blueprint

[glossy bane]

Aah I see

[odd ember]

if you want to make a difference in this kind of behavior, change your used assets. because you're not going to change the renderer

[tawdry surge]

Good general rule is to not try and out think the compiler. The engine has built in ways to handle culling things. Just play with those rather then try to make your own system for it

[main lake]

how would I go about that ? Because the only thing I'm thinking about is the suggestion said above like having each cube being 6 different planes and enable/disable it depending on other faces next to it

[odd ember]

like I said, blender

or whatever other 3d package is out there

[glossy bane]

If i'm asking too much then please say, but if I understand you correctly, instead of casting or using an interface, if I for example need to at one point access a variable from a different blueprint I can use the soft object pointer to that BP, which would let me access that variable?

[odd ember]

ask a blender discord on how to optimize assets

depends on the type of projectile

[tawdry surge]

If it's not ever gonna move then you can make them one asset and just not have those faces otherwise I really wouldn't worry about it

[wild seal]

how can i trigger a volume on spawn?

it won't even recognise the player even if i check for it in begin play

with get overlapping

[glossy bane]

What I have right now is literally a begin play, in multiple BP's, each having between 5-7 casts to different bp's, and I save the reference and then use it troughout the BP

[odd ember]

race conditions

[wild seal]

damn

[odd ember]

no I mean, what type of projectile? is it a bullet? is a ball?

[wild seal]

need a delay then...

i just did it when u said xD

[odd ember]

overlap or hit both work

[odd ember]

generally a delay is a really hacky way to do this

[wild seal]

what would you do?

[odd ember]

create a callback from the player character when it has spawned

[wild seal]

for every volume of type? 😮

[odd ember]

and use that to bind to an event that has your overlapping logic

you make a base class for your volume types?

[wild seal]

yeah

[odd ember]

just have it in those then

the golden rule is: don't repeat yourself

[remote meteor]

i would just spawn the pawn else where and then set location to the starting point 😂

[odd ember]

use hit then

[odd ember]

doesn't matter where it spawns

the issue is you don't know when it spawns

it could spawn before or after the trigger spawns

[maiden wadi]

You don't use SoftObjectPtrs for most framework classes. You use them to minimize the assets that these framework classes can load. You can hard cast to five thousand small classes that don't use heavy assets and not really notice anything. Consider a game like Overwatch remade into UE4. Have a default character class where you do a lot of logic. Reference no assets here. You can create empty asset variables like particles or skeletal meshes, but do not set them to anything. No you create a new character class named a Reinhardt. You set the skeletalmeshes, and particles. Maybe add some extra constant particle effects in the designer view. You now treat this Reinhardt class as an Asset. You NEVER cast to it anywhere, you don't specify it in hard pointers this is the class you use as a soft object reference in something like a picking menu. Meanwhile, you entire game logic just casts to the base class. You can access the variables that the Reinhardt inherits and affect them without ever casting specifically to that class.

You can do this by turning actual Actor or Character classes into asset like classes like this, or by defining defaults and loading them from datatables and such.

[swift pewter]

So it's always recommended to have a base class, even if it only has one child character?

[odd ember]

you don't know that you're only ever going to have one subclass

and generally, you have multiple

a door can slide open or it can rotate open

[maiden wadi]

Depends on how you set things up. You don't need one if you're populating it correctly. But if you like the designer tools and plan on making multiple children classes with different things you should always have a base class usually.

[odd ember]

not necessarily. and even then you would still have AI characters potentially

NPCs etc

yes, block. you'd still have to generate hit events, but you wouldn't need a new custom collision channel

[odd ember]

not having one is a surefire way to increase tech debt

[glossy bane]

That makes sense, I think I have everything setup the wrong way then considering It's a singleplayer game with only one character (and no AI), so I have a BP for that character that has alot of logic, skeletal mesh, etc, and I cast to it in many other BP's

[maiden wadi]

I have three. 😄

What you have is fine. The only time you'd have to care about soft object ptrs is if that one character can swap cosmetics.

Mind you. Smaller projects are somewhat exempt from this. But it's something to always consider for scalability. You don't know where your project will be by your third DLC. Nevermind if you keep the same project and expand it for a second game.

[glossy bane]

I see, I have that too where I change the material of the mesh of the character, and I do this by having a reference (already hard casted) to the character, I get the mesh and I set a material to it

[glossy bane]

Yeah It makes sense to do things the right way from the start incase it keeps growing in complexity

[odd ember]

yes, but enabling hit events doesn't mean you have to do any logic on them in the mesh itself. you can do all the logic from the projectile itself

generating hit events just means that the other object will respond to your projectile's collision query

[remote meteor]

if you mean this, that is for physics interaction

[odd ember]

it's not

it's for generating hit events

the Event Hit

without it you cannot query collision

[remote meteor]

uh no?

that depends on your collision enable type

[odd ember]

you're misunderstanding what I am saying

you will not get the Event Hit if you don't tick that checkbox

and that is still a collision query

[maiden wadi]

Consider this for example. Either of these would load a random mesh from this array into memory, and then set it on the mesh component. The rest of these meshes are just a very tiny little FName variable sitting there waiting to be used. Calling this a second time would release the first set mesh, and let it be garbage collected at some point and load a new mesh and set it.

[remote meteor]

depends on how you move things i guess

[odd ember]

yes

[remote meteor]

that toggle is really just for physics interaction

[odd ember]

well try without it

see what happens

if you're so clever

[remote meteor]

Simulate Generate Hit Event not enabled

[odd ember]

tick?

[glossy bane]

Thats interesting I have a better idea of how to go about this now that for all the explanations

[remote meteor]

if you have physics, then you need that toggle to be on

[odd ember]

well I stand corrected

just tested it

it does not seem to work for every asset

in fact it only works if you use the default collision preset

[remote meteor]

well i tested with capsule collision

it does work

[onyx token]

is there a way to say "the closer a 2D vector is to another 2D vector - the closer it is to 1" ?

[odd ember]

for direction or location?

[onyx token]

no, for suffering

i'm desperate

[odd ember]

for direction you can use dot

[onyx token]

nvm, i figured it out.

after 3 days, i finally solved a problem

brb, getting alcohol.

[novel rock]

how do i find an actor that spawns in the world?

[maiden wadi]

This requires context. Which actor? There are many different reasons that actors are used, some of which aren't actually visible.

[novel rock]

I want level blueprint to grab the player on event begin play. after the player spawns.

[odd ember]

is there any reason you are doing whatever you're doing in the level blueprint here?

[maiden wadi]

College student? 😄

[novel rock]

level blueprint puts player in and out of vehicle.

[odd ember]

https://tenor.com/view/really-what-squint-chicken-gif-15168180

[novel rock]

sorry Poses

[remote meteor]

you can always get player character 0 if its already possessed but hmm

[odd ember]

you can't on beginplay

level spawns before actors spawns

[maiden wadi]

Is this for a college/university thing? If not, I strongly recommend ditching ideas about the level blueprint entirely and learn how to do stuff in the basic framework(PlayerController, PlayerPawn/Character, etc)

[novel rock]

can i put player in level bp on player start from player?

[remote meteor]

may i know why the level bp?

[odd ember]

level blueprint should be used for level unique behavior

and nothing else really

[maiden wadi]

The college question wasn't a jab. 😄 I don't know why, but college teaching has a seriously bad infatuation with the level blueprint. Screw OOP, just throw it all in the level.

[odd ember]

level blueprint is part of the OOP

[novel rock]

i watched a tutorial and it used level bp. but in another tutorial it recommended not using level bp for anything if at all posable

[odd ember]

it's a manager for all the actors within the level

perhaps with the exception of the player character

[odd ember]

basically,

[maiden wadi]

Yeah, but like in a lot of cases, they teach to put controls and such there.

[odd ember]

that is nonsense yeah

[maiden wadi]

They just dump all of the game's logic in there and treat it like a central place to just grab everything.

Easier for people to start learning with I suppose? Not good practice at all.

[odd ember]

I can see the case of having a vehicle level where the player starts inside of a vehicle where they otherwise wouldn't be inside a vehicle

but if it is a systemic action, it should not be in the level blueprint

[novel rock]

i should move everything into the player bp?

[odd ember]

I don't know what you're doing

so I can't answer your question

[maiden wadi]

Are you trying to make a character get into and get out of a vehicle?

[novel rock]

player buys a vehicle, can get in and out of vehicle. vehicle can be damaged and destroyed.

[odd ember]

sounds systemic

does this have anything to do with the level at all?

[novel rock]

I don't think so its only a mode of storage and transportation.

[odd ember]

so then if it has nothing to do with the level, then you don't need the level blueprint

[maiden wadi]

To explain why you should avoid doing things like this in the level(And a lot of other things). If you ever decide you want a second level, suddenly, you have to redo all of this logic even when you use the same character and vehicle.

[novel rock]

what about checkpoints and respawn points in the level?

like precaudal level generation?

I'm guessing that all goes in the level bp

[odd ember]

depends

[maiden wadi]

That can be in the level, sure. Also depends though. Sometimes you make separate actor classes out of your spawning managers and drop them into the level to do their thing.

[odd ember]

if checkpoints are all the same, you can make an actor to house that logic

consider it for unique circumstances

like if there's a special thing that happens

like a bridge that breaks down

that goes into the level blueprint

[novel rock]

I need to look more into this, sounds important.

[novel rock]

idk what you would put in level bp then.

[maiden wadi]

You'll learn about it soon enough. 😄 It's pretty common Unreal practice to expose variables on an actor, drop them into a level and use that actor's construction script to alter it while it's in the level to see it in action. Pretty typical level designer stuff.

[remote meteor]

the only time i would use level bp is where i would need some actor reference from the level directly that otherwise i cannot get anywhere else.

and also that level exlusive

[novel rock]

like a public static world variable?

[remote meteor]

not sure what you mean by a world variable if we are talking about blueprints 🤔

[odd ember]

short answer: nothing

long answer: unless you're a level designer don't use the level blueprint

if you had AI patrol points for instance, those would be in the level blueprint

and they would be setup by the level designer

[novel rock]

I get the impression that is more for multiple levels that have level specific differences.

[maiden wadi]

It's just a simple matter of DNRY practice. Doing gameplay stuff in the level means you have to repeat yourself on another level.

[odd ember]

what is?

[novel rock]

level bp?

[odd ember]

this is why the distinction between level unique elements versus systemic elements is importnat

[odd ember]

a level blueprint manages one level

not multiple levels

[novel rock]

yes that's wat I'm saying

[remote meteor]

welp my splashscreenlevel is done using level blueprint spawning the widgets and thats about it

😂

[odd ember]

when talking about design, there are generally 3 (4) main paths: systems, levels, technical (and UI, if you count that)

[void night]

Hi UEers ... which is better performing in BPs: Enums or Gameplay Tags (assume fast replication is enabled)???
I could not find an answer from online searches. Thanks in advance!

[odd ember]

systems are for the entire game. they are repeat actions you can do at certain times during the game. they have nothing to do with where you are when you do them. example: picking up items, health and damage, attack patterns

levels are where the actions happen. level actions are usually unique and tied to the location. if you have a specific building that collapses only in that level, then that's a unique circumstance that happens only in that level.

[maiden wadi]

@void night This has no bearing on BP. Enums are a single byte, GameplayTags are serialized into about the same with fast replication depending on the tag. So it's mostly a moot point unless you're talking hundreds of them per second all game long. The only real consideration is processing performance of packing/unpacking them, but that's not a really valid consideration until you hit an extremely large number.

[void night]

TY Authear ... I was also considering related performance points like a tags don't work off of a select, but enums do, so that would require one extra node to use a switch. Again, in low quantities of use not a factor, but still factored in.

[novel rock]

OH NO! DONT LOOK!
I accidently put a hamster in the level BP

[faint pasture]

That's what you get for using level bp

[maiden wadi]

Actually fun fact. Switches are faster than selects in a lot of cases. Selects require the processing of both values and any pure nodes attached to them to run before the selection is done. Switches just change execution order and can do a lot less processing.

[void night]

Or in other cases where one might have 2 enums (like for a Type and SubType thing) to process, where as one Tag could be used.

[odd ember]

LORASH

I got questions

but like, cpp style

[void night]

I was not aware of that ... TY for that additional info.

[faint pasture]

yes but branching eww

not like it matters in BP

[maiden wadi]

Whenever a Pure node runs, it has to collect all of it's parameters before it can execute.

[faint pasture]

It's often faster to do more work and throw some out than to branch

[spark steppe]

then or than?

[faint pasture]

but we're here in BP land, YMMV

[spark steppe]

yea, same applies to a bunch of things, also the AND node (and all the other boolean operator nodes)

where in c++ foo() && bar() would only execute the first, in BP it will execute both (if the first is false)

[novel rock]

Sorry to interrupt.
quick question.
How do i group variables?

[remote meteor]

Category on the details panel

[spark steppe]

in the details change their category (you can enter new names in the same field)

[novel rock]

Thanks 🙂

[novel rock]

thank you

is this better? its all in the player. Note: Vehicle only handles the transition proses.

[timid flint]

Can I get the Component I'm attached to (as an Actor) when attached via AttachActorToComponent?

I see GetAttachParentActor, but nothing about the specific component

[remote meteor]

you can use GetAttachParent from the root component of the actor

[odd ember]

GetComponentByClass

[timid flint]

oh, that worked. ty!

It has a misleading description, though

[remote meteor]

everything you see on the side of this menu is a SceneComponent

[timid flint]

oh, right. I confused it for scene root

[remote meteor]

if you attach something to a component, you can imagine its like being added to the hierarchy

the highest one in the hierarchy of the blueprint is the Root Component of the blueprint

[odd ember]

everything above the bottom line

[remote meteor]

within the 2 lines to be exact

[odd ember]

ActorComponent != SceneComponent

[remote meteor]

oops

[inland stone]

im using this blueprint to make one of my turrets to fallow the camera of the vehicle when im aiming at the location it works fine in the yaw but in the barrel the look is inverted so when i look up the barrel goes down. How do i correct this? is is it in the camera properties or can i do it in the blueprint

[remote meteor]

how are you setting up your input?

[remote meteor]

shouldnt you set pitch instead of roll on the barrel part?

[flat coral]

I find it pretty weird that you're using an axis for an InputAction, instead of binding it to an InputAxis

[remote meteor]

its usable but hmm it should work just fine for the press and release

[inland stone]

i did change to pitch but still same problem the pitch of the barrel still looking inverted

[flat coral]

What if flicking it across center counts as "release" for the inputaction?

[remote meteor]

i did tried, it dint, on 4.27

[remote meteor]

for the barrel part, it should be just this?

[flat coral]

Well the other advantage to using input axis instead would be debugging. They could put in a print and see exactly what the axis value is at the moment it mistakenly fires

[remote meteor]

you can put both to try i guess

[inland stone]

yes that did the trick, Thanks a lot

[wide linden]

can anyone help me im new dumb and literally have been trying to figure this out for 5hrs

Im trying to stop aiming when i sprint

[tawdry mural]

create custom event, link it to the same logic as rmb released and and call it on shift

@wide linden

[wide linden]

https://gyazo.com/d7843594d8b61218a3ccdbfd1143f089

this didnt work lawl

But what are you saying try

this is in animbp btw

[maiden wadi]

When you sprint, whatever sets your sprinting values should set aiming to not true.

[wide linden]

so sprint is set by walk speed but in this i cant make anything for max walk speed

[remote meteor]

i suggest you separate your event clearly

[wide linden]

https://gyazo.com/c0e344aefca6e8464971288adad9b4db

this is my events i fixed stop sprint when ads but i can hold ads and still sprint

[odd ember]

didn't you leave the server?

[wide linden]

yeah

stil being a dick i see

[remote meteor]

i wouldnt suggest using flip flop haha..

[white wigeon]

i get an error saying UE4asp is not compatible with Test Object Reference

its there a common fix for that by any chance

[remote meteor]

Where do you see that

[odd ember]

can you screenshot your error?

[white wigeon]

ok wait

[hexed loom]

One message removed from a suspended account.

One message removed from a suspended account.

One message removed from a suspended account.

[remote meteor]

When you pause

Release cant call

[hexed loom]

One message removed from a suspended account.

One message removed from a suspended account.

[tawdry mural]

you have to tick something

i dont remember

[remote meteor]

Or that

[hexed loom]

One message removed from a suspended account.

[odd ember]

click on your InputAction

[remote meteor]

Click on the inputaction

[hexed loom]

One message removed from a suspended account.

[white wigeon]

here

[odd ember]

so I'm thinking that whatever UE4ASP is, it isn't a character

[white wigeon]

it just means 'player'

[odd ember]

well it isn't

[hexed loom]

One message removed from a suspended account.

[glossy bane]

@maiden wadiwas just wondering if you could shed some light on this, I'm currently hooking up get player character (there only will ever be the one) directly to my function, this is better then if I casted then fetched the function correct?

[odd ember]

can you give me the parent class of UE4ASP?

[hexed loom]

One message removed from a suspended account.

[white wigeon]

its a default asset in the third person template

[odd ember]

I don't think it is

it sounds like some plugin

[white wigeon]

oh wait it isnt

its from epics animation starter pack

[odd ember]

right okay

[white wigeon]

im new to ue5

[odd ember]

so it's an animation blueprint

not a player character

[hexed loom]

One message removed from a suspended account.

[white wigeon]

its a player as far as ue5 ssays

[odd ember]

that's just a variable name

that's why I asked you for the parent class name

[white wigeon]

oh

[odd ember]

but assuming this is new to UE5, you may be trying to cast up

[remote meteor]

Casted one will result in a hard reference which invalidate the use of interface in the first place, if you are wondering about performance, i believe in this case they are both about the same.

[glossy bane]

So I guess it's just inevitable then, when theres an "other actor" like a trigger check it's very easy but when there isn't I guess I have no choice

[wide linden]

if anyone needs to know how not to stop sprint when you are ads let me know

[maiden wadi]

@glossy baneThere is no difference between these when the interface calls to an object that is already loaded all of the time. In fact the interface is harmful here. It's an extra class, and more work to implement it into the character class. Also it's barely distinguishable, but interfaces are much slower than directly calling after a cast.

[odd ember]

and just overall tedious to work with

😔

[glossy bane]

Right so I should get rid of the interface and just create a function and call it directly. And in regards to getting player character/casting I'm assuming it's just inevitable when I need to be fetching a constantly changing var

[remote meteor]

If you need just the player's yeh, store the ref too

[oak dagger]

Hello! I hope someone can give me some advice on the correct direction for a RTS map generator. I'm currently working on level generation for an isometric RTS and I need a method of generating levels. The map needs to work on a grid, but I'm unsure whether to create Level instances with their own tile generators / scatter generators and then instance these levels. Thoughts? Thanks you!

[odd ember]

don't know how much of that is possible in BP

I know there's a perlin noise node

but how that works with actually generating landscapes

[oak dagger]

should I head over to ccp?

[odd ember]

maybe out of reach

[maiden wadi]

@oak daggerTake a serious look at Prefabricator plugin. It's fantastic for this sort of thing. You still have to do the generation on your own, but you can create prefabs, and also randomizers that are extremely easy to use.

[odd ember]

I would recommend that yeah

or plugins

[oak dagger]

Yeah, I really want this to be proprietary as I find making things from the ground up easier to debug and fix

[odd ember]

a fellow NIH

I can respect that

#cpp is probably where you want to be

perhaps it could even be

a subsystem

[glossy bane]

gotcha

[oak dagger]

Thanks!

[maiden wadi]

There's really no upkeep to it. If you're lazy like me, just make a BP library function that precasts the pointer for you to your BP class. Getting the player character is extremely cheap. I'd only bother caching it for a large loop or something.

[gritty elm]

Is there a way to optimize large code blueprint?

[remote meteor]

I guess you have to balance between runtime performance and referencing issue

[gritty elm]

I have a blueprint, and it takes 2-3 minutes to compile

[odd ember]

move it to cpp 🙃

but otherwise, split it up to different classes

[gritty elm]

The issue is only to fix compile blueprint speed. Everything works fine

[odd ember]

if one blueprint is taking that long

it sounds like it's a god entity

which is a big no no

[glossy bane]

I see, but I think I'm missing something fundamental with casting; If I have a cast to a BP, for example my BP_Character, does it matter how many casts I do to that BP? Like, if I have 5 other BP's that each have a cast to BP_Character, and I find a way to get rid of 4 of those, but I still have one that is casting, has that made any performance difference or is it like if you cast once it doesn't matter anymore if I cast more times in different BP's?

[odd ember]

yes

casts are not free

nothing is free

[remote meteor]

As long you are not casting every frame, i think it should be fine

[odd ember]

yes but equally no need to do 4 casts when one is enough

[glossy bane]

Right so it's worth taking the time to reduce the amount of casts even if I still have one or two that must have it

[odd ember]

casts cost a little more than a branch atm

[remote meteor]

If you know you need the ref alot in the bp, you can cast and store it for use

[dawn lotus]

Hello everyone! I am having a bit of trouble with a simple high score save function w/ blueprints in UE5 and was wondering if anyone would be able to help me figure out where I'm going wrong with it?

[glossy bane]

Yeah I'm just trying to figure this out cause I'm casting to a large BP with loads of variables and functions etc

[odd ember]

you should not have a large BP

it means that somewhere something has too much responsibility

[remote meteor]

Player character usually will be large

😂

[dawn lotus]

Sounds like you need to make a struct that carries that information.

[odd ember]

it won't because you can outsource a lot of that into components

which you should

[glossy bane]

Yeah it's essentially what im trying to fix, im moving logic out to different BP's but that forces me to cast back to character

[odd ember]

consider the player character more of a manager of its components

[glossy bane]

So its like, does moving logic out and casting back yield anything or is actually harmful lol.

[desert juniper]

Sometimes the BP thumbnail becomes super zoomed out
Has anyone experienced this, or knows how to reset it ?

[odd ember]

save your character to a variable

[odd ember]

you can right click and there's some thumbnail options

[keen wedge]

Hi all, what would be a good way to detect if a player starts the game within a sphere collision of an enemy, and to run the code you would expect had OnBeginOverlap been triggered?

Is there anything to continually check if something is "inside" the collision volume?

[desert juniper]

not in this case

though I may be blind 🤷‍♂️

[odd ember]

in the content browser?

[desert juniper]

yeah

[odd ember]

view options > thumbnail edit mode

[desert juniper]

not sure where that menu is

[odd ember]

in the content browser

anyway this isn't BP anymore

[desert juniper]

don't think there's a better section for it

[odd ember]

#ue4-general

[desert juniper]

looks like this is just for rotation, not zooming in/out

odd

[odd ember]

🤷

[bright harbor]

does anyone have any good tutorials/a good general idea of the best and easiest way to do a radial menu i can add things to at runtime, and can detect which option has been selected?

[odd ember]

not sure of any tutorials. I would probably recommend a plugin over doing it yourself generally. I did one and it was a pain in the behind

[bright harbor]

any specific plug-in you’d recommend? or just any of them

[odd ember]

I would never recommend a plugin, and I don't know any. like I said I've made mine myself

[bright harbor]

gotcha, thanks for the help

[odd ember]

go for a free one if you can

worst case you can lift the code as a springboard for your own

[maiden wadi]

There is a disconnect between "performance" on this topic that needs cleared up.

CPU:
The simplest is of course CPU. For CPU performance there is a very tiny small cost when casting because it checks validity too. You can do thousands of these a frame most likely and not see an FPS difference. This kind of casting thought is worth ignoring entirely.

Memory:
The second is memory. To understand how this works you have to understand what a class CDO is. Class Default Objects are a default version of the object that Unreal creates in the background when that class needs to be ready to be used. You have one of these for everything you create. You can think of these as the purple class variables you have in blueprint, you can't really get anything out of them except for class defaults.

When you instantiate a new character, you're basically creating a few variables, you're not actually copying all of the functions and methods and everything else. That character's instance exists as some values in memory.

So you have 3 actors in a level based game.
PlayerCharacter
BossInLevel3
Apple

You have decided that you want BossInLevel3 to get confused when PlayerCharacter consumes an Apple. Also Apples don't exist until level 2 and onward.

You've decided to cast to Apple and use it in the PlayerCharacter. Next in Apple's blueprint you cast to BossInLevel3 and call a function if it's valid.

You start up level 1. You GameMode has a class value of your PlayerCharacter set in it's settings to spawn this character class when a level starts. So your world goes to spawn the GameMode actor, but it needs the Character. So it loads the character into memory, but Character has casted to Apple. Apple gets loaded into memory. Apple casts to BossInLevel3, BossInLevel3 gets loaded into memory. Now you can SpawnActor that Character class in level 1, where no Apples, or that boss exist.

I have to stop writing essays in here, I'm going to get banned. 😄

[odd ember]

a link is also fine 🌟

[maiden wadi]

@bright harborI detect mine with a FindLookAtRotation from GetMousePosition translated into the local space of the radial menu via it's cached geometry with the FVector2Ds converted to ZeroZ Vectors. You can use the Yaw to detect which direction the cursor is in relation to the center of the radial menu that way. 0 is straight right, 180 is left, -90 is up on screen 90 is down on screen. You can use that by dividing and rounding it to get array index locations. And Add the stuff you want to select to the array and populate it on screen with that logic in mind.

[odd ember]

I would recommend going out and taking a look at object oriented programming

understanding that is key to making good blueprints

specifically, polymorphism and hierarchies

[main lake]

I'm getting this error but don't know what's the problem with my code when trying to add a widget BP to the screen.

[odd ember]

but also design patterns could help

https://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/contents.html

[glossy bane]

That cleared up a lot of confusion thank you. Looking at your example then instead of casting to Apple and BossInLevel3 somewhere in PlayerCharacter, that cast should instead be controlled by a condition, for example I could still cast to Apple in PlayerCharacter, but only after player has loaded up level 2, and then I can cast to BossInLevel3, but only once player has actually loaded up level 3?

[maiden wadi]

@main lake You're testing with a dedicated server. Only reason that ever returns nullptr.

[main lake]

I set the Net Mode to "Play As Client" with 3 Players and Checked "Selected Viewport"

and is it ok or there's a way to fix it ?

[glossy bane]

Just finished my 6 week long oop course from school (albeit in Python) and it has helped but I feel like BP's hold my hand so much that it is so easy to neglect writing actual good code in regards to performance

[main lake]

Maybe I need to use the HasAuthority node ?

[odd ember]

if you're new to programming python isn't a great language

I generally recommend very strongly typed languages for people who are new

something like java or c#

[glossy bane]

It's literally the only language they are teaching at my school atleast, but I see what you mean

[main lake]

Yup the HasAuthority node fixes it

[maiden wadi]

@main lake This is one of the many reasons I handle all of my widget spawning through HUD. It's local only, has no chance of ever running on a server unless it's a listenserver with a local player.

There's also a check for IsDedicatedServer

[main lake]

Wait what do you mean ?

Because for me I create and add the HUD in the BP_Character

usually you create an HUD actor where you set all of your HUD stuff ?

[maiden wadi]

AHUD, not a widget named HUD. AHUD is a class spawned and maintained by the remote version of a PlayerController.

[main lake]

is that something in C++ ?

[maiden wadi]

No. Just having the cast node in the blueprint will cause it to be loaded. This is why you have base classes. Instead, Character could cast to Consumable, Apple could inherit from Consumable. Consumable could do all of the logic of the consumption. Consumable even with a ton of code is a tiny class, no meshes, no particles. Then the Apple would have an AoE affect. This could be something as simple as adding a damage type to the hit actors. Boss3 can switch on this damage type and start it's confusion. Everything else could ignore it. There are better ways, but this is one example of how you can completely disconnect these classes and keep the identical functionality without casting to them or using Interfaces.

[maiden wadi]

You already actually have one that is spawning already. It's just not doing much.

[haughty nymph]

Hi, How can i make it so my character rotate when its falling

[main lake]

Oh nice thank you, I learned something 🙂 Now I'm gonna do all the stuff for the UI there 🙂

[glossy bane]

I understand thank you again!

[maiden wadi]

The awesome thing about this class is that one of them is spawned locally for each local player, and is not replicated so there is no networking in this class. It forces you to keep UI entirely disconnected and local only as it should be.

Also you can globally get it from anywhere with GetPlayerController->GetHUD

[main lake]

awesome thank you 😄

[umbral ginkgo]

How would I check which actor of a class is overlapped?

[odd ember]

get overlapped actors > foreach > get class

[umbral ginkgo]

thanks

[umbral ginkgo]

Where can I find get overlapped actors?

[odd ember]

on whatever is overlapping them

[odd ember]

a collision of some sort

[mossy mist]

bruh???

[umbral ginkgo]

@odd ember One more question, why get class?

[odd ember]

didn't you want the class?

like I was answering your question lol

and then you ask me "why do the thing that you said as a solution"?

[umbral ginkgo]

Oh sorry when I said that I meant checking which actor

[brazen merlin]

yeah... maybe itd be better to explain what your are trying to do

[odd ember]

nah keep us in the dark

let's make it spicy

[umbral ginkgo]

Im just trying to see which actor was overlapped

[misty dragon]

May be a dumb question boys but does anyone know the name of this “inputs” node I’m trying to follow a little tutorial but can’t for the life of me find it

[odd ember]

what do you intend to do with that actor?

[brazen merlin]

thats the start node of a function

or macro

[misty dragon]

Yeah so I am trying to create a function

[umbral ginkgo]

See if its equal to another actor

[odd ember]

in the bigger scope of things

what do you want to do

not your immediate next action

present your situation

[brazen merlin]

sorry, do you not know how?

[misty dragon]

Can’t say that I do no.

[mossy mist]

input node only comes with macro

not function

make a macro

[brazen merlin]

thanks Peteh

[misty dragon]

Cool so just collapse to macro

[umbral ginkgo]

When the player interacts with the trigger which is selected externally, I want to call an event, if thats in a big enough scope

[odd ember]

on begin overlap > cast to player character

done

[umbral ginkgo]

*Key word being selected

[odd ember]

I don't know what you mean by that

selected how?

[umbral ginkgo]

there are multiple triggers

[odd ember]

yes

[umbral ginkgo]

That being said, I have to see if the trigger which the player interacted with is the one thats selected by an external script

which is where my problem lies

[odd ember]

well that's different from what your asked initially

I don't know what you mean by external script

[umbral ginkgo]

Its in another blueprint

i was just too lazy to type that

[odd ember]

well if you're too lazy to type your answers are going to reflect that

what is the other blueprint?

[umbral ginkgo]

The playerbp

[odd ember]

cast to player

done

[umbral ginkgo]

While I can see how it'd be helpful, I dont see how that'd solve my problem?

[odd ember]

it's a check if it's the player character overlapping

I don't know how you handle your selection process

[umbral ginkgo]

Array

[odd ember]

but the trigger in question would have to know about that

array where?

[umbral ginkgo]

In the player bp

[odd ember]

so now that you've cast to the player BP

[umbral ginkgo]

yep

[odd ember]

you can take the player BP variable

and use to find the array

[umbral ginkgo]

And check if the actor selected is the same one overlapped by the player?

[odd ember]

https://tenor.com/view/peter-griffin-perhaps-family-guy-thinking-gif-13587558

[umbral ginkgo]

Then that raises another question

[misty dragon]

Thanks for the help guys got it figured out appreciate it

[umbral ginkgo]

Where do you get the variable for the actor overlapped or is it just this

[odd ember]

this or self both work

[umbral ginkgo]

K thx

Does this look right?

[odd ember]

probably? if you are certain that Selected Trigger works

also

no

connect the cast to OtherActor

[umbral ginkgo]

Ohp just did that

[wide linden]

is there a way to make get a boolean from anim bp to third person character bp?

or get a max walk speed over to the animbp

so they pass from bp to bp?

9hrs of trying to fix one problem

yeah

some of my variables dont show up in one or the other my brain is frying

ahhh

local variables

that could be it

how would i make it non local

i understand alittle i just wouldnt know how to connect it to what im trying to do ugh the is so tuff

ive watch 30 tutorials nothing to fix mine haha i think im fucked

https://gyazo.com/c9ab6f861d21ff6f7d1f972a4df58b92

This is how i fixed sprinting to aim but cant fix aim to sprint if that makes sense
so if you sprint and ADS then walk speed is set to 400. At the moment though if you ADS then sprint walk speed will go to max of 800 and sprint animation will start

[zealous fog]

Look into interfaces

You can create an event in your character BP and call it in your animbp

[wide linden]

https://gyazo.com/25fbe74217f3c5bf3d25c9c34d928cc1

[zealous fog]

Oh nvm you have that part

[wide linden]

i have il send

https://gyazo.com/ff0c91bf0c4fbf3ca9270ea8e34de123

havnt started jump bc i cant fix sprint

everything works

let me send a video for whats going on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjQYWgggzKQ&t=2s

5:40

but his fix doesnt work for me

or im dumb and cant figure it out

[icy dragon]

DevSquad
Welp...

[wide linden]

so the biggest issue with his fix is that i dont have they same ads system mines animation based not camera

[maiden wadi]

Get used to that for a while. 😄

[wide linden]

lol

[zealous fog]

Id just set up a bool can sprint

If you cant sprint prevent the input from doing anything

[wide linden]

yeah that worked for sprint to ads but not ads to sprint

or i set it up wrong

let me attempt again

[zealous fog]

Set it up so that when you start ads the bool is set to false

[timber knoll]

Well to make it more flexible

[zealous fog]

When you stop als you can set it to true

[timber knoll]

Just basically keep track if the button is pressed

And then you can do a boolean on top

So as long as you hold sprint, it will try to sprint until you let go

[wide linden]

https://gyazo.com/41b3e5ce1783a963c8ca5f5a2fe3598e

this is my aiming its in animbp

or should i try to do it in sprint

on thirpersoncharacter

thats my biggest thing to idk where to put this fix

[zealous fog]

Id do it all in character

[wide linden]

ok

i dont have a aim in character

[zealous fog]

You need to press something to aim right

[timber knoll]

Lol that was a wrong finger 😅

[wide linden]

i lie

sorry brain

[zealous fog]

Branch after that

[wide linden]

im melting over here

oh yeah fuck lol

this is it but only fixed the sprint to aim not aim to sprint

https://gyazo.com/2cbad8b359fd5d72df3a3dc71654d8ec

[zealous fog]

4 most used words by devs

[wide linden]

so i have to do it in sprint right?

[zealous fog]

When you press sprint button, set can ads to false

When you release set it to true

[wide linden]

ok another issue lol

umm

[zealous fog]

After the ads button

Branch can ads

[wide linden]

i dont have a variable for aim

fufuuffuuffuuf

asdl;fj;sd'

i have no idea what i got myself into

[zealous fog]

If you use tap to sprint, you can set it to false at the point it switches back to walking

[wide linden]

https://gyazo.com/9532e28a3972f6554ddb049e00a736b5

[timber knoll]

Use some categories 😛

[zealous fog]

Btw I would start watching unreal videos on youtube

[wide linden]

lol yeah

[zealous fog]

Or on the unreal learn site

[timber knoll]

Stats could be in a component, reloading in the gun

[wide linden]

i have any suggestions

though

[zealous fog]

It'll teach you the foundations better than this

[wide linden]

yeah im kind of just bouncing around atm doing this i want to do not missing alot in the middle

[zealous fog]

You're making stuff you don't understand atm (I don't want to be offensive but you'll have more fun if figuring out a branch doesn't take 9 hours)

And developing is so much fun

So I just wanna help you

[wide linden]

thats true no offense im aware

[zealous fog]

And from personal experience I can also advise taking udemy courses if you have the 20 bucks. But I know not everyone agrees with me on this channel here so it's up to you if that fits your learning style you can always dm me if you want some good suggestions because there are trash courses on there too

[wide linden]

How do the courses work 1 on 1?

or a video

ahh

[zealous fog]

It's basically a long tutorial with access to q and a

The one I followed is about 10 hours, took me about 50 hours to understand and play around with

But it really gave me a great foundation

And more importantly gave me knowledge on what I needed to learn next

[wide linden]

ok i will 100 look into it

i do want to fix this first though lmao

[zealous fog]

Anything gamedev.tv is pretty much guaranteed to be good imo

[mossy mist]

uh so i have a landscape here and i built a navmesh volume which covers it. The navmesh built successfully but no green grids are showing when pressing p. On other surfaces the green grids show.

[maiden wadi]

I followed a city builder tutorial when I very first started. Took me a week to finish it. Didn't have a clue what I was doing or why. Just followed along step by step. Went back through a second time around actually pausing the tutorial to think, took me a couple more weeks. Didn't change anything, I just looked through the types and googled what they were to understand the data flow and how what was doing what.

[wide linden]

thats what i was doing with an fps guide have been through it 3 times atm

[odd ember]

doesn't seem like a #blueprint issue. maybe ask in #ue4-general ?

[wide linden]

however dont like his systems

the guide is also from 2017

[zealous fog]

The problem with YouTube tutorials is that a lot of them are in skill only just a bit above the level that they're teaching

[wide linden]

so old ways of doing things

[zealous fog]

So they have a lot of bad practises

I dont wanna claim I don't but I don't make tutorials lol

[wide linden]

yeah thats what it seemed like look like there where easier ways to do things or shorter

[timber knoll]

The problem I have with 99% of tutorials on youtube is them being step by step

[round fog]

Does anyone know much about how the air pathfinding works in UE. It seems ok but I do find issues with multiple units getting stuck on one another

[timber knoll]

Skipping actual teaching and explaining

[round fog]

*Ai pathfinding

[odd ember]

#gameplay-ai

[odd ember]

the problem is also that most people on youtube don't actually understand what they're doing in detail. they use the cast node without knowing the implications of a cast etc.

[wide linden]

how do i make booleans if there not in events

or should i say connect it to the animbp

https://gyazo.com/cfa03cea2022a67ca75ad4724b76511d

is aiming is here but i need it on the other end you know

its in a category in animbp but how do i link it to the event graph

Promote to variable aye lets go

or is that rigfht

nope that didnt work

so you cant use variables from one thing to another ima drink my worries away il lurk the chat and try to learn

FIXED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

only 10hrs ;klasjf;k'l sdjf';gl ksdl;'fk sd'a;f

[zealous fog]

I just spent 4 days on ai

Its a way of life

[maiden wadi]

Oh is that all?

[zealous fog]

More specifically a basic patrol and attack ai

[wide linden]

https://gyazo.com/48f2495c454eab0957cd68d4839812a9

[zealous fog]

Not all of ai

[wide linden]

probably not the right way but it worked

[maiden wadi]

😄 I ditched behavior trees. I've decided I don't like them.

[wide linden]

im not touching ai for another 6 years lawl

[zealous fog]

That branch isn't doing anythinf

[zealous moth]

I wish i had milk, it would come out of my nose right now

Dat branch

[wide linden]

i cant even get aim down sights to work lol

[dapper bobcat]

im so confused why you got a branch there

[wide linden]

listen guys works in game idk

im happy

[zealous fog]

It also works without it

[wide linden]

maybe remove the branch?

il try

[odd ember]

behavior trees are amaze

[wide linden]

yeah branch not needed hahahah

[zealous fog]

Man I understood behaviour trees as soon as I stopped thinking of them as blueprints

[dapper bobcat]

thats good, as long as you're happy with it thats what matters! 🙂 That branch isn't doing anything though, as you are checking if the bool is true or false, but you are not giving it a bool and have hard coded the condition to be true there so it is always true, ergo the branch isn't doing anything at all. Hopefully that explanation helps

[wide linden]

im boucing in my dxracer 🙂

[odd ember]

I still don't understand why you didn't want them tbh, what was the issue?

[wide linden]

yeah i though i would need to add a bool to the branch

but didnt need to

fuck

another problem now

so when i double tap shift it aims

https://tenor.com/view/po-dies-dies-of-death-teletubbies-gif-23885910

[dapper bobcat]

99% of gamedev is running into problems then finding ways to solve them

its a pain at times lol

[wide linden]

welp 10hrs going on more i guess closer though

i fucking hate my life

[zealous moth]

@dapper bobcat nah 99% of it is saying "i will do it after this tutorial" and ending up making an entirely doifferent game with 10 tutorials that dont match and giving up on the thing altogether

[wide linden]

https://tenor.com/view/drcox-scrubs-head-gif-4862594

[icy dragon]

Also DevSquad is not a good tutor

Even as a beginner back then, I can't understand shit from his videos

[dapper bobcat]

I can't really say I relate 😅 but at least you made a game, thats an achievement all by itself.

[zealous moth]

@icy dragon hahaha aw man remember ember veins?

[icy dragon]

It was his project, eh?

[zealous moth]

It was weird mix of people and volunteers and it kinda disappeared

[maiden wadi]

I dunno. There's just too much branching with so much copied logic everywhere. It feels frustrating for me to use when it comes to overlapping logics, and quite honestly I don't care for the rigidness of BTs. Varying tasks based on percentage is very difficult in comparison to a very simple Utility AI setup. Tom Looman has a post about it that kind of rings with my feeling on it. https://www.tomlooman.com/unreal-engine-utility-ai-part1/

[gentle urchin]

Amen.

[trim matrix]

my character is locked to the X axis and I need it to move just along that axis and nowhere else. How do I set up the movements like that?

[zealous moth]

@trim matrix check out the character bp in the sidescroller template.

[trim matrix]

ooooh

gotcha

thank you

[odd ember]

I mean I combine utility level stuff with BTs

I do think my AI is fairly complex as well

so I'm wondering what the concrete examples of pitfalls are

[agile edge]

how to get list of player characters

or number of player characters

want to iterate this

[fierce birch]

loop

[brazen merlin]

Getallactorsofclass

[fierce birch]

question is it ok to talk about materials here

im having a problem with blend modes

[brazen merlin]

I mean.... graphics

[fierce birch]

no one responded

😭

I been trying to apply a material function that needs the blend mode to be masked but with this part of the material disappears

[maiden wadi]

@agile edge GetGameState->GetPlayerArray->Loop. From each PlayerState, Get the PawnPrivate variable, Cast that to Character.

[agile edge]

I guess both seem to work

I wonder if one is "cleaner"

[crimson saddle]

I cant seem to get On Begin Cursor Over events to work. I have mouse over events on in my pc so I don't know what the problem is

[maiden wadi]

@crimson saddle Requires the object in question to block the same channel the controller is using for MouseOverEvents. Can't remember if that defaults to Visibility or Camera.

[crimson saddle]

my objects blocks all. I have the events set to visibility anyway

[agile edge]

they should make blueprints text less verbose

[maiden wadi]

Blueprints are intended largely for designers. Verbosity is semi required. And if that's your feeling, you'd hate my C++ code. 😄

[agile edge]

er I mean the text that represents them

eg when you copy-paste a blueprint node into a text editor

[maiden wadi]

Ah. It's just generated stuff. Most people never see it.

[agile edge]

In theory, they could be concise and human readable => easier to share or even edit the text manually

[odd ember]

I've seen your essays 😅

[crimson saddle]

its weird because GetHitResultUnderCursorByChannel works

[agile edge]

   FunctionReference=(MemberParent=Class'"/Script/Engine.GameplayStatics"',MemberName="GetAllActorsOfClass")
   NodePosX=-512
   NodePosY=-32
   NodeGuid=8770BDA844B998A2B8040A876C9A9924```

[maiden wadi]

If you want to share blueprints, most people use.. Blueprintable? I think that's the site's name.

[crimson saddle]

what I am trying to do is as simple as this

[tight pollen]

how to check how many indexs with the same item are in the array

?

[brazen merlin]

contains? might need to elaborate though

[tight pollen]

it just checks to see if it contains, i need check how many indexs have same item

I have no idea for that

[brazen merlin]

is it actors or numbers you are checking?

[tight pollen]

only numbers

[high ocean]

Is constructing object of class - in my case - widget text box cheaper/same or worse than making a widget containing the text boxes?

Aand, is it expensive to check a text against a large text array?

[maiden wadi]

@tight pollenMake a function, input an array by reference as well as the thing to check against, output an integer. Loop the input array and == the other input. If true, increment a local integer and return it after the loop.

[odd ember]

assume that the engine has made the most efficient option available to you @high ocean

[odd ember]

yes

[maiden wadi]

Don't ever use ConstructObject on Widgets.

[high ocean]

So should I wrap the text inside a widget and go like that?

[tight pollen]

ok, i will try

[odd ember]

I don't know what you're trying to do

[maiden wadi]

If you're creating a UUserWidget, you call CreateWidget. If you're creating normal widgets(Which you should not ever do in Blueprint), you create them with special Slate constructors which is C++ only and a rabbit hole.

So in short, yes, even if you have nothing but a Textblock, wrap it in a UserWidget class.

[high ocean]

By "large" i mean a couple hundred members - text length itself is phrases & I'm only checking to see if it's contained.

[high ocean]

got it, thanks! 🙂

[odd ember]

how frequent and what kind of operations are you doing?

100+ is a large amount for an array

[maiden wadi]

Feels like chat box territory.

[high ocean]

I open a "library" widget, it contains books which contain fragments. I take each book and check to see which phrases have been found. If found = display, if not = display "..."

I need the phrases to stay in order so I can't just "add" those found to empty arrays

[maiden wadi]

Don't check the text. Save the Tags you've collected and check against the Tags.

[odd ember]

why isn't each book its own entity?

[maiden wadi]

GameplayTag comparison is insanely faster than string compares.

[high ocean]

This is the "book"

[odd ember]

well if they're just checking if they're in the in the array, that's not a string comparison

[high ocean]

the "verses" are the text fragments - didn't want to wrap them in a struct and check against bools, maps don't accept bools or text as keys so ...

[crimson saddle]

Is anyone able to help? I simply need to be able to mark my actor as being hovered or not hovered.

[high ocean]

@crimson saddleget hit result under mouse cursor (if you work with mouse), collision channel on actor set to block for the collision channel the trace uses. Otherwise, depends, the principle stays the same.

[maiden wadi]

The localization person in me is cringing at this. 😄

[high ocean]

pfff... if i get to that point it means the game did great and I have some money to get another generalist/engineer to get some load off lol

[maiden wadi]

Verses doesn't even need to be a Text there. You can make them out of FNames or GameplayTags, and look up the text from another table.

[odd ember]

for many different reasons I'd have book as an object

not a struct

[high ocean]

I need to save them - how would I save objects?

[odd ember]

???

[crimson saddle]

The thing I'm not sure about is how to unmark an actor if I go that route. I can easily just hit an actor, cast to it, and tell it it's hovered. But when it stops being hovered I'm not sure what to do

[odd ember]

same way you save anything else?

[crimson saddle]

Actors have an 'ActorBeginCursorOver' event but that doesn't seem to work at all for whatever reason

[high ocean]

that must work, check ur collisions - they aslo have an event for when cursor no longer is hovering over them

[high ocean]

so, it's not like trying to save actors, since objects don't need to exist in the world - right?

[odd ember]

I don't know what you mean

what kind of saving are we talking about?

[high ocean]

savegame

[odd ember]

then yes you can save objects

it'll be easier too

because structs are a pain to work with in BP

[high ocean]

pfff... if i only knew that, I would've built some things differently instead of digging through endless, convoluted structs - y didn't i think of that? 😭

so an object can have any type and number of variables - right? and I can use them as containers?

[odd ember]

structs in BP were made for read only static data generally

you can write to them, but it's much more a pain than it should be

plus with objects you can have functions on them

[crimson saddle]

That's the thing, it definitely isnt working for me. My collisions are set up correctly. Get hit result under cursor works but this event does not.

[odd ember]

collision needs to be the same for both things

[high ocean]

cursor over and off are overlaps if i remember correctly - not sure tho. they should work!

[maiden wadi]

@high ocean I've found that for most gameplay systems, three structs are best in a lot of cases. First is a data struct that populate static data that the system can use for generation or whatever.

Your RowName, Rarity, Level, DropByRegion, DropRegionName, Experience and maybe Currency can go in one struct. This is all static data that your game systems can get with just the RowName.

Your actual game data struct just needs to have the RowName or a defining GameplayTag, and the collected Verses(As like a GameplayTag or FName, even Integer). This is what you can save and pass around. It's intensely smaller.

DisplayName, Potential textures, and such can go in another struct.

First and third struct can be made into a Data Asset or Datatable, and another Map or Datatable (Or multiple datatables put into a composite datatable) can be used for all verse Text lookup from every book.

[high ocean]

another simple solution (not smart probably, but simple) is to make a probe collision that moves with ur mouse cursor, and check overlaps against that. It would however, move on tick which isn't particularly nice - lol tagged myself...

[maiden wadi]

You get to separate static gameplay data from static cosmetic data this way, and your actual game data is much much smaller.

[high ocean]

Well the whole struct goes into a data table. the only question is how to make the lookup display as many "..." widgets as it needs even though the array of "found" doesn't contain those?

so if using text and contain is expensive, i want to fix it now - but I can't wrap my head around how to make sure the missing ones are taken into account.

I could divide my struct into sub-structs, did that with the units since that one is quite large - aside from the fact that it's a pain to set members in members in members, it's fine with propper getter functions.

[mossy mist]

navmesh "P" is not working on landscape, green grids not showing. works everywhere else

[odd ember]

the best design decision is to not have them. nobody wants to open a book just to be met with "..."

[odd ember]

still not the right channel

[high ocean]

fair enough, i can display nothing there, but i need to keep track of the order in which they are displayed. They can be found in different orders.

[odd ember]

I mean I don't think there's a point in having a book that is empty

[high ocean]

If it's empty, you don't have it at all 😄

it doesn't show, that's a different story. If you have 1 verse, you get the whole book with only 1 verse in it. Then u find the others to complete the story.

[odd ember]

right but you were talking about having a library of books

where some of them had nothing in them

save yourself the trouble, and the player the effort and just don't have books with nothing in them?

[maiden wadi]

If all of that is static data. I strongly recommend moving the Verse text to a separate table and changing the container for your verses to GameplayTagContainer or something.

[crimson saddle]

thats what confuses me, if cursor over and off are overlaps what should I set up then?

[maiden wadi]

Your widgets or whatever can look up the text from the tag, and checking length/comparing which you do/don't have is much faster.

[high ocean]

so i remove the verses from the main struct, and make a custom gt table, with, for instance: bookname.versename & the verse text var?

[high ocean]

overlap on both

[maiden wadi]

Start by replacing the Array of Texts with a GameplayTagContainer. Just one, not an array of them.

Put a few Verse tags there like you mentioned. BookName.Verse or however you prefer to set them up.

[high ocean]

oh oh... i think i get where this goes... each of them points to the text itself

[maiden wadi]

Right. You can make a DataAsset with a Map of GameplayTags/FText or make a second Struct with nothing but FText in it and then make a Datatable out of that FText Struct.

Either way works. Would recommend the DataAsset personally, but it's just flavor there.

[high ocean]

aham, never used data assets before, so might as well learn those too 😐

[maiden wadi]

Create a new Blueprint and make one from here. This is it's class, you'll still need to make the Asset out of it.

That'll go in your content browser where you did it. Then right click again and make a DataAsset

Should end up with this after. Rename the maroon one to whatever you want. StaticBookDataAsset or something.

[high ocean]

😮 this is amazing!

and if i write script inside the data asset bp will it change values accordingly?

[maiden wadi]

Open up the blue one, and make a new Variable of a Map of GameplayTags/FText

[odd ember]

hmm

can gameplay tags be written dynamically at editor time?

[maiden wadi]

Don't put anything there. Open up the maroon one and you'll end up with this.

[odd ember]

as in, not by the user

[maiden wadi]

May be some form of way to do it in Editor BPs.

[odd ember]

I was thinking cpp

[maiden wadi]

They're just entry lines in an ini file though so nothing too hard in C++ at least.

[odd ember]

so they cannot exist with the ini file?

how do they look as a parameter on an exposed BP node?

[odd ember]

okay

thanks

for that list, if you created a new tag, when would said list update?

[maiden wadi]

Immediately.

[odd ember]

cool, that's perfect

I'll exchange my FName setup with gameplay tags then

[maiden wadi]

Best part is that you can also have separate sources. May be useful if you wanted generated tags.

[high ocean]

So basically, this is the idea - right?

[maiden wadi]

Yep.

Now.

[odd ember]

yeah basically the idea is to generate role tags and then have a combobox list of things to activate

I would settle for having the gameplay tags in an array rather than having them in an ini file

that's too cumbersome for my setup

[maiden wadi]

Open your Widget that displays the text and make a reference to the DataAsset type you created.

Compile, then set the default to your maroon version.

You now have access to that map in the widget.

[high ocean]

fair enough, but how do I check if they were found or not?

[maiden wadi]

Where do you save your found data? You'll need to change that to save the verse tags into another container.

[high ocean]

On my initial setup i just had a "found verses" array. I throw most of it in the GI

was checking directly against that

but instead of that, i'll have the gameplay tags now - I can have an array of the found ones in the GI the same way and check if they contain the ones from the data asset

[maiden wadi]

Basically this.

If you want to check against all of the verses you've specified in your datatable.

[high ocean]

yyep, 🙂

well, each book will have its own verses, so each book widget will only check against their own really

[maiden wadi]

Yeah. The VerseDatatableContainer would just be the container you pull from the data table struct for that book.

[high ocean]

it's certainly more complicated than I've initially made it, but if it's considerably cheaper 🤷‍♂️

[maiden wadi]

That tag check could probably run dozens of times for one text==text check.

I'm also being gentle on that, it's possibly more than that.. Curious now.

Also, if you ever decide to localize, you can either make stringtables, or just gather the text directly out of that one DataAsset and boom, done.

[high ocean]

well how does it check really? letter for letter? cos then - wow

hence I mentioned the phrase length of maybe around 30 words or so... If it checks letter for letter then it's really bad.

especially if/when my game grows in lore n stuff

[odd ember]

how else?

[high ocean]

how would I know? I barely know anything lol 😅

ofc my engine crashed like crazy when changing structs

[maiden wadi]

It basically takes each letter, gets an integer value from it, and adds that into a local integer, does the same for the second string, and then int1 - int2. If not zero, it doesn't match.

[high ocean]

Jesus! Ok, i'll never compare text again - wtf

well, thanks for the help, would've broken my game w/o it lol 🙂

[maiden wadi]

Haha. It's fine for rare occasions. But when possible, best avoided. That's why I thought you were in chat territory. I've never had to compare text in any other place than a chat widget or for rare input checks when players try to name characters to stop name overlaps.

[high ocean]

@maiden wadiAmazing stuff + I've learned quite some things tonight 🥳

One more question about these primary data assets then i'll piss off 😛
They have an event graph - does that mean I can put functionality there? do they have an initialization event or something?

[dusk storm]

Hi all I've been banging my head against the wall on this issue for the past hour.

I want to take the rotation of my blueprint, and pass that into a Niagara user variable so that I can ensure that the sprite renderer is always facing the same direction as the blueprint is.

But for some reason I can't convert the Relative Rotation to a Vector3

I've tried both using GetRotationXVector (which I think I'm using incorrectly because it always returns 0). And splitting the rotation into it's individual axes (which for some reason are vectors and not floats??)

Appreciate any insight into this matter

[maiden wadi]

You can put any logic there you want. I do this in C++, but it's identical use case, you can do a lot of data organizing, or search functions. For instance if you had an array of stuff and wanted only some values returned, you could make a function here and call that on the DataAsset pointer like where you got the Map from. As far as an initializer, I don't believe so. They are extremely lightweight classes just literally designed to hold static data you can access from anywhere. I've never tried maybe storing other data on them and calling an init from like GameInstance or something. Could be possible though.

[high ocean]

Great, thanks for all ur help! @maiden wadi 🙂

[maiden wadi]

@dusk storm Not sure if I'm understanding entirely, but normally you design the emitter to play in local space of the emitter and then you can just attach it normally. Then when the character turns, emitter turns with it and effects change accordingly.

Also, what you're doing will never gain a different result because you're getting that component's local space rotation. If that Plane is normally attached to the actor, then it'll rotate with the actor, and it's local rotation won't change. So GetRotationXVector will just give you a X1Y0,Z0 vector.

[spice smelt]

can someone help me spot the infinite loop? Cause I really don't see it. Happens when the button is pressed a second time, and a second element is added to the string>int map

[dusk storm]

I see, thank you I will look into this

[maiden wadi]

This looks questionable.

[spice smelt]

oh

[maiden wadi]

Hmm. Maybe not.

I dunno. I'd just start disconnecting Exec lines one by one and then replace them and remove another until it doesn't loop.

[spice smelt]

i mean, it doesn't cause "set experience" to be called again

[maiden wadi]

Yeah, realized that a little slowly. 😄

[spice smelt]

I did it, but then I'm lacking functionality 😅

[maiden wadi]

Where does it stop looping?

[spice smelt]

UE complains when "Add Experience Widget is called

which doesn't call anything

well not mine at least

unless...

[maiden wadi]

Check it's Pre and Construct.

Or Init

[spice smelt]

does widget creation cause "on value changed" of its elements to be called when it's created? 🤔

there's nothing in pre and construct

[maiden wadi]

Possibly. I don't think I've ever used that event.

Looks like a slider event or something?

[spice smelt]

yeah

[maiden wadi]

I know Combobox has an Enum you can switch on.

[spice smelt]

ohhhh no

caught it

it triggers value changed

🤦‍♂️

how do i even avoid that

[dawn gazelle]

Use a gate and an event that opens it.

[spice smelt]

ouch since its before add child to vertical box, the loop it starts keep trying to add more widgets, cause it keeps seeing a different length of the container

[spice smelt]

what's a gate? ;-; i'm a blueprint noob

i speak C++ 😅

[maiden wadi]

Boolean basically.

[spice smelt]

uhm flagging an active status after the value is set

[maiden wadi]

I'm a little concerned that the scrollbar of a widget can cause it to be destroyed and recreated.

[spice smelt]

well it never will

i use that "set experience" both when adding a new experience, and when modifying and existing one

if it's modifying, the size of the widget container == the size of the string>int map in the character

so it will skip the clean and create part

(i'm making basically an ui-only application for android, a really battery intensive one, just cause ue4+android with UMG is way easier to setup than QT+Visual Studio+android xD)
It works now, thanks @maiden wadi @dawn gazelle

[high ocean]

Has this the potential of returning a different index? Given that it's a pure function?

[dusk storm]

Another noob question here:

This "Set" node? Is it a custom user variable or is it an actual node that I just can't find the name of?

[vestal plinth]

I've set up an ai controller to path to a specific location, attached it to a character in the world and I can see that it's trying to run. I have a navmesh set up and it's in it, but every time it tries to run it just returns "FAILED"

what might be a reason for that?

[dusk storm]

Nvm figured it out lol, it is indeed a user variable

[vestal plinth]

well done 🙂

[high ocean]

@vestal plinthwhich ai node are you using to move it?

just to test it out, try using

and if this is working, then it's the AI node itself causing it - had problems myself with some of them, there are 3 if I remember correctly

[vestal plinth]

ooh cheers

I was using the more complex one

yeah it's still not moving

is character the right type to use or should it be pawn?

something may be wrong with the target location I'm choosing after all

[high ocean]

Character is fine. Maybe collision/nav?

[vestal plinth]

do you call that node on tick, or less frequently?
not collision/nav unless the target location is invalid

[high ocean]

jesus no! if you call it on tick, you keep on sending it the information every frame, it has no chance to move whatsoever.

you call it by event

on overlap, on beginplay etc

[vestal plinth]

nah I'm not sending it on tick. was just checking

[high ocean]

in theory, if the destination is somehow invalid, and the ai has acess to world origin 000, it will go there instead

to test it, just get a target actor, throw it into the world, make an exposed var in the character bp for it, sample the target actor from the world and have it go there.

[vestal plinth]

what if the target location is a little bit above the ground?

that's exactly what I'm doing

[high ocean]

you have an acceptance radius for the other node

i closed my engine - it's 4am here lol, but i think its called "Ai move to location or actor"

and also a bool for stop on overlap

are u using the default settings for navmesh + character? Maybe it's step height and it can't "step", it's too steep

i'd still make sure the capsule isn't inside the ground and it can actually move

[vestal plinth]

that was the node I started with

I'll try it again

the navmesh is pretty flat

there's the navmesh and the character

[high ocean]

try a smaller area? idk, hard to know with all the vars involved + sometimes (quite often really) navmesh bugs out. Make it dynamic at least until u finish testing. maybe it got messed-up

move the char a little in the air so it drops down on the ground when you play

[vestal plinth]

I did

and it does

that's where it's meant to be going to

this runs every 3 seconds

[high ocean]

move it on the floor and see if it works - is that a static mesh?

[vestal plinth]

it's a skeletal mesh

it picks the location using a springarm from the camera so I know it's a valid location

[high ocean]

no no, i mean, the target sits on something - a static mesh?

[vestal plinth]

has a big probe size

no it sits next to it

[high ocean]

oh

but... the controller isn't "self"

it's "get ai controller"

bla bla

[vestal plinth]

that's IN the AI controller

[high ocean]

I'm guessing that code is inside the character

oh... but the controller can't move anywhere... You are telling the controller itself to move

you want the character to move, not the controller

[vestal plinth]

hard to see why it would take a character as a target

[high ocean]

that code should be in the character you want to be moving, not inside the controller.

[vestal plinth]

what is the point of an ai controller if none of the AI code goes in it?

this is following the epic examples pretty closely as well

[high ocean]

🤷‍♂️ never used the ai move to on the controller itself, especially since I use the same controller for 19350 AIs and I don't want them to all move the same way in the same spot. That is the point of a controller. You want to move the actor's instance, and use the controller to do it, not move the controller itself...

[vestal plinth]

that would just be bad design. you'd have to write new AI for each character

[high ocean]

Not really, no...

[odd ember]

I guess it's just the way epic's system works for the AI. I don't personally have any code inside my AI controller but it's necessary for the AI to move

[vestal plinth]

each character would get an instance of the controller. in this case I have only one so it doesn't need the character to individualise the movement, but I'd still have the character fetch the target location and tell its AI controller to run the movement command

like, this is how it works

[high ocean]

well, that is obviously not how it works 😅

it's fairly simple: I don't even think controllers of any kind have transform at all @odd ember do they?

[odd ember]

they are actors

[high ocean]

then they do

[odd ember]

much in the same way a game mode is an actor

[high ocean]

ok... well, it is what it is. I never found Epic's way of handling AI illogical or something...

[vestal plinth]

that's not Epic's way to do it, it's just one way of doing it.

I tried a AIMoveTo and it returns "abort"

it must be a navigation problem

[high ocean]

fair enough I guess, well, gl lol

[vestal plinth]

it only works if pathfinding is disabled and it moves in a straight line. so, navigation issue. I wonder why

[trim matrix]

hello everyone i need to serialise data for save (player levels/stats, actors, player made structures, etc) and then load it onto dedicated server does anyone know how i could do it or point me to documentation on it?

need to make a save system similar to ARK or Rust

[terse elm]

is there a way to set the default time snapping in curve editor from 10 fps to anything else. im always in 60 fps but i have to change it every time

[lost solstice]

How might i go about checking if a component forward vector is more towards one object than another?

[worn fjord]

Wondering if someone could help me with my instance mesh blueprint? I currently don't understand how I would make them along a curve, or basically rotate each building slightly after the next.

this is the output

trying to get it to curve like this

[lost solstice]

On each loop you could add say a 10 degree rotation (maybe set as a variable) then for the location you can use the RotateVector node which might do what you are looking for

Something like this perhaps?

[mossy mist]

i have a working navmesh on a landscape
however
on a non landscape

it works

but on a landscape

it doesnt move

and stays idle

[worn fjord]

thank you very interesting, this seems to rotate the whole spawner though like this

[worn fjord]

or did I miss something?

[lost solstice]

oh sorry you would need to increment the rotation each loop so possibly something like this... Im only guessing though

[worn fjord]

great thanks, what is this set node?

[lost solstice]

its that rotation variable

basically if you pull it out and set the right click on the little rotation node you can split it into different float variables

could do that instead

[worn fjord]

hmm okay sorry I'm pretty new at this, what exactly do I do with the rotation variable?

right click and what?

[worn fjord]

it is set to rotater is that correct?

[lost solstice]

oh right sorry

if you look over to the side panel where you variables are

click on Rotation. hold down Alt on your keyboard and drag it out to your graph

[lost solstice]

or you can right click anywhere on the graph and search for Set Rotation

[lost solstice]

that is a get rotator, meaning it will get whatever values are currently set to the variable

[worn fjord]

awesome I think that worked

[lost solstice]

that looks right

[worn fjord]

is there a way to more so be able to change each specific instance?

like I want the far buildings to be more rotated

[worn fjord]

basically I want to have building instances facing the road along the blue

[static charm]

people normally just use a spline based spawner for those types of layouts

of which you can find plenty of examples/tutorials for

(it just expands upon what you already made)

the spline based type will let you have the meshes rotate automatically to the spline/curve

[worn fjord]

thanks great to know, will look into this

[tight schooner]

Get normalized vector from component to target. Get component forward vector. Do a dot product. The output float will range from -1 (total dissimilarity) to +1 (total similarity). Then you can do comparisons

[static charm]

Anyone know a way to exit fullscreen PIE when debugging with breakpoints? basically the fullscreen PIE locks and I can't change view back to the blueprint graph that has the breakpoint. i can work around this but super annoying. (for example if keep the blueprint as a separate detached window I can switch view to it just fine but ideally i want to keep all blueprints as tabs in the editor view.)

[lost solstice]

basically something like this?

[tight schooner]

no, the input to the dot has to be normalized. It'd be like, target world location - component world location (or is it the other way around? lol)