blueprint

[quiet canyon]

Hey Guys Can you share how I can make camera that has deadzone when using "Look at rotation" ?

[late shuttle]

@quiet canyon Not sure exactly what you want, but couldn't you lerp to the look at rotation then clamp the final value?

[flat scarab]

How do I assign a dynamic material instance to all actors of a particular class in the level?

[modest monolith]

I guess this is hard lol

[rotund marlin]

how do i stop my Pick-upable item from just floating mid air? i have gravity enabled but the skeletal mesh wont move its butt down to ground lol

[maiden wadi]

Not really. EventHit only runs when a mesh collides with it that has collision primitives and correct collision settings. If your weapon is a line trace, you need a different event.

[rotund marlin]

🤔 maybe i should ragdoll it

[late shuttle]

@flat scarab I would keep track of these actors on spawn via an array, then when the event occurs where you want the dynamic material instance changed do a for each loop with your material change.

[maiden wadi]

If you are not simulating physics, objects will not move on their own without a movement component. If it's floating in the air it's because you left it there. Try something as simple as a sweep movement to actor location + -500z

[rotund marlin]

hmm.. so adding a movement componment could make it fall down?

[maiden wadi]

It can. But I don't recommend it. Movement component's are semi cheap, but they tick. For something like a pickup, that sounds like it could easily spiral out of control.

[flat scarab]

Thanks, it seems to be working now but I wanted this random color to be the same across all actors within that array, only changing when going into runtime.

[dull sequoia]

when exiting one hit box call a function on your character that queries all of it's current overlaps and do what you need there

[rotund marlin]

https://gyazo.com/60e1b2561d65ea92f052526d65ee8ef1 as i cant enable simulate physics for some reason

[quiet canyon]

Imagine you have cube and camera..

1. Camera is using "look at rotation" towards the cube..
2. The cube is moving fast -> I do not want to get headach by nomerous small rotations by the camera....when he cube is zig-zaging
3. I want to set some kind of a deadzone for the camera so that only when the cube is making more drastic (bigger) movemenst then the camera to rotate ?
   So you say it can be done by first learping to the look at ortation and then Clamping that roatation ? Thanks in advance !

[maiden wadi]

Likely reason is that the component has a mesh in it that doesn't have a correlated physics asset.

[rotund marlin]

i c

[late shuttle]

@quiet canyon And for the deadzone do a check to make sure that the look at rotation is greater than an initial rotation value. If it's NOT greater then do nothing. If it IS greater then start your lerp to the new rotation then clamp.

[mild crystal]

hello everyone im making some adjustments in my ai and i need to know how to do 1 thing

anyone know how to do a strafe

action

for behavior tree?

[quiet canyon]

Yes but I can't figure where/how and when to do this .. to store the rotation value of the camera ?... OR do I use the cube location ..? I'm talking this: initial rotation value ? how to get the correct value each time ? for me to compare it later ?

It's like I need some get deviation from the center of the camera/screen ... ? but again I don't know how to do this ? I can write it in CPP btw I'm trying to figure out thew logic

[late shuttle]

@quiet canyon Like a lot of things, the answer is it depends. If the cube is the player, it might be good to put it on Event Tick. If not, make an event with a timer that can be cleared. Write out your code diagram on a chalkboard/whiteboard -> blueprint (for rapid prototyping) -> CPP

[quiet canyon]

Ok, Thank you, I'\ll try to sum up and test what you suggested

[sacred canyon]

yeah thats what I thought but how? only thing I can think of is some kinda variable that counts up each time you enter one and subtracts when you leave, and detects when it hits 0

[deft quest]

wtf

how does that happen

[faint pasture]

Event end overlap -> get overlapping actors -> check if any are water

[sacred canyon]

ah thanks, I guess I didnt know that was a thing

[plain jay]

so would anyone know why this would happen? I fixed up redirectors in my project and now some of my main classes lost the parent class breaking tons of references. is there an easy fix to this or am i screwed? lol I do have source control but reverting didnt seem to fix it

the parent class wasnt deleted, but its no longer referenced in my child classes

it reverted some of my character classes to just actor classes

[opaque spear]

I have both health and armor variables. I'm able to get a) armor to regen immediately after taking damage, and b) have damage apply to armor before health. How should I clean up my code to allow for a 3 second delay before armor regens at 5% per second?

[maiden wadi]

If source control didn't fix it. It sounds like some odd corruption. There isn't really an easy way to fix that besides just redoing it as far as I'm aware.

[plain jay]

thats unfortunate. guess I get to make it better this time lol

[modest monolith]

Projectiles impact on enemies

But anyway I can't use event hit for reasons explained above

[flat coral]

Anyone have a good naming convention for "abstract" functions so you don't forget to override them in child BPs?

[maiden wadi]

You'll forget them anyhow. Would rather have the original parent function broadcast a warning if it runs and just not run super in the override.

[flat coral]

That's a great idea actually, though it doesn't solve the naming issue

It's not uncommon I have a set of methods like this, where at first glance you'd think "what's the difference between OnDeath and HandleDeath?". And the answer is HandleDeath contains all the base logic for the parent class that HAS to run when it dies, while OnDeath is an abstract method so that children can add functionality

And sure, I can and will make HandleDeath private but it's still confusing in this ui

[maiden wadi]

It's not really confusing though if you stick to that convention. I name things similarly. If something is named Handle, I assume something else is supposed to run it like a binding or such. I usually do stuff like PostDeath, or PreDeath for inheriting functionality change.

[gentle urchin]

Wouldnt it be cleaner with just one OnDeath fn not private, and override + call parent function for it in a child who's extending the functionality?

If thats whats ment to be overriden, ofcourse.

[maiden wadi]

This is also one reason I love the C++ barrier though. BIEs are great for inheriting functionality for designers. You know the heavy or important code is done once C++ code calls a BIE.

[gentle urchin]

True, I prefer that aswell. Giving bp an opportunity to react

[flat coral]

Wait what's a BIE? I don't really mess with C++ at all

[maiden wadi]

BlueprintImplementableEvent. It's basically an event that you can make in C++ that runs blueprint code in the bp classes inheritting from your C++ class. There is no C++ implementation for BIES.

[flat coral]

Oh neat

[maiden wadi]

I use them a lot for allowing C++ code to do simple stuff like show widgets. I very much detest messing with widget creation in C++. So I make BIE events in my AHUD class and call them from C++ that way. If you mark them BlueprintCallable, you can also call them in BP.

[flat coral]

I'll probably have to sort out C++ sooner or later... I'm putting it off as long as I can though. Hate that language, even before Unreal piled all their shit on it too

[blissful grail]

UE made workin' with C++ pretty nice imo.

[flat coral]

Hmmmm what IDE do yall use with it?

[blissful grail]

Ask that in #cpp

[flat coral]

You can't make me

[blissful grail]

I haven't seen an IDE war in there yet today.

[maiden wadi]

Are you using UE5? Cause honestly. UE5 has made using C++ so amazing.

The new Livecoding is just phenomenal.

[blissful grail]

It really is.

[flat coral]

Not yet though I'm considering switching over

I mean to UE5

I'm really trying to get a prototype level playable, I've got a bad habit of going off into the lab to build some Cool Shit™️ instead of just you know sticking with it. So I keep telling myself I'm not doing ANYTHING that isn't critical path, and that includes the UE5 upgrade

But that said I also know sooner or later I'll run into something that'll make my life way easier that's in UE5 and not UE4

[blissful grail]

So far - I haven't had any issues with upgrading to UE5 personally. I only have a side scroller and a top down game though. If anything UE5 has actually improved my team's work. They mentioned it runs smoother for them.

[maiden wadi]

The new UI is a little jarring at first. Took a little getting used to. I don't think I've had any bugs yet in UE5. Nothing like 4.27's fuckup with missing non native C++ interfaces in dropdown lists.

[flat coral]

Way I see it, when a new version of anything gets introduced, there's very few ways being on the current version fucks you, and probably a bunch of ways being on the new version might fuck you. But as time goes on, there are more ways staying on the current version fuck you, and ways the new version fucks you get resolved, and sooner or later the graph lines cross over. That's when I upgrade.

[maiden wadi]

I feel like the new UI is too slimmed down. UI designer got stuck on one of those shitty youtube videos about minimalist UI.

[blissful grail]

I miss my giant "Play" button 😭

[flat coral]

Oh man that's everything nowdays... I remember conversations with designers like "well what if we displayed that info in this huge whitespace here?" and they're like "NO WE NEED THE WHITESPACE"

[mental trellis]

I used a forum once that went gung ho on whitespace.

It was a travesty.

[maiden wadi]

Serves me right I guess. I say I haven't found bugs in UE5. And now I can't get basic ForEach loop macros in any UserWidget classes.

[radiant mural]

Agreed. I had a bit of a problem getting in to it, until i understood it from an Unreal direction

[gentle urchin]

Is it a bug tho, or a feature 🤔

[maiden wadi]

If the point is to be annoying, definitely a feature.

Basically I have a widget. Left. Just opened Editor. Cannot see ForEach Loop.

Right, is after opening a Character Blueprint, and then going back to the widget and doing For Each again on the same pin.

[blissful grail]

Yeah - that's what you get! 🤣

[maiden wadi]

I feel like this is some odd attempt at optimization. And UUserWidget's BPs for some reason don't load up the macro libraries .

[slim grove]

can somone help me attach my pistol model to my player and have it be able to shoot?

[radiant mural]

I am sure myriad existing tutorials can, yes. As far as someone personally walking you through it here, doubtful

And i mean that in an informative fashion, not a rude one

[slim grove]

i cant find any that work as they all have full player models and i dont have one just the base colider and it isnt useful to just say no one is going to help even if it want meant to be rude it was pretty rude

[blissful grail]

Timelines as well. Dear lord timelines 😅

[radiant mural]

Can't help you there. good luck

[slim grove]

why would you say something if you cant help and on top of that say no one will help

[radiant mural]

Sorry, i do not have time for this.

[blissful grail]

There are still a myriad of tutorials that will walk you through this. It is one of the early things most people do in UE. If you don't have a model, you can just attach the weapon to any regular ol' scene component with AttachToComponent. Or you could just have a basic mesh component and just use the guns mesh as the mesh property.

To fire, you can just pull off your input event and then do a line trace.

[verbal bobcat]

I used this the first time I went in to make a shooter great tutorial series, Just find out what you need https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DywBqQtTHMo&list=PLL0cLF8gjBprG6487lxqSq-aEo6ZXLDLg

[blissful grail]

All of this is covered in the hundreds of tutorials out there about this specific functionality.

[flat coral]

Is it possible for a subclass of a BP with an attached Actor Component to replace the Actor Component with a subclass?

I realize that's the most confusing question ever. It's like this

ParentObject 
  ActorComponentA

ChildObject(child of ParentObject)
  ActorComponentB (child of ActorComponentA) 

Is that legal and I just cant figure out how? or is that not possible in this language?

[icy dragon]

Also Virtus tuts isn't exactly good

[onyx swan]

If I'm trying to change one value, especially for a large struct, is there a better way of doing this?

[icy dragon]

In C++ you have to set all 4 floats (or with either FVector or FVector4) for FLinearColor.

So if that's the best way of doing it in C++, well...

[odd ember]

generally structs are meant to be read only. in your case, it doesn't make a difference. you can't change the SetBrushColor node. but if you needed to set members in a struct, you can try SetStructMembers

[maiden wadi]

So uh. I don't want to be the guy that keeps telling you to try UE5. But you can do that in UE5. 😄

May be possible in 4. Unsure. But I know that the UE5 Character class can replace it's CMC with child versions.

[odd ember]

or hold out for UE5.1

aaaaaaany day now... 😓

[maiden wadi]

Maybe. Though you'll probably see 5.0.3 for bug fixing first.

[odd ember]

I think the source version is at 5.1 already no? or just at 5.0.1

[maiden wadi]

Maybe.

[hexed salmon]

Im having an issue with sockets and physics, how would I disable physics when something is socketed?

[odd ember]

when you attach things to a socket disable physics

done

[hexed salmon]

would this work?

well it doesnt but thats probably because of something else

[elder mango]

im currently trying to assign a variable in a widget but I don't see the float

this is inside the gun bp

and this is inside the widget

[sacred canyon]

ok how do I actually check that now? Im using the -1 thing and its just being really inconsistent

and I dont even now if thats right in the first place, how do I even check if it exists in the array

[flat coral]

Well, count 1 so far of actual reasons to migrate then. Thanks for letting me know!

[trim matrix]

Are you attempting to create a binding on a widget element? Trying to make this binding use the float value?

[elder mango]

yeah i figured it out ty

[faint pasture]

Get overlapping actors

[sacred canyon]

yeah

[faint pasture]

But you might be just remaking a crappy version of something that already exists

[sacred canyon]

I just dont know whats after overlapping actors

the counter method seems to work

[trim matrix]

Get the length of the returned array

If the length is greater then 0

[faint pasture]

Or iterate over array casting to WaterBody

[trim matrix]

You are overlapping with a water volume

[faint pasture]

Depends on how you set it up. If you have a custom channel for water stuff then just check array length

[trim matrix]

Yes but get overlapping actors has a class filter

[faint pasture]

Ooh ya cool there you go

[sacred canyon]

oooohh of course, thanks

[trim matrix]

and yea on that note

make sure this is set to the water volume class

[sacred canyon]

so I was kinda doing the same thing with my counter method but just a stupid way

[faint pasture]

It sounds like you're remaking physics volumes or water bodies tho

[sacred canyon]

from what I can see physics volume has very few options but idk if Im just not finding it

uh

[trim matrix]

[sacred canyon]

greater than 0 false, then stop swimming

and it just

doesnt

[trim matrix]

Is the GetOverlappingActors node located on your player character?

or is this node located inside the water volume

[sacred canyon]

player

[trim matrix]

ok good.

Try to print string the length of the array

[sacred canyon]

still at 1 when I end overlap

[trim matrix]

I see

It is at 1 when you begin overlap as well?

[sacred canyon]

but going between water volumes keeps it at 2, so maybe I can just check if its 1 lol

[trim matrix]

that should not be the solution

[sacred canyon]

true didnt work

[trim matrix]

It did not work?

what?

In this context that solution should work.

[sacred canyon]

yeah did and then suddenly it didnt

[trim matrix]

ok well maybe your water volume has more collision boxes then you imagine it would.

[sacred canyon]

I specified the component to overlap

[trim matrix]

yes but each componet in the Water Volume has the possinility to overlap with the player

IF there is a plane or something that has a water texture over it, that also could be overlaping with the player

[sacred canyon]

I did a check at the start if overlapping component = hitbox

[trim matrix]

So even though there is only one componet that can call OnEndOverlap, when OnEndOverlap gets called and you check to see if the player is overlaping with the water volune still, maybe you arnt overlaping with another componet in the water volume

That wont help sadly

I would check your water volume and go over each componets collision settings

Turn off GenerateOverlapEvents for every compoinet other then the hitbox

also make sure the collision preset is set to NoCollision

[sacred canyon]

kinda necessary to make splash effects and stuff

[trim matrix]

Do these splash effects need collision?

[sacred canyon]

dynamic 2d waves using bone collision

maybe the counter solution is best, seems to work fine

[trim matrix]

not sure anything about that, but if you need other componets in the hitbox to collide with the player, a different solution is needed

The counter solution still would not be the best

It could very eailisy get out of sync

[sacred canyon]

yeah thats what I was thinking

each point needs to receive overlaps from the player to make a wave/ripple https://gyazo.com/cebd80c659f7f4379bc9b43e4df11b64

although

I could probably just make another collision channel? although its still overlapping both parts so idk

[trim matrix]

Yea so thats why GetOverlapingActors would not work

I would iterate over the array of overlaping actors

CastToWaterVolume

and get the hitbox componet

then check if the player is overlaping with that componet directly.

[trim matrix]

I like@this 😄

[sacred canyon]

thanks lol, took a while and a lot of help to get working

[trim matrix]

For the gui is u use image?

[sacred canyon]

wdym? just a normal widget setup

[trim matrix]

Yh but when you make it

Do you drag in an image?

[sacred canyon]

the icons are images yeah

[trim matrix]

another solution would be to use a componet tags and GetOverlapingComponets

K

that might be easier on you

Ima make a new project I think

What should I make?

Wait

I have idea

[sacred canyon]

nice

[sacred canyon]

some advice from a guy whos been using ue4 for about 5 years and not finished a single thing: definitely set limits for yourself. and try to think of the simplest possible way to do something because it will make everything so much easier

oh thanks

didnt know isoverlappingcomponent was a thing

[trim matrix]

Using the IsOverlapingComponets method you would have to make sure to set a tag on the water volume

The GetOverlapingActors method would probably be best

[sacred canyon]

then where do I actually

tell the player to swim

[trim matrix]

same as before

OnBeginOverlap(WaterHitbox) is fine

[sacred canyon]

its already there

so what does this do

[trim matrix]

directly checks if you are overlaping with the water hitbox

Instead of checking to see if you are overlaping with any part of the actor like before, with that code we are directly checkingif you are overlaping with any water hitboxes

[sacred canyon]

yeah I can kinda see what it does but

[trim matrix]

but?

[sacred canyon]

well its just constantly stopping the swimming

[trim matrix]

oh yea ....

actualy wait

I thought something was off but im not sure

You put this code inside a function?

[sacred canyon]

nah, not even sure where that would go

[trim matrix]

it must be inside a function

[sacred canyon]

what actually calls it

[trim matrix]

or else it will not work

call it onEndOverlap

[sacred canyon]

oh thought so

[trim matrix]

my function name is kind of bad

Maybe TryStopSwiming

is better?

something like that

Since the function doesnt just check if you are overlaping with water, but instead actualy will stop swiming if you arnt.

[sacred canyon]

oohh thanks I think this works

[trim matrix]

nice

[sacred canyon]

but now Im curious, why does it only work in a function? what does that change

[trim matrix]

If you want me to explain it then id rather do it over call.

Not trying to in text

want to call real quick?

[sacred canyon]

its ok lol

[trim matrix]

ok

the jist of it is that the ReturnNode ends the function

[sacred canyon]

for some reason I prefer using custom events so for most things I default to that even if it should be a function

[trim matrix]

so if the function detects that you are overlaping with water, the function will end before StopSwimming is called

I guess that was not that hard to explain xD

[sacred canyon]

oohh ok

[trim matrix]

Functions are better in most cases to be honest

90% of cases lol

[sacred canyon]

yeah I was wondering why the branch was just going to return node

oh wow

[trim matrix]

They can contain variables inside them

amazing

and you can do fancy logic with returns

Also the way it works in blueprint is that a function will stop litterely everything else your game is doing until it finishes

Which may sound bad but is really amazing as well

[sacred canyon]

oh thats weird, wdym?

[trim matrix]

custom events run asynchronously

[sacred canyon]

although this kinda sells it to me I have like a million variables in this huge list I might just convert everything to functions now just for the sake of that

[trim matrix]

which means they are executing at the same time as all the rest of your code in the game.

This means that in some cases, important information could change in the middle of your custom event

Imagine if you confirm a value is X at the beggining of your custom event, since the code should not work if the value is not X, then somewhere in the middle of your custom event, some outside source changes X

This can happen in some cases depending on the code of the custom event.

When you call a function, you are just garuenteed to know that nothing will change during that function.

[trim matrix]

and yes that is one of the biggest reasons

[mellow folio]

Yeah, using custom events can lead to some uncertainty in certain exotic situations about which one is executing in which order

[trim matrix]

Just use local variables inside of functions

it will save you alot of mess

[mellow folio]

But custom events have all sorts of Time nodes that you can’t use in functions

[sacred canyon]

well also, a lot of my events have like more than 5 variable checks to see if they should run but Im not sure how that would work with functions

[trim matrix]

you would just check each variable exactly the same as before

but inside a function

Lets say one of those varialbe checks came back as false

you can just call ReturnNode inside that function

which will imedielty stop the funciton

[sacred canyon]

are they more performant then?

cus its kinda worrying how long my bp takes to compile already

[trim matrix]

Its not a big deal, if your blueprint takes along time to complile there are most likely other factors to that.

[trim matrix]

Also yes

[sacred canyon]

damn

[trim matrix]

the one big drawback to functions is that you cannot run any nodes that require time in them

such as

Delay

[sacred canyon]

yeah I noticed that before

[trim matrix]

This doesnt work becuase the function needs to pause all execution till its completed. If you put a delay in the function, is the game supposed to just freeze?

So that is why its important to understand the difrerences

Sometimes functions arnt the best answer

sometimes you need a custom event

you see

or even a macro

oh yea and also......

functions can have outputs

custom events only inputs

very helpful to be able to output values.

[sacred canyon]

oh I see what you mean now, so functions have to be instant

[trim matrix]

yes

be careful because if you make a super advanced function that takes forever to execute

it could make your game hitch

[sacred canyon]

BRUH I completely forgot about outputs, theres been a lot of occasions Ive wanted outputs from custom events somehow and I just didnt think of that

[trim matrix]

If you need outputs and asynchronous logic, you can use a macro

if you need outputs and the logic could be run instantly, you can use a function

[timid plume]

Hey, I have question about attach component to component node. Is there any hidden event that will make items that attach/switch position with attached item give some blue particles?? I can't figure out why it is happening.

[trim matrix]

Most cases use function, since will solve your super long variable list issues

and because return nodes are very helpful

and because more consistant

and alot more

but yea

Can also organise your functions like this

Just saying that cause when I was new it took me like a year to figure that out

[trim matrix]

Are you talking about a actual blue particle effect?

cause no there is not anything built into unreal like that

[gaunt vector]

Could someone possibly help me in the Unreal Hangout channel real fast? I feel like its something small Im missing but Ive tried googling and everything and cant seem to find someone that points to what Im trying to figure out with my mannequin

[timid plume]

I mean, there is like a little blue particles pointing towards socket where component was attached. It only happens when I "switch" components with each other. To be more precise: I have one component on "toolbelt" and one in hand. I switch them, and then particles appear. They slowly vanish after 1-2 seconds.

[plucky plank]

Ok I feel stupid. Just went through the blueprint tutorial and started to try branching out. I created a small elevator script and wanted to use the flip flop flow control. I wanted the elevator to toggle between two positions on the 3rd person controller's overlap. After some googling I cant seem to get this node to work in the way I wish. Can someone explain what I'm doing wrong here. If I read correctly the flip flop node should swap each time it's triggered but after the first time it appears to trigger both a and b rather than one or the other. The elevator doesn't go down I think because it's technically playing both the up and down animation at the same time

sorry gave a better overview of the bp in the new photo

[oblique vessel]

This might be a far fetch but I see that the trigger volume is attached to the mesh, so while the mesh is moving it moves the trigger as well and calls the begin overlap event again.

[hallow sigil]

Hey all im trying to make a currency conversion system in my game does anyone have a bit of guidance for me on the best way to do that? thanks

[oblique vessel]

Try attaching the trigger to the root. If that doesn't work please share the timeline and the start and end points

[plucky plank]

it was the size of the trigger

[sinful light]

Got a quick question about referencing level actors when trying to access them in UI

[maiden wadi]

If you mean the Level Blueprint, you should not ever be referencing the level from anything else. It's meant to be a self contained class and not have anything else reference it.

[sinful light]

@maiden wadi Basically in the character selection, when I select the character I want them to be highlighted in the main menu level

[long whale]

hello, is there a way do disable overlap events of all foliage actors placed in the world?

[faint pasture]

Just change their collision settinfs

[rough iris]

I have a noob question - if I have an empty array, will this function return nothing? If so, how do I check if it returned nothing?

[trim matrix]

you could get the item name and check if its equal to ""

or just add an output to the funcction

that is called Success?

a boolean

[faint pasture]

It probably won't return and will shit it's pants unless BP automatically adds a return if it doesn't hit one

[long whale]

I tried to change collision to no collision, overlap event is still ticked. I guess it wont trigger?

[rough iris]

ah I see. I am fairly new to blueprints so for me it's a bit of a paradigm shift, I am expecting null returns and requiring null checks

[trim matrix]

it does

[faint pasture]

Show collision settings

[faint pasture]

Then it'll prolly return nada

[trim matrix]

yea, it will return nothing

[faint pasture]

I wouldn't rely on that tho. Add a return for every possible code path.

[rough iris]

so just a boolean?

[trim matrix]

well exactly, it will return a blank defualt struct

and yes just use a boolean

its more simple

[rough iris]

is it the "right" way to do things in blueprint?

[trim matrix]

and will work better

yes

tho "right" way is a funny word

so many right ways

[faint pasture]

A find should return a bool as well as the item probably

[rough iris]

I come from years of Unity so for me UE is flipping a ton of things upside down

[faint pasture]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/Basics/UnrealEngineForUnityDevs/

[trim matrix]

yes this is standerd

[rough iris]

yeah I've read this multiple times and watched a few vids

[faint pasture]

You guys are just not adding return statements in Unity?

[rough iris]

the way I did things in Unity, I never returned a boolean for whether I found an item or not

just did a null check

but when I tried to do one I couldn't find a null in blueprints

[faint pasture]

You can do that too, if your return is returning a pointer. You're returning a struct though.

Like if that function returned an actor reference, you can just check if it's valid. But structures in blueprint are pretty much for data only, they don't really have a concept of being not valid as far as I know unless you do something weird

[rough iris]

yeah I'm also not sure if I'm doing the right thing with using structs in this case tbh but I'm not sure where to ask

[rough iris]

exactly, I've noticed that. I tried using IsValid but it only applies to Actor

[faint pasture]

Describe your inventory system in plain english. An item is a what and it is stored inside of what?

[faint pasture]

It applies to any u object but you're probably returning a structure

[trim matrix]

structures are not UObjects

yea

so wont work

[faint pasture]

I like items as structures anyway, just return a Boolean as well or have some sort of invalid default structure or whatever.

In my projects items are all structures first and foremost and only become instantiated into actors when dropped in the world or equipped

[trim matrix]

I also like items as structures.

it is perfectly ok

[rough iris]

An Item is a thing that is stored in an Inventory. The Inventory is an array of a certain size.
My current architecture has an ItemActor (the physical item in the game world you can pick up), an ItemDataStruct (details about items like their name, description, additional "global" info about a specific item), and an InventoryItemStruct, which contains an ItemName and Stack value, to allow for items to stack on each other (e.g. you have 3 Inventory slots, and two of them have the same item, one with 10/10 stack and another with 3/10 stack)

[trim matrix]

that is pretty standerd yea

perfectly ok

[faint pasture]

I'm working on a pretty unique system, where it's pretty much that but every item also has a guid

To enable some really weird stuff like being able to talk about a specific poisoned apple or a specific stolen car or a specific fingerprint of a specific player that is on a specific window

[rough iris]

phew, thank goodness I'm not totally misunderstanding everything

[trim matrix]

that sounds fun]

[rough iris]

so your items are completely unique?

but anyway, thank you for your help. I am really enjoying UE5 so far

[trim matrix]

happy to hear

[faint pasture]

Not so much that they're unique, but they pretty much all have a unique fingerprint or serial number. Enabling certain things like tracking an item or other stuff like that.

[trim matrix]

do you play a detective?

its multiplayer as well?

murder mystery???

Btw i love your name

[violet inlet]

hello i got a small issue , am trying to make some name plate for my prototype but the name won't show up

i only have the progress bar and no text

[maiden wadi]

Sounds like the Text variable you bound it to is empty.

[violet inlet]

but it's not

[maiden wadi]

Not sure. I 100% avoid bindings.

[violet inlet]

also have thing like this sometime

[maiden wadi]

Honestly. Just set a text property on the widget from the actor's Beginplay. And set it from the widget's tick. UMG bindings are fickle. The only decent UMG binding is the TooltipWidget one.

[viscid eagle]

Hey I am trying to create a FPS aim trainer level in UE4, where sound comes from a target and you get points for hitting the target which made the sound. I’m pretty new to this and not really sure about how to set this up in the blueprints. Any help would be greatly appreciated 😊

[maiden wadi]

Sounds like you're mostly just looking to spawn an actor, or a set of actors, and mark one as the correct target. That actor should play a sound through a sound component. The rest should not.

[viscid eagle]

Thank you sm that definetely put it in context for me

[lime fulcrum]

IS there a way to disable the double click event on UMG elements? It is preventing me on having fast clicking on elements, it keels getting the double click. Very annoying

[maiden wadi]

There is not. If I need to do that, I create a function that takes in both parameters and outputs the return value and call it from both MouseDown and Doubleclick.

[lime fulcrum]

so if I accidentally generate a double click it will call the same function as single click?

[maiden wadi]

Basically this. Then you put your click functionality in that InternalMouseDown function just like you would have OnMouseButtonDown.

[lime fulcrum]

Oh

I'll see cause one of the issues is the brush style updating. Some times it does not go back to Hover style :\

lemme try. In the meanwhile, Thanks for the suggestion 😉

IS there anything you have to return in the return pin?

OR can I just put unhandled?

[maiden wadi]

Depends. That is for input blocking. Handled will keep anything UI related under this from running, and also not allow the click to reach the player controller which means if you had a weapon in hand and fire on left click, clicking would fire it if you return unhandled. Returning handled stop the input from going past this widget.

[lime fulcrum]

oh, it's the Editor Widget so I don't think it's an issue, right?

I'm making an Editing Tool 🙂

[maiden wadi]

Possibly not. Usually you'd just return Handled unless you really need that input to travel further.

[lime fulcrum]

IT WORKS 😄

I can click like a maniac and the Brush of the UMG updates properly

xD

Thank you so much, @maiden wadi 😄

I'm making one of those buttons that change text on it, cause I think it's a cool UI element 🙂

[daring vapor]

Heya all, I'm looking for a Fast Travel tutorial that uses a user interface to allow players to choose where they want to travel too. Any suggestions?

[nimble lichen]

wouldnt a simple widget to select destination and teleport node to travel work?

[daring vapor]

Yea, I might be over complicating things. That's not a bad idea. Ultimately I'd like the widget to be dynamic, so it will pick up on all the locations in a level, and populate the widget with their names.

[nimble lichen]

you should be able to do that with like a few empty capsule collisions with a tag or a bp thats reused to just mark fast travel locations, and inside you widget i think you could do the get all actors of class and put your fast travel loc bp in the drop down and the hook that to a for each loop to show on the UI

[round moth]

hey yall ive been learning blueprint on unreal engine 5 lately and been having a lot of fun. anyone have some tutorials that they recommend?

[nimble lichen]

Unreal's learning portal is prob the most accurate tutorials

[round moth]

awesome thanks

[nimble lichen]

np

[daring vapor]

Ok, that makes sense, I'll see if that works.

[rough iris]

what is the typical way to throw exceptions in blueprints?

or handling unexpected behavior

[daring vapor]

Question for ya, and you can hit me up in a DM to answer. You mention a drop down, do you mean a widget component that is a drop down?

[radiant mural]

Suggestion: unless it is sensitive or private, any instructional conversation posted to the main room helps everyone learn

[daring vapor]

True, I'm not always around. and it could get buried if I leave for to long. 🙂

[radiant mural]

Ugg. I know what you mean. I generally request that people send an @ if i am not online when they get around to responding (which they can easily check by clicking on my name) THen, when i get back, i can just do a quick search for mentions.. But, yeah, having it all in DMs is much easier 🙂

I really think discord needs a substantial redesign

Discord question, does anyone know if 'Threads' are public?

[rough iris]

I think so

[short pawn]

Just search in YouTube teleporter unreal engine. There's a few tutorials for blueprints that have a specific teleporter location for every instance of the blueprint

[rough iris]

I might be missing something here, but my struct is not changed in any way.
Find Empty Inventory Slot returns an ItemStackStruct
I have set the Added Item at the start of the function, although I cannot see any values in the debug when I put a breakpoint (not sure why)
The branch returns True

I feel like I'm fundamentally misunderstanding something about structs, or not passing by reference for some reason, but the idea is that I find an empty Inventory slot (first empty/default struct), then assign values to it

[radiant mural]

Wish i knew enough to help you. All i can say is unrealgaimedev has a great inventory tutorial from scratch to finish, that i seem to recall covering this

[rough iris]

yeah I've seen a few inventory tutorials before, but I wanted a somewhat custom solution

[radiant mural]

indeed

[trim matrix]

yea

[rough iris]

is it true that I can't return a reference to a struct from a function?

[trim matrix]

this doesnt woek

[rough iris]

I need to return the index and then access it again?

[trim matrix]

its complicated to explain D:

you are not returning a reference to a struct yes,

it returns a copy

[trim matrix]

yes

[rough iris]

and there is no way in blueprints to return it by reference?

[trim matrix]

you can, but it wont work in your situation

Just think of it like all returned structs are copys

[rough iris]

RIP. In what cases would I be able to return struct references?

I see that setting members of a struct takes in and returns a reference

but this is obstructed by CPP

would it be wiser to write these systems in CPP?

[trim matrix]

Only some functions can return structs as references

Like array Get(ref)

[trim matrix]

Yes, for core systems like inventory, better to write them in CPP

[rough iris]

what is a general guideline I should use for deciding whether to use CPP or BP?

[trim matrix]

I mean its really up to you

But BP is really good for gameplay scripting

Made so game designers can easiliy script things without having to do CPP

Just also happens to be very powerfull

to the point where you can create the whole game in it if you wanted

[rough iris]

just surprising that return by reference is not a thing in custom BP 😦

[trim matrix]

yea rip

just do the index

[rough iris]

yeah I'm debating whether to rewrite the system in CPP or just do the index

[trim matrix]

whatever you feel like xD

[rough iris]

not a huge fan of cpp though so gotta think about it a bit

probably will be faster to do BP

[trim matrix]

definitly for sure

so easy to use and throw stuff together

its not a big deal anyways

esspecialy if you are making a simple game

[rough iris]

I don't really mind much in terms of which one to use, I'd rather choose simplicity but I also don't want to be stuck having to refactor a bunch of stuff down the line because some 1 crucial element is impossible

[trim matrix]

lol well if its a system you are making, such as an inventory, anything is possible

[rough iris]

I'm trying to create a multiplayer prototype

without having to use existing plugins

[trim matrix]

BP falls apart when you need alot of control over engine things, or when you need to edit or use existing UE things in more advanced ways.

[rough iris]

I have a gameplay loop in mind that's extremely simple and in theory could be done in BP but now I'm a bit afraid that 80% of the way through I'll see that "welp, turns out I can't do X in blueprints, which means I have to rewrite it all in cpp"

just wildcards like not being able to return refs

[trim matrix]

Yea

[rough iris]

that's not a thing that would be an obvious limitation, there seems to be no reason for it

[trim matrix]

You just have to get more creative

its not nessicarly a limitation in most cases

just more annoying

either way if you are willing to start over and are good with CPP

just do that

[rough iris]

I might just bite the bullet and try the same thing but in CPP. I'm well versed in C# and Unity so it might take a bit of getting used to it

[trim matrix]

Good plan

[tawdry surge]

There is 0 reason to start over if you hit a limitation in BP. You can simply do the things you need in c++ and leave the rest in bp

[trim matrix]

that is true as well

[rough iris]

that makes sense, but if it's 1 function that really needs it, I can't just write 1 function in cpp and use the rest in blueprints, I'd have to write the entire system with it too

[tawdry surge]

BP is best for prototyping as iterating is much faster then c++ and you can easily transfer logic over to c++ once you have nailed it down

Yes you can

[trim matrix]

You can have the parent be in CPP

and the child be in BP

[tawdry surge]

Infact you should

[trim matrix]

Its only the case of, do you want to have the logic split up or just do everything in one way

[tawdry surge]

But there are blueprint callable, implementable, and native events you can use to communicate between BP and C++ as well

[rough iris]

my preference is to clearly define a line where CPP is and where BP is

[trim matrix]

For me personaly i cant have split logic in multiple places

bothers me

[rough iris]

I don't want to have some parts of the same code in one and some in other without any clear distinction

if the architecture is designated ahead of time, it's fine, but if I write one function in CPP and another in BP in the same class it just adds complexity I don't need

[trim matrix]

its not a big deal, just a silly thing that triggers me

[rough iris]

can I call BP functions in CPP classes? Probably not, right?

[tawdry surge]

Not directly but yes it's possible

[rough iris]

aren't BP classes children of CPP ones?

[trim matrix]

all of this comes down to what way do you feel like you want todo it

yes

you can do it anyway

100% bp, mixed 100% cpp

doesnt really matter

[rough iris]

yeah so if I have the Inventory system split in half cpp half bp I can't use bp-defined functions in cpp

[trim matrix]

just whatever way you want for each situation

[rough iris]

fair enough

[tawdry surge]

No professional project will ever have 100% one or the other. Its designed to be a mix

[trim matrix]

Its really not that serious unless you are making a professianl project yes

[tawdry surge]

Or multi-player, or anything thats loop heavy, or uses a lot of structs, or a ton of other reasons

They both have strengths

[rough iris]

being new my biggest struggle at the moment is trying to see where I should draw the line between CPP and BP

[tawdry surge]

Initially do everything in BP and once you have it working as you want, then move functions to c++. As well as anything you want to hide from designers

[rough iris]

that's an interesting approach

[tawdry surge]

If the whole class gets moved, fine. If you want to just call the c++ functions from BP and leave the implementation in BP you can do that too

[daring vapor]

I've been looking and found a few. I find it's a good idea to see how the community feels about specific ones. Getting a lead on some and doing my own research helps narrow down the good ones from the, well, the others.... 😉

[rough iris]

thank you for your help @trim matrix @tawdry surge 👍

[tawdry surge]

No problem. Epic actually has a pretty decent blueprint to c++ course on the learning portal that will cover how to go about moving functionality from one to the other

@daring vapor Good job on the hour of code series btw.
I start alot of my students out on it as initial homework to reinforce the basics of getting around the editor

[plucky plank]

I just finished a blueprint and I'm having an issue. Whenever I enter the collision for my doors to open the blueprint functions as intended except my door seem to teleport. Any reason why this would be?

[radiant mural]

probably some code in the 'on overlap' event

a world position instead of relative, perhaps

[plucky plank]

Both moves are relative locations and I cast the on collision to a 3rd person controller

[daring vapor]

You are very welcome. That's super cool to hear that you are using it. BTW we are planning to update the videos, as the project is changing soon. 😛

[tawdry surge]

Nice! Looking forward to it

[plucky plank]

More visible node setup photo

[tawdry surge]

Where are you getting your starting/ending location vectors?

[round moth]

Hey yo. So i am trying to make a master button blueprint, to then have different buttons that raise different variables. how do i tell the children which variables to go up with?

[plucky plank]

Ok thats probably a major part of the problem. Is there a way I can pull the position of a static mesh in the bp?

[tawdry surge]

Get relative location of the door components

[plucky plank]

got it ty!

[tawdry surge]

@round moth what is your end goal? Because the easiest way would be to just have a public variable that you set per instance of the button

[round moth]

like a clicker idle game but you walk around to the different buttons, clicking up the variables

so each buttons bring their respective variable up

so the only thing that would change between them would be the variable

this is what i have so far for the master bp with money as an example

better pic lol

[plucky plank]

get relative transorm right?

[tawdry surge]

You can make an enum, make a matching variable in the blueprint, mark it instance editable, and use it to drive a switch or select node

[round moth]

yo thats awesome

i remember learning that

[tawdry surge]

@plucky plank that works but its all three. Location, rotation, and scale

[plucky plank]

ah so whats the one for location?

[tawdry surge]

Relative location

Drag off the static mesh component reference

It should pop right up

[round moth]

ok so i made the enumeration, could you please remind me how to get that into my master bp?

wait ima try first then ill look to see what you say

[tawdry surge]

You make a variable and set its type to the enum you just made

[round moth]

yeah i did that

now im lost lol

sorry

[tawdry surge]

Check the instance editable check box

[round moth]

i did

[tawdry surge]

Ok now either a select or a switch node. Either works

[round moth]

ok so

[tawdry surge]

So you'll have to string it up so that your choice leads to the right variable being updated

Then place a button in the level and in the details panel of the main viewport (with the button selected) you can set the enum to be what you want

[round moth]

yo youre so big brain

that makes so much sense now that im remembering

[tawdry surge]

Glad to help

[round moth]

my variables are like this now

not sure why

[tawdry surge]

Are they grayed out? Or whats the issue?

[round moth]

like i cant change anything

its greyed out yeah

[tawdry surge]

Are you playing

[round moth]

no

[tawdry surge]

Hmm.. try restarting the engine. It might just be a glitch, cause the variable isn't inherited and it isn't read only, so it should be editable

[round moth]

oki doki

i kinda goofed with the variables i think, not related to them graying out, but i had the variables in the button instead of the player so i had no clue how to send the info from the button to the widget

that fixed it

[tawdry surge]

You could use the casts on the overlap events and get the reference to the widget from the player that way

[arctic spear]

just finished this sick organized blueprint with no issues whatsoever

[tawdry surge]

So... arrays and loops are a thing btw

[fathom gull]

Hi, when my character jumps, it stops on land losing all momentum, how do I have it keep momentum and not stopping completely?

[round moth]

I also remember I can make a struct, making it so i could change things like the mesh of a child blueprint i think

anyone know how to make a sign in unreal?

[radiant mural]

Check under the 'Character Movement Component'. Try braking friction

[fathom gull]

Does not fix it, but it comes from the root motion mode node, but if i remove those then root motion doesnt work as well as it does with those nodes

[kind apex]

Hello, I can't seem to find (vector - vector) in UE5

Is there a new way get it or am i missing something?

[icy dragon]

Depends on what kind of "sign"

[icy dragon]

Right there, Subtract

UE5's math nodes are more universal

[kind apex]

Ohh sweet! thanks haha

[thorny cape]

Im using a physics handle to grab items. But for some reason I can't actually "grab" the items until I use the character to push the object first

like if I press E on it to run all the code to grab it and what not the object doesnt follow where I look
but when I push the item and it begins to roll and I press E
I can now grab it and it follows where I look

is there a setting I have to toggle somewhere that I am missing?

[blissful grail]

Is there a way for BP to not show the event dispatchers in the details panel?

[round moth]

like letters that i can put on a wall

do i need to do that through a texture?

[icy dragon]

You can use decals for that
https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/WorkingWithContent/MeshDecals/

[round moth]

ooh cool

[trim matrix]

what is this node and why would I ever use it

[obtuse herald]

It's a local variable holder mostly for macro's, because macro's don't have classic local variables

[trim matrix]

Thanks! I see, there's this node that's being used to set it too, never knew that!

[rotund marlin]

When adding the Vehicle content to any other project, Why does the parent class not follow with? or gets loaded at all and how does one fix that.

heh.. would prob help to enable the plugin bonks myself

[lime fulcrum]

https://tenor.com/view/wtf-is-that-confused-gif-14675917

[slow pewter]

https://tenor.com/view/what-wat-wat-lady-confused-huh-gif-8314795

[slow pewter]

So can u , say what are u doing here? looks like u should use an Loop, or Array, or idk i never saw something like this before. and i Work with Ue4 since 2014

[fluid agate]

https://tenor.com/view/funny-animals-dog-shook-scared-eyes-gif-12642716

[stuck plaza]

I'm creating and adding a child widget inside other widgets PreConstruct. Then Im trying to modify the slot properties returned by the AddChild but this does not seem to take any effect, is it impossible to modify slot properties in editor, or is it something on my end?
edit fixed, my cast to slot was failing, because I chose wrong type

[arctic spear]

I’m making custom levels for ready or not, there are multiple possible spawns for AI represented by an actor. It sets the base ai spawn’s location at the actor position based on a random number linked up to a int to number thing.

I was gonna make it broken down into 6 groups, but I decided to have a 129 pin long sequencer for some reason

[dark crow]

Post it in here

https://blueprintsfromhell.tumblr.com/

[sweet silo]

hi ! I've completed BP on learn.unreal do you have recommandations on where to head next for good tuutorials ?

thanks

[slow pewter]

xD .. omg never saw this..

[tawdry surge]

@sweet silo converting BP to c++ is a good course after you're comfortable with blueprint

The one from "the division" is absolutely absurd

[arctic spear]

Can someone post it on there for me, I gtg to school and gain more brain capacity to hopefully not make another disgusting blueprint

[open latch]

this part of my blueprint keeps looping

doesn't even print the string

fixed 😄

[exotic hemlock]

What's a good way to move the character during an animation while movement input is blocked? E.g. if your character has a special animation like a roll, and you don't want to allow free movement, but need the character to move to a specific direction. "Launch Character" action isn't the best for constant movement unfortunately

[tawdry surge]

Root motion

[exotic hemlock]

I'll look into it, thanks

[formal parcel]

hey all - i have a pawn that can have force applied in any direction but I want to basically implement a speed limit at which no more force will be added. the problem is that I can get the speed that the pawn is moving from its velocity but I dont want that to limit force in a different direction that would ultimately reduce its velocity... if that makes sense - any tips on how to approach this?

i guess the question is how to I get the speed of the object in a specific direction?

[sacred canyon]

[sacred canyon]

just do that with minus?

[formal parcel]

well idk how to get the speed because if I just gets its speed it could be over the limit?

[sacred canyon]

although I think you could just get an abs of the velocity and if thats too high then dont apply any more speed

[formal parcel]

well it could be moving forward at X speed but I dont want that to disable backwards thrust for instance

not sure how to check if the force i want to apply would increase velocity beyond the limit in any direction

[sacred canyon]

Im thinking it wont matter because youll only be moving one direction at once, so all it does is just stop adding more speed, doesnt directly slow you down though

[sweet silo]

Thanks a lot but i don't feel really ready yet to switch to c++

[gilded dragon]

hi folks, I have a blueprint that sends out some raycasts, is there a way to preview the rays in edit mode? debugdrawline seems to only trigger in play mode, and raycasts already have a debug option there...

[tawdry surge]

@sweet silo it's not really about switching so much as learning more about how blueprints work under the hood and how it translates

If you wanna stick with 100% BP at the moment tho, then I'd suggest trying to make a small project yourself and Google stuff as you hit walls

[faint pasture]

No

[thin panther]

I think im gonna cry

[tawdry surge]

@gilded dragon you can run the trace in the construction script to see them in editor. Depends on your needs if that'll help

[sweet silo]

ok thanks a lot !

[lime fulcrum]

am I going crazy or Event Dispatchers used to have input pins?

WTF? IT has input but for some reason it went all up on top 😐

[gilded dragon]

well, I did do that, and it only shows up for a moment.. I'd like it to stay visible, like, say, the springarm component has a red line that shows you its length

[tawdry surge]

Change the debug time to persistent

[quick field]

Anyone know how to put an actor into a subscene from BP (specifically editor util widget)? I can get master tracks, which has the subscene listed in it's array, but stuck on where to go from there.

[gilded dragon]

it won't let me. I can set a duration in seconds, but if I set it to anything above 0 it just leaves garbage lines in the scene when I change values

[gentle urchin]

You must call it on tick with duration of 0

[tawdry surge]

He wants it to show in editor too

[gentle urchin]

Ah hmm

Not sure how one would achieve that

But

Cant you like just expose a string variable for it showing its current value ?

[gilded dragon]

I want to preview where the raycast (and also a spherecast, later) is going to be, in the world

the springarm component is the perfect example - it shows you a red line previewing the "arm"

[slender idol]

Hey, any way to get crisper navmesh data around my cube walls? Is there a reason the navmesh curves like this around editor cube collisions?

[tawdry surge]

You can open the source file of the spring arm component and see how they're drawing the line..

[gilded dragon]

huh. did not think about that. let's see..

[gentle urchin]

Expecting that to be a persistent debug draw,

Think you can do those in bp aswell

Seem to recall doing it on my dialog manager

[gilded dragon]

in C++ it looks like you need to write a custom FComponentVisualizer class, override the DrawVisualization virtual method, and then register your custom component visualizer externally

[gentle urchin]

Thats way more than i did thats for sure 😂

[gilded dragon]

in blueprints.. I found a "flush persistent debug lines" action but no way to draw them D:

[gentle urchin]

Me neither, was testing now to no avail

Do you need them persistent or could they just last a while 😅

[odd ember]

you draw them as part of a line trace

[gentle urchin]

Draw debug works in editor, so just having a fixed duration should get you far

[gilded dragon]

I want to visualize in edit mode, not in play mode. that's the problem

there really doesn't seem to be any way at all to do this from blueprints

[odd ember]

you can draw debug lines with editor

but not line trace lines

I've done this before and it works

in editor

[gilded dragon]

yes, while the scene is running

I'm talking about edit mode, so I can edit values and see where my raycast and spherecast will go without having to simulate the scene

[odd ember]

yeah you can do that with draw debug lines

that's what I am telling you

not while simulating

[gilded dragon]

how? it doesn't look like there's a way to make them persist

[odd ember]

but when you type in a value

have you checked the draw debug lines?

[gilded dragon]

yes, and it only lets me pick a duration

if I pick 0, then the lines only show up for 1 frame when I change the value. if I pick greater than 0 duration, then when I change values I'm left with a lot of "garbage" lines on screen and it's hard to tell which one is the real one

(and then the lines vanish once I finish changing values which isn't great)

[odd ember]

how would persistent lines help you in this case? you'll just have the same problem with "garbage" lines

[gilded dragon]

I want one persistent line showing me where the raycast is going to be. I keep saying - like the springarm component. it draws a red line to show you it's there

[odd ember]

right you have to remember most of those components are written in cpp

where this is indeed possible

but if you want a BP only setup, you can only use draw debug

[gilded dragon]

that's what it looks like sadly

I wish there was some "On Debug Draw" BP event

seems like a really weird limitation

[odd ember]

you have the construction script

if you can flush debug lines (not sure that's possible) I don't see what the problem is

[zealous fog]

Write your own debug lines but use splines and a sphere mesh

I used splines to visualise certain lines for my level building

[gilded dragon]

I can, in the construction script, flush persistent lines and then draw a debug line for like.. 9999 seconds. but that means if I open the scene the next day those lines aren't there until I make a change

[zealous fog]

Splines will do the trick

They are persitent

[odd ember]

yep. they wouldn't be there until you make a change either for anything else

[gilded dragon]

I did consider juggling a spline component from the construction script but I thought - nah, there HAD to be something better

[zealous fog]

And can change when you edit a value

[odd ember]

even the springarm requires you to select it to show the debug line

[zealous fog]

It's not too much effort tbh

[zealous fog]

They can be a bit glitchy though in my experience

[gentle urchin]

in editor, no play, no sim

[gilded dragon]

nice! what'd you do?

[gilded dragon]

oh.

[gentle urchin]

alsi with trace result

[gilded dragon]

yeah.

[gentle urchin]

just flush first 😄

or reduce duration to a more reasonable amount

[tropic kiln]

https://gyazo.com/78b01ddcf7bca5f52b6347091d851ac0

im trying to use eye bone coordinates to map a eye texture, problem is there is like some sort of EXTREME delay.

i assumed it might be bcs the bp ticks befor the anim bp, worked around it with a interface but the same delay stays.

using a custom even it get better but still clearly has a delay.

anyone got a idea wth is going on?

[gilded dragon]

yeah like I said, flush, then draw with a duration of 9999 or something. but it's gone the next time you come back to the scene

[tropic kiln]

in that gif i use time dilation to slow things down, if i do so you can see how its more accurat as its far slower

[gilded dragon]

this is coming close to what I want to do but still not the actual thing and it's somehow worse than if it wasn't even close

[odd ember]

if you leave your values in you can have them reappear on selection

really you don't have to reinvent the wheel here

[warm summit]

I am using a BPI to Affect Health. I want to make a healing pad, but I am not sure how to call the BPI function on a timer. I have an input for the amount the health is effected. If I cast to the subject and find they implement the BPI I am able to call the function and it has the input for amount of health adjusted. When I try set "timer by function" I do not get the input for the health amount.

[odd ember]

timers can't take functions with parameters

(at least not in BP)

what you can do is call a helper function to set those values as refs then call the BPI with the reffed parameters

[quick field]

if anyone has ideas on my question that would be appreciated. I think I got lost in the shuffle. Sorry for the repost. Anyone know how to put an actor into a subscene from BP (specifically editor util widget)? I can get master tracks, which has the subscene listed in it's array, but stuck on where to go from there.

[faint pasture]

Do you want it to smoothly heal over time or heal in pulses?

[fathom gull]

Hi, how to do disable jump when the player is attacking? I tried disable input and enable input but that also removes the camera, any ideas how to only disable jump?

[zealous fog]

Have a branch before the jump executes

[timid plume]

Check if player is attacking. If not - let jump code execute, if yes - block this code. You can do it by using branch.

[late shuttle]

Just make a bool is_attacking then check for the bool before jump.

[fathom gull]

How do i block it?

[timid plume]

Easiest way is as GreyGhoztt said. Use branch with bool is_jumping.

[neat sphinx]

What do I do if i need multiple Event BeginPlay nodes

I cant branch multiple flow things off of one

[timid plume]

You can use sequencer as workaround if you need multiple branches from one.

[neat sphinx]

i need multiple loops to run at the same time though

[earnest mango]

Sequence will do that. It doesn't wait for the script coming off its output pins to complete before it fires the next output

[neat sphinx]

ah ok thx

also for some reason my custom variables I added to the FirstPersonCharacter BP arent showing when I try to bind a HUD progress bar to them

but they are there

[faint pasture]

What is the class for that MyCharacter type?

[warm summit]

@faint pasture@odd ember thanks! Yes I created a custom event that gets called by the timer and does the rest as the pickup did

[faint pasture]

@warm summit that's a little fragile. One guys leaves and it stops healing for everybody

[faint pasture]

Just have the timer get overlapping actors and heal them.

@neat sphinx No, the variable in the widget. What type is it?

[warm summit]

@faint pasture well its a very basic tutorial, there is only one player. I do need to cap it so I can't "over heal"

[fathom gull]

ah yeah this worked thanks, and thanks GreyGhoztt and Dean

[odd ember]

what do you mean tutorial

[maiden wadi]

Personally. I hate direct logic on overlap functions. I tend to code them so that end and begin both call the same function and that function determines if the necessary actor like the player character is standing in the overlap field. If no, run stop logic, if yes, do start logic. Cleans up a ton of requirements for keeping state correct.

[neat sphinx]

hm i tried re-reading the tutorial two more times to make sure i did it right and I still dont see anything that would cause my variables to not show up

like in the tutorial they just added the variables and they showed up there

but for me they dont

[faint pasture]

You'd handle that in the heal application (if it's a gamewide rule)

The healer should just go "Heal this thing by 100 hp"

on the recieving side it'd be capped and clamped etc.

[warm summit]

its a very simple top down shooter tutorial made by Epic, enemy swarm wave type thing, I am just adding simple BP stuff to customize

[neat sphinx]

i needed to convert it from an integer to a float

its fixed now

[vital aspen]

someone that I don't remember who it was got me started on a object related inventory system and screwed me on the last part of it. On Drop. The old BP i'm using doesn't seem to work. Has anyone here ever done a object related inventory system that can help me with the On Drop.

[verbal girder]

Hey folks. I'm having a hard time forming this question well enough to google, but I basically want to create data to be accessed later. For instance, the "car" actor and I want to save a whole bunch of configurations where name = civic for one, name = camry for another, etc etc.
I could save them in an array but I don't know where to store that, and I have too many to just create a million copies of the blueprint. I'll need to randomly pull from a list of them, and to instantiate multiple copies of them at a time.

Serializing them is essentially what I'm talking about (I believe).
I read some stuff about structs and data_tables, and am investigating that avenue but I wanted to know if people have tried that and/or if they have other recommendations

[fathom gull]

Hi, does anyone know the cause of this 180 degree rotation? And what can fix it?

[tawdry surge]

Struct, data asset, or datatable are your best options @verbal girder

@fathom gull its probably an inplace animation and you're turning the player capsule while it's playing or it's something wrong with the animation itself

[fathom gull]

Ah yeah its inplace thanks, a delay node fixed it

[glass stump]

My enemy is on a patrol path but seems to get stuck at target points for some reason. Not sure why though, usually it works.

Would the map size be the problem perhaps?

He seems to turn around to go to the next point but stops as he's turning, as though he's stuck, though there's plenty of room for him.

Okay yeah I fixed him, just moved the Target Points EVER so slightly to be more centred. XD Like an inch.

[frosty lance]

Hi, I've got this NavMeshBoundsVolume and would like to resize it in my construction script. Specifically, the X, Y, Z values for the volume brush. I can't find any relevant nodes in any of the components.

I could just set the scale, but that requires an assumption that every NavMeshBoundsVolume has the same default values for that brush.

[smoky elm]

This is probably a stupid question, but does anyone know why the "BuildingTrace" option could be gone (and how to get it back)?

[tawdry surge]

It was a custom trace channel. You have to make it in project settings

[frosty lance]

I still haven't found a way to access/change the volume's brush settings, so I grabbed the volume's Box Bounding Extent and applied some math to set the scale appropriately for anyone who's curious.

[neon veldt]

Hi, everyone, very fresh-spawn here. I have a question about an AnimationBP. While trying to connect "Try Get Pawn Owner" return value to "Calculate Direction" target, I get an error "pawn object reference is not compatible with anim instance" What could be the issue? Thanks ahead.

[scenic kindle]

how would I get a child actor of a spawned actor from a random array?

nvm i got it

[steady night]

hey guys question for a newbie, what dose the "launch" option do ?

[civic herald]

Anyone know why in Viewport Instances I can adjust the relative location, but in Blueprint I only have Scale? The issue this is causing is that I can't fix the relative location so now my asset is offsetted by random amounts.

If i try to move the asset i can change what this offset will be, but overall that would require so much effort to line it up to 0,0,0

The weirdness is that it doesn't move in viewport of blueprint it just stays in the center of screen as i move it.

[sweet lava]

Anyone else has buggy datetime + timespan add node?
Whenever I connect timespan, it changes both the connections to timespan structure breaking date time

[verbal girder]

Regarding structs, should I break structs and put them into my actor as direct variables, or is it okay to make my own copy of the struct and modify values there?
For instance, a character that has HP that I'll need to update frequently contained inside a struct.

[odd ember]

structs in BP are generally meant to be read only

[maiden wadi]

Setting struct members is fine if you use the node for it.

[odd ember]

you can use the SetStructMember node to somewhat bypass this

although whether it always takes is anyone's guess

[verbal girder]

Gotcha so best practices is on construction pulling everything out of that struct and assigning to variables on my actor if it needs to be modified?

[odd ember]

yeah or use data assets if you really need stuff to be mutable

[maiden wadi]

Using DataAssets to store health? O.o

[odd ember]

I mean if they're using a struct already for it

[elder mango]

hey everyone I followed this tutorial:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94HpeqlgKAs&list=PL4G2bSPE_8um-3MIHOTwFwjWZdWO24S9O&index=12
It shows how to switch guns but it uses only 2 guns

how do i make it so when i press 1 it switches to the first gun etc

[odd ember]

you'll need an array

of guns

[elder mango]

yeah i got it

but from there it's confusing

idk what to do

[odd ember]

then just map inputactions to pick guns from the array

[elder mango]

but it doesn't work

[odd ember]

in fact, you could probably do a map instead and make use of "categories" that way, if that's what you're after

[elder mango]

whenever i do it, it doesn't save the amount of ammo i had in the gun

while in the tutorial it saved the ammo count

[odd ember]

okay well that sounds like an issue with the weapon, not with the weapon switching

[elder mango]

it's an issue with the weapon switching

[odd ember]

how can you tell?

[elder mango]

maybe i can show you the orignal code

[elder mango]

because it's in the original code

[odd ember]

what's the original code?

[elder mango]

idk how to take a good screenshot of blueprints

after the cast to fpscontroller it's not important

[odd ember]

child actor components and setting struct variables, spicy

[hot venture]

sorry didnt mean to hit send, ill wait for your guys discussion to be done 😛

[odd ember]

no please go on

[maiden wadi]

Most likely reason is because you're consuming the input somewhere else.

[hot venture]

can anyone think of why "enabled" would print by "pressed" would not? I have this exact same setup in another BP which still works based off my interact key (doors still open) but for some reason this one wont work

[hot venture]

would it be consumed in my other BP?

[odd ember]

there is an input stack

[maiden wadi]

Click on InputAction Interact and look at the details panel.

[elder mango]

I got the array of guns

[odd ember]

if any of the inputs along the way consume the input

[maiden wadi]

Uncheck Consume Input

[odd ember]

it's removed

[hot venture]

so if I have branchs in each of my handling (theres 4 others, 1 for each door) I should make sure they all have "consume input" de-selected right?

that way it doesnt go into one of those, consume it and do nothing?

[odd ember]

I mean this explains nothing really. just from looking at your code though, you're setting variables through structs, which is probably why it's having issues remembering values

[elder mango]

I just followed the tutorial

[odd ember]

whatever you're doing, having to copy code 4 times doesn't sound right

[odd ember]

I don't know the tutorial

but I can tell you it's not smart to just follow a tutorial blindly

[elder mango]

in the comment some guy said that he got it working with multiple weapon

so it has to be possible

[odd ember]

it is possible, but I don't know the tutorial

[hot venture]

I have 4 separate doors that open based on different booleans, Im 100% aware the coding practice is horrible lmao. but first project and all

[maiden wadi]

This is literally the one place I would actually advise someone to use interfaces, is interaction. Interaction should usually be something like a line trace from camera to call an interact function on something. The door can use that function to open or close, a light switch can use that to turn it's corresponding light on. Container can use that to open or show UI, etc. All from a single input in the Pawn class.

[hot venture]

Ive tried getting interfaces to work a couple times already, have not been able to do that lol

thanks for the tip though. ill try to figure something out

[elder mango]

so would there be a better way to make a weapon switching system?

bc i can't find out how

[hot venture]

de-selecting the consume option in all the others worked (for now, I should probably rewrite the whole thing)

[formal bronze]

Can you create a macro library for animation blueprints?

[barren sonnet]

Does anyone know if there is a way to toggle visibility on Blueprints in Editor ? For example I want to add a dummy to decals so they can be easily located but I want to be able to hide it by pressing the g key.

[sweet lava]

hey guys, any idea how to fix this issue in UE5?
Timespan + date time add node turns into timespan + timespan when timespan node is added. It breaks the date time connection and converts it to timespan

[barren sonnet]

That's for in game though no ? I'd like to toggle them in editor.

[formal bronze]

Thank you!

[maiden wadi]

Doubt you can. Pretty sure it's just bugged. Advise just doing whatever you're doing in C++ with a library function for now.

[barren sonnet]

Oh awesome I didnt know that. Thanks!

[maiden wadi]

Really not so much of a fan of the new math nodes. Happy I started using the math expression and doing most of that in C++.

[restive token]

One of my levels is making me regen the navmesh every time I open it.

I generate navmesh -> Save -> open another level -> open previous level -> get "navmesh needs regen" message

It doesn't happen with any of my other levels (which are all pretty similar)

anyone know why

happens in editor, not while playing

thanks will try!

[keen crest]

Does anyone know how to rotate the capsule component towards an object? I have this sphere actor that acts as a reference for the capsule component to point to when the character turns and is standing still. Unfortunately, the capsule component does not turn in the direction of the sphere.

Here is the blueprint I attempted to make to rotate the capsule component towards the sphere

The animation for the character works but the capsule component does not turn with the character.

Here's the character turning

as you can see the capsule component does nothing

[odd ember]

I mean you'd have to specify what you want exactly. weapon switching can be done in many ways that are all "correct". it just depends on how exactly you want it to be

[high yew]

how would I change the terrain paint using a blueprint? so say you had this thing that moved across the map how would you paint the terrain so that it looked like there was a tail it left behind.

or just under it not a trail

[odd ember]

it would kind of be obnoxious to do, but: dynamic material instance of your landscape material, then change those parameters on certain events

the reason it would be obnoxious is because you'd have to call all the functions by name, and you'd likely have a bunch of edge cases that could not be solved elegantly

[trim matrix]

Hello, I want to be able to have a character attach itself to a physics constraint on another character when entering a collision and pressing a button, how would I go about doing this? (I'm still kind of new)

[high yew]

yes, but how would I change the paint layer?

[odd ember]

I mean that's really depending on how the landscape material is setup

[high yew]

what if I did a Blueprint brush type thing?

[odd ember]

I don't know what that is

if you want to change the "terrain paint", that's the material

[gusty shuttle]

Hey folks, is there a node used with player controller to check which key was last pressed? I know there is one, but it needs a key input, I was hoping to find a node that was already listening and would relay what was pressed

Purpose is to switch a widget switcher based on if the player was using a mouse, controller, vr inputs, nintendo switch, playstation or xbox

[maiden wadi]

Characters aren't moved by physics. If memory serves, you cannot constrain two kinematic actors with a physics constraint. To do what you're after would likely require some form of custom implementation unless you just want to ragdoll a skeletal Mesh.

[maiden wadi]

Not as far as memory serves. You'd be looking at something like implementing an AnyKey event, and saving the last pressed key yourself.

[trim matrix]

Well, I kind of want two actors to be able to connect at a point, when they get close and if a button is pressed

[gusty shuttle]

Good call

[trim matrix]

Is doesn't have to be physics technically

[keen crest]

Just create a boolean in your game instance called "Was(key)pressed? when you press the key and then everytime you press it set it to true or false.

There is a way to detect if a user is using a gamepad or mouse keyboard with C++ scripting

[gusty shuttle]

Aye, I think @maiden wadi 's solution works. Thanks folks!

[maiden wadi]

If this is a question, then partially, though it's a little hacky and depends on requirements. Older games literally had a timer on PCs for gamepads where if any gamepad button was pressed or axis moved to non zero, they would assume gamepad in use and set the timer. If timer ever finished, it assumed gamepad was no longer in use. That is about as far as you'd get in BP alone without a plugin.

[keen crest]

not a question

I already implmented it

[keen crest]

help me with this instead 😂

[maiden wadi]

If capsule doesn't rotate, it's likely being affected by the CMC. Chances are you have Controller Yaw in use.

If you don't want to disable it, change the controller's Yaw value instead.

Controller's ControlRotation Yaw Value ^

[keen crest]

I tried that, but it disable the player from turning during walking

unless I did something wrong

[dense nexus]

Hey does anyone know what might be causing an issue with an infinite loop with a data table in a blueprint?

On loading a level, there's a blueprint that reads a table of star coordinates to plot them and that's apparently having an infinite loop issue

[maiden wadi]

Not without seeing what logic you have set up.

[dense nexus]

Was literally just about to post a screenshot

And it started working

im

[loud wharf]

Hai hai all ^_^ . Anyone know much about blueprint or python and importing FBX cameras in ?

[dense nexus]

Nope its started erroring again, heres the logic

[mellow folio]

You have a data table with 119000 entries!?!?!?

[dense nexus]

Yeah, its stars, their coordinates, brightness, size etc

The project is a virtual reality planetarium

What a test level with the stars looks like

(ignore the sun on a pedestal)

[mellow folio]

I have serious doubts about that many

Maybe break it down into chunks or something

[dense nexus]

Fair, the levels load, its just trying to move between them with the menu that causes issues

[mellow folio]

What goes wrong

[dense nexus]

Infinite loop detected

And then it crashes

Could the size of the data table be doing that?

[mellow folio]

Yes definitely

[trim matrix]

Is there a way I can just attach and deattach to actors at a point?

[mellow folio]

Put a delay in, so you only process the loop in chunks of let’s say 5000

[tawdry surge]

Side note* you really should have this in c++
BP loop performance is not great

[mellow folio]

Process 5000, wait point1 seconds, process 5000, wait point1 seconds

[dense nexus]

Awesome thank you guys so much

[mellow folio]

It’s just too much work to do all at once, the infinite loop checker just Detects that the same process has been running for too long

[dense nexus]

Ohhh that makes a lot of sense

(im a modeler/visuals person, the coding aspect of Unreal is a bit over my head so thank you for the explanation)

[maiden wadi]

Sure. You should be able to call AttachToActor or something similar. Set SnapToTarget.

[trim matrix]

I'll try that! Thanks! I'll let you know how it goes

[jaunty jolt]

Im trying to add a custom shape collision to a form at run time. My form will change shapes. So i need to adapt the shape to it. And since the shape is a bit unpredictable, i need to draw it by points.
But it seems there are only these three options and they are very uniform?
Isnt there an option like, make collision from static mesh?

[dusk dust]

hello. does anyone know how this would look like in code

im wanting to break out all these components, pass them into a material, then reconstruct the matrix

though im not sure the how i would reconstruct it

i know matrices in hlsl would go something like this float4x4 matrix = {0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0}

how would those values from bp fit into that code i just sent?

[cursive moss]

Woohoo more questions.

I have a blueporint where an enemy gets hit by a spell. Currently everything is working and the actor gets destroyed.

WHY is it that when I put a 2 second delay before "Destroy Actor" The actor wont die at all
Is this is something basic I am missing or a problem with my blueprint

[odd ember]

your loop count is bigger than the max allowed. you can set that in the project settings. but really you shouldn't loop over something that big, especially not on construction script

[faint pasture]

bruh

@dense nexusHow are you drawing all the stuff? Do you have some sort of material that can use your star data or is it a texture?

[dense nexus]

Its a material

Literally just a white base color and emmission

And we inherited this project and its uh interesting coding from the previous seniors who were working on it. We know the structure is Not Great

[faint pasture]

How is it drawing the stars? Like how does the huge amount of data get into that material?

[lucid lynx]

What do I need to enable when paused in order to get SetCameraFade to work when the game is paused?

Enabling SetTickablewhenPaused on the PlayerCameraManager does not seen to get StartCameraFade working.

[odd ember]

seniors
this code
??????

[dense nexus]

Bruh I can show you their version of the final product

[odd ember]

who is this company

[dense nexus]

We're students

[odd ember]

ohh

okay

[dense nexus]

This was their thesis

[odd ember]

I thought you meant seniors as in seniors in the industry

[dense nexus]

GOD NO

Just struggling students

[odd ember]

anyway, my suggestion is to not use a data table for this unless you really need to know precise star movement

and even so, break it up into smaller datatables

[faint pasture]

Ah so it's making an ISM per star or something. I thought you had a material to render pointlike stars on a sphere. I've been trying to figure out how to do that for a while.

[odd ember]

have you considered niagara exists?

[dense nexus]

For use as the stars?

[restive token]

Using “spawn actor from class” to spawn enemy projectiles. It works fine if the enemy is on screen.

But if the enemy is off screen, the projectile is invisible (but still collides normally)

Wat

[odd ember]

well yeah.... what else?

[arctic spear]

I know you people liked my blueprint a lot. So I decided to use it for each of my AI in my level, very efficient.

[dusk dust]

hi again

can someone please look into this

[odd ember]

why don't you ask in #cpp ?

[dusk dust]

im not using cpp

well if thats the case i shouldve posted in graphics since its half material related

ill ask there

[fathom gull]

Hi, how would i disable sprint in a triggerbox? ( For example a swamp )

[stiff viper]

couldn't you add a branch and a line trace or something like that. So like, before you start to sprint you see if your character is in or over something that would inhibit sprinting?

sorry i'm new to this too but I think that would work, right?

[stiff viper]

Do you understand what i'm getting at?

[fathom gull]

Yeah i tried that but i cant get it to work

[stiff viper]

Same though but I figured it was because I was missing something obvious. Mine always comes back as default

[fathom gull]

Default?

[stiff viper]

yeah when it traces to the floor if it doesn't detect whatever physmat I have under it, it just shows up as default

even though it intersects with the floor properly in the debug

I gave up on trying to make it work properly for now and just used the default for my event but that wouldn't work for you because then everything would disable sprint

sorry I couldn't be more help

[fathom gull]

Thanks for trying tho

[icy dragon]

If you're allowed to use plugins made by someone else, then this might worth checking out.
https://github.com/jonimake/CelestialSphere

If not, you can still peek through the code and see how it works

[minor wolf]

is it possible to have a custom compile error? for example if i have a blueprint with an class variable that i dont want to be null can i make it error when i compile?

[tawdry surge]

Not in BP I don't think. C++ 100%

[minor wolf]

do you know how to do this in C++?

[tawdry surge]

Ue_log()

You can specify errors, warnings, or just log data

[stiff viper]

I can't get any linetracebychannel to work for physmats at all

I've tried implementing it different ways and it always returns default

[tawdry surge]

You should be able to get it off the actor

[foggy escarp]

Hey, there doesn't seem to be a built-in way to get how long a timer handle has been unpaused. We have the get elapsed time node, but if I want to get how long it's been looping it seems that I will have to use another timer to track this.

[stiff viper]

@tawdry surge This is what I got so far what would you recommend I change

[tawdry surge]

You sure you set the materials/surfaces up correctly?

That trace should work if you did

[stiff viper]

I swear I did. Everything returns default

[tawdry surge]

Try restarting the engine. Maybe it's a bug

[stiff viper]

technically i've done that already

This has been an issue between days