blueprint

[faint pasture]

Start with this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w8vSss4YiI

[bleak sable]

okay, This is the only part of my movement that technically doesn't work. I've done a playtest with my friend who lives in a different state and they seemed to be fine

I actually haven't tested with lag though. Let me try that real quick

[faint pasture]

How are you doing sprinting?

[bleak sable]

So I do a lot of random stuff to get this to work. Here are the screenshots in order of the flow

don't know why I over-complicate it but it works

[faint pasture]

so sprinting isn't predicted? I'm suprised it works but if it works it works. I'd expect some crazy jitter at the sprint activation with any sort of lag.

[bleak sable]

I know right. It's so odd

I also have wall jumping, sprint jumping, and slide jumping. And they all have just a tiny jitter as well on 40-50 ping with anything below that being almost none. They are just a server ran Launch Character

I am just going to use a temporary fix because I'm only playing with my friends until I learn more about the engine.

thank you for your help

[edgy stone]

Pretty new to game dev is blueprints gonna cause any performance issues in my games is it better to use coding?

[thin panther]

Blueprints is definitely less performant, really a mix of c++ and blueprints is good

[thorny lily]

Hey guys,
I got a little tank arena game in the making and strugeling to find an optimal way for custom movement replication.
This is the system i currently have in place.
Basically I start a timed function on an input action, that moves the player locally for everybody, when the input action is released the timer stops and the location gets updated with the server location.
I had no luck yet getting some sort of smoothing system on top of that to work, and I already tried to add some more server location updates regulary but without smoothing its stuttering a lot & i dont wanna send to often over the server.
I am also not sure if rpc calls are the way to go here or if maybe some sort of repnotify event would be better, or if c++ is the only realistic way to go about custom movement replication. Sadly I just now a bit of python xD

[thin panther]

Maybe try #multiplayer

In terms of movement replication, from what i hear c++ is the best for it though

[thorny lily]

i mean for what is c++ not the best ^^ at some point i would definetly try to do it in c++ but that would probably take me a while, so I'm just tryin to get a basic system to work for the first couple of prototypes that are more focused on the other gameplay aspects 🙂

[thin panther]

C++ is not the best for rapidly prototyping gameplay, or making minor gameplay elements

Complex systems, and tick based systems can really benefit thoigh

E.g. custom movement

[thorny lily]

Yeah i meant when it comes to a performance point, but ofcourse you‘re right blueprints are definetly awesome for rapid prototyping and can even work pretty well in final products especially with blueprint nativization

[viscid blaze]

Would anyone mind sharing example uses cases for Maps and Sets? I'm trying to understand them enough to remember to use them when the opportunities come up, but I need a few more real examples, :). Thanks in advance!

[faint pasture]

Sets I can't really give you an example on, but Maps are super powerful. They're just a mapping of a data type to another data type.

Say you wanted a sparse grid, and a way to check if anything is there.
Map their position (Integer vector) to an actor reference.
Then it's simple to check if a position is occupied, and you don't need a huge amount of mostly empty entries.

Say you wanted some input to activate some ability, and your inputs are enums and your abilities are actors
You'd have a map of Enum to Actor, and can easily get the Actor corrosponding to an input Enum. This also solves the collision problem, as an input can only activate one actor.

[peak summit]

Is implementing a horse that moves in the direction of its movement and ignores camera rotation the same as a car controller?

[faint pasture]

You mean rotates in the direction of its movement?

like it's always facing the direction it's going?

That's already built into the CMC

now whether or not a capsule is a good collider for a horse is another matter

[peak summit]

I have a bad combo of inherit on the camera or something is controlling something

[faint pasture]

well what do you want?

[peak summit]

Right now forward and right strafes instead of moves in a circle

[faint pasture]

Just turn on orient to movement in the CMC

and make sure your movement inputs are in local forward and local right, not camera/controlrotation forward/right

[peak summit]

The camera settings for free look on rmb held are built in also right? Right now it rotates the character, what setting is that?

[peak summit]

Having a tough time explaining what pieces are broken.. you have the root of the horse which has Pawn info like use controller pitch, yaw, roll. Then you have character movement which has the use controller desired rot, orient rotation to movement, then you have spring arm camera settings for use pawn control rotation, inherit pitch,yaw, roll

right now the horse always rotates towards the camera forward

[peak summit]

im sure all the input and flags are completely wrong by now after trying 100 different combos

[faint pasture]

No

[peak summit]

i got it backing up and moving but the camera should free look, not control the yaw rotation

[peak summit]

ook.. works, no idea why.. slowly backing away 😄

[faint pasture]

The camera isn't controlling anything, you need to start from the top down. The camera is probably using the control rotation which can also be used by a lot of things.

What are you using control rotation for in your setup?

[peak summit]

I ended up turning on use controller rotation yaw and feeding the controller my MoveRight input

if it works.. it ships, right?

[faint pasture]

Why though

certainly a coefficient of lift can just be a curve or something

[haughty meadow]

maybe 5 birds, maybe 12 birds 🤷‍♂️

[faint pasture]

@haughty meadowWhy are you going int to name tho

if Ao A is angle of attack, I'd just make a couple curves

[haughty meadow]

well, data tables for some weird reason have a row id thats is a name instead of an integer 🤷‍♂️

[faint pasture]

CoL_Delta
CoL_Swept
CoL_Straight etc

[haughty meadow]

curves are a pain to edit. spread sheets are simple to edit, now add 17 more curves vs adding more columns to a spreadsheet

[maiden wadi]

It's not a weird reason. It's not the 90s. People don't use plain integers to label data anymore.

[faint pasture]

How many rows per type, like 90?

-45 to 45

[haughty meadow]

so, the question is how slow is that conversion because to my mind it seems like it migh be slow

[wicked osprey]

Guys, I have such a question. Is it possible to compare two arrays not by elements, but in general by whether they are the same variable?

[faint pasture]

rounding and casting is super fast.

[haughty meadow]

320 rows, ever 0.25 of a degree from -5 to 75

ok, so if its not going to be slow then all is good in my world 😃

[faint pasture]

How are you generating the data?

just do that on the fly IMO unless it's some super complex function

[wicked osprey]

I don't quite understand what you mean😅

I have two items and need to know if they are in the same array or not

[haughty meadow]

there is a nodt for

use that on your array for each item

[wicked osprey]

Whether turns out to me at first it will be necessary to check up it is in the first array. If not, then check the second array for False. Still need to apply this for two items

[dense oxide]

hello, I need to create a border and when I use constant for corner radius, it doesn't work like scalar parameter. Is there any difference between them ? For visually same effect, I need to give 0.001 constant value. Can I say if constant gives zero it does not work like zero it is a null value ?

[still rain]

any good resource on learning blueprint?

especially for ue4

[trim matrix]

@still rain YT, Unreal engine main channel have heaps of Blueprint tutorial

Does anyone know how to get a precise location of a widget regardless of Viewport size and location?

I tried get cached geometry but it's not accurate

[dense oxide]

Did you try Force Layout Prepass -> Widget -> Slot As Canvas Slot -> Get Position ?

[trim matrix]

I am trying that now, and I tried that too before If I can recall. When you re-size the window it went all over the place

[dense oxide]

I created a draggable windows system. I can send you that bp. it contains resize and movement functions. you can look at them

[trim matrix]

Cheers

I'm testing get position now

Hmmm get position moved my overlay widget to the top left. I think it's checking the position of the widget on it's local space, not where it is based on the viewport

I will try local to viewport

[dense oxide]

if target main canvas is not 1920 x 1080 and not positioned to 0.0, use this to get X and Y multiplier

[trim matrix]

👀

[dense oxide]

and multiply get position values with them also add main widget's position

[trim matrix]

why are we dividing by 1080p tho, my game has to support both 16:9 and 16:10 monitors

Thanks for sharing btw

well I guess I can divide it with the current resolution

[maiden wadi]

Precise location compared to what? The viewport?

[trim matrix]

Well about anything

When viewport is resized, when screen is moved, etc

Im trying to spawn a tool tip widget

Like when u hover over a skill for example

[maiden wadi]

Why not just use the binding?

[trim matrix]

What to bind?

my widgets are created dynamically, with dynamic ammount of buttons depending on the character

Also I would need to know precise location of UI for many other things

[maiden wadi]

Wait, by skill do you mean something in game, or another UI element?

[trim matrix]

I will post a screen shoot but it's not about having a skill or anything, it;s about finding a widget precise location on the player screen

[maiden wadi]

I'm asking because if you're talking about a tooltip when you hover over another widget, there's a binding for that. It runs once when mouse enters widget and once when mouse leaves widget, attaches tooltip to the mouse, and keeps it inside of the viewport. Makes tooltip widget creation very easy.

[trim matrix]

When I minimize the viewport

im using local to viewport atm, clearly not the node I need

This node fires when I hover over the button

and destroyed when im unhover

what I need now is to move the tool tip, precisely where my widget is

[maiden wadi]

I would personally recommend the binding. But to solve your direct problem, you have to convert your widget's location into the canvas you want it to set position in.

[trim matrix]

So Slot as canvas slot? I've done that too >_>

[maiden wadi]

Tooltip Widget.

[trim matrix]

Yeah thanks that will solve my temporary problem, but my games has plenty of mini games that I need to know how to go beyond just placing a tool tip. Eg Rhytm game

hence I need to know how to get location of the widget

[maiden wadi]

What I meant by above is that you're converting the widget's local geometry into viewport space. Not the space of the canvas you're setting it's position on.

[trim matrix]

this?

[trim matrix]

Thanks!! I will try that

[maiden wadi]

Get child's absolute. Convert it into the canvas's space by absolute to local

[trim matrix]

Right on, these whole thing still a bit confusing to me. I will try the example you gave me.

@maiden wadi it totally work... now I know that I need the entire canvas panel to be accounted for at least I get some idea

thank you for your help! Appreciate it

[crimson saffron]

is it expected that things grabbed with the physics handle component do not have collisions?

[faint pasture]

They'll have whatever collision profile you give them

[crimson saffron]

but it does not collide with walls even if it does

[faint pasture]

Show how you're grabbing it

[faint pasture]

@crimson saffron what happens if you don't mess with the collision?

Are you saying an object that hits walls suddenly just ignores walls once you grab it? You're not attaching it, right?

[crimson saffron]

I am not attaching it to the walls

[faint pasture]

Are you attaching it to anything or doing anything beyond grabbing it?

[white elbow]

Is there any way to make the crouch and un-crouch gradual like MoveComponentTo?

[crimson saffron]

yes I am setting its collision to ignore pawn

and resetting it on release

[faint pasture]

If you don't do that does it still ignore walls?

[crimson saffron]

yes

[trim matrix]

How about mesh or floors?

[faint pasture]

Probably not for the state but you can make the animation gradual

[trim matrix]

maybe it's ur collision profile?

[faint pasture]

Do you 100% know for sure that it hits walls before grabbing?

[crimson saffron]

they do have collision because if I let go of it, collision works

yes

[white elbow]

Crouching is a state you enter rather than a new camera position, I'm not sure what even to animate tbh

[faint pasture]

Are you talking about using the built in crouch in Character or doing your own?

[white elbow]

built in

[faint pasture]

A bool can't be half true but you can use a transition in your animation state machine to make it gradual

[white elbow]

I'm thinking of making a component that serves as the camera's end position and making the actual camera gradually follow

[gentle urchin]

shouldnt the camera manager handle it ?

[white elbow]

first time I hear about it, might be the thing I need

[iron raptor]

Hey! Would anyone happen to know the reason my left/right mouse camera is going up and down diagonally instead of left to right? Up/down works fine but left/right drifts to the corners for some reason

I no longer have the default thirdpersonbp for reference

[white elbow]

input axis turn must be affecting add controller pitch input

screenshot the blueprint pls

btw how do I use the camera manager?

[iron raptor]

it is indeed

but I think this is the default

[white elbow]

what about the pitch input?

[iron raptor]

same

[white elbow]

weird

maybe something with the input axis itself?

[iron raptor]

Is there any way to reimport the starter content? I'd like to look at the default thirdpersonbp to see how it's set up. I modified mine already and it has the same issue

I'll check it

HAHA i think that's it

lmao. thanks

forgot to add mouse Y...

[white elbow]

nono it should be just mouse Y for mouse up/down

here's mine and it works like it should

[iron raptor]

Oh wait, so I need to remove one

omg yeah I'm dumb

[white elbow]

does it work now?

[iron raptor]

No

up/down works fine

left right still makes it pitch up

[white elbow]

maybe you gotta accept something to make it effective? save and compile everything

[iron raptor]

oke

It's something with the way up/down and left/right are interacting with each other. When I disable pitch control to test, left/right works fine

[flat portal]

Hey guys I have A problem with my spawn NBC system the ai isn't moving after spawn and it auto posses to spawn or placed in world can any one send my screen shot of spawning system please ?

[leaden vapor]

@dreamy marsh have you tried adding breakpoints and see what it actually output?

its probably something like YourClass_C_0 since is instanced

[nimble lichen]

do you have a nav mesh?

[iron raptor]

Wait, what? I've just created a new blank third person template to see where I went wrong, and it's behaving the same way. Am I just crazy? Maybe it's the way I move my mouse and pitching down is normal? It feels super weird

[nimble lichen]

what are you having trouble with?

[iron raptor]

When I turn my camera left/right, it veers up and down

https://gyazo.com/9e67969ec82caa44fce7dded00f9d230

This is literally the default project and it does that. is it supposed to?

it feels so strange

I thought my game was broken, but the template has it as well

[nimble lichen]

join me in a vc and let me see your input settings and bp

[iron raptor]

thats just the default thirdperson template

[nimble lichen]

do you mean that its reverse or moving too fat?

[iron raptor]

check the gif, that's just me moving my mouse left and right as straight as humanly possible, and eventually it goes down to the floor or sky

default project, nothing changed

in UE5

[nimble lichen]

it shouldnt even be getting closer or further away though

your characters spring arm length should prevent that

can you screenshot your third person bp?

you may have accidently changed the engines Third person bp

[iron raptor]

When I'm actually playing the template tho the camera doesn't bother me

[nimble lichen]

so it is working fine on template or its the same

[iron raptor]

It's the same on the template

[nimble lichen]

its possible you accidently changed the default 3rd person character template try first person

imma check one sec

[leaden vapor]

probably not

[nimble lichen]

ok i think i got you figured out

make a map where each class is represented by a specific string

[iron raptor]

Just checked 1st person. Nah bro.. I think it's just me all along.... When I move my mouse left/right I must be steering it up also creating this pitch that feels like a bug for some reason. Also, the 1st person template is actually kinda fun

[nimble lichen]

what are you trying to do exactly?

[nimble lichen]

ok one sec

[flat portal]

yea

[nimble lichen]

will this like what you mean? @dreamy marsh

[white elbow]

right now I'm using this to tilt the camera slightly in the direction you're heading, is there a way to do this through camera manager instead?

[nimble lichen]

yes

thats for single rows instead of all rows is that what you mean?

[nimble lichen]

wym? like rotate it to face the direction youre heading?

its ok, could you do a DM VC?

[white elbow]

for example it rolls to the left/right if you go left/right, just a vanity thing that I think looks neat

[nimble lichen]

im just wondering what youre overall goal is and i wont be i will be heading to work in about an hour and half, anyway we could mute our mics so no noise its just easier to see live i think

[nimble lichen]

have you tried making a timeline and adding rotation to camera but clamping it to a certain value?

[white elbow]

is it better than using Move Component To?

[nimble lichen]

i can after work later if you still need help if its too early. i get off around 3 pm your time

[nimble lichen]

i mean ive never used move component to node so i cant really say, but at least get your current camera rotation and lerp it to the desired rotation for smoother rotating would possibly help

do you have an example video of what youre trying to accomplish?

[white elbow]

what's lerping?

[nimble lichen]

short for linear interpolating

[white elbow]

like smooth movement to a new location?

[nimble lichen]

it basically smooths transition

what is that set node setting?

[white elbow]

wdym?

[nimble lichen]

the set node before the move component to node what is that?

[white elbow]

oh nvm, I was setting the rotation it should interpolate into and immediately getting it

I got rid of it

[nimble lichen]

after each of your (x 1) and (x-1) nodes try multiplying by 45 for each rot @white elbow

and maybe check ease in and ease out for smoother rot

[white elbow]

but it already rotates quite smoothly, these bools just make it very slow

[split salmon]

Guys, im making a speedrunner game for Android and i did a BP of my map and a box trigger at the end to call the same map again and put the char movement on event tick to always run. Is there a better way of doing the map logic?

[mild pine]

Hey guys, Im setting my explosions up so that if the player is behind cover, the explosion wont kill the player.

This is what I have right now:
The trace begins when the player overlaps an explosion radius actor. It then fires a line trace towards the player from the center, and if something is in the way of the line trace it wont deal damage. However, a piece of soap could be in the way of the trace and it would still stop the player from taking explosion damage. Any takes on how to improve this? 🙂

[nimble lichen]

you have them all on same bp?

[nimble lichen]

try to just put the rotation to be slightly more then because as of how you currently have it set up it only rot 1 degree

[hexed parrot]

Instead of one LineTrace, you could add more; two or even 3 Points to check against (Head, Torso, Feet). If atleast one is true, it'll deal damage.

[white elbow]

I know, I need just a slight rotation

[nimble lichen]

ok so whats not working though?

[white elbow]

I was asking if something similar could be done through camera manager, since I've no idea how to work with it at all

[nimble lichen]

you should maybe try applying it to the spring arm instead if youre on 3rd person character

[white elbow]

rn I have a component specifically for this rotation

[nimble lichen]

do you not have a control arm?

[white elbow]

uhh no, what's that?

[nimble lichen]

that would be why your 3rd person is janky

one sec ill show you

[white elbow]

I'm doing first person

[nimble lichen]

oh then nvrmnd

[white elbow]

this camera tilting would look so weird in third person haha

still, what's control arm?

[nimble lichen]

you could use ik to player head if you plan on using a full body first person mesh but idk about the cam rot... a spring arm sorry

[icy dragon]

wdym "speedrunner" game? Game made for speedrunners to beat as fast as possible?

Or just a misunderstanding for endless runner?

[nimble lichen]

i think they mean endless runner

[mild pine]

Hmm, I guess these linetraces should originate from different locations around the explosion radius then, but then you could be hit from odd angles aswell? Or would the player get hit from odd angles then, compared to the blast. Hmm 🤔

[nimble lichen]

use sphere trace instead

[icy dragon]

I do speedrunning part time, and watch speedrun videos, so I don't get the gist of the proposed gameplay at first

[nimble lichen]

oh honestly didnt know speed runner was a thing

[fluid lagoon]

I was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction with this blueprint, It works for the first player but not the 2nd player. Here is an image of all the variables in the player, an image of the health and energy connected to the progress bar as well, but for some reason, when the energy and health is impacted, it doesn't decrease the progress bar for the 2nd player on controller. If you guys have a fix I would greatly appreciate it!

[icy dragon]

Why doing the binding tho 🤔

[fluid lagoon]

How do you mean

[mild pine]

Was that a reply to my issue? If so I tried that, but it still collides with small objects thats in the way 🙂

[fluid lagoon]

Oh I see, I thought that was the way to do it? It worked for the first player so Im not too sure

[icy dragon]

Wouldn't it be better if you just use interfaces (or events to tell the widget to read the value) to update only the moment the character receive any form of damage (even healing ones)?

[fluid lagoon]

In the event graph? I suppose, would you happen to have any sources that I could look at to get an idea on how to construct the blueprints?

[mild pine]

Ohh, my bad! It just seemed like a possible solution aswell hahaha! 😆

[nimble lichen]

@mild pine sorry got confused yes that was for you

[mild pine]

Thats my issue, linked to it ^

Oh 😆 The SphereTraceByChannel still collides with small obstacles in the way though, like signs and such. I gotta find a way to prevent players from figuring out that if you just hide behind a cardboard box you wont get killed by a missile strike 😅

[nimble lichen]

have them set to a custom collision profile

[icy dragon]

Depends on how you setup the damage receive events, but with Unreal damage interface, the gist of it is to tell valid HUD widget to update the value it reads when the character receive damage.

[nimble lichen]

and have your trace ignore that type of collision

[mild pine]

Hmmm, I guess it would indeed need that extra layer. So every small object would need this custom collision profile in that case

[fluid lagoon]

I see, I thought I did it the right way by making functions, Ill try and see if I can figure out another way

[icy dragon]

Well, bind events and the way you set it up isn't that reliable to begin with.

[nimble lichen]

yeah but wouldnt be too hard to accomplish, i just dont know of another way unless you do everything else that you want it to hit instead have the custom collision

[fluid lagoon]

Alrighty, Ill take a gander online at another way, thanks for the help!

[mild pine]

Yeah, it does sound like a good approach imo. I'll try it! 🙂

[nimble lichen]

ok, imma head to work soon, ill be home later this afternoon, DM me and lmk if it worked and when i get home later we can work on it somemore if youre still having issues

[mild pine]

So Im setting the default response to Block here, changing the LineTrace to that profile, and then making the static meshes not block it? Or I got it the wrong way around? 😄

[nimble lichen]

wouldnt sphere trace be better?

and is the line/sphere trace causing damage?

[hexed parrot]

Not sure if a SphereTrace actually cuts off after hitting a wall, thats why i suggest multiple LineTraces there as well. Or you set the collision object of others to custom collisions so it won't hit the player

[mild pine]

It worked perfectly!

[hexed parrot]

But with this method it's still likely, that a prop could eventually block the LineTraces

[nimble lichen]

cool

[mild pine]

I made the use of a single line trace from the center of the blast, and Im setting objects that shouldnt give cover to not block the trace 🙂

[nimble lichen]

awesome

anyone happen to know niagara?

[mild pine]

(Test object being that colum of metal in the middle of the screen)

[hexed parrot]

Is there any known limit of variables that i shouldn't exceed when using a bp? hahaha

[nimble lichen]

@mild pine game looks amazing!

[mild pine]

Thanks for the help guys! 🙂

[nimble lichen]

never heard of one but idk

[nimble lichen]

theres a guy named groundhog in the voice channel right now, he would know, hes very knowledgable

[mild pine]

Its just a demo map and an assetpack, but thanks! I'm customizing the crap out of it atm 😆 Got it connected to Steam API and can play it online now 😄

[nimble lichen]

make a decentegration bullet and have it turn hit players to sand from impact point lol

[mild pine]

https://gyazo.com/6813d4444b524a084d6c5f7060a6793b Working in practice 😅

[vernal lake]

Hey all, I've been trying to set up a basic checkpoint system for my current project and it works halfway. (player is reset to checkpoint but I need certain objects to be set to locations as well) Effectively what's happening is the object does trigger my killbox, SetActorLocation triggers, returns true and checking the coords of the object after it triggers it says they are at the new location (meanwhile the object hasnt moved whatsoever) Any ideas? 😅

[split salmon]

Its a endlessrunner sorry

[last ice]

Is it possible to reuse EventGraph logic between different Animation Blueprints (ABP)?
if so. Whats the best way?

[white elbow]

how do I change the camera's FOV?

[rose elbow]

anyone know why I can't see the Line trace with these settings?

[echo salmon]

Is there any good tutorial of make a ready asset car to rotate its wheels ? I got a low poly car asset (which got ready skeleton) and am looking for a tutorial of how to animate its wheels when its moving ..

[sharp vessel]

Greetings, everyone!
How to reflect (bounce) projectile depends on platform movement in 2D plane?
For example, if a platform is moving in the right direction,
then reflect a projectile also in the right direction
depends on platform movement. Same for left direction.

[slow pewter]

So, anyone know what i need to Know if Using my Skel Mesh and Sockets, because When i try to attach Lights etc, on an Socket, Looks like they rotating, Crazy, anyone know how to avoid that?

[humble flume]

Hey I have an actor which is using projectile movement and rotation movement and as soon as they spawn in world they are rotating and moving but I want when i equip them and fire them then only they should move any suggestions plz help

[paper karma]

Hi, I have a blueprint that is supposed to rotate a rock 120 degrees every time E is pressed. This works, but when I add a timeline to smooth it's motion, it spins wildly, as shown in the video. Any ideas?

[earnest tangle]

You're updating starting rotation every time you rotate it

It seems the idea is to lerp between start and start + 120, so if you keep updating start to a new value, it might do something weird like this

[paper karma]

you're the man!

[grand valve]

Your first code looks fine, but your second code, you are essentially setting the variable to empty. You need to just use a "GetCurrentStand" node and use that as the target for SetActorHiddenInGame

[wicked magnet]

Is there a way to somehow change an existing function so it accepts a float value via Blueprints? I'd rather not rewrite the function via C++ if possible!

I am setting the recording frame rate using Take Recorder, but by default it only accepts integers, but in Sequencer I am using 23.976, so the ideal is being able to feed the Numerator value a float somehow.

[vernal lake]

My checkpoint sets player location just fine but wont set my defined object to its correct location. (it returns true and states that its coordinates have changed but the object hasnt moved)

[earnest tangle]

Nope. Functions take whatever arguments they were designed to take... So you would need to convert your float framerate value into a numerator and denominator

[regal pebble]

hey guys, I have this BP to make books quicker, and I've made them HISMs, but it doesn't seem to be saving on draw calls at all. Here I have 1300 draw calls, if I delete the books I have 190.
There are 4 book meshes, 4 variation MI's with 4 textures using per instance random in the MM. I have no clue why this isn't reducing draw calls.

not to mention how they light/shade weirdly too

[formal bronze]

How do you add a tooltip to an actor component? Like the whole component, not just a variable.

[plain helm]

How to do animation hitstop when hit enemy like in God of War 4? Any link to tutorials would be appreciated

[slate wasp]

is there an easy way to move components down from a BP parent class to a child class? UnitCardBP is the parent and I'd like to move all three components down to FullUnitCardBP

[slate wasp]

HISM puts its instances into clusters so it won't be cutting out all the draw calls

[earnest tangle]

You can try copypaste but YMMV sometimes it just fucks everything up

[slate wasp]

copypaste does fuck everything up

that's why I'm asking

[earnest tangle]

heh figures

[slate wasp]

@regal pebble Also, unreal auto instances static meshes by default - the real benefit of HISM these days has to do with culling. If players will be seeing all the books at the same time then a HISM won't be of too much benefit.

[regal pebble]

hmm okay, so it turned out the root was set to movable, meaning it was probably messing something out, in that same area I took pice before, I now get 500 draws which is much better.

Would you suggest just calling regular SMs instead of instances then? My biggest issue with that is, the 'perinstancerandom' node in my material doesn't work this way

[slate wasp]

I'd still use hisms, just don't expect miracles

what version of unreal are you on?

[regal pebble]

4.26

[slate wasp]

yeah everything should be getting auto instanced by default there, unless you have something in your material that prevents it from happening

also keep in mind that editor selection uses its own draw calls (the orange outlines)

[regal pebble]

hmm okay, so this all seems how you would expect then?

[worthy fern]

Is there a way to make a null terminated string in blueprints

[earnest tangle]

Why?

[worthy fern]

Because I am parsing data from a JSON file and it doesn't give me a null terminated string

[earnest tangle]

I'm not sure if I follow... JSON strings are inside " " double quotes

null terminated strings is generally just a weird C thing which you don't need to care about in other languages

[spark steppe]

strings are terminated!?

you need null termination in a char array, but not for a string

[balmy vessel]

how do i get it so that my images arent stretched?

thers a vertical box that contains the title and the buttons and i dont want it to be that big, but idk if i should be using size boxes as this widget will go inside another one on a parent widget

[wicked magnet]

Thanks for confirming. That's what I thought, but in my case I do need to set the framerate to a float value in Sequencer. It's just part of a tool that is designed to automate writing a file to Sequencer to a setting most commonly used by a team. (23.976)

I was looking into the variable being used, struct FFrameRate, and was considering making a new struct where I copy the code and make the values float instead of int, but not being that familiar with the source files, I imagine it could end up getting more involved than changing the function to take a custom variable.

[balmy vessel]

like ive got this but idk what widget i need that will resize the content according to how much available space there is

[tawdry mural]

current stand is an actor you can try and get its skeletal mesh first

standSkeleton in ur case

CurrentStand>StandSkeleton>PlayAnimation

hohoho

do you set current stand somewhere?

if you set it as starplatinum

you can first cast to starplatinum

then get its skeletal mesh

but i guess ur current stand is just an empty actor var

if currentstand is a starplatinum before you use it

it will work

try cast to starplatinum from currentstand

yes last one

both options is star platinum?

if they will differ then ur method is most likely impossible

i never did it like that

select a class

[echo salmon]

Iam moving the car with spline but the wheels are not, whats the best way of moving the car with the wheels ?

[tawdry mural]

idk bos im very bad at understanding other ppl intentions

[azure night]

How can I get a reference to my player blueprint (BP_Player) from within its animation blueprint? (ABP_Player)?

Trying to access variables from the player blueprint but this wont work

[tawdry mural]

do you like spawn an actor with a single animation and it vanishes after?

like afterimage?

[azure night]

It wont let me access variables from the BP_Player Character REF? Do they need to be public within the BP_Player blueprint?

Dragging out from the Character REF variable that was created

[tawdry mural]

im thinking that if your current stand var is impermanent all you can do is try to cast

cast to skeletal mesh

it holds an actor?

in both cases

hohoho

so try casting to skeletal mesh

[azure night]

Public does not work, here is the whole thing for context

[tawdry mural]

ye cast to skeletalmesh and than you can play animation

but its not a fact that it will work

check if cast fails

[charred berry]

Just a fyi/heads up, I've gone through hours of bp via youtube for spline mesh, all good in totality, but this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJyWSzfwEk8 , whew, got a good one , works great and is simpler and a lot less promoting to variable, thought for reference I'd let others know 🙂

Its from 2016, but working great , so happy its finally working ;0-0

[pulsar rock]

Hi, I'm looking up some animation data in the asset registry. In order to find the animation clip by name I need to cast the found asset to type animation. I can't seem to find it in the blueprint editor. Animation Composite is available to cast to but not just the animation type.

Does anyone know how to cast to an animation type?

[dawn gazelle]

Your variable "Character REF" is currently of type "Character" so it cannot access the "BP_Player" variables. Change the type of the variable to "BP_Player" then it should work.

[azure night]

Thank you!

[tulip mural]

Ayo, i have a problem with how to interact with actors in a certain order. i have the BP already done with the interaction but i would like to make it only interactable from the first to second to third to fourth per example. Also wondering how to put specific number on actors. Found out that i could use enum or array but couldn't understand how to make it work. Thanks in advance 🙏

[pulsar rock]

Found it. It's unsuprisingly cast to animation AnimSequence.

unsurprisingly

[gritty plover]

Is there a good substitute to the Launch Character node? It doesn't seem to be working right for some reason.

[solar sequoia]

Try add impulse

[small halo]

https://gyazo.com/5c1ece292b07ef820cda792468031e97
cant use the buttons when this screens comes up if i play my game from the begging. But if i play it from half through, the buttons can be pressed

[solar sequoia]

It's not clear what you're asking here. Do you mean that you want actors of the same class to trigger events in a specific order? Sounds like a level BP thing to me

[solar sequoia]

Did you change your input mode to "UI" at runtime and not change it back?

Why would you not make those skeletal meshes actors?

Sure, but what's up with that variable that you're trying to plug in? You're storing a reference to a component and trying to use it where an actor reference is needed

Oh, I had it backwards then. Just read the error when you try to connect it. You have an actor and you need a reference to a skeletal mesh, so you would just get that component from the actor reference

Playing montages in whatever BP this is definitely isn't the best way to animate, by the way

State-based in an anim BP is more or less the best way to handle 80% of an actor's animation

[white elbow]

Is there a way to turn InputAction into a continuous event that does something every tick?

[solar sequoia]

So you don't ever want to do an idle animation, or walk/run? Setting up an animation blueprint is the best way to handle that

Well either way, the "Play Animation" node says that it needs a reference to a static mesh component. A reference to the actor of the needed class will contain that, as will a character BP iirc

[gritty plover]

Thank you!

[solar sequoia]

No problem

[small halo]

yeah it fixed it thanks

[solar sequoia]

Input Axes work like that, I'm pretty sure, otherwise you could try something using the pressed/released events on a regular input action

[gentle urchin]

Inpus axis is executed on tick ^

[small halo]

never mind it didnt fix

https://gyazo.com/fe9e1e7116d2691ab1ddbdde53134314

this is were the screen pops up

i set the input to ui

https://gyazo.com/402f99bab2cd1f8b5136863adca8e8a2

this is where the player gets out the screen

[neat prairie]

BEN

yees

hohoho

should I use a texture2Darray or an Array of Texture2Ds?

[solar sequoia]

If you are still having the same issue, read the message you responded to again. You're trying to plug an actor reference into a node that needs a skeletal mesh reference. You need to call the actor's skeletal mesh component

So yeah you should use an animation BP for this

[white elbow]

how do I make a custom movement in CMC?

[solar sequoia]

? Just use the value that you promoted after spawning the actor

You're already trying to use it in that screenshot, but you just need to get its skeletal mesh

[neat prairie]

nevermind

[solar sequoia]

That's not what I'm saying, dude

Just let me type an answer first

[small halo]

https://gyazo.com/8f6a94a4851af9eb76f3dc454d1083b1

what does this mean

[solar sequoia]

So you're promoting the value as you should, but it's being stored as a generic actor reference because the class is being defined by an input (you're not doing anything wrong with that part, it's just the weird way the node works). Cast the output value to the class of your actor before promoting it. Then you can just call that actor's skeletal mesh component after calling the variable the reference is stored in

Is that the one whose skeletal mesh you're trying to reference?

Then yeah

If you use an input node for the class rather than setting it in the drop-down on the Spawn Actor node, its return value will be an actor reference

Hover over the blue output pin on the Spawn node and you'll see

Yes, Spawn Actor returns a reference to the actor it just created

No, because not all actors have skeletons

It's not super relevant in this case, but you could probably do it with just a character reference

You cast the actor reference to see if it's able to be converted to a reference of your desired class

"cast to." with the class you need

Casting basically means that you're checking if the input object also belongs to another class, and it the best way to convert reference types

For example, if you were to spawn an actor that inherits from the character class, you'd have to cast it to character or a class below that to access thing inherent to the character class, like the character movement component

Cast to the class of the actor

You'll also have to change your variable type if you want to save the new value to reference later

[white elbow]

how do I make sockets?

[trim matrix]

Open the skeletal mesh asset, view the skeleton tree, right click a bone and hit add socket. If I remember correctly

[solar sequoia]

What are you trying to store in it?

Yeah lmao

I understand it

Firstly, those are the same class

And secondly, you could make all of those inherit from the same base actor, if you're trying to access common things

Let's just get 1 class working for the moment, though

No idea what medium or IP these characters are being pulled from btw

So you would make all of your actors inherit from the same class, and you would store common functionality or values in the parent

Again, just get it working with one (1) actor for the moment

Which is fine, yeah. Just make it a reference to the parent character's class and set it up so that anything that would need to be shared is stored there, rather than in the children of it

[round basin]

can someone tell me why these values aren't equal ????????? (in my screenshot it looks like the code is "stopped", it's because I had to stop holding a slider to take the screenshot, but when it runs it's the same) nevermind, using a "nearly equal" and a "not" node seems to work...

[solar sequoia]

I've always ran into the node just returning an actor reference in that case, is that not how it works anymore?

[dawn gazelle]

As long as you feed in a typed class variable, then the return value will be of the object of the appropriate type.

[solar sequoia]

In my experience it treats it like a generic actor

[earnest tangle]

@round basin Floating point values usually don't equal exactly. Use "nearly equals" instead

[dawn gazelle]

You need to drag off of the return value, not the execution pin.

[round basin]

yeah I just tried and a nearly equal + "not" is working, thank you!

[fallen glade]

Does anyone know why this value returns 1 or 0 ?

[dawn gazelle]

Ok, right now your node is returning an actor class. Hover your mouse over your "Selected Class" variable.

[cobalt gulch]

How can I make it so when the button is being hovered over by the mouse it shows this image on the right of the character
they are separate images
would i have to use a variable for every image i need to hide/show or can i reference them somehow?

[dawn gazelle]

Change the selected class variable to be of "Star Platinum" class.

[dawn gazelle]

That's setting the value of the variable. What I'm saying is change the type of the variable.

[tulip mural]

if i'm using a level bp will i be able to implement let's say, four times the same bp actor and force them to have a specific order when interacting with them ?

[dawn gazelle]

Drag off from the set, and recreate your select node.

You make sure everything is a child of StarPlatinum

[solar sequoia]

Yeah, that's probably the best way if it shouldn't be map-independent

[dawn gazelle]

Rename it if you want, but everything that is similar should inherit from the same class if you want to do it this way.

[small halo]

https://gyazo.com/725b0db5366b4be564617bfba62152d2
made a compass and im trying to add an marker on the compass for the player to know where the enemy is. However, its only displaying the marker for one enemy not all.

[tulip mural]

alright thanks 🙏 i'll look into it

[fallen glade]

Is the "get bone mass" node supposed to always give 0 or 1?

[earnest tangle]

It seems to be supposed to return it in kg's... have you checked that the bones actually have mass that isn't 1 or 0?

[odd ember]

maybe untick scale mass?

[fallen glade]

how would I do that? the physics asset is not 1 or 0

is there a way to get the physics asset in use?

just to make sure

[fallen glade]

that does nothing sadly

[odd ember]

welp I'm out of ideas

[earnest tangle]

btw it's spelled Analyze... Analize might mean something else

[fallen glade]

seems to print 1 for the larger and 0 for smaller

[fallen glade]

oaaa nooo

[earnest tangle]

lol

[fallen glade]

It seems I always find something no one has stumbled on before. How is that even possible

It works on meshes not being master pose, it's probably that

[void spruce]

Any Idea on how to make animation blueprint work on an already spawned character ? I have a character with a Skeletal Mesh (Empty) and Empty AnimClass, when I spawn it and set both the AnimClass and mesh, the animation bp dsnt work, Only works when I pre set all this stuff before spawning

[vernal lake]

Anybody else experienced SetActorLocation not working (setting actor coordinates but actor not actually moving)

[gentle urchin]

Not really, no

[vernal lake]

well damn. Whats weirder is it works for the player pawn but not the other object i need to move

[gentle urchin]

is it moveable?

[vernal lake]

aye its a dynamic object

the SetActorLocation node even prints true after being called

[gentle urchin]

and you're positive its not moved?

teleporting?

sweeping?

[vernal lake]

thats the thing, I checked the object's coordinates after setactorlocation is called and it says that the new location is equal to the one i set.

teleporting

[gentle urchin]

So it moved 😄

in conclusion

[vernal lake]

but the actual thing isnt

[gentle urchin]

sure you dont have two things?

[vernal lake]

100%

only one in the whole level

[gentle urchin]

how are you getting the reference?

to the object in question

GetAllActors? 😄

[vernal lake]

its directly referenced in a checkpoint blueprint then the variable from the checkpoint blueprint is fed into the setlocation

[gentle urchin]

So hard referenced in editor, yes?

[vernal lake]

i believe so

[gentle urchin]

Cool cool

Well If it says it moves, i tend to believe it,

[vernal lake]

gimme a minute ill get you a gif

[gentle urchin]

so the suspicion for duplicate object is real

[vernal lake]

image to show the objects in question (CP-Checkpoint Obj - Object to teleport Ns - New spawn location) The ball should move to the NS point when it hits the green stuff below

This is what happens https://i.gyazo.com/12da81b7b15b5049e30f6ab18a0c1a6f.gif

[grand valve]

show bp code?

[vernal lake]

sry for messy wires

The thing I really dont understand is that it says the teleport was successful and that the new coordinates are where they should be yet the object itself doesnt appear there

[grand valve]

its probably because of the physics simulation

the "actor" might actually be there, but the physics for the ball are simulating the mesh somewhere else..

[vernal lake]

but the player actor gets spawned perfectly

and they simulate physics as well

[grand valve]

respawning and set actor location are going to be different

I bet if you stop physics on the ball actor right before the teleport

it will work

[vernal lake]

what im saying is i used set actor location for the character too

[grand valve]

are you sure he simulates physics? im not just talking capsule gravity

[vernal lake]

ill give that a go

[grand valve]

if you go to Window > Developer Tools > output log, there may even be warning message about trying to teleport an object simulating physics

[vernal lake]

goddamn it

there wasnt a log for it but youre right thank you so much

been banging my head against that wall for hours

[grand valve]

😛 sorry, its happened to me before when i tried to do the same for a vehicle

[vernal lake]

it feels like something that should just work so i didnt even consider the physics toggle was an issue

[grand valve]

yea, when you are simulating physics on a component from an actor, it kind of like runs away from the actor a bit, i doesnt really follow attachment rules at that point

[vernal lake]

well, that just made my life alot easier, thank again

[grand valve]

np

[fallen glade]

Apparently the get bone size node requires collision (physics) enabled

@earnest tangle

[earnest tangle]

oh that's interesting

some of them do need something like that, or you can get the same info via some other method

[fallen glade]

makes no sense (to me)

[dawn gazelle]

I suppose it would have to do with why does it need mass if it's not simulating physics?

[fallen glade]

I mean, it's just a number

[dawn gazelle]

True, but why store the number if it won't be used.

[fallen glade]

In my case I'm using that number to see which bone is the largest

no need for collision

[vernal lake]

so it worked when it had no physics to begin with and i triggered it, but now i toggle the physics simulation before the setlocation and its not moving again 😂

now it just stops stock still, the actor still teleports without the rest of the object and the physics are never turned back on

[grand valve]

Maybe its best it we break down exactly how your system is setup. What is the ball actor. What does it contain?

And whats your code for turning physics on and off right now

[vernal lake]

The actor contains the Root, a Collision sphere around the ball that isnt simulating physics and a sphere primitive

[grand valve]

ok, so when it wasnt working the first time, you had Simulate Physics checked off for the sphere primitive i guess?

checked on****

[vernal lake]

aye

this is the new code (casting to the sphere pole so i can access the sphere's physics status)

it disables the physics right at the start after overlapping but then doesnt to the movement like expected and as such since it never leaves the overlap the physics never return

[grand valve]

try a couple things

try adding a delay before the teleport of 0.0 seconds

just curious

[vernal lake]

will probably be the answer knowing my luck 😅

nah no change

[grand valve]

ok, then try unchecking teleport from the set actor location nodes

[vernal lake]

likewise

[grand valve]

whats the target you are plugging into the simulate physics node

[vernal lake]

the sphere component of the sphereopole BP

the only thing in it that simulates physics

Also just did another test

disabled its physics and placed it in the volume, triggered it by jumping in

it spawns where it should and then begins simulating physics again

so i have either half but not the whole picture

[grand valve]

haha, well if im being honest. Your code is a little hard to read which means also a little hard to test stuff

[vernal lake]

yeah sorry about that 🥲

[grand valve]

Like im guessing this is the trigger blueprint. And you want to trigger blueprint to do different things depending on what "triggers" it

right?

[vernal lake]

yeah, if the player falls in i want both the player and the object to be moved, if the object falls in i want the object alone to be moved

[grand valve]

You should try to encapsulate the logic inside of each respective blueprint. So you arent directly modifying object components from a blueprint that doesnt own them, it just makes things super messy

So in this situation you have 3 blueprints. Trigger, Player, Ball?

[vernal lake]

four but the fourth one only provides the locations to teleport to

and the player experiences no issues

[daring dove]

Hello all o7. I have a quick question about my math usage in this BP. This is a simple currency deduction upon activation. It actually works and deducts currency accurately, but once it reaches the bottom, it stops taking currency and just spawns a new tower. What I want it to do is just not work unless I have enough currency.

[grand valve]

Right. Are you familiar with functions? You should give Ball a function called "Reset" And that function should take in a location parameter. Then you can handle everything related to Ball inside Ball.

[vernal lake]

yeah ive got some knowledge about implementing functions, probably got a bit carried away with this BP (and i dont like hopping between windows for bugfixes :'))

[grand valve]

So ResetBall function does the following -> Simulate physics off > Set Actor location to the location from the function parameter > Simulate physics back on

So trigger should only be responsible for deciding what outside functions to call

Yea i hear you, its just really hard to debug in the current state

You might even have to add a node to like zero out the relative location of the ball?

[vernal lake]

nah you're right, it makes more sense to break it into functions

[grand valve]

game dev has a ton of hacks, sometimes you have to do like 30 things in a frame to get something done lol

[dark crow]

Well, I see nothing off in that code

[solar sequoia]

Just one thing to point out: with the conditional you're using, if the cost of the tower is equal to the amount of coins, it will say that the player doesn't have enough coins. Is that what you want to have happen?

[daring dove]

I think so, assuming it actually stops at 0. So if I have 25, and the cost is 25 I can still do it, I will just have 0 afterwards.

[dark crow]

Then use >, yeah

[grand valve]

what you've shown here doesnt seem to be the code that actually spawns the tower though. You need to find that and implement the conditional check there

[jolly ingot]

i created a blueprint class but when i try to add it to the first person character components it doesn't show up. how can i fix that?

im brand new trying to transition from unity lol

[daring dove]

You are right. I was checking in the wrong place. doh!

[grand valve]

@jolly ingot only components can be added to actors. There is a component called child actor, which will let you specify an actor as a component

You probably want to reparent your Parkour Movement component to Actor Component, assuming you want it to work like something like the character movement component that already lives in the character class

Also I should clarify that you can still attach actors to other actors, it usually just has to be done either through code or in the world outliner in a level. It cant be done in the components panel (unless its a child actor component) but I find those buggy and tend to avoid them.

[dusk ember]

if i have multiple characters, how do i make a reference for the current character that the player is using?

[grand valve]

from the player controller > get controlled pawn

[dusk ember]

do i still need to cast or is that it?

[grand valve]

you do need to cast if you want to access specific stuff about your character

or even if you want to access stuff specific to a character (not a pawn)

[dusk ember]

mk, i'll have to try it, thank you

[solar sequoia]

It will not, because if it's equal, it will output true, which will follow your branch into your print string. Like the other guy said, you could use > instead

Yeah, you would use a multi line trace for objects

[vernal lake]

probably gonna wind up for today considering is half 11 at night but im sorry to say that the function, while working better than the script alone, still doesnt send the object along with its actor

[grand valve]

@vernal lake damn, well keep trying. Its weird that you are saying the character hitting the trigger sends the ball back, but the ball hitting the trigger doesnt send the ball back... i do think it was something related to the physics. But maybe you could try a "set relative location" for the ball component to be 0, so ithat it will snap back to where the actor is...

[bright sleet]

For some reason my character model isn't changing in the CAC level

[vernal lake]

that might be a shout

[grand valve]

@bright sleet if its set up exactly like you have it in your screenshot, you dont have anything set up to actually bind the event, you need something executing the bind event node

[vernal lake]

you madman

you absolute madman

it worked

though setting it to 0 doesnt, i have to input the same vector as the spawn point even though... nevermind it worked 😂

[grand valve]

Yea i mean thats the root of the problem. The component location is offset from the actor. Maybe you want to simulate physics on the actor instead of the component? Im not really sure. You can try to use event tick and "DrawDebugPoint" to print the exact location of the actor vs the component at all times, then youll have a better sense of what's happening maybe.

[last ice]

I cannot compare <= with floats anymore... yesterday it worked fine.
anyone knows any solution? 😕

have a c++ project... also did rebuild the solution

lol... did make a float variable in the blueprint class. with that it works fine...

[bright sleet]

What node would I need to add?

[bright sleet]

And so the issue lies in the first screenshot in the CAC level blueprint

[misty tulip]

Hi everyone. I have a few npcs successfully patrolling a map and they are not hostile towards you. I only want them to engage that behavior tree behaviours when the level game alert is set to a certain number. But I am having trouble figuring out how to either cast or use a blueprint interface for this. Im unsure what the target or object can be.

[marble tusk]

It's a bug with UE5 preview 2 right now that'll hopefully be fixed in the next preview. You can right click the pin on the less than node and convert it to a float. You should be able to connect it then

[last ice]

sadly right click does not work for me. but if I make a new float variable inside the blueprint and pull a lessEqual out of that, it does it the right way... from there I just reuse that lessEqual and delete the variable I made again

thanks for your answer and confirming this is a known bug... 🙂

[marble tusk]

The issue is that UE5 is switching to double precision floats, but there's still a lot of things which use single precision. They had called double precision floats "Real" in preview 1, but changed the name back to "Float" I guess to prevent confusion. That change might've broken some things

[small halo]

https://gyazo.com/7f39aebe43053e25b732e0aa15600068

why does it say preview

when i added directional light

[earnest tangle]

It says preview sometimes if you haven't built lights

[trim pollen]

say I have multiple actors, a bunch of models I've imported, and I'd like to control them from one blueprint... how would I do this? I've tried several classes and I can't drag the reference in. I can only create a blueprint that inherits one actor at a time. The level blueprint seems to be doing what I want though.... I can drag anything in and it creates the reference for me. I'm already doing a bunch of stuff in the level blueprint... is there another way?

[mellow folio]

The level blueprint will not provide any real solutions

Provide more info on what Exactly you’re trying to do

With pictures of the code

[trim pollen]

what isn't clear from above description?

[broken surge]

Is there a way to rotate a charecter model and animations to face the opposite direction if imported facing the wrong way.

[mellow folio]

Yes, put them as components in an actor and rotate the components in the viewport window

[mellow folio]

Maybe you want an actor object array variable, with instance editable turned on

Then find the variable on the object and click the plus button to add new references

[trim pollen]

ok yeah that maybe is what I want... i'm importing models and want to bind a unique key for each model to show/hide. If I do this in the level blueprint I'd be copy/pasting the same code a bunch of times which is probably bad design

I only seem to be able to get the references in the level blueprint which is the main thing i'm wondering about

[mellow folio]

Some of the language you are using is slightly inaccurate which makes it hard to determine exactly what you're trying to do, you should post some pictures.

Generally, you will need to vastly improve your understanding of how references work, such as how to get references to thing without using the level blueprint. For instance, you can use GETALLACTORSOFCLASS node, or the spawning actor can keep track of everything he spawns, there are dozens of ways to get references to things.

All that being said, it seems like your goal might simply be to change the Mesh of a static mesh component when you press a button

That logic is different and pretty simple, you'll just use a SET STATIC MESH node within the actor that is getting changed.

[trim pollen]

yep, that part is clear

since I'm using a unique key for each model I'm not sure there's a better way to do it than this

I think I know what to look into for now, thank you

[mellow folio]

So for logic like this.....it should probably just be running on the Player Controller.

Each of the Star objects, when it does BEGINPLAY, can GETPLAYERCONTROLLER ---> CasttoyourSpecificController, and from there it can send a reference to itself up to the player controller, preferrably in an array or Map (SizetoFit)

Then, the player controller handles all the key inputs

With a function that just points to a specific index in the array (or key in the map)

you can DM me for a more specific rundown

but I think this calls for the Registration philosophy, where objects register themselves with some central object (like the player controller) so the references are achieved that way

[late shuttle]

Can't seem to figure out how to change to this HUD type when a player hits a special key.

I've been searching the BluePrint API in the PlayerController but can only find "AddWidget" and this is not a widget...

[viscid blaze]

Thanks for the reply! This is exactly what I was hoping for. The Enum to Actor, to handle abilities, is really interesting. I'd love to hear other elegant ways you (or anyone else) has used Maps.

[grand valve]

@late shuttle HUD is a bit of a legacy class. You specify what HUD to use inside of the GameMode itself. Theres a section for HUD. Hud BP has some functions you can overwrite but i think its more common to use Widgets these days.

[icy dragon]

Nowadays people use HUD to serve as "data secretary" for the widgets

[late shuttle]

@grand valve Thank you, Sir. I think I'm following an old tutorial.

I'll convert the code to (UMG?) Widget

[icy dragon]

Yes. Or Slate, if you want a little masochist about it

[late shuttle]

Please, no.

https://tenor.com/view/avengers-endgame-hawkeye-no-please-no-no-sad-gif-16886381

[solar sequoia]

Is there any use for a Hud at this point? I know that there's a "Hide Hud" value in the controller or something, but I'm not sure how functional that is

[grand valve]

You can still use it. I didnt really think of it in the way Makoto said, as like a place to hold player controller information for any widgets to access, but that's pretty good idea

its just kind of this class that is auto managed by the engine so it was good for convenience, but might have been a bit of a pain to implement different HUDs for different character types or stuff like that

I personally always just put it to None and setup a quick base level canvas widget, takes like 2 minutes and from there its probably better in the long run..

[late shuttle]

Hmmm... never used a Canvas, honestly. Always went straight to Player Controller -> Create HUD Widget

Looks like I've been accidentally using default HUD from UE4

[grand valve]

poking around there does seem to still be this

which kind of answers your original question

[late shuttle]

Client set HUD. Saw that and thought it was reserved for some type of multiplayer component.

THANK YOU, @grand valve

[chrome compass]

So i've been working on a character selection/customization system for my game and there's some stuff that i'm totally unable to sort out. Each time i make some progress and i feel that i'm close, i don't see the proper way to do it. I would appreciate some guidance from anyone with more experience (not hard since i'm basically a noob lol).

I have a menu level for the main menu and the character selection. The default pawn class in this level is just a pawn with a camera that contains some functions for the widget and logic to dinamically change its transform based on the clicked buttons.

1- After starting a new game (single or multiplayer) i want two steps for the player to select the character. The first one is the CLADE which determines a spawn location and the characters available to select for their customization. The second one is the SPECIES selection/customization based on that clade. I've managed to create the logic to change the spawn location for each clade and the movement from the level pawn player start to each clade spawn, but i can't set up the way to filter the characters and make some available while the others aren't. I've tried with structures and data tables but i'm kinda lost using them for this.

2- A friend of mine created the color picker logic and the species selection switch buttons, but he made it so the customization is applied directly to the in-game character classes (maybe i'm wrong but i think this has a conflict with the menu pawn); also spawning the in-game characters in the menu level causes some issues due to all their logic. I've tried using player starts to spawn an actor BP as placeholder, with some logic to change the skeletal mesh based on the character selected but it doesn't really work. And also i don't know how to save that customization data and apply it to the in-game characters once the player confirms and goes to the game level.

Some screenshots i've taken so it's easier to see what i want.
Thanks in advance.

[solar sequoia]

So on the first question about making some available and others unavailable, do you mean that the UI should be greyed out, or that the option shouldn't be available at all? If it's the first one, you could probably just have a bool for "is available" somewhere, and you'd check that when creating the UI and when your click event fires

[chrome compass]

well the idea is that they shouldn't be available at all, like pressing the switches only spawns the creatures from the selected clade. There's going to be a lot of playables so would be kinda annoying if like 80% aren't available but you need to keep pressing the arrow

[solar sequoia]

I guess that doesn't really answer my question. Do you not want them to appear on the UI or something?

[chrome compass]

the thing is if there's a way to assign the species (characters) to those clades, and then gettign them from a row or something, that's what i've been trying cause otherwise if i need to use a bool to set up each species to each clade ticking the avilable ones, well... there are 10 clades and around 80 species, that would be nightmare 😂

i don't want them to appear on the UI at all

and i don't want them to be avilable to be played ofc

[solar sequoia]

I guess I don't get the question, then. If you don't want it to do something, don't create that functionality

[chrome compass]

wait, i'll post a video, maybe gives a better idea

[solar sequoia]

Yeah, so you're picking different menu options and the position changes based on that. I don't get what question you're trying to convey, though

[chrome compass]

well the first one. Each of those options should determine which characters are available for the player to select, multiple characters per option

but since all the characters are children of the same master character, when i assign that master character to spawn, no matter the option i selected, all the children characters are available to select from every option

[solar sequoia]

What are you doing to spawn the character of the chosen class?

[chrome compass]

i get the characters from a structure that contains the children character blueprint and the name that should show on the UI

that's what my friend made to select the character using those switch buttons

[dark crow]

Well, DT sounds perfect for this situation, no?

Each clade can be the row name and it contains the creatures in the clade to show

Preferably soft class references

[solar sequoia]

That should work fine, I guess. It's still not clear what the actual issue is. If you want to prevent something from being selected, just create a boolean for it that's checked before it fires its event

[chrome compass]

i've tried creating a structure for each clade that sets the data on the character info structure, but didn't work, and i also tried using DT but as i said, i'm kinda lost using them for this, i guess i need to take the index to get each species from each clade row but i do something wrong (or i don't do what i need to do in the end)

[chrome compass]

i did exactly that, worked fine for the clade index and name, but didn't know how to get the species after

[dark crow]

Wdym, the class itself is the species

You don't need to use the parent as the class, use the child

[chrome compass]

ah but i didn't used soft class, never worked with them tbh

[dark crow]

Only difference is that you load them as needed instead of all creatures being always loaded from the list

[solar sequoia]

It sounds like he's spawning them as desired, so a soft reference shouldn't change much

[dark crow]

Yeah, if they're already present in the world, won't change much anyways

You can even have in case an array struct in the DT that contains infos of that clade

[chrome compass]

nah they don't spawn when i use DT, like you can see on that video, i get the clade name and index, but doesn't change the species

[dark crow]

Is that in Multiplayer or not?

[chrome compass]

but how do i use the child, i mean if each row is the clade, then i need to get the exact reference for the characters assigned to that row

[chrome compass]

that's the idea

[dark crow]

Not really

You can just tell it to spawn the returning class

It doesn't care what the class is

You just care about getting the class in there

Cause the spawning class ref is Actor

[chrome compass]

alright, i'll try that tomorrow then

i know there's something missing or wrong when i use DT, idk what tho

[dark crow]

And not entirely sure if the Widget will let you actually spawn something locally in a Multiplayer scenario, never tried, lol

[solar sequoia]

If you mean non-replicated, yeah, but otherwise you need to call it from somewhere that is replicated

Widgets don't replicate, so you'd need to get the owner or something and run an rpc from there

[dark crow]

Yeh, probs will work just for a local preview and that's it in case

[chrome compass]

well, me neither, but that will be an issue for the future i guess, for now i'll be happy if i fianlly get the correct characters for customization lol

[solar sequoia]

That's pretty much it, yeah. Locally spawned things are more or less just cosmetic

[chrome compass]

well actually the only thing that needs to be replicated are the colors selected for the character mesh

[dark crow]

And btw

It will always spawn it at the first PlayerStart with that Tag

[solar sequoia]

Override "Find Player Start" in the GameMode for a better solution

And he's right, you're getting index 0 of an array when there might be a better way to handle your logic there

[chrome compass]

i've tested it on the game map and that works, the character selection screen should be just a preview to pick the colors and stuff and then apply them to the character after

[dark crow]

It works if there's only 1 PlayerStart with that tag ever

It will always spawn you at the first one if you have 100 for example

[chrome compass]

i get that spawn tag variable from here (second pic)

[dark crow]

Yup, but you're getting 0 of the Array

Aka first one

[chrome compass]

there's only one player start with each tag, just assigned for more than one clade

[solar sequoia]

I'm not wrong in thinking that he should just override AGameMode's function for it, right?

[chrome compass]

i don't say you are at all lol

[dark crow]

I totally would

Just more comfy for future implementations too

[chrome compass]

well i'll do that to then

[solar sequoia]

Go ahead and do that, because it could call that variable from the controller or wherever you have it stored

I think the function takes a player controller input?

So you could just cast that value, get that name variable from it, and then use that

[chrome compass]

hmmm i don't think so...

i mean

idk if i get what you're saying

[solar sequoia]

I'm on the phone but I could figure it out real quick

[dark crow]

I think Choose Player Start has the PC as a pin

[solar sequoia]

Maybe. There are 2 functions that almost do the same thing

Turn off context sensitivity and find the node called "Find Player Start" and then hover over its name to see its description

It's whichever of the two that says it calls the other

[chrome compass]

in which blueprint?

[dark crow]

GameMode handles it

Game rules

You can override its logic iirc

[solar sequoia]

You can call it from anywhere by turning off context sensitivity and searching for it

[chrome compass]

"return the specific player start actor that should be used for the next spawn. This will either use a previously saved start actor, or calls "chooseplayerstart"

[modern cove]

grr.. After some tinkering I got the Sound System from a YouTube Lesson video from Epic to play some music. Problem now is that the Stop Function doesn't work. I call upon it, and the music starts, but I call upon the Stop function and it keeps going. I tried Destroying the Music Control Actor and the song still keeps playing.

[chrome compass]

that's what it says that node

[dark crow]

Yeah

[solar sequoia]

Yeah, that's the one to override. Do you know how to do that?

[chrome compass]

i would say no lol

[dark crow]

Seems like it's a Pure function too 🤔

[chrome compass]

it is

[dark crow]

I guess if you don't want to override and use it only for certain spawns

[solar sequoia]

An override basically means that you're turning off the default functionality of a function and using your own logic for it

[chrome compass]

that was just to test how to spawn something for the customization

cause that's part of my second problem

[solar sequoia]

So it's in the "add function" area of a game mode blueprint, whatever that section of the screen is actually called. There's a drop-down that says "override" iirc

[chrome compass]

which actually could fix part of the first one

[dark crow]

I mean, as long as there's only 1 type of spawn and you only need it for local cosmetics, theoretically you can keep that in Widget too for the Preview

But the actual spawning can't happen from there

When you are about to play

It just seems to be non future proof

[solar sequoia]

Well, you could still do it if it would make sense to store it in a widget. Actors that don't need to replicate can be spawned from wherever

This seems to be a preview type thing, so it's either happening in single player anyway or it's something only the client should see

[dark crow]

Yeah, but imagine if in a future he wants 3 types of spawn of the same type, if the uses a random index for example, it will no be in sync with the server spawning

The location

[solar sequoia]

That's true, but I'm getting the impression that his use is explicitly for something cosmetic on the client

[chrome compass]

wait maybe this explains something, there's a player start for the main menu pawn (just a pawn with a camera), the other player starts (with tag) were to spawn actors for the customization preview

[dark crow]

Yeah, as long as they're not actual spawns, then should be fine
If they're actual spawns for the player when they play, it can be hella confusing spawning in a different spot

[chrome compass]

that's just cosmetic and client side

[dark crow]

If they are actual PlayerStarts and you don't want theplayers to actually spawn there, you must change the PlayerStart logic

[chrome compass]

the function for the spawn for the game itself, openening the game level after selecting the character and customize is in the gamemode

[solar sequoia]

I can't remember how I did it without looking, but I overrode the function I was talking about, and would compare the tag on a player start before spawning a player there. Basically it was because there were specific player starts I places that were only to spawn pickup items

[solar sequoia]

Since the override would be in your game mode, couldn't you just have one for your menu/do you do that already?

Unless your menu and gameplay are supposed to be seamless

[chrome compass]

in the beggining there was just one player start for the menu, i added other 3 with tags to test if it would work to spawn actors instead of the character, cause it makes no sense to spawn the "real character" the one you use to play in the main menu level to customize it

[solar sequoia]

Well you could spawn the character, in theory, but make it so the player controller doesn't have possession of it

[chrome compass]

it doesn't

[dark crow]

But to show the actual character, you need to use the real character :D

Unless it's a dummy actor

[solar sequoia]

That's my thing. I'd try to save work by just spawning the player character without any ability to interact with it

[chrome compass]

well you don't use the character in the main menu, you don't move it or play with it, it was just to change the linear color from its textures, my friend did that "wrong" or at least not as i expected

is there any way to do that?

[dark crow]

You can spawn the Character in the preview, that's it

Just don't possess it

[chrome compass]

spawning the character but getting rid of all its functionality like abilities, attributes, etc?

[solar sequoia]

Yeah, I think the way you're doing it is somewhat correct, with the pawn with no inputs, basically, and then you just use spawn actor to put the character where you want it

[solar sequoia]

Just don't have the controller possess it

[dark crow]

I think if it's not possessed even without AI Controller, it "freezes"

[chrome compass]

that's what i've been doing, but it still give me issues

[dark crow]

What issues?

I know I used Characters for previews and a friend of mine did too with no problem

[chrome compass]

i can't move them ofc cause the player controller is for the main menu pawn, but for example characters have a morph target and functionality to change their scale, a timeline gives the values for that morph target and the scale, that shouldn't happen in the main menu

[solar sequoia]

I believe it would be as simple as a boolean that's exposed on spawn, and that bool would just represent if the character should do those specific things

[chrome compass]

actually there's a slider on the character selection hud to control that morph target just to see a preview of the changes, so when i move the slider it doesn't matter, the character keeps getting the value from the timeline

hmm damn, i didn't think about that

[solar sequoia]

So when it's spawned through the level BP or wherever you decide to put it, just use that exposed value to control those things that you don't want to happen

Booleans and branches are basically free to use and check, even if it's fairly often

[dark crow]

I mean, it's a timer, it's very free to not just call the timer if the bool is false

[chrome compass]

i was totally convinced that the best way would be using an empty actor and change its skeletal mesh for the preview of each character, then store and send the customization data to the character after spawning in the game level lol

[dark crow]

That sounds overly complicated tbf

[solar sequoia]

I believe that the way we're talking about is the lowest effort overall

[dark crow]

You can ofc create fake dummies

[chrome compass]

hahah ye lol that's usally me when i try to do something that i've never done

[dark crow]

But you would need to map them to the real thing

[solar sequoia]

You know how to use the "Expose on Spawn" parameter for variables, right?

I only found out about it kind of recently

[chrome compass]

not really, i've ticked it in some variables following a tutorial, but i ain't sure of what that does

[solar sequoia]

On the "Spawn Actor" node, there are the input pins for the transform and a couple other things. It just makes that variable an input when spawning an actor of that class

It basically means you can set a value before the actor exists

[chrome compass]

damn that's proly exaclty what i need for the morph target too, and some other variables

i'll take a look on what could use it

[solar sequoia]

Yeah, it's a pretty big deal and I only found out about it after a year or so

One unrelated idea that comes to mind would be the weapon type for an enemy to have, rather than setting it at runtime or making multiple classes for each version

Or maybe a mesh/material difference. Minecraft comes to mind, where some mobs have a couple variations of the same texture

[chrome compass]

applied on what? just asking to be sure that i follow you

[solar sequoia]

It would be any variable that's contained within the actor you're spawning

That's what you were asking, right?

[chrome compass]

could be

i mean, what i want to do is pretty similar to that, the weapon type and mesh/material changes

but still so much different (for me at least), that i don't really get to the point i'm looking for but anyway, i'll try everything you two told me

[dark crow]

Reminder that there's controlled checks that you can use too for logic

In the Character

[chrome compass]

so to summarize, data table to get the available characters and spawn them for customization, i keep the character class for that customization using a bool to stop the logic instead of using dummy actors, and then about the player starts

now i think that's been giving issues, so what's the best way to be sure that the spawns for the character doesn't affect the player start for the main menu pawn?

[chrome compass]

how does that work?

[chrome compass]

aaaaaah those ones

[dark crow]

If you don't want the main menu ones to actually be spawns but just preview places

[chrome compass]

well the characters aren't player controlled in the main menu that's for sure

[dark crow]

Why not just make an actor with tags?

And make it cool with a billboard

[chrome compass]

just preview, only to see the character that i'm selecting, aka its mesh, change the linear color from its material tints and the morph target preview

[dark crow]

Then yeah, specialized Actor is better

[chrome compass]

sounds like what i wanted to do but didn't know how lol

[dark crow]

Keep it on theme with the Dino Billboard 👍

Literally create a new actor and just give it the tags

Then in the GetActorsOfClass use this Actor instead

[chrome compass]

alright and what would be the logic to see the character selection and color changes using those tags?

[dark crow]

It would spawn the character there for the preview

But just for the preview

[chrome compass]

getting the transform?

[dark crow]

Yep

[chrome compass]

yeah makes sense, i mean it's exactly what i did to change the main menu pawn transform

using cameras in that case

[dark crow]

Since you are not really using the PlayerStarts to actually spawn stuff on them but getting the transforms

At this point a specialized Actor is better for the Preview

So it avoids issues

[chrome compass]

but didn't think about spawning the character like that (don't ask why lol)

yeah yeah that's perfect

thanks for all, i'll try all this as soon as i can and see what happens

prolly the way to get the corresponding character from the data table will be wrong or something but i'll try it

i'll let you know anyway, thanks again!

[dark crow]

I can make a fast example

Struct with the base type

DT with the Clades

Actual selection

A way to match the Selection Row Name to the DT is just exactly matching the Text content with the Row Name of the Clade and use that based on what's pressed

For Example if I flick the Button with Theropoda, that can be my Row Name

So just have the button click call the logic passing the Text content too

For the DT

[wicked osprey]

Guys, I have a question. Which method is more correct in order to get the array in which the item is located, given that WeaponsArray is calculated only for items with the Weapons tag, and ItemsArray for Items

[solar sequoia]

it really doesn't seem like it matters. If you're already using arrays for those objects, I'd say to go with that method

[edgy stone]

How much less performant is blueprint compared to c++? If I make my whole game in blueprint how much worse is that going to be on my performance

[maiden wadi]

10% to 10,000%

Can't answer that directly without knowing the game type and intended implementations. Some stuff goes never noticed in blueprint. Some stuff just can't be done.

[solar sequoia]

people say something like twice as long to perform actions. TBH it shouldn't matter a whole lot. Just follow good practice and you might not even notice a difference

[edgy stone]

Is this a jaded I don't like blueprint response cause it seems like if it was this bad no one would use blueprint

[solar sequoia]

BP is generally faster to build in, easier to visualize, can compile without having to reload the engine, but is slower than C++ by some indeterminate amount. That's just kind of the tradeoff

[blissful grail]

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

[edgy stone]

I knew it was slower I just didn't know if anyone knew how much slower. I'm very new to this.

[solar sequoia]

there's no exact value

[edgy stone]

The heck is a profiler?

[blissful grail]

Tells you what is eating your performance.

[solar sequoia]

a common thing that I hear is that BP is as little as half as fast for some actions, but for others it just doesn't make a difference

[blissful grail]

If you are too new - this is literally something you don't need to worry about. Use BP.

[solar sequoia]

I don't know a lot about C++, so BP is a good way to just start learning without needing too much knowledge of syntax

that's the point, really. BP is partly made for people who want to learn an engine but don't have a background in coding or one specific language

[maiden wadi]

It's worth noting that my answer was in no way jaded. I love blueprint. I use it as often as I can. But I'm also largely a UI programmer and there are a ton of things you just can't get away with in blueprint in a larger project. There's too much data to sort through sometimes.

[edgy stone]

Yeah I know absolutely nothing about coding so I wanted to make sure blueprint was a reasonable option

[dusk dust]

Blueprints is coding

[edgy stone]

That makes sense that's why I asked

[solar sequoia]

What's the alternative, not learning UE? BP is fine

[blissful grail]

BP is more than adequate for many many types of games.

[maiden wadi]

A good case. I was messing around with a minimap last night in a personal project. I threw it together in blueprint first. I had a loop running through some objects and passing them to a niagara emitter. Took several milliseconds on my gamethread time. I dropped the same thing into a C++ subclass with identical logic, and the same simple math dropped to 100 microseconds.

[blissful grail]

Especially at your stage.

[edgy stone]

Well it's more so hey do I dive all my hours into c++ cause it's an inevitability as your project grows blue print becomes obsolete or blue print works 95 percent of the time and 5 percent you'll need c++

[solar sequoia]

also something that I see a lot is people wanting to learn the engine to make "their game", rather than doing it for fun/to learn. Just move from one thing that interests you to another and you'll have a much better time @edgy stone

[solar sequoia]

also no, just stick to BP because there functionally isn't a difference

the difference is literally not being able to use the engine until you learn C++, or using something that's a little bit slower (Blueprint)

[edgy stone]

Oh yeah I'm not making any dream next big game or anything by any means. Ultimately I want to get into a studio but that's a whole other topic

[maiden wadi]

It really depends on what you're doing. If you're making a simple UI and a basic game. Blueprint is perfectly fine. Can even make basic multiplayer games with blueprint only.

[edgy stone]

Right now I just want to make fun titan fall type movement that's my current project

[solar sequoia]

I do see a lot of people who seem to have an idea/gimmick for a game, but they literally don't know anything about how to develop, and they end up limiting their ability to use the engine because they only want things to work for their specific use case, and don't really care to learn how they actually function

[solar sequoia]

good movement in games is always fun. You can do almost anything in modern game engines, and I think it's a shame when most games just have sprint + slide and maybe a gimmicky wall run

[edgy stone]

I still think titan fall had some of the best movement I've ever played in a game I think it's one of the most underrated games in general but that's just me

[edgy stone]

Yeah I'm just doing random projects to get familiar with it right now

[maiden wadi]

Also in regards to coding. I wouldn't be so afraid of it. C++ channel will tell you to go learn basic C++ for five years. I didn't know anything about C++ a year and a half ago. Still have a lot to learn, but it really opens up options in the engine. And basic C++ is going to be a hardcore requirement if you're looking to get into a studio as a programmer. Definitely recommend it after you're comfortable with blueprints and general engine functionality.

[solar sequoia]

pretty much what I'm doing, yeah. I'd check out these playlists if you're still pretty new
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApEtWpAialg&list=PLSlkDq2rO1t7eEyfF8eiTsGGGtFOBz1vb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBkzwD31lKE&list=PLSlkDq2rO1t7vAQxmhRfEdDTjygDf1D7H

[edgy stone]

This is my biggest thing is most people have the idea that you have to be an expert in c++ to be competent in unreal at all and that seems like so much work for it not being my main goal

[edgy stone]

Thank you I'll look into them

[maiden wadi]

What is your main goal when you join a studio?

[edgy stone]

Environment art mainly but it seems like you have to have a pretty decent general knowledge in things even if you want to go into something specific

[maiden wadi]

Ah. Yeah. C++ won't be a thing for you then. I thought you were looking at gameplay programming. 😄

[edgy stone]

No I want to learn enough to be dangerous and know what I'm talking about but I don't need to know enough to dive really deep into complex coding of anything

[maiden wadi]

Yeah. You'll be fine with blueprint only probably. Most studios won't have a requirement for a level designer to know coding. Anything they need done that has to be performant or engine tools get delegated to a fulltime programmer usually.

[edgy stone]

That makes sense

[cinder quarry]

I've got a helmet that I'm spawning and then attaching to an ak component which is a child of the camera I then use a timeline to add an offset to the helmet to make it come down over the player view but every time I play it in game the final position changes, it's either too low, too high or at the perfect placement any ideas what might be causing this?

[gentle urchin]

Word💯

[maiden wadi]

You won't. There are a few others who don't share the couple week sentiment.

[icy dragon]

But at least we can all agree one does not simply learn all C++ basics overnight.

[gentle urchin]

for sure. But it doesn't always take reading entire books on the subject to get around 😛

[white elbow]

say I have an enemy that is a collection of physics bodies and constraints, how would I make it fall apart after being defeated?

[maiden wadi]

Probably just decouple the constraints I think. Haven't tested that one personally.

[river herald]

what's the object reference when I cast to an unpossessed character, get player character/pawn isn't working

[maiden wadi]

There isn't one. Depending on what you're doing, you may need framework for it. What is your use case for needing that character?

[river herald]

i figured it out, i used get all actors of class, got a copy, then put that as the object for my character

[maiden wadi]

I wouldn't use that in an end product. It's fine for prototyping, but a framework would make stuff easier.

[river herald]

i'll look into that

[earnest tangle]

There are two exec pins coming out from the cast node

If the print node isn't printing, it means it's taking the other pin

[maiden wadi]

Sounds like the actor you have that in doesn't have input enabled, or your contol inputs are set to UI only, or you have a widget overriding your E key and returning handled.

What actor is this in?

Just needs told to EnableInput from the local player controller

Can probably do it at spawn and attachment. Would be cleanest.

But you still have all of the data there. The actor that spawns and follows. If the follow target IsLocallyControlled then GetController, CastToPlayerController, EnableInput on spawned after.

Not really. It sounds like an anim blueprint per skeleton. Some follower classes that have them specified by default. And some extra default data and a list of those classes to randomly spawn.

Singleplayer game?

Is this spawned in the player's pawn?

Class, not in world.

Are these nodes inside of the Player's Pawn class?

GetController->CastToPlayerController

Before you call EnableInput. GetController gets you a reference to the controller actor. CastToPlayerController casts it to a PlayerController type you can use to enable input.

Not from the spawned actor. From the blueprint you're in. Right click the background.

Depends. No real need for a Pawn if it's attached. If you don't need AI behavior, possession or character movement, pawns are kinda pointless.

[lapis inlet]

Hey guys, is it possible to make a random number generator BUT it has a higher chance to select a smaller number than a higher one?

Like a graph with a curved line in commonallity?

[odd ember]

yeah you can instill a bias

but you'll have to think about your bias in terms of math

[lapis inlet]

Alright, so I'll do that then

Currently have this hotfix atm

[odd ember]

when you say smaller number, can you elaborate?

[lapis inlet]

As in, it has a higher chance to select something like "Int64 100" rather than "Int64 1000"

And it gets progressively more and more rare for higher numbers to be selected

[odd ember]

for the second part you'll need diminishing returns

for the first part, you could keep lowering the maximum value

[lapis inlet]

So what blueprints can apply those aspects?

[odd ember]

or just multiply the result by a scale value between 0 and 1. or subtract a constant value

[odd ember]

you'll have to make the logic yourself

[lapis inlet]

Yea I just mean, what building blocks could be possible to apply the logic

[odd ember]

math expression nodes

and set value

[lapis inlet]

KK

[odd ember]

I believe google would know

well if you have concrete problems you can ask them here. but it's not a place to get recommendations for anything beyond fundamental blueprint understanding

[late cave]

Can I print a string in the details panel of an actor blueprint that the unreal editor user can’t change?

[earnest tangle]

You could try making a VisibleAnywhere string in C++ I guess, but not sure how those get displayed in the details panel. Otherwise you would probably need a custom details panel thing which is also C++ territory

[late cave]

Ugh… ok, thanks

[lapis inlet]

Alright so I have a decent representation of how the commonality would be done, its a simple x^3 = y graph

Oh wait

need it to be reversed

Better

Or, no

Ok gimme a sec

ALRIGHT, think I got it

[odd ember]

that's not a concrete problem. if you have issues with performance that could be something you can get help with. but building a system from the ground up requires much more experience, and I doubt anyone wants to go through a hand holding process over the next days with you for that

[lapis inlet]

(x - 1)^2 = y, something like that.

horizontal line represents the number, the vertical line represents the commonality

Urg maths hurt

[late cave]

Hmm… I followed a tutorial for PerInstanceRandom material, but when I use SpawnActor they all come out the same color…

[odd ember]

probably better to ask in #graphics since it's a material node?

[late cave]

Right, but two different tutorials on YouTube has the material node working, so I have to wonder if it’s due to my blueprint actor setup…

[odd ember]

right but you're asking about the material node specifically.

if you have a blueprint problem I'd suggest reframing your question to aim at that

[late cave]

The question is if SpawnActor doesn’t create instances in the same way, that for example people paint foliage on landscapes…

[odd ember]

sounds like you'll have to find out how the material node works. again, this sounds like a #graphics question