trace?

is the answer only "because it sweeps and sphere trace doesn't"?

[spice lynx]

Why would you spawn them along your weapon at intervals?

you just have them on the wapon

[quick lance]

If you only have 1 collider on your weapon, you don't know what part of your weapon hit, you only know that your weapon hit

[spice lynx]

You have multiple colliders on the weapon if you need that sort of granularity

it's much faster to do and get it right

[quick lance]

How is it faster?

I guess for one character its faster

[lucid lynx]

Is there a GetAllActorsOfClass that includes child actors? So if I search for a parent I get the parent and all children.

[brazen merlin]

If you really want such specific precision you should check Ramas weapon trace plugin

[quick lance]

I already have the precision, I just need to know if there's a way to get a hit bone out of a trace.

[lucid lynx]

https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/did-it-hit-plugin

I use that plugin for my weapon traces.

[quick lance]

does it support physical animation?

[lucid lynx]

I'm not sure what you mean by physical animation.

[brazen merlin]

https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/72129/how-to-determine-which-bone-we-hit.html - yes?

[quick lance]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/AnimatingObjects/SkeletalMeshAnimation/PhysicallyDrivenAnimation/

[lucid lynx]

Ah, yes. It should work fine for that. You set up the plugin by attaching sockets to your skeleton and it performs traces based on the socket locations over however many frames you want. You toggle it on and off yourself when you want to perform a sweep.

[brazen merlin]

You probably just need to change the collision channel of the capsule collider so you can detect hit bones

[lucid lynx]

The plugin I linked uses traces so the hit result includes the bone name.

[quick lance]

as usual, the problem was PEBKAC

I did end up needing to set the character capsule collision to ignore pawn so that my traces would hit the actual mesh instead of the capsule.

[brazen merlin]

too smart for your own good

[prisma stag]

Hello, I am adding items to an array randomly from another array, however at the end when I printed the elements in the main array where items are being added to, the items are not the same as what was added.

Here is when the elements from one array are being added to the ai's array.

And this is just at the end that prints all the elements in the array.

The object reference for the CustomerAI casts are both going to an Receive Execite Ai (Controlled Pawn)

[faint badge]

Pure nodes (the ones without the white execution line) get executed once per connection to it so the value in the print and the add will be two different values

You're effectively getting a random item, adding it to the array and then getting a new random item and printing it

[prisma stag]

🤦‍♂️

Whoops.

[faint badge]

Hah, it catches everyone at some point sadly

[prisma stag]

So the second loop I screenshotted is the actual elements in the array?

[faint badge]

Yep. Those will be your actual elements, just not the same ones you printed earlier

you can either have a local variable after the variable to cache the value and then use that for both the add and the print. Or you could do a get from you array after you add it using the index it returns and print that value

[prisma stag]

I was just doing it for testing. I really just need to know the amount in the array at the end which I can do. Sorry about that.

[umbral ginkgo]

What node do I use to check if a variable is true

[brazen merlin]

isEqual

[umbral ginkgo]

How do you get input from a trigger in a blueprint other than the level blueprint?

[dim robin]

in terms of performances is there any difference between populating the scene through the construction script and manually adding things around?

[dawn gazelle]

You could use this node and tag your specific trigger box with a specific tag. Basic but it should work.

[umbral ginkgo]

could I link the rest of my code to the output after doing this and it'd work?

[dawn gazelle]

Only thing I can think of is that the construction script is executed every time you move something around, so depending on the complexity of your construction script, it could be very slow to move around the actor as it recalculates everything.

[dawn gazelle]

it should, yes. Just don't run this get all actors of class with tag on tick or anything... It's not the most performant thing to be running constantly.

[umbral ginkgo]

This is a dumb question but how do you add tags?

[dawn gazelle]

This is visible on the details tab.

[umbral ginkgo]

oh im dumb thanks

[gilded maple]

Creating an ios face app similar to the epic livelink one. Cant seem to get the ARKitFaceMesh to move with the location of the performer, will only inherit rotation.. anyone know the setting that i should be using?

[sonic crow]

If I spawn an object inside of my character (same location), how do i make it that the item i have spawned does no have an active collision system until my character leaves the collision area of the spawned object and then activates, preventing my character from walking into it thereafter?

[brazen merlin]

you'd need to check the spawn location before spawning it and make sure it is open for it to spawn

[sonic crow]

Currently when i include a collision capsule (by default there is one on my character) and then I add one to my object, the spawned object spawns half way in the ground. I would prefer to have a collision capsule on my object and use an if else statement to make sure it is deactivated when spawned and only activated when the players collision capsule has left the radius of the object mesh or collision capsule

[brazen merlin]

you would still need to know when this area is free. Spawn Actor can always try to spawn it, but what you want is to only spawn it when the area is clear. You'd need to run an overlap check for when the player has left this area or entered to, to set the flag on the bp which spawns this object (which could be the same bp)

[sonic crow]

ty i will play around with this info

[spark steppe]

you can also disable collision for certain actors

so your item could ignore the player collision but collide with everything else

[burnt trench]

where do I ask for help in case of audio in my project?

[sharp rapids]

#audio

[sharp rapids]

Is it ok to use Data Assets for Runtime Manipulation?
I have a function in an Data Asset where an actor is being passed in and an Interface event is called on that actor
It works, but I'm not sure whether to use it or not
I read somewhere that data assets shouldn't be used for runtime manipulation 🤷‍♂️

[brazen merlin]

"I have it somewhere in the back of my head that you never should set a DataAsset value as I believe that they are not instanced at all, if you, for example, use one DA_ in two different BP’s, set one of the values in runtime, and then read the information from both BP’s you’d get the same value from both of them." https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/data-assets/139952

I also recall something of the sort, that DA are much like structs, in that it's best not to change them at runtime, just access them

[sharp rapids]

@brazen merlin I'm not changing any values
I'm calling a function in the data asset which calls interface func on an actor.

[brazen merlin]

ah ok, got confused by "for Runtime Manipulation", can't speak too much more on them

[west schooner]

Is there a way to find out which Blueprint functions got called from a crash dump? I can only see the C++ virtual function calls for the Blueprint functions but I can't see the actual names of the Blueprint functions that are called.

[icy dragon]

Unfortunately no. Crash handlers can't blame the BPs.

[quaint portal]

hi, I'm trying to create a system that allows the 2D player "bend around" 3d objects. right now it's very primitive looking and I don't know how to make it smoother. I want the character to kind of warp around the corner as he walks to the other side. how can I do this? https://gyazo.com/7b055519e4eef03129134f1f1759fc24

[west schooner]

Thanks

[quaint portal]

thanks, I'll try it out!

[plucky harness]

if i have a bunch of different weapon static meshes and they are randomly assigned on spawn to characters, how do i make sure they are added to sockets with correct position and rotation without creating separate socket for each type?

[earnest tangle]

It would probably make sense to create actors to represent them so you can give them a root component which has a static mesh child

This way you can just attach it to the socket, and since you can separately orient and position the child static mesh, you can use that in the actor to control it

Otherwise you would need to somehow store a position and rotation for each of the mesh which would need to be applied once the assignment is done

[plucky harness]

ty, figured something like this might be the case, thought maybe there is an easier option

[earnest tangle]

I suppose you could also try orienting the model in your 3d editor to the proper angle/position

But that would most likely make it kind of awkward to use for any other purpose

[fringe mauve]

Hey I'm a student working on a school project and I'm currently getting stuck on trying to make a predicted path visual for the base gun in the first person template. My question is if someone can guide me the correct way.

got it to work but i think this indication line will not show up since its a debug line right?

If i were to build the project that is

[remote obsidian]

Hi all, does anyone know of a way to add my own callbacks to blueprint functions? Would I need to create the function node in C++ to have any chance of getting this to work?

Or are there any methods people have had success with without needing to have dispatchers and multi-functions all over the place

[dark crow]

Probs C++ using a dynamic delegate

[earnest tangle]

There's some janky methods of adding delegate pins in BP's

There's a few nodes where if you drag a line into it, it'll create the pin for it. This way you can create a delegate pin

but as said it's kinda hacky. C++ can do it quite easily

[delicate scroll]

Is it possible to add an item to a 'set' in game? It seems like there should be because of the 'add' blueprint for sets, but it's not working and the documentation says that it's not possible after it's created

[earnest tangle]

@trim matrix I have managed to get it if you first place down a node with a delegate pin, then drag from that pin into for example the function declaration node, or the return node, because those two nodes usually automatically create a new pin of the type of thing you drag into it

it's probably not exactly a good method to use because it seems like it could easily disappear in a future release but yeah... :D

[faint condor]

You can still use an event dispatcher right?

[remote obsidian]

I've managed to hook it up with a couple of standard functions in a single place for now to make the initial function call easier, luckily it's not that complicated, would be great to be able to add callbacks to functions as standard tho

[faint condor]

You can use event dispatchers if thats what you looking for

you can also add params

[earnest tangle]

If you wanted a callback in a function it's probably best to do it in C++ tbh. All it needs there is a dynamic delegate which you then set as a parameter into the function and that's it

[remote obsidian]

Yeah the use case would be a bit untidy with event dispatchers here though, I've used the "create event" node to hook up my "request" function with a "request returned" function

I'll definitely look into it in future but for now I've got a fairly tidy solution

[faint condor]

It works just like delegates if its not a delegate in the first place
you bind an event with params if you want and when the event is done (later)
it will broadcast to your custom event when ever its ready

you dont wait for the action to happen

[odd ember]

whaat, the red rectangles are everywhere. you can even do a select node into red rectangles!

[west schooner]

Thanks for the hint! Do you know where I could start if I wanted to do this from a build

[odd ember]

tbh I wish we could have them as variables

[faint pasture]

BP sets are immutable. Any particular reason you're using a Set?

[brazen merlin]

i dont believe so, that looks like a debug sphere. But you can just change it to spawn normal spheres with a timer to delete them. Looks like there are green and red, so you'd also need two simple materials.

[lime ridge]

I am experimenting with HTTPHelper and I am trying to get this node to call in editor using an editor utility actor. Are there any flags I can enable that would make this possible? It works correctly in game mode, but ideally I would like this to run in editor!

[left fulcrum]

I have a multiplayer project going and want the body to drop when the player dies but I dont want the player to be able to kick around bodies, how do you do this cause if I make it so it doesnt collide the body goes right through the floor

This is what I have currently and it all works but the players can just fling around dead bodies, its funny lol but not what I want

[twilit heath]

turn off collisions and gravity

[left fulcrum]

but then the body just sinks right through floor again

[faint pasture]

@left fulcrum what do you want to have happen when a live player tries to walk through a dead players body?

[left fulcrum]

I was hoping for just no collision, I am going to have them despawn after a short bit but I didnt want them freaking out while they are still there

I dont want the player to collide with them but I need the collision for the ground

[faint pasture]

Just make sure that the ragdoll does not block Pawn channel or whatever channel your character is capsule has

[atomic salmon]

You can cache the ragdoll pose to an animation pose, apply it and turn off the collisions

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/AnimatingObjects/SkeletalMeshAnimation/PoseSnapshot/

[left fulcrum]

I got it, I was close but I had changed the mesh to physics body instead of pawn so it wasnt ignoring it

[maiden wadi]

Why can't you just set it to a channel that the floor blocks and the player doesn't?

[left fulcrum]

I guess I could, I kinda wanna play around with it cause now the characters can walk through eachother when they are alive

[faint pasture]

A character has a capsule and a mesh. Just have the mesh not block capsule and leave it as is. It'll respond to everything except for other characters capsules. Also have the mesh not block mesh so when they walk through, their mesh doesn't hit the ragdoll

So basically rag dolls do not respond to rag dolls or capsules. And there you go, they will experience physics but they won't respond to characters

[heavy ibex]

My breakpoints keep disabling if the project closes/re-opens. Any way to prevent that?

[civic herald]

Anyone know what would cause "Shared Data Cahce not in use, performance is impacted" and your level's then have to do a large shader compile every time you start it up.

[hexed inlet]

Can I just get a confirm

So I can return a TArray from a C++ function to a blueprint

But not a TQueue

... I need to replace this keyboard 😦