blueprint

[fossil skiff]

so i set up a move to the closest actor using these codes
but how do i set it so that it ignores that actor with a certain tag?

[worthy rock]

15.0f, 0.0f, 37.654671f

[gentle urchin]

Your timeline starts at 0,

So at the very list it will instantly jump

Its also hard to tell when you're actually interacting with it

[worthy rock]

True...

[gentle urchin]

But it does appear to be a fixed float value, yes

[last abyss]

actor has tag node

[fossil skiff]

just to be clear i want to ignore the actor that has the tag not stop the code completely

[last abyss]

it returns a boolean that u can put in a branch, from there on its all up to you

and u do this before ofcourse, on the actor you're trying to ignore, to make sure that actor actually has the tag.. assuming it's per object

[fossil skiff]

oh yea i already made sure the actor has that lol

@last abyss mate thanks so much it works wonders now

[last abyss]

great to hear 🙂

[fossil skiff]

You my friend are a lifesaver. this gave me a heacache for 8 hours lol

[bleak arrow]

I moved the maps, blueprints folders to the content folder, scored the game and gives an error how to fix it?

Standard TPS from unreal technologies

Please help me solve the problem , I didn 't find it in Google

[haughty nymph]

Hi, I want to use a "Random Array Item from Stream" node but i dont can find it.

I use 4.23

[maiden wadi]

RandomArray item functions were added in 4.26 I think. Just use the stream to get a random integer in range of the array size.

[gentle urchin]

Just make your own ^ as authaer said

Random int is aleady max-1 right? So using length should suffice if so

Nvm, its inclusive

So last would do the trick. Or length -1

[left carbon]

Hi! I'm trying to get component's location in Construction Script. But it always outputs it's default location. If I move component in viewport of a level editor, it will still output it's original relative location.

Does anybody know, how can I get component's true location in construction script?

[mild flame]

Is there a straightforward explanation on how to use the ThirdPerson template with multiple Skeletal Meshes that also have individual clothing meshes that can be swapped out? I have 2 Skeletal mesh, one male and one female, each with their own clothing options. Right now both have their own AnimBP but the only way I have found to apply clothes is in the ThirdPersonCharacter BP, which is at a high level and not unique to the two Skeletal Mesh. I have an ActorBP for each that sets their clothes in constructor when they aren't the active player, but I cannot set the ActorBP on the ThirdPersonCharacter, only their Skeletal Mesh. I want the option of playing as either character, programatically, so need to swap both the skeletal mesh and their clothing options at runtime. I'm very new at UE so not sure where to start other than the stack of udemy courses I bought to start going through this weekend.

[gentle urchin]

Isnt it just a bunch of skeletal meshes that needs to be swapped out, and set to follow the master anim pose ?

[tender cedar]

can some one please help me?

[odd ember]

structs are always copies in BP

[trim matrix]

Guys can anyone explain how net cull update frequency work??.I am spawning guns on server.When I am far away they are not getting spawned but when I go near them they are getting spawned which is fine.But if I went far again they are getting disappeared again??.what is this mean??

[maiden wadi]

@left carbon I can't repro that. Little white cube is the place where the ConstructionLocation is.

[mild flame]

I have different animations for idle, walk, run, etc for male vs female

[left carbon]

Does not work for me 😦 I had to use EditorCustomEvent to update the location..

[odd ember]

you probably want to have the clothes committed to the mesh before setting it in the TP character. that being said, if you're new this is a massive undertaking

if you're drawing cars you can't expect your first car to look like a Ferrari

[mild flame]

I could have multiple meshes and assign the anim BP and mesh at runtime but figured it would be easier to maintain with a single mesh for the base character. I come from OOP so maybe it’s more complicated than that if there’s not an easy way

[gentle urchin]

Animations arent relevant for anything but the main skel as long as the clothing uses the same skel i believe

Not a master of this tho so i could be 100% wrong.

[maiden wadi]

@mild flame I would strong recommend checking out the Modular Characters examples. They seem relatively akin to what you're trying to accomplish?

[gentle urchin]

Done it once or twice that way and it worked pretty well

[mild flame]

Yeah the clothes are all from the same skeleton

[gentle urchin]

So all you need is for them to follow master anim pose

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

[mild flame]

Thanks, I’ve seen that a few times. Wasn’t sure if it follows the pattern of two different skeletons for male vs female. I’ll dig in a bit

The skeletons have different hierarchy

[maiden wadi]

Yeah. That's gonna be no fun.

[odd ember]

then they are different. but in the case of assigning them to the character it doesn't make a difference. the only difference is really the clothes and the animBP

the clothes assigning and retargeting I don't know. I'd ask in #graphics about that

or maybe #animation

[mild flame]

Thanks for the help! I’ll do some more learning and better phrase my issue to them

I’ve already got the characters set up and playable with their own skeletons and animations on the same project, it’s mainly the clothes I’m trying to solve for.

Would be straightforward if I could assign a character BP to the player character vs just the mesh

[odd ember]

I don't think there's anything you can do BP side to fix your clothes issue

if you're not talking about the clothes issue I'm not sure what you're asking

[mild flame]

On instantiating my character BP I am assigning clothes but looks like there’s no way to set that BP to the third person BP

It’s an abstraction level that I was looking for but I guess it’s not possible

[odd ember]

you can always subclass it if that's what you're looking for?

[mild flame]

The third person only accepts a mesh vs an object that contains the mesh is what I’m getting at

I’ll do some more research

I’m sure I’m going about it wrong 🙂

[odd ember]

you can subclass a character to do what you want to do

which is probably what this refers to

I have no idea. it seems like multiple issues rolled into one

[mild flame]

I see what you are saying and yes multiple issues. The thing that is causing the main problem is two different sets of bones.

The clothes fit to their specific skeletons. I was adding the clothes during construction of the BP. Perhaps there’s another way if I can swap the skeletal mesh at runtime on the player and then add the clothes

I was using the set master pose to add the clothes

[odd ember]

then... What is the problem?

[mild flame]

Probably my initial approach.

[odd ember]

if you already have ways setting the clothes and mesh in BP and you can subclass a character class per skeleton to use as default... I don't really see what else you need?

[mild flame]

I'll go down that route

[odd ember]

some basic polymorphism here, since you've done OOP

[mild flame]

yeah I was hung up on the editor and setting it manually. I'll take a step back

[opal pulsar]

hello, im having a performance issue where a stat on the gpu called "HZB" is absolutely destroying my framerate, what is it and how can i avoid this?

if context is needed, im running unreal 4.27.2, in a procedurally generated scene with ten thousand actors and dynamic lighting

[odd ember]

sounds like this is your issue

[icy dragon]

10K dynamic lighting as well?

[opal pulsar]

what do you mean?

[odd ember]

they're asking if you have 10k dynamic lights, I think

[opal pulsar]

oh

no, i do not

i only have a directional light

[icy dragon]

Would be batshit insane if there's 10K dynamic light sources with shadow casting.

[opal pulsar]

yeah xD

[icy dragon]

So that left us with those 10K actors, and more context needed for this one.

[odd ember]

I don't know what HZB is though. perhaps there are better channels to ask about that

[opal pulsar]

alright

thanks for the help c:

[supple dome]

hzb culling is using depth to cull actors

you can type hzb on console to try and turn it off and compare

[maiden wadi]

Hierarchical Z-Buffer.

[supple dome]

of course that will decrease culled actors, but you may try another culling options

[maiden wadi]

It's worth asking. What Engine version?

[supple dome]

4.27.2

although, afaik, hzb culling is the fastest for many actors

[odd ember]

sounds like too many actors on screen

[maiden wadi]

There are some interesting posts about ARK and DirectX10. Disabling that causing massive FPS increases.

[odd ember]

ARK is what?

[maiden wadi]

Game developed in Unreal.

[odd ember]

oh you mean disabling DirectX 10?

I thought it was some engine feature I hadn't heard of lol

[maiden wadi]

You can run the game with the DX10 command line. Kills a lot of the graphic quality. They shipped the game with Development build. So it's missing a ton of Shipping build optimizations. So people on lower end machines can get better FPS running DX10 instead of 11. Apparently disabling the r.HZBOcclusion setting when running the game in DX10 increases FPS by up to 30 sometimes.

Ark was also developed on an older version of Unreal. Don't remember which offhand. And there are some bug reports fixed around that setting in 4.17 and 4.18

I really hope they learned how to use SoftObjectPtrs for ARK 2. Six minute loading screens on a SSD is just stupid.

[odd ember]

yikes

[formal wren]

Hi guys! How would I implement a loading animation playing for moments where my game freezes due to assets being loaded? I import textures at runtime and find it a little unpleasant that the game just freezes for two seconds with no indicator on what is happening

[maiden wadi]

@formal wren By Assets loading, you mean an Open Level call, or you're actually loading up assets?

[formal wren]

@maiden wadi I use a plugin to import textures from disk at runtime

[opal pulsar]

update: i ran r.HZBOcclusion 1 in the console and now the actors culled are a lot less, but FPS tripled

[formal wren]

so it's not a open level call

[maiden wadi]

Oof. And that plugin doesn't do that Async?

[odd ember]

You should probably check the API of that plugin then

[formal wren]

I did. It has the option to load files async. But I was wondering if there would be another solution

[icy dragon]

Maybe increasing the stream time in project settings could help?

[maiden wadi]

If you load them blocking. You block the gamethread. You can look into using the MoviePlayer to display a spinning widget while that's happening, but realistically you're better off just loading Async and handling the waiting display on the gamethread. MoviePlayer also requires C++

[odd ember]

if there are delegates exposed you could do it in BP

that's why I said check the API

[icy dragon]

Out of curiousity, how do I implement it?

[maiden wadi]

The MoviePlayer?

[icy dragon]

Yeah, what cpp class should I start it with?

Also I have massive gripe with asset loading in C++, and the Widget BP has to be referenced somehow, can it be side loaded to BP?

[maiden wadi]

@icy dragonAdd "MoviePlayer" to your PublicDependencyModuleNames in Build.CS. Then you can make the call anywhere. Some people do this in a plugin, I did it straight in my HUD base class.

Mine is a little more convoluted because I have my widget make the end PlayMovie call when it finishes a GameThread side animation.

Start Loading Screen

FLoadingScreenAttributes LoadingScreenAttributes;
LoadingScreenAttributes.bAutoCompleteWhenLoadingCompletes = true;
LoadingScreenAttributes.bWaitForManualStop = false;
LoadingScreenAttributes.bAllowEngineTick = false;
LoadingScreenAttributes.WidgetLoadingScreen = LoadingScreenWidgetPtr->TakeWidget();

GetMoviePlayer()->SetupLoadingScreen(LoadingScreenAttributes);
GetMoviePlayer()->PlayMovie();

Stop Loading Screen

GetMoviePlayer()->StopMovie();

You can make both of these BlueprintCallable static functions as well and pass in the LoadingScreenWidgetPtr.

Also to make like easier, you can also bind to the engine's delegates for starting and finishing loading a persistent world and call these.

The widget passed in can be completely UMG designed. No Slate required. Mine has a circular throbber and two material animated images for a background. All play just fine.

[tender cedar]

Please help! I want this key on overlap to set a door's unlocked variable to true. What target do I use for the Blueprint interface (got key)?

[trim matrix]

hi, how can i spawn a random class from array of Ai?

i can get the array, pass the lenght on random integer in range and then maybe use select?

but if i change the pin type of the select node it change to all of them

[last abyss]

there's a random function on the array

[trim matrix]

thx in this case i should go before the remove right? like this

but not working this way

aiarray

[last abyss]

well.. if you wanna use the array to spawn a specific ai class you should probably use class references for the array not object references

[trim matrix]

ok i converted the array to class references, but the node spawn ai from call it want "pawn class"

sorry for noobie questions

i'm new

if i try to connect the class output array to that it isn't valid

[last abyss]

then make a variable of type pawn, and set it to your random output from the array

or rather, make the array of pawn class

[trim matrix]

much thanks i convertd the array to pawn class and it worked, i tough it was not possible to point pawn to the ai character class

[last abyss]

i'm unsure what you are doing, maybe instead of using different classes you can use 1 class for both the door and the key, and move the key in the level (assuming you know how to do this ofcourse) or would this not work for your case? then when you pick up the key you can just set the bool on the same class, since the door and key share the same one

yeah, as long as the ai class inherits from pawn it will work and since yours appear to be character, character inherits from pawn so it works. a useful tip to see all inheritances is I just create a new blueprint and search the class I'm trying to find like so:

[trim matrix]

perfect , all clear 🙂

[odd ember]

interesting, I just use a widget loading screen, from the old wiki method

have you seen that, and if so how you find it compares?

[maiden wadi]

The adding a widget to screen right before load and removing it after?

[odd ember]

something like that

[maiden wadi]

Does yours use the persistent world thing and level stream method?

[odd ember]

I use seamless travel

this is for hard loads, to be clear

[maiden wadi]

Yeah, this method is to avoid that. Allows displaying widgets with moving materials and Widget OnPaint without a travel map. GameThread is entirely blocked.

[odd ember]

I see. how come you'd want to avoid it?

[maiden wadi]

Dunno. No good excuse. Just prefer the OpenLevel method.

[odd ember]

fair enough

I thought there'd be some sort of efficiency involved

not that I use hard load enough to justify a change

[maiden wadi]

Dunno. I haven't ever profiled it personally. I use the MoviePlayer already for cinematics and stuff.

[odd ember]

makes sense

[crimson hornet]

Anyone has an idea why this event dispatcher is called immediately?

[native willow]

its called from somewhere 🤷‍♂️

[maiden wadi]

Where do you call it from?

[crimson hornet]

From the an AI BP

when he is dead the event dispatcher will get called

[odd ember]

breakpoint on the call and see when it triggers

[crimson hornet]

This is in the level bp

[odd ember]

that has no relevance

you need to look for where it is called

and breakpoint it

[crimson hornet]

I checked it and it wont get called

[odd ember]

checked how

[crimson hornet]

If I remove the call death dispacther it still got called

[odd ember]

okay so something else is calling it

[maiden wadi]

Getting called from somewhere else. Or you've accidentally called the event you bound it too manually.

[crimson hornet]

It isnt getting called somewhere else

thats my main problem

[odd ember]

it has to be lol

it's not going to invoke itself

just randomly

that's not how computers work

[crimson hornet]

I checked it with find results

[odd ember]

click the binoculars

[crimson hornet]

couldnt find it

[odd ember]

find results is only local unless you click the binoculars

[crimson hornet]

Sorry I dont know where that is

[crimson hornet]

oh thanks

Yes its only getting called from where he dies

[obtuse lotus]

How would I do an If And statement in blueprint?

[odd ember]

branch

[odd ember]

try deleting the event dispatcher

and see where you get errors

[crimson hornet]

No errors only from the level bp where the bind is also made a new one and is still getting called immidiately

ill make a vid

[odd ember]

sure

[crimson hornet]

and even if I remove this call from here it is still getting called

[odd ember]

it's getting called repeatedly

so something is triggering it, probably on tick

[crimson hornet]

How?

Those repeatedly AAAAAAAAAAA are there because of the timeline

[maiden wadi]

If the Event Dispatcher isn't calling it. Something else probably is.

[odd ember]

yeah

the point still stands that something else is calling it

[maiden wadi]

I'd start by renaming that function something obscure and using FindInBlueprints or something.

[crimson hornet]

Didn't work

[maiden wadi]

If you disconnect the red line, does the event run?

[odd ember]

good point

[crimson hornet]

Okay Thanks I got the problem

Problem was that the event dispatcher wasn't getting fired the event was getting fired somewhere else

kinda stupid of me

Thanks @maiden wadi and @odd ember

[maiden wadi]

Movement on tick is your only decent choice with that.

[ornate linden]

Are arrays passed by reference? Or no.

More particular, if I add an array i've generated to a struct, can I then clear the array and maintain that data in the struct?

[maiden wadi]

Only if you tell them to be.

[ornate linden]

so by default when i add the array to a struct it's a copy?

[odd ember]

yes

and struct are copies too

[ornate linden]

sweet

[ornate linden]

yeah i was having an issue with that earlier. i could pass them by reference into a function, but i couldn't find a struct within a function and return it. Ended up making a macro for the second case

[odd ember]

I think it's more salty but I digress

[maiden wadi]

There are some small tricks to handling struct data and arrays by ref, but they're annoying to use sometimes. By the time you start handling heavy data, even C++ static libraries are so much nicer.

[odd ember]

I really try my damnedest to only write struct data in datatables and cpp

because doing them in BP is a royal pain

[ornate linden]

yeah some of my structs are getting bigger and im like, i should probably be doing this in cpp, but i haven't done that at all yet and i'll have to learn how to even open the file to edit let alone anything else that needs to be done

[maiden wadi]

Inventory systems are originally what drove me to learning C++. 😄 That shit gets complicated, fast.

[odd ember]

I use a wrapper in my AI director to assign roles to individual AI

it's a struct in the end but I mask it with a BP function

so there's no struct on the side of BP

[ornate linden]

so you define the struct in cpp and then it just shows up in the menu of usable types in your bps?

[odd ember]

I define the struct in cpp and then make a function exposed to BP for how to create one such struct

[maiden wadi]

It's also worth noting that if you ever plan to use C++. The best time is now. At the very least learn to define your structs even if you're using them in BP so that you don't have to redo it later, you can just copy basic logic over.

[odd ember]

it's not that different from making a struct in BP, but it removes any kind of ambiguity

[keen ice]

i need help. so im trying to make a system where the players animation will change depending on what type of weapon in their hand. so i want the idle, attack, and movment animations to change depending on if like they have a one handed weapon or a 2 handed weapon. i already know how to detect the type of weapon in the players hand for my inventory system with enums. I just dont know how to actually change the animation. And also have it be replicated. thanks for your help

[odd ember]

well the best time is yesterday 😉

[odd ember]

I believe #animation and #multiplayer are places you can ask each of those questions

[devout kelp]

i'm trying to make a 'holding scene' of sorts for a program i use for streaming, that basically takes up as little processing power as possible, with just a button to load my BRB game scene. However, my initial setup for doing this takes up like 80% of my gpu for what is literally an empty scene with a single button widget. anyone know how to do something like this?

[tired geyser]

Do you have any tips on learning cpp?

[odd ember]

do you have any prior programming experience

[tired geyser]

In school for programming rn so. Got some knowledge on python. That’s about it.

[maiden wadi]

@odd ember

FDateTime ATarrionPlayerCharacter::GetBestTime()
{
    return HasControlOfTime() ? FDateTime::Now() - FTimespan(1,0,0,0) : FDateTime::Now();
}

bool ATarrionPlayerCharacter::HasControlOfTime()
{
    return false;
}

I didn't know until just now that Timespan and DateTime are interchangable. 😄

[odd ember]

I like it

[odd ember]

do yourself a favor and look into system architecture, specifically OOP, class hierarchies and polymorphism. pointers and memory management are somewhat important, but UE's cpp gives you training wheels so you can skirt around the more difficult stuff

visit #cpp on the regular

ask stupid questions

be humbled

get better

rinse repeat

[tired geyser]

Alr, will do. Thank you.

[maiden wadi]

@tired geyser That's a very personal question in the end. I had a very non academic approach. Hobbyist and all at first. I personally knew a small amount of Lua from like a decade ago. Vague amounts of VBScript and PHP when I was learning ASP.NET stuff. I find learning easiest when I'm interested in something. BP was an easy start, had no idea what a pointer was, had to relearn basic vector math, the word delegate made me cringe.

I only picked up C++ because I got tired of trying to do heavy things in BP. Handling sorting, math functions and whatnot in BP can be a royal pain and it's nice to condense it down to one node. Not to mention it was becoming clear that Nativization was going to be a waste of time. Too many errors and not nearly enough performance gain for some things.

As for how. I did that with some static C++ BP library functions for a while that I could call where ever. Eventually learned how to subclass C++ classes and do base logic in them that BP could call, or call BP functions from C++ code. Funny, after that I learned how to use delegates in BP.

All in all, I found that BP helped me understand the architecture of Unreal a lot easier. It has kind of an implied intentional way that Unreal is designed to be used and it only really makes sense once you know it and start applying C++ and BP together. C++ is fantastic, but you'll miss a lot of the engine with it if you're not careful. There are people in the C++ channel that ask for things that basic Blueprint static nodes give because they avoid BP and anything connected to it and don't bother using it as a learning tool.

So... TLDR:: I guess get interested in things you want to create and research how to do it. Feel free to ask questions here in #blueprint or #cpp. Follow conversations in progress, you never know what you'll pick up.

AND DO NOT HOTRELOAD

[worthy rock]

My tip on learning cpp is dont start with cpp. N64 decomp projects may be a good start. C is simpler and it's not OOP. So you can get a bigger picture of how things work together. SM64 is nearly fully documented too. So you can have a deep dive into how the framebuffer works and see it run in memory. Where game logic splits off of main.c. View the math functions, etc. UE does a lot of stuff for you, which is good but then you dont get a basic understanding of the why/how.

Can you explain the dont hot reload? Or is that just cause some elements dont reload properly?

[maiden wadi]

HotReloading can cause BP corruptions.

http://hotreloadsucks.com/

[worthy rock]

Thx. Is hot reloading actually deprecated? The engine didnt mention anything of the sort.

You probably just saved me hours of future headaches lol.

[zealous fog]

This is driving me insane, Whenever I click and the event hits, this will print the correct location once. But then every tick it will print the default value (0,0,0 in this case but I tested it with different values)

Why is it resetting?

This is all the BP logic btw lol

So Im not setting it to 0 again somewhere else

[tight schooner]

Delay node on an event tick is pretty weird (look into Set Timer node) but putting that aside... Try putting a print on the other event to see how often it's getting called

[zealous fog]

Its just there so it would spam the screen

I would just have it on tick normally

in the function I wanna use it for

[tight schooner]

I'm struggling to think of scenarios where a variable would get reset for no reason. Maybe you're spawning multiple actors of this class and seeing their prints. Lol

Sorry I'm drawing a blank

[zealous fog]

ok im a big dum dum

gotta fix this bug but ill explain what went wrong after I did it

[ornate linden]

I have a function which can change the color and opacity of a material which im currently using. but now i want to change a material so that it has like an animation? where it moves between 0 and 1 opacity so it looks like its slowly flickering.

I've only done static things so far, so im not sure how to go about that. Is there some aspect of the material i can change that will make it animate like that? or do i need to have an outside function looping continously changing the opacity between values of 0 and 1?

[odd ember]

dynamic material instance

you can do both

or either

[ornate linden]

hmm. i'll see what i can find on dynamic material instances

[desert juniper]

I'd like players to be able to pick up most small items in the game
I'd also like to give those items some meta data like name, description, weight, value, etc
for all these items
should I expect a performance hit by turning them into BPs? or is there another way of attaching meta data to static meshes?

[desert juniper]

quick tip, you can change the actors tick interval

[maiden wadi]

@desert juniper You can create BP subclasses from an item. But that's unnecessary if you have all of the data and a key in a table. Then all you need to do is create a simple class that has a static mesh in it and have it set that static mesh from the datatable. Single class. You can drop it in level and set the instanceeditable variable.

I personally advise the datatable method. It's much easier to extend to hundreds of potential items with much less clutter in your project.

[desert juniper]

it's nice having the ability to drag and drop items from the content browser, but also see the benefit of just having a single BP class with a SM variable.

I do something similar for doors already, just change the static mesh on the main door BP

[maiden wadi]

It'd be largely the same. You also benefit from being able to address UI data in the same datatable with the same key.

[desert juniper]

plus I'm sure itd also be nice for bulk editing

[maiden wadi]

If you use GameplayTags, you can even make a list display a single category of tags that are used for this object.

Turns into a searchable list easy without having to refer to the table all the time.

[desert juniper]

okay, I think I'll go with that method. since these SMs just need data and no added functionality then I can probably also rule out data assets (and the clutter they'd also provide)

[desert juniper]

sorry I don't understand this completely
I am using gameplay tags though

[restive token]

is there any way to attach a cable component accurately?
instead of the awkward dangly thing that it does
it always looks like this

instead of connecting frontally and then dangling, like a real cable

[earnest tangle]

You can try tweaking the settings on it but it's a bit of a hit or miss, the cable component is not super great

The cable should point into the direction of the rotation given for it, but since it's not very rigid, it will do that

[white canyon]

I am getting a strange issue. The BeginPlay event in my PlayerController descended blueprint class never fires. Googling the issues points to some pretty old and confusing theads about needing to use GameStateBase as your game state class if you have overriden the game mode (which I have). But, as far as I can tell, I am already doing this. Does anyone know about this issue or what I should try to proceed?

[tired geyser]

Yeah, I’ve been learning blueprints for the past week. It’s fun, I want to learn cpp because it’s just so good and used throughout the gaming industry. But I just hate looking at lines of code, which is why I’ve been learning blueprints. I think I’m gonna get a understanding of unreal’s functions in blueprints then go to cpp later down the line.

[odd ember]

well if you want to become a programmer and you hate looking at lines of code

[desert juniper]

I hated looking and modifying html until I decided to get into web dev

I'm sure it's just the intimidation factor

looking at unreal's source code (read: documentation) is usually pretty intimidating

[spark steppe]

that's what i would recommend anyone starting with UE

get a feeling of how the engine works and handles things before diving deep into it

[desert juniper]

C++ is a notoriously hard language to learn if you've never done programming
Blueprints + learning programming principals is probably a really good start before diving into unreal++

[maiden wadi]

@desert juniper I don't know how to do that in BP. I remember it being possible. In C++ you just specify it in the meta data. For example if I put this GameplayTag on my actor here. All I will see is what is in this image.

UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadOnly, EditDefaultsOnly, Meta=(Categories="MyTagBase.TagCategory"))
FGameplayTag MyDefiningTag;

[odd ember]

like said before, UE4's cpp isn't as hard as pure cpp

[odd ember]

it's intentionally made easy to curb user errors

[spark steppe]

yea because most likely you don't have to work with "raw" memory access

[thorn trellis]

If anyone knows the appropriate way to link up HMD orientation to ControlRotation, it'd be greatly appreciated

[odd ember]

you don't, and for good reason

[odd ember]

this is interesting. is there any chance whatsoever that this is something that could be adopted by FNames?

[maiden wadi]

@white canyon GameModeBase = GameStateBase
GameMode = GameState

Make sure these are correct. Do not have a GameMode that inherits from GameMode, and then a GameState that is or inherits from GameStateBase.

Also double check that you have called Super:: in any C++ controller base classes for beginplay.

[white canyon]

Thanks. Found my mistake - I did not call Super::StartPlay() from my overriden game mode

[maiden wadi]

It's possible, maybe. I just started learning about the TFieldIterator. I imagine there might be a way to override how the engine's slate shows FNames based on if an FName field has a specific Meta tag.

[desert juniper]

ah interesting. thanks for the example
my item class base is a cpp class so definitely don't mind integrating more cpp with it
(or making a new class as you mentioned specifically for non functional static meshes)

[odd ember]

if you do find something along that vein I am very interested

especially if it's possible to port that kind of a UI over to a function node

[maiden wadi]

That'd be tough I think. I'm pretty sure the reason that FGameplayTag gets it is mostly because it's all defined in an ini file. Haven't looked deep enough into FNames to know how they're handled or if you could possibly save them in a file somewhere for editor lookup like that.

[odd ember]

I know the functionality exists because the GetTableRowData allows for it once you have a specific data table selected, for the names

but porting that as well is a bit above my ability

[maiden wadi]

Hmm. That's fair. I mean it probably just pulls the names from the table to display. I wonder how.

[odd ember]

yeah exactly

I suppose it banks on the fact that data tables are static data

which is a grade below what I'm looking for as well, since I'd love to have dynamic FNames available

[maiden wadi]

I imagine it's doable though. Would still need some sort of EditorOnly file somewhere. If you could update that file on FName property change, and even potentially look over all class's FName values to gather up all used FNames in the project.

[odd ember]

yeah you're probably right in that it requires some static data somewhere to make happen

the ideal would be that it didn't, or that I could query a subsystem for the data instead

[maiden wadi]

Polling that at runtime wouldn't be good for a larger project. Too many files to look through.

[odd ember]

I wouldn't need to

[maiden wadi]

Editor subsystem with a saved array could work too.

[odd ember]

FNames would be mapped to other data that is static at runtime

[maiden wadi]

I meant editor runtime. Opening an FName dropdown or something. I foresee twenty second or more freezes each dropdown with that. 😄

[odd ember]

noted

I mean it would be enough that it happened on node creation

[ornate linden]

Ended up figuring out how to make my first timeline to achieve this. just changing the material the same way i was doing before, but now over time.

[unique yoke]

Is Simulation supposed to reflect logic happening on an object in the object's viewport (using the debug filter)? I'm in this tutorial and the guy has a widget created and set to a widget component in the event graph and for him the widget is showing up in the object's viewport when he does simulate. For me it doesn't - only in the game viewport.

[last abyss]

without saying for sure, i would imagine as long as the widget is being created in the player controller it would work?

[unique yoke]

Oh yeah - it's all working fine. I was just surprised to see that. I've never used an object viewport to really look at logic firing and assumed it wasn't reflected.

So it had me wondering how he was having that work.

[worthy rock]

Today I learned:

void AActorExtension::BeginPlay()
{
    Super::BeginPlay(); // <--

Is absolutely necessary to run child blueprints and timelines 😛

[small oracle]

The Interface documentation says: You can use the Replicates checkbox for any Interfaces containing functions that need to replicate across the server. This is found within the Details tab by first clicking the Class Settings button.

I cannot find this checkbox (Using UE5 if it matters)

Oh nvm, I misunderstood

Actually no i didn't, still can't find it

[ornate linden]

whats the difference between having a custom event in your event graph vs having a public function?

[thorny marsh]

Events can be "latent" meaning, they can pause execution and resume later (IE: Delay node), functions cannot do this.

Functions also have the ability to modify their access to external classes, Public/Protected/Private, Events are always Public.

Events can be converted into RPCs as well, functions cannot.

[ornate linden]

Interesting. Makes sense.

RPCs?

[thorny marsh]

Remote Procedure Call.

A multiplayer network thing.

[ornate linden]

ah

[thorny marsh]

Events can be bound onto Delegates, functions cannot.

There are many differences.

[ornate linden]

a lot of differences that i don't quite have the knowledge base or pertinent use case to leverage

haha

like if I just have a piece of code i want to run and i want it to be able to be called from the obj reference, and it has no delays. im not sure were to put it. i intuitively feel like i want to make things events that are called from outside and functions for things called inside, but obv you can set functions to public, so /shrug

[thorny marsh]

If you're still learning, dont worry to much about what one is appropriate. They achieve the same thing at a basic level.

You will understand when, where and why to use them as you gain more experience.

[trim matrix]

Thats an MP3 file (probably), it needs to be in .WAV format.

Reload UE4 and try again with wav?!

Idk man

https://screenshots.foxy.rip/bSm5fSvz

I am using a game called Pavlov's modkit

And I am trying to play a sound 2D on a player.

How would I achieve this?

Basically, when they press on a button in a widget (a request admin button), it does this: https://screenshots.foxy.rip/5PbKadJH

And then in the playerproxy it does this: https://screenshots.foxy.rip/KmyhqPfq

Which then links to the 1st image.

Which then goes back to the player proxy and does this https://screenshots.foxy.rip/Py35lJXr

And for some reason, it is not playing a sound for any of the admin players (2d), why is this?

Alr

[fiery swallow]

Are you sure the node is actually firing?

Run on owning client literally does not run sometimes

[trim matrix]

Huh?

Really

[fiery swallow]

Usually I always have to put a slight delay after the event

But you can check if it's firing by using breakpoints

[trim matrix]

So if I just have it as not replicating in the playerproxy, may that work like this?: https://screenshots.foxy.rip/fdcEnZb2

[fiery swallow]

No that won't work, it'll only call on the server to play a sound, which isn't what you want

[trim matrix]

Sadge

[fiery swallow]

Keep it as run on owning client but insert a delay after it

Then use a breakpoint to see if it fires

[trim matrix]

Uh

How

https://screenshots.foxy.rip/2P3PGRtJ

[fiery swallow]

Right click on the "actual play sound" event and click toggle breakpoints

[trim matrix]

Can I not just do that then?

[fiery swallow]

You can but it's still good practice to use breakpoints o.O

To make sure it's actually firing

Or you can use a print string node

[trim matrix]

Yeah I got you but here is the thing, because I am using a VR Game's modkit - I have to test it... in production mode

So uh

Ok so will what I have basically target a certain player and play the sound then?

If this is what is happening in the game logic

[fiery swallow]

In theory it looks like it's set up properly, im not familiar with player proxy but it looks like you're casting properly

[trim matrix]

Alr

[fiery swallow]

Only thing I can genuinely recommend is a slight delay after run on owning client

And using breakpoints to find the issue

[trim matrix]

Yeah what I did 🙂

[fiery swallow]

Did it work?

[trim matrix]

#blueprint message

[trim matrix]

Gonna take like 20 mins to test as I have to hop in vr n shit but yeah brb

[fiery swallow]

That's.... that's unlucky

[trim matrix]

Yeah

Alr, well I will be back

[fiery swallow]

There definitely has to be a more reliable way to test

[trim matrix]

There isnt

[trim matrix]

^

[fiery swallow]

I would also recommend if you can't properly test to play a sound if there is no admin logged in. If the sound does play, you know there's a problem somewhere else.

You have a branch, an isvalid node, and a cast node that can all be failing and you have no way to know if that's the problem

[trim matrix]

@fiery swallow doesnt work

And I am the admin, and my friend tested it

If anyone could help me, much appreciated. (#blueprint message)

[thorn trellis]

#virtual-reality message

[ornate linden]

if you return from a macro while in a loop when you find your item does it end the loop the same way a function does

[maiden wadi]

No.

Technically speaking, Macros don't have "Returns" so much as that they call single use delegates(TheOutputPin)

[ornate linden]

it seems to me that macros are sort of like collapsed graphs that are more restrictive? im not sure

[odd ember]

which is the same logic used to drive multiple input/output exec nodes

more or less yes

slightly more bug prone

[ornate linden]

i've been using macros when i'm writing something that i want to "pass back" a reference since functions can't do it

[odd ember]

I generally avoid using them

not sure what you mean

like a callback?

or like a reference?

because the former can be done by event dispatchers

and the latter can be done by functions

[ornate linden]

a reference to a struct. like i wrote a function that gets a specific struct in an array of structs and "returns" it from the macro so i can edit the struct and it actually changes the instance in the array

[fiery swallow]

Macros are collapsed graphs and should generally be used ina situation where you'll need to use it multiple times

It slide an organized copy paste fam

[odd ember]

that just sounds like a getter function

[ornate linden]

essentially

the struct has row and column parameters and im looping through the array of structs to find the one with the correct row and column.

but i do it like 40 times (exageration) so i needed something i could just call

it's not for external use. it's only inside itself that it's using it. its just so i don't have to write it over and over

[fiery swallow]

It could be a lot of different reasons but it's really hard to say because you can't properly debug, I'd ask the question in #multiplayer. They might be able to spot something or give more information about it

[maiden wadi]

@ornate lindenYou set struct properties from an array like this. If you pass the struct by ref into a function, you can do the same thing.

[ornate linden]

isn't that assuming you know which index you're getting?

i have an unknown index, but i do know the row and column.

[maiden wadi]

Two functions then. Pass your array into a function that gets the index from it you need to alter. Return that index. Use that to get the struct by ref.

[ornate linden]

don't know why i didn't think of that lol. instead of passing the reference back i can just pass the index back and then get it again. probably takes more cycles tho

the array isn't very large though so it's probably negligable

[maiden wadi]

If that's your concern, I'd consider a C++ blueprint static library. But if the array is < 500 entries, I doubt it'll matter unless you're running this on tick.

[ornate linden]

nah it's like on button press and 24ish items. so it won't matter

[trim matrix]

Alr cool will do later, thanks

[worthy rock]

In blueprint is there a fancy true/false or lightswitch element where every pulse alternates between two outputs?
Or just do the blueprint equivallent of: if (bool) {do()} else {doelse()}? (A branch)

[last abyss]

is flip flop what you're looking for?

[worthy rock]

Indeed it is! Thanks!

[desert juniper]

before I go any further, this isn't going to work is it?
This is on my GameMode BP
getting the controlled pawn from the logout event returns empty. I'm assuming its because the pawn las already been destroyed

is there any way go get the pawn so I can unbind from the delegate?

Is it okay if I just don't unbind it?

[maiden wadi]

Curious, what's this for? GameMode doesn't usually handle player's inventory stuff.

[desert juniper]

probably just going about it wrong
I have a FSM that should listen to when players add items to their inventory.
I figured a decent method was to use the GameMode

now that I think of it, I could just add it into the FSM, on the begin state, but I'd have loop through all characters binding, and unbinding each time a new state is reached/exited

Basic gist is, I'm using GameMode to relay events to a FSM.
Sort of like a singleton I guess

[desert juniper]

[zealous moth]

I'm blanking, how do you get Forward and Right velocity for an ABP?

[maiden wadi]

The right of velocity doesn't have enough information unless you infer that there is no roll. If you do that, you can just convert the velocity to a rotator, get the Yaw, add 90.

[zealous moth]

Wot

Welli want to use a 2d blend space and feed it right and forward velocity

[maiden wadi]

As floats? Like the forward and right velocity as a flat rotator's Yaw value?

[zealous moth]

Trying to think on how to formulate

@maiden wadi i mean that does sound like what i want

But im doubting...

Thre wasd controls have a forward value and a right one for instance

I guess i could use thosr

[maiden wadi]

Dunno. Easy to try. Just convert velocity to a rotator. Get the Yaw. That's forward direction. Add 90 to that and call normalize Axis, that'll be right.

[zealous moth]

you know what i did it in the past and found it, I need direction and velocity and just get

@maiden wadi

[unique yoke]

I'm trying to get into the habit of best practices and only casting when necessary, and I'm curious how people approach this situation from a tutorial I'm going through.

It's a basic pong type game where you have a ball that moves around and a paddle that serves as the player pawn. There's an out of bounds (OOB) actor just below the paddle to signify a life lost. The OOB actor needs to know if the ball goes through it and the tutorial just casts to the ball to verify that.

I could see some ways of getting around the cast, but I'm not sure what's best/most common architecturally. Earlier in the tutorial we did something similar, but in that case the instructor had me create a widget BP within an actor and pass self into the widget BP via a Set function. Since the two BPs were more closely tied together no casting came in to play.

[icy dragon]

Casting isn't that harmful to performance, at least comparing against heavy offenders like getting actors of class on the entire scene, unless you somehow spot ≥ 1ms frametime spike on Game thread just by casting

But alternatively you could make reference to the ball and check if it's the same object reference colliding with that ball.

[marble summit]

Is there a way to get the entire list of what's in an enum? I'm trying to make a drop down in a UMG populated by all the possibilities that are in an enum list but I'm having trouble finding the way to do it

[odd ember]

is the list for the game, or just for editor usage?

[marble summit]

just for editor usage in editor utilities

[odd ember]

casting costs about as much as a branch, perhaps a little more

[odd ember]

just expose a variable of your enum type. it already features what you want

[marble summit]

hahahaha

I just did a MASSIVE facepalm

actually it looks like that won't work in this case because I'm making an editor utility widget with UMG, but I did find a ForEach Enums node that does the trick

[odd ember]

if you expose your enum then it should show up in the detail panel as well

as a combobox

[marble summit]

Right but since this is purely in an editor utility UMG it won't do that

at least from what I can see

[unique yoke]

I realize casting itself isn't bad. Most of the cost as I understand it has to do with all the references that are loaded right?

This tutorial example is super basic since it's just the ball and boundary. But just from a high level, when you are dealing with two actors that aren't related (making the reference to the ball in this case), what's the best way of handling that in something like this without the cast? Interfaces that set up references during game/sub-system initialization? The boundary using an interface on the ball to retrieve a getter function?

[odd ember]

ah fair, there is no details panel

[odd ember]

although, you could add a details panel into the UI. it is available as a separate widget type

[icy dragon]

Not even fancy lower level mumbo jumbo necessary, either:

1. From the kill trigger's collision, try casting other Actor as the ball's class On Begin Overlap
2. Let the kill trigger know the reference to the ball by using Get Actor Of Class on BeginPlay

This is assuming your ball actor is not actually destroyed, just teleported back to the board

[burnt citrus]

someone please help me
I'm using "actor component" and I want to make a function
then I face this error
WTF is this error??

[icy dragon]

Right click -> Refresh Node

[burnt citrus]

I did it to all of the function but doesn't work

[odd ember]

the casting cost is basically traversal of the inheritance tree (up or down) and a comparison for each relevant entry, or so. it's negligible for the most part, but good practice still dictates you want to do it as little as possible

[unique yoke]

Cool, thanks all! 🙂

[barren relic]

does promoting to variable help with that

[icy dragon]

I don't think the Replicated flag matter there, but try disabling it 🤔

[icy dragon]

Using object reference variable would just compare the references and no casting would necessary.

[barren relic]

coolio

[burnt citrus]

I solved by myself!
All I have to do is connect all pins directly!

[icy dragon]

That's a lot of dangling cables

(wouldn't it be messy if BP connection cables have physics simulation 🤔 )

[spark steppe]

that looks like a solution to a non existent problem 😄

you probably have a "current ammo" variable also in global scope, and picked the wrong one

[inland stone]

i got a bit of a problem, i have a turret that aim at the crosshair but when i enter to a vehicle it lost all tracking ,what do i need to change to make sure its always tracks?

[elder basin]

Hey folks! So I'm currently working on a war type game, with vehicles. I'm utilizing blueprints from two different projects , one has an fps controller character with guns and all. And the other has its own character blueprint with a script to interact with the vehicle, and I am getting referencing errors with the vehicle script being used with the new character, I'm sure there's a way to reference the new character but I suck at blueprints and do not know where to start, I really appreciate the help!

[raven hollow]

Hey!
I want to use this function, but when I right-click, I am not getting this option even after turning off context sensitivity,
does anyone know how I can get this node in my blueprint?
https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/BlueprintAPI/FileUtils/FindFiles/

[gentle urchin]

Ue4 version?

@raven hollow

[raven hollow]

4.27

[gentle urchin]

Not at pc , but does there exist a filemanager to subclass from?

Else this might be some core plugin you can activate

Cant find any details on it tho

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BlueprintAPI/FileUtils/

[desert juniper]

looking at the source code it does looks like a plugin

[desert juniper]

wow, some BPs are documented as bad as most of the cpp documentation afterall

[raven hollow]

thanks.

[spark steppe]

that's indeed bad documented, as i made my own BP nodes to expose those features -.-

glad to know that i just had to enable the plugin...

[desert juniper]

the equivalent of using the wrong formula to get the right answer? 😉

[steady orbit]

How would I calculate the revolutions per second of a static mesh NOT using physics?

[worthy rock]

If I have a blueprint Actor that does an action (moving a mesh). And I had twenty different meshes that used that behaviour identically (or differing slightly). Do I create a duplicate blueprint class for each variant? Or can I create 1 class and just attach it to twenty mesh groups? (They do have to operate independently of each other)

[timber knoll]

(Last rotation - current rotation)/(deltaSec * 360)

[steady orbit]

Thank you!

[timber knoll]

Where last rotation is previous frame rotation, current rotation being the current frame rotation

[desert juniper]

You can have one base class with the functionality you want to be common to all of these actors, and then child classes for each specific actor

[timber knoll]

Hmm I would interface instead

[desert juniper]

depends. if there's common functionality, I'd rather stick to the DRY principal

and not repeat where necessary

[timber knoll]

Yeah just from the context

[worthy rock]

To be more specific, it's doors opening and closing on a single timer. (but there's different types of doors)

[timber knoll]

Oh then for sure just inheritance

[desert juniper]

what I do is have 1 door BP (which has an interaction interface) and a variable for the mesh

[timber knoll]

So what Amaze said 🙂

[desert juniper]

then I can just change the door mesh when it's plopped into the world

A single BP to handle all regular doors, and a couple of variants to handle special doors (like double opening doors)

[timber knoll]

Double opening could be a variable (in case they open at same speed etc at least)

I remember doing mine with a pivot so it could be used for both single/double door

[desert juniper]

I feel like I should have thought of that 🤷‍♂️

maybe there was a reason I made two BPs.. maybe I didn't have enough coffee 🤷‍♂️

[worthy rock]

Thanks for the input!

[desert juniper]

IF you do it like I did, (one BP with a variable for the door mesh) add something like this to your construction script

[worthy rock]

That's a pretty nice looking house

[desert juniper]

thanks, I downloaded it from the asset store all by myself

🤣

[worthy rock]

haha

[candid nest]

Hey i am using the third person anim bp it have jump start jump loop and jump end i want that every time he jump he plays different animation how can i do that

[worthy drift]

Do you mean like a different jump animation?

[candid nest]

@worthy drift yes

[worthy drift]

There is a node called "Random Sequence Player" in the state machine you can add. It will give you an option to add different array entries in the right hand side where you can plug in different animations. Then it randomly chooses from those animations when that specific animation state plays.

[candid nest]

Yeah but where to add in the jump start or loop or end

[worthy drift]

Ahh I see what you mean. You want to have 3 different states for start jump, loop and land called consecutively. Something like this:

[candid nest]

Yeah i have this i dont want this i want easy way in which i can easly play random anim

Like there is something in which we can add multiple anim and then connect to ouput anim u also said random sequence player which is good

[worthy drift]

But then just add the Random Sequence Player in each of the different state machines, and it will play a random jump, in air and land animation accordingly

Or not state machines, just states

[candid nest]

Okay

But i have 1 thing also which is i am using a thing in which my character can jump higher for a while just like subway surfer boot so how can i differeniate that when he is using boot play these anim and when not play this. Plz help this one

[lost solstice]

If I am trying to do an Actor == does it take into consideration child class or does it have to be the exact actor that I am checking?

[odd ember]

it checks reference against reference

so, exact actor

[odd ember]

In functions, parameters are automatically stored as local variables you can use. prevents spaghetti

[odd ember]

#animation

[native ferry]

Hey, I have a widget wich displays the current ammo of the player, and I want to represent every bullet with this icon ◉, but how can I display this icon a certain number of times, example: I have 3 bullets in my magazine so ◉◉◉. I have no idea how to do that, thanks for the help (I want to do it with a text and not an image)

[quick kettle]

hi, i'm trying to use "DrawLine" to show the actor's trace in runtime, and there are 10 actors. i use "DrawLine" in every frame to build curves. however, the fps decreased from 120 to nearly 10. are there any more efficient way to solve this problem? or how to draw curves?

[maiden wadi]

@native ferry Simple loop function.

For Loop
Start = 1,
End = BulletCount

Have a local Text variable, in loop body FormatText
Format would be like {Original}{Addition}.

That'll add two pins to your FormatText. Plug the LocalTextVariable into the Original pin
Next use MakeLiteralText to get your circle thingy and plug that into Addition.

LoopComplete, return the LocalTextVariable.

@quick kettle DrawLine in a widget or DrawDebugLine?

If it's DrawDebugLine then yeah it is rather expensive. It's just a preview thing for development. You can't even use it in a shipping game, it's completely compiled out.

[crisp lance]

When I do a subclass in Blueprint, I'd expect it to have the same behavior until I do changes (like if I did a subclass in Cpp). Instead, all hell is loose, events like begin play seem to not trigger. I don't see the logic. Do we have to assume that the old cpp events code is not executed anymore?

[maiden wadi]

That's not normal unless you missed a Super:: call.

If your C++ Beginplay override looks like this, the BP Beginplay won't run either. That's called from the Actor parent class.

void ATarrionCameraPawn::BeginPlay()
{
     
}```

Can also happen if you use mixed matching GameMode/GameStates

[trim matrix]

hi everyone, i want my pawn to possess this car automatically at game start, in editor it work all fine, while when i try to load it from menu it spawn my character to the car camera but i cannot move it

i try to setup my own game mode and everything but still not working when loading from menu

[outer pewter]

guys can you help me here. i made this trying to increase the speed of my character when picking up the speed item, the speed increase but it doesn't decrease again like i put in the timeline

[trim matrix]

you need to setup the logic for the reverse input of the timeline

[outer pewter]

i followed a tutorial it worked for them like this. so what do you mean by that ?

[cursive citrus]

how would i update the wave counter which is in gamemode

https://i.imgur.com/0lj8WIu.png

putting it before spawnactor does nothing

i need it to check if all 5 are killed

[trim matrix]

you have setup to start the timeline on the overlap , then increase at same time the player speed but if you want your character to "reverse" the timeline animation you need a logic to tell it

try to do this, exclude the destroy item for a moment

you should see after the audio sound the animation in reverse

[outer pewter]

the speed was 600. and upon picking the item up it become 2500 for 4 seconds then decrece to 600 again. so wont reversing make it go up to 2500 ?

[maiden wadi]

The only issue is that you're destroying the timeline immediately after the first set.

Destroy the actor after timeline completion.

[outer pewter]

oh so i should add a delay nbefore destroying

[maiden wadi]

Timeline has a Finished pin. Just destroy it there.

[outer pewter]

i tried it but didnt work. i even tried the reverse thing that he recommended but still

[maiden wadi]

What logic do you have after moving the Destroy to Finished?

[outer pewter]

i added a delay and i even tried removing the destroy completly but same

its like timeline isn't applying the decrese after the keyframe

[trim matrix]

why are you using the timeline for increase the character speed?

it is some sort of animation inside for character?

[maiden wadi]

Also semi sure that you want the playsound before the timeline. Playing a sound on tick has to be obnoxious.

[trim matrix]

i mean the set walk speed already does it , just to understand

[outer pewter]

no thats how the tutorial said to do it im kind of new

[trim matrix]

if you only need to increase speed you can drop out timeline

totally not needed

you can just set the speed and a delay

after the delay you can go down to normal speed

[outer pewter]

then how can i adjust the ammount of the increase and decrese

[trim matrix]

and eventually you can interpolate for smooth the animation

[outer pewter]

what commend allow me to input the speed amount ?

[trim matrix]

detach timeline wires and attach overlap node to set walk speed directly

then drag out a delay node from the set walk speed and set 4 seconds or whatever you wish

then after delay drag out another set speed node and set back to 600 or whatever you need

[outer pewter]

i didnt find anything called overlap node when i tried to add

im so confused haha sorry

[trim matrix]

np, in your blueprint your first node is an overlap

you see oncomponent begin overlap

connect to cast to run character as you already did

then remove the wire from cast character to timeline

and just plug the cast to the set speed node

[outer pewter]

is this it ?

but it still dont decrese after 5 sec

it only increase

[trim matrix]

that weird, are you sure? cannot test on unreal atm maybe i'm missing something but it should work , have you compiled, saved correctly? also can you drag a wire from the last set speed (600) search for print string node

just for quick debug

see if the set speed is fired correctly

[gentle urchin]

Isnt there acceleration forces at play during currentspeed != desiredspeed? So no interpolation needed

Also id say its not wise to have the logic in the speed booster like that

Atleast not that simple if you plan on several speed boosts

Guess i expanded scope there, ignore me

[trim matrix]

ah well yeah you're right

[outer pewter]

is this it

[trim matrix]

yeah i know not the best

but at least we can have it working and then clean

remove duration wire leave only execution ping (white one)

and thex click on the down arrow under development only

you will find duration parameter (2 seconds)

increase to 5

so you are sure to not miss it

[trim matrix]

yep

[outer pewter]

i ll try it

[trim matrix]

now compile, save and test

[outer pewter]

same it increase but never decrese

[trim matrix]

can you see the hello text on left top of editor?

[outer pewter]

no

[gentle urchin]

This is

[trim matrix]

ok then your logic is not executed for some reason

[gentle urchin]

Probably due to invalidation of input?

Or is it cached forever, even if actor end overlap?

[outer pewter]

is it because i pluged this in the same cast to run character

[gentle urchin]

Tbh id just make a function in the character instead

[maiden wadi]

Personally the trigger should be one actor. Allows any affect to be applied to the character. Effect should be something like an actor component that is added on overlap and trigger destroyed. Much more cleaner and scalable. But tutorials. 🤷‍♂️

[gentle urchin]

Have a retriggerable delay with delay input function

Erh, event*

Event being "Boost movespeed" with an input for new speed, and duration

[outer pewter]

im new i followed tutorials and they gave me the timeline way

[trim matrix]

yeah, you should reverse the logic into your character directly as when you apply input from outside character components things can gone wrong

[outer pewter]

so i make a function in character and then call it from the object

[gentle urchin]

An event**

Its gonna be latent without a return

So event is your best choise

[small oracle]

I've attached my pawn to a vehicle, any hints on how i'd get my driver pawn to look in the direction the vehicle camera is pointing?

[maiden wadi]

Head bone animation.

[outer pewter]

is it this event

[native ferry]

hey sorry but can you explain more? i don't really get it, this is the thing that i understand (bad english sry)

[gentle urchin]

No ^^ in the event graph, right click -> create new custom event

[trim matrix]

from your character bp right lick search custom event

right lick 😋 yeah awesome

*click

[small oracle]

I meant like how would i tell a pawn im no longer possessing to move their head. Would i have the vehicle store the pawns pointer and notify the pawn to look somewhere from the vehicle bp?

[outer pewter]

thqnk you

i ll try it out

[gentle urchin]

While you could have the speed boost do static increase,

You may find it more flexible using two inputs aswell

A float for new speed
And a float for duration

Then in the event you can set default values of it i believe , so they are automatically != 0

[outer pewter]

im new so i am so confused at float and whqt you said

should i remove the cast to character

[maiden wadi]

@small oracleMight be cleaner to just give the SkeletalMesh a new AnimBP when put in the car. Unsure.

@native ferry

[trim matrix]

wait i will try to get your logic now im back home

gimme some mins

[outer pewter]

thank you so much and sorry for all the truble

[trim matrix]

np

[maiden wadi]

@native ferry If you do that, you can pass in the bullet count, and just set the text. Mark the function Pure.

Alternatively, I guess you could make an Integer/Text map and just populate it and pull the value from the integer key. Might be better performant.

That's very hard coded though. Requires entries. Not dynamic. Feels bad.

[native ferry]

i'll try it thanks

[trim matrix]

this in your character BP

i have created 3 floats variables you can add clickin on + icon and select from list float

when you create three of them compile

amd set maxwalkspeed to 2500

defaultspeed value to 600

and duration 4.0 value

[gentle urchin]

Id have duration and new speed a input but oh well^^

[outer pewter]

emm 1 sec i ll try it

[gentle urchin]

Pushed into a retriggerable delay

Extending duration if overlap again

[neat stream]

would you use the Vehicule movement component for a horse ? 🙂 what shouldn't we do this?

[trim matrix]

yeah also this can be done eventually if the logic work

then in the itelcollision here

as a target you would need to set to pointer maybe

[gentle urchin]

I would also use speed multiplier and no speed value directly but thats me

[trim matrix]

i will let speak who know much than me at this èpoint

as i'm still noob with targets lol

[maiden wadi]

I think most people make Horse from a Character class. CMC is rather useful there, already has walking and such. Just needs some magic for the leg movements in the anim bp.

[gentle urchin]

Target would be incoming actor casted to the specific class that holds the function

[neat stream]

I did everything in CMC but I was wondering if physics were more developed in the VMC ... I'm doing multiplayer horse race...

[trim matrix]

so just a simple cast?

[outer pewter]

is this what you mean by + ?

[gentle urchin]

In your example, BP Parent Character

[maiden wadi]

@neat stream Nothing physics is more developed for multiplayer. It's the wild west. If you're doing multiplayer, I would even more strongly encourage a non physics based movement component like CMC unless you have a ton of free time.

[outer pewter]

oh i did that but how can i control the value of those variables

[neat stream]

Ok so go full "math way" like always ?

[trim matrix]

once created the variable on the right side of the editor you can see on top the name and below a value parameters

you need to compile first to see it

[outer pewter]

im trying it

[trim matrix]

you could have used arrays since you have three floats more convenient but as you are fresh better go with simple steps

[gentle urchin]

Array for this just convolutes the purpose of the floats

Naming becomes generic, horrible often

[outer pewter]

i cant find the event when i try to call it

[gentle urchin]

Uncheck context

[trim matrix]

yeah kinda it depends how you manage it in the overall i think ,i just hate have three equal floats spammed into editor

calculating coming from character and varaibles will increase a lot i tend to compact everything i can lol

[gentle urchin]

Its not more compact tho

Just fewer "nodes",

[trim matrix]

nono i mean compact to see into editor

[gentle urchin]

But more nodes to get it out again

[trim matrix]

not meanig that take less memory ofc

[gentle urchin]

So variable field is less but graph has more

[outer pewter]

wow all these stuff i; learning just fro; asking about one things thanks a lot guys. i ll try it out

[odd ember]

stuff like this is hugely error/bug prone

what happens if multiple speed boosts happen at the same time?

[neat stream]

I thought that UE5 + chaos implemented working replicated physics on the VMC that's why I was thinking of repurposing it 🙂 but I know I'l have to it like always by hand !

[odd ember]

surely if this is a first project you could find something easier to do than networked physics

[trim matrix]

i know it's sheitty if you guys know better ways to modify char speed at run time let me know i'm just showing something simple to mr.satan

[outer pewter]

cant compile it

[odd ember]

you need to consider how to ensure that every speed boost given is discrete

[small oracle]

So if I do the animation blueprint (which makes sense) to have my pawn turn their head while in a vehicle how would i communicate the turn information to the pawn bp as the vehicle will have the controller?

[trim matrix]

yeah you need a cast or get actor of class

[gentle urchin]

Other actor -> cast to run character

Hint field given below the function name

[outer pewter]

like this >

?

[trim matrix]

yeah, we don't know much about the overall objective of him , for now we just need only needed a boost every time he pickup a powerup or something likely

yep

[odd ember]

@trim matrix

[native ferry]

@maiden wadi i'm back, i tried it and it puts an infinite amount of circles

there are supposed to be 6 of them

[gentle urchin]

Yepp

[trim matrix]

it's gonna add the boost to others and will pain to debug i know

[gentle urchin]

Kinda need some definition or atleast some hint about the intended/wanted behaviour before one can make a proper suggestion for it really

[outer pewter]

its really working

thank you so much guys

[gentle urchin]

The tut had a pretty bad start with a timeline

Imagine then multiple speed boosts

[outer pewter]

yeah they wont add up

[gentle urchin]

Dictating on tick the very same speed of the char

[outer pewter]

will they add up in this way ?

[gentle urchin]

Are they ment to?

[trim matrix]

if you have multiple boost from multiple items pickup you need to be carefull

they will probably overlap

[gentle urchin]

They will for sure.

[outer pewter]

how because its randemly generated and you can pick up another one before the last one ended

[odd ember]

they will add up

[gentle urchin]

What's the intended behavior @outer pewter ?

[outer pewter]

so if they do add up it will be a good thing for me

[trim matrix]

they will yeah, you need some checkpoints in your logic

[gentle urchin]

Do you want them to stack?

[trim matrix]

at some points

[gentle urchin]

Or do you want the last one to dictate ?

[outer pewter]

its a pick up item that increase your speed

[odd ember]

imo it would be worth to contain all that logic inside a buff object

that handles its own lifetime

[outer pewter]

so if you pick up one and run for 2 sec and then pick up another one it will be good if the duration add up

[gentle urchin]

Then you need a retriggerable delay

Delay ignores new exec during delay time

[odd ember]

then you can apply such edgy patterns as the command pattern

[outer pewter]

i was thinking of adding a widget to show its duration

how do i do the retriggerable delay

[odd ember]

as well as handle buff stacking

[gentle urchin]

Just replace delay with retriggerable delay

[outer pewter]

this one

?

[gentle urchin]

Ye

[gentle urchin]

Perfecto

[outer pewter]

okay so this will make it add up nice

i ll go look for a video to help me make a duration widget haha

thank you guys so much for the help

[gentle urchin]

😅

[trim matrix]

so guys, i'm having too an iusse i'm trying to get autopossess player 0 to start when i select my level from game menu

it's working just nicely when i test in level itself

isn't that right controller to autopossess?

[odd ember]

the default character auto possess doesn't work?

[trim matrix]

it's working if i launch the level from editor (not play mode)

if i launch the editor to default map of my game menu

then jump into level i can see the camera possessing the car

but movement are not controllable

those are the car inputs

[odd ember]

sounds strange

[maiden wadi]

Can I see what you have?

[trim matrix]

maybe i was thinkin the issue can be in main menu, maybe the main menu still active on the level but hided in some way

[somber quail]

does anyone have anything on procedural levels in paper 2d sorta like keepers level generation

[trim matrix]

at least here i remove all widgets

and just start the level

[somber quail]

like any forums or vidoes on it

just ping me if know of anything its 3 am and im going to bed

[maiden wadi]

@native ferry Text variable isn't local if that gives infinite.

[native ferry]

oh

that worked

i've beed searching a solution for hours lol

thanks

okay so i have another question

I have a reload icon with an animation, and i want to make it visible and play the animation when i press the reload button and stop when the reloading is finished

any idea on how to do that?

(sorry i'm not very good at blueprints)

[maiden wadi]

Depends on the icon and animation. How are you doing the animation?

[native ferry]

i'm rotating the angle of the icon in the widget timeline

[odd ember]

hm, widgets can have timelines?

[odd ember]

ah interesting

I never do widget animations

[maiden wadi]

I do mine in native tick. 😄

[native ferry]

so you don't know how i can do that?

[odd ember]

no but there's a special channel for #umg

[trim matrix]

ok fixed the playercontroll problem , i was having two inputs duplicated for WASD

[native ferry]

oh okay i'll ask my question here

[odd ember]

for some reason widget animations remind me of school teachers using powerpoint animations and I can't imagine that not coming across as cringe

[obtuse lotus]

I made this script to where when I look up my fov goes from 103.0 (Default) to 120.0 when I start looking up (When My cameras pitch goes past 0.0. Im wondering how can I make my fov slowly go up at the same time my pitch goes up? Like sliding at the same time together if that makes sense.

I feel like I did a horrible job at explaining what im trying to do

[odd ember]

you're looking for lerp

also if you're doing this on input, you don't need to use tick for this

just do it where you have your camera movement input

[zealous fog]

Which is on tick already right

[odd ember]

the alpha of the lerp should probably be something like clamp(cameraRotation.x / 90, 0, 1)

[odd ember]

it's ticking on the player controller, not necessarily anywhere else

controller is one of the few classes where tick is necessary

[obtuse lotus]

Thank you

[dapper axle]

I have a question related to unreal, I want to create a shield around the ship that would have visual and animation, to separate the shield logic from the ship it self.

My question is create it as a actor component or an actor?
Both approach seems the same to me with small different pros n cons, for example:
1- an actor component cant have a Timeline and actor can.
2- I cant setup a static mesh inside a component.

I am looking at this in terms of performance, because i can walk around and create the static mesh inside the ship for the shield and activate when a shield is activated, i would appreciate any helps, thank you.

[odd ember]

you'd want an actor derived class

[dapper axle]

Also what i need is what if i have different children of that actor/component as t1, t2, t3 is there a way to destroy/create them based on a tag or a name? and dynamically change that name

[odd ember]

.

it's a good approach because A) it creates a separation between the ship and the shield effect, B) you can create variations on shield effects (or even other types of ship buffs), C) the shield effect becomes responsible for its own actions and does not need to communicate with the ship that it is set to. so lifetime, health etc. is purely on the level of the shield, not the ship itself

D) stacking of shield effects would be possible

the list goes on

[dapper axle]

i would just dynamically spawn the shield and attach to the ship?

[odd ember]

yes

[dapper axle]

if i may ask, its also possible to pass variables without the needing to cast

?

[odd ember]

in what way

[dapper axle]

i have a widget inside the ship

that i would like the shield to know about

and communicate with via events

[odd ember]

if you spawn the shield actor from the ship actor, the ship actor knows about both shield and widget, and can levy communication

[dapper axle]

hmm that is true

thanks a lot you made it clearer for me

as for the upgraded shield tiers it would be just a function to update all visuals

[odd ember]

visuals, health, whatever

the point is, that the logic and data for all of that sits on the shield itself

[dapper axle]

but if i wanna have a specific logic separate for each shield does child actor support this?

[odd ember]

don't use child actor

spawn the actor

forget that the child actor component ever existed

it's a nonsense thing that should be done away with

[grave relic]

Happy New Year on everyone! First problem of the year here, im rotating this cube with WASD, and i need a way to figure out what face of the cube is faceing down. Anyone that has any ideas?

[odd ember]

you can subclass your shield and override functions to do what you want specifically per shield

[dapper axle]

subclass as in children?

[odd ember]

no.

subclass means that you are inheriting from a shield base class

that class becomes the superclass of the shield hierarchy

and you can put common logic in that class

each of the subclass that inherit from that class can override any of the functionality in the base class to do their own logic, when or if necessary

[odd ember]

pretty sure geometric properties aren't exposed to blueprint

but maybe you can hack it through dynamic instance materials or some such

[dapper axle]

CE thanks a lot i will start working on it and test it out, because in this approach i can make a list of all shield classes and dynamically spawn and destroy

[odd ember]

again, the most important part is that the shields handle their own logic and stay separate from their parent actor

keep that in mind and you'll be fine

[dapper axle]

yes i got it!

life savior

[grave relic]

Yeah they arnt, so im trying to find another way to get them but cant figure it out

@odd ember

[dapper axle]

you can use the forward vector to know which one is facing is hacky way

[odd ember]

there isn't a way. even the material stuff would be some weird hacky nonsense that would likely be buggy

that's true

but that doesn't give the face value

just the direction the mesh is facing

[grave relic]

Well couldent i use that to figure out witch face is down depening on what dir the forward vector is?

[dapper axle]

if he can create the cube him self

from different meshes

its a hacky way

[odd ember]

yeah a cube made of 6 planes would do it

but then there are other issues to contend with

like seams

[grave relic]

And get the forward vector of each plane to figure out witch on is down?

[odd ember]

you'd get the up vector

[dapper axle]

yup

up vector yup

no wait im lost

[odd ember]

you can do something like dot(plane.up, 0,0,-1)

that will give you a number between 1..-1. the closer you are to 1, the closer that face will be to facing straight down

[grave relic]

dot(plane.up, 0,0,-1)?

[odd ember]

look for a dot function

take it from there

good luck

[inland stone]

can some one help me on this? i have a simple turrets that tracks the crosshair using the mouse cursor as its target but when i posses the pawn it no longer track the mouse

[grave relic]

Thx for the help, will need it 😛

[quiet tinsel]

heya folks, happy new year 🙂 I'm working on a multiplayer project and I was under the impression I could use the Game Mode "match start" function to handily replace "Begin Play" functions on various actors so that they can be set up only once all the players are logged in and ready (rather than having to rely on RepNotify or firing events off Begin Play with slightly more complex Switch Has Authority nodes, which is how I have it solved on a case-by-case basis for now)... it'd be much easier to just fire off an event once the Lobby Menu has been cleared through a basic "ready up" system. Do I have to do a Get All Actors (with tag I suppose) and bind delegates individually for this to work? Doesn't seem like it would be any better that way than how I'm handling it now. Any feedback or tips would be appreciated 🙂

like when I dug through Pavlov for modding a few updates ago, they had a nice system set up for this but I guess they did it all manually and I don't want to just copy them 😂

but there's no "Event On Match Start" essentially?

[random plaza]

How would i go about adding all the variables in a struct array together? i have a float for weight in a struct that i'd like to add every instance of in an array together for my carry weight

[odd ember]

which game mode are you deriving from?

[quiet tinsel]

the GameMode class

[odd ember]

GameMode or GameModeBase

[quiet tinsel]

but I'm looking for a way to fire off events on other actors when its Match Start function fires... I'm guessing I have to bind event to match start from begin play?

the first one

well that was the menu one but same thing 🙂

[odd ember]

the function with the dot perhaps

[quiet tinsel]

I see this bad boy

yea

how to bind events to it tho?

looks like I need to do a get all actors and reach out to them with interface or something?

doesn't want to do that

it'd be easy enough for me to just use a custom event from the lobby widget, too

just wanna have it fire off on other actors efficiently

[odd ember]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/BlueprintAPI/Game/StartMatch/

[quiet tinsel]

like to better express my question, another "solution" would be like a 1 second timer on begin play on the characters and puzzle elements to check game mode status and then fire an event and stop timer when it is started

[odd ember]

so match state transitioning is at the heart

[quiet tinsel]

yea

essentially I have a puzzle that has parts of it set up on begin play, but in a normal connectivity, begin play is different for servers/clients, so I'd like to change that event to only fire once the lobby has been cleared

[odd ember]

you'll have to query the game mode and bind all the actors manually if you want something like this

[quiet tinsel]

that's what I thought, any advice on how to do the binding properly? delegates is like my weakest subject 😄

[odd ember]

it's going to be a pain in the behind

but

[quiet tinsel]

😄

[odd ember]

in the game mode, create a new event dispatcher. name it whatever is relevant. in each actor class GetGameMode, cast to your game mode, select bind event to <dispatcher name>

[quiet tinsel]

aaaah through dispatchers right on

let me try that, thanks so much 🙂

and like this from the lobby widget?

[odd ember]

your game mode makes the call on match start

[odd ember]

.

[quiet tinsel]

got this on my character

[odd ember]

yes

[quiet tinsel]

nice!

that worked 🙂

I knew it had to be done that way it's just so foreign to me still 😄 thanks so much

[odd ember]

best to think of event dispatchers as subscriptions

[quiet tinsel]

lol

[odd ember]

a class can subscribe to an event

when that event gets called, the class gets notified

[maiden wadi]

@quiet tinselAlso should note based on your original question, you can't replace an OnRep with any other event or RPC. It's not possible. OnReps are there for a reason. They're state based events that run when information arrives on the client. You have to take that into consideration if your MatchPlay happens, and someone DCs and comes back, will your logic break for that client?

[quiet tinsel]

oh I haven't implemented it as a Rep Notify yet

[grave relic]

@odd ember Sorry for the direct @ was just wondering if you could take a look at this if you got the time, ive look around on some DOT functions and tested. Right now i can get it to work on the top and bottom of the cube but not the rest.

[quiet tinsel]

I was saying instead of potentially using them

but thank you for the tip, well advised 🙂

[odd ember]

== is your enemy here

do something like > .9

[odd ember]

also you're comparing the middle section with the forward vector

and the bottom with the right vector

all of them need to be compared with 0,0,-1

that's world down

[grave relic]

Ah okey, cause i tested around with the dot values and forwad/up vectors

Cause now when i have them all at 0,0,-1 nothing prints out

Exept when i flip the cube upside down

[odd ember]

it's 6 separate planes, yes?

[grave relic]

yes

[odd ember]

then it should work

you can print the values of the up vector if you're in doubt

[grave relic]

https://gyazo.com/fa2fba52f112ddd9a33f9db9a18208a9

Yeah okey, cause im testing around, but am i atleast on the right track? 😛 First time useing DOT

[odd ember]

I don't know if you are. I can't see everything that you are doing. I can only see the logic you post here

[obtuse lotus]

https://tenor.com/view/in-yo-jaws-gif-23809649

that gave me so much nostalgia lol