blueprint

[lime fulcrum]

I'm using UE4

[tight schooner]

I think they're OK if you're really just using them as "this is easier than copy-pasting the nodes on this class that I'm working on". Usually something basic like checking a state and branching execution. (UE 4.26.2 here.)

[lime fulcrum]

cause UE5 is still buggy, especially on my converted project

I'll finish this one on UE4

@tight schooner I'm using macros for very simple and repetitive things

[limber parcel]

i can only think of very few situations where macros are borderline useful

[tight schooner]

I try not to use it for stuff beyond flow control

flow control is one of the things that functions can't do on their own (at best, outputting a boolean/enum/etc.)

anything serious probably shouldn't be a macro

[limber parcel]

how to make my keybinds work independent of shift key pressed or not?

currently my interact key wont work when im holding shift for sprint

do i have to make second keybind for shift+interact or how does this work?

[lime fulcrum]

I did a second binding then I turn a bool to true or false on press and release

so on interact I check if Shift is pressed and do different things

this way players might be wanting to be able to rebind the key. I don't like hard coded binding

[limber parcel]

seems quite unintuitive, isnt there any way to make it ignore shift key?

[lime fulcrum]

in the event, did you try unchecking CONSUME?

[limber parcel]

nvm i just did this now

[lime fulcrum]

uhm..

I wouldn't do it that way... imo

[limber parcel]

it seems actually the best solution

it listens to both F and Shift+F

[lime fulcrum]

so if you hold SHIFT and leave justy the F key it doesnt wqork while pressing shift?

[limber parcel]

ohh wait

[lime fulcrum]

so SHIFT + F doens't work if you don't add it like that?

[limber parcel]

yes

[lime fulcrum]

it's weird

I can interact with my key even if Shift is pressed

[limber parcel]

i tried messing with the consume input but no change

[lime fulcrum]

I actually make it open doors faster while shift is pressed like you're in a hurry

See?

[limber parcel]

yeah idk why its being wird like that for me, guess someone on the team enabled some fucky settings

btw does my sprint code look weird? xD

[lime fulcrum]

LOL

Wanna see mine?

[limber parcel]

sure

[lime fulcrum]

xD

[faint pasture]

Why TF

[lime fulcrum]

HAhahahah

I use multipliers

[limber parcel]

https://tenor.com/view/cat-grin-smile-smirk-awkward-gif-22382508

[lime fulcrum]

And states. like Idle, Walk, Run, Crouched etc

I need them so I can multiply the amount of noise my footsteps do for AI detection

For example object Mass multiplier is for when holding heavy stuff

[limber parcel]

but this doesnt involve stamina drain or sprint lock when reaching 0 stamina

[tight schooner]

I've never used quaternions (outside of some dabbling in Niagara script), but a cursory glance shows that there are a decent selection of nodes in UE4.26. You should be able to figure something out.

Some light googling suggests you can scale a quaternion by simply scaling each of the float values in the struct.

Maybe ToRotator (Quat) and Make from Euler (Quat) can convert rotators to and from

[faint pasture]

It should be this simple.

Input -> bWantToSprint

Tick
Sprint = bWantToSprint AND Stamina > SomeNumber AND InputVector > SomeNumber AND bSomeOtherCondition
Stamina -=bSprint * SprintCost * DeltaT
WalkSpeed = BaseSpeed + bSprint * SprintSpeed

[lime fulcrum]

Yes it does, Stamina affects Walk speed which is the first multiplier. If it's 0, everything multiplied by 0 will still be 0

In my game it's never 0, you just walk very slowly

[limber parcel]

lol

[lime fulcrum]

😄

[faint pasture]

BTW if you're trying to do sprinting in multiplayer you won't do it in BP only

[limber parcel]

why?

everything works so far

[faint pasture]

https://youtu.be/RtQRMcupJs0

Test it with lag

You can simulate network conditions, look at your PIE settings

[limber parcel]

this?

[faint pasture]

ya

Try it on bad, how does your sprint feel?

It'll depend on how high your acceleration is and how different your sprint speed is from your walk speed but it might be super janky

[limber parcel]

ok this is really bad lol

[faint pasture]

Welcome to #multiplayer

[limber parcel]

lol

now i feel like developer of space engineers

[crisp rover]

UE documentation said as long as I use the Gameplay Framework (default Actors, Characters, Player Controller, etc) that multiplayer functionality would be automatically available (and I'm assuming reliable). Is this not true?

[limber parcel]

its available doesnt means its any good 😄

https://tenor.com/view/unreal-shader-confused-unreal4-unreal-engine-gif-15378565

[limber parcel]

this tutorial is actually very helpful

https://tenor.com/view/sad-cry-crying-tears-broken-gif-15062040

[tawdry surge]

It is automatically available. You still gotta tell it what to replicate and all that jazz, but you don't need to build any network logic or set up any servers to start developing for multiplayer

[limber parcel]

isnt there any way to make sprinting in bp?

[faint pasture]

To work with multiplayer, no, not really.

I mean yours might technically work

but it'll be jank

[limber parcel]

well basically the movement gets executed properly, the client is just jittering around alot

but technically im just setting the movement speed of the character

so i dont get why its so bad xD

[smoky elm]

does anyone know if there is an easy way to make one spline out of multiple other splines if you have an object reference to all of them in bp

[limber parcel]

https://tenor.com/view/the-what-smile-whut-weird-stare-gif-16592004

[faint pasture]

Did you watch that video?

You'll get why it's so bad

[limber parcel]

im still watching

[faint pasture]

Basically it comes down to prediction.
Say your setup was that the Sprinting state was synced on client and server.
You go to move, you think you're sprinting.
Your moves get sent to the server, it rejects them because it didn't know you were sprinting at the time.
The very act or state of being Sprinting has to be incorperated with the character movement controller to get predicted well. Without C++ you can get to where it will only be jank at the start and end of a sprint, but even then it'll have corrections all over the place when you start and end sprinting.

[blissful inlet]

Hey! I'm currently using interfaces so that my players can pickup items on the ground. I'd like to equipe the item, but for that, I need to know which player called the function. How do i say : THIS particular player called the pickup function? Any idea? Thanks !

[faint pasture]

The only way to do a buttery-smooth sprint without C++ that I can think of is to limit inputs when not sprinting. Basically setting up your system such that half-inputs are walking, and full inputs are sprinting. But that's super easy to cheat around as you're trusting the client when it gives its inputs.

If you had

Charactermovementcomponent.addmovementvector(InputVector*(0.5 + bSprinting*0.5)

Then that'll work, but you're trusting the client.

[limber parcel]

why do they even ship it like this when its not actually usable? xD

[faint pasture]

It is perfectly usable.

[limber parcel]

uhh

[crisp rover]

why is sprinting hard to implement in bp, in multiplayer?

[faint pasture]

Watch that video I posted.

#blueprint message

It all comes down to movement prediction. The CMC does predicted movement. You need to incorporate the state of Sprinting into the CMC so it can be predicted too.

Nothing is stopping you from making your own movement system in raw BP but the CMC is like 50,000 lines of code. Good luck doing better in BP.

Multiplayer games and prediction especially are HARD.

Honestly, a multiplayer BP-only project is right out, unless it doesn't need prediction. Something turn based would be fine, but you're not gonna make a fast paced shooter in BP only.

You can probably find plugins to do the c++ parts tho, if they fit what you want to do.

[blissful inlet]

Any idea ? You look like you could know lol

[faint pasture]

Add that as a parameter in the function call

[blissful inlet]

If i do so, i cannot anymore use it as an event

lemme try again

[faint pasture]

Is this a Pickup interface or a more general Interact interface?

[faint pasture]

Might need to reacreate the event as the signature has changed

Although equipping should be pawn acting on item.

[blissful inlet]

it's a general interact interface

[faint pasture]

OK so yeah that'd work great.
Pawn
Input -> Item.Interact(Self)

Item
Interact -> Interactor.Pickup(Self)

Pawn
Pickup -> DoSomething -> Equip(Item)

I really don't like the item telling the pawn to pick it up but that'd work

I like to keep communication going 1 way

[blissful inlet]

my problem is to send the Interactor parameter through the interface function. Because thats what i should do right?

[faint pasture]

Yeah, interface function should have a parameter for Interactor

[blissful inlet]

Gives me this kind of error

[faint pasture]

delete that event

[blissful inlet]

ok, lemme try

[limber parcel]

i noticed that literally all movement in my game becomes wonky

even at 30 latency

rotating things also lagging lol

[blissful inlet]

@faint pasture Ok so wow, it seems like it works. I have no idea why that bug got corrected that way, and the only thing google game me before was : there is no solution. Thanks a lot man !
edit : It does actually work very well lol, THX

[trim matrix]

Hey, so i am currently working on an Widget where you can switch between two things. The thing part is done now i need to somehow get an "Impulse" everytime the value switches to set a Button to Visible. I am pretty new to UE

[tight schooner]

Don't know of an easy way offhand. Gotta loop through each and every spline point in the individual splines you want to read from, and build it into an ordered array to construct the new consolidated spline with. It's easier if all you care about are the locations, cuz then you can build the spline points with world-space vectors. If you care about the tangents then those are all going to be in the respective spline components' local spaces and that means a lot of conversion.

[mental trellis]

Basically... don't.

[crystal canyon]

Any idea why the dropdown isn't appearing on the Create Event node on the right? Trying to bind StoreCameraRot, but don't want to tangle my blueprint.

[dusty coral]

hello, how can i find multiplayer rts type fog of war plug in for 4.26 project?

[limber parcel]

@faint pasture what emulation settings are u usually using when testing ur stuff?

[limber parcel]

excuse me?

[dusty coral]

i made fog of war but because of render target i cant run it on 2 different client

both client can see their fog of war and i dont want that

pff 😦

[zealous moth]

@crystal canyon means class doesnt have that event? Try refreshing or recompiler. Sometimes unhooking it and putting it back solves it

[devout wedge]

Is this a bp smell? I suspect raising that event when the delay is "counting down" will skip respawning that player

[spark steppe]

well, it'll restart the timer

but why would the player die twice?

[devout wedge]

in multiplayer that event is fired whenever a player dies

so if 2 players die in a 4s window

one of them won't get respawned I guess

[zealous moth]

That sourds like griefing

[devout wedge]

No, that's a double kill for instance

[spark steppe]

why do you use a retriggerable delay in the first place?

[devout wedge]

Ah my screenshot is not up to date, I'm using Delay

But it doesn't work properly

[limber parcel]

sounds like u have a networking issue

make sure the fog is replicated in owning client and not multicast

[crystal canyon]

Looks like I needed to recompile my first person character. Thanks for the tip!

[spark steppe]

where does the event run?

server or client?

[devout wedge]

@spark steppe in GameMode

server

[zealous moth]

@devout wedge game mode aint shared

[dusty coral]

i already tried that but it aint work for me, i'll make arrangement for that, thanks

[devout wedge]

Yeah sure but RestartPlayer should only be called on server right?

[limber parcel]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/InteractiveExperiences/Networking/Blueprints/

read here first block of text

[devout wedge]

GameMode (server) spawns the pawn

[dusty coral]

thanks

[devout wedge]

Is there something wrong with the code I shared? or when there is a latent action, the outputs in the event are not captured?

[spark steppe]

where are compiled blueprints stored? in the DDC?

[devout wedge]

No idea, how can I find it?

[spark steppe]

that was not related to your problem^

[faint pasture]

that player controller ref reaching across the delay is kinda gross

Player1 dies T=0

Player2 dies T=3

Player2 rezzes T=7?
Player1 never rezzes?

[faint pasture]

This should be instanced per player so probably in the PlayerController or PlayerState

Died -> 4s -> request respawn

[faint pasture]

Each client should only do FOW for their local view

Ignoring cheating, FOW should have nothing to do with networking

Each Playercontroller or CameraPawn just calculates FOW locally with THEIR vision sources/units

[dusty coral]

i did fog of war inside of character bp

i'll try to move it to player controller bp

[faint pasture]

How many characters does a player control?

Lots of them?

[dusty coral]

one

im working on moba

[faint pasture]

OK so only do FOW on the character if it's LOCALLY CONTROLLED

for now

later you can only do it on character if their team matches the local player's team

[dusty coral]

but i think my first step should move code to player controller right

[faint pasture]

Eh

That's not a great place for it either, I do it in a Subsystem but that's a bit more complicated

[dusty coral]

i'll try to create actor component for it

is it okay?

it might be more "configurable"

[faint pasture]

Here's how my system works.

I have a VisionSource component
In that component, on begin play, it registers with VisionSubsystem.

On tick, VisionSubsystem does the FOW stuff using all its registered VisionSourceComponents

[dusty coral]

i got it

[faint pasture]

You could replace VisionSubsystem with an actor component, put it on GameState probably.

That's how I prototyped mine

[dusty coral]

most "clean" way is that i think

[faint pasture]

Yeah it gets tough with teams

[dusty coral]

yep

i got team check

[faint pasture]

If you are comfy with c++ at all, dig into Subsystems as soon as possible, they're great

you can globally just "get Subsystem" and call functions on it.

[dusty coral]

i'm not but i think this task is my opening gate to c++ world 😄

thank you so much

btw do you have any tutorial or prototype for me to investigate?

[faint pasture]

You can take a look at this, no guarantees on it not exploding your computer or even working.
haven't touched it since UE5 came out.

[dusty coral]

aww thank you so much that will be great

[devout wedge]

I did that on the player state finally

[dusty coral]

lol

[limber parcel]

https://tenor.com/view/hide-the-pain-harold-tongue-out-old-man-meme-gif-17779122

[dusty coral]

thaaaaank you so much <3<3<3

[dusty coral]

one last question can i run it on 4.26?

[faint pasture]

IDC what you run it on

[limber parcel]

just found this

[dusty coral]

okayokay <3<3

[open arrow]

been trying to add audio to npc speak task by adding a Sound Wave variable to the task function, but no success. Any suggestions?

The option of the audio is coming up, but it's not playing during the gameplay

[mental trellis]

If that guy peeing into the desk?

[limber parcel]

https://tenor.com/view/cat-grin-smile-smirk-awkward-gif-22382508

[mental trellis]

Wow.

[limber parcel]

he kind of looks like a mix of mark zuckerberg and adolf hitler lol

[mental trellis]

Have you actually tried playing the audio instead of just adding the variable?

[open arrow]

right, so if i do "Play Audio" into the NPC task function, it's going to play that same audio everytime he speaks

[faint pasture]

I was looking over the code real quick and this just gets you up to the vision triangles, you'll have to draw them to your render target yourself. I'll eventually move it all to C++ but it hasn't been messed with for a while.

[trim matrix]

hi all, how would i check which way something has collided with box collision ??

is there a way i could say if it hit from this side then I want to do this but if it hits from this side I actually want it to do this?

[limber parcel]

lol i found issue why it was actually so bad

because speed was only set on server but not on client

so server corrected him all the time

[faint pasture]

That would certainly make it worse

[limber parcel]

but shouldnt the changes get replicated anyways?

[faint pasture]

Not sure, test by just setting CMC.MaxWalkSpeed on server on begin play and see what happens.

[limber parcel]

yeah the max walk speed never updates on client

though i did set the movement component to replicate

[faint pasture]

the CMC does a lot of stuff behind the scenes that you don't know about

like you notice that you never send your inputs to the server? You just shove them into the CMC and it automagically works?

[limber parcel]

well isnt that what the cmc is for?

[faint pasture]

ya

[faint pasture]

So you need to set up sprinting such that you can just shove IWantToSprint into the CMC and it automagically works.

The same way you jump or move

[limber parcel]

so i should make a child of CMC and add my logic there?

in a way that i just send a sprint request to it

[faint pasture]

Yes that's the Correct(tm) way to do it. That's C++ land tho.

[limber parcel]

how so? i can do that in blueprint aswell

ok wait apparently i cant...

https://tenor.com/view/unreal-shader-confused-unreal4-unreal-engine-gif-15378565

[woeful light]

Let's see if I can get some help here. Anyone know why the event possession is firing off twice? I'm going through the Brick Breakers tutorial, and Im current stomped that on play it keeps spawning two balls. I did a debug and noticed that my player controller was doing an event possessed event twice on the same pawn. I know I have the auto possess set up to Player 0, but Im wondering where the second possession event is firing.

I also realize that when I set the Auto Possess Player to Disabled, it spawns one ball correctly, but I get this error:

Blueprint Runtime Error: "Accessed None trying to read property As B Pawn Bat". Node: Stop Moving Graph: EventGraph Function: Execute Ubergraph My Player Controller Blueprint: MyPlayerController"

Which makes me suspect...

[dire frost]

I cheap solution would be to have a do once node after on posses event.

[woeful light]

I was thinking that too but it feels like a bandaid rather than me figuring out the WHY. It'll likely come up again in the future so I gotta nip it in the bud now

[dire frost]

Yeah you're right. So It's obvious that auto possess causes the second on possess call

So turning that option off fixes that

[woeful light]

It does, but then Im forced into the spectator pawn because I have the default game mode player pawn set to off (cause the pawn is placed in the level)

[dire frost]

Can you show me a pic of the node where the error occurea

[woeful light]

It's the recent one I posted

The error points to that above

Because I disable the auto possess, the variable above is null. Which is odd cause it's STILL spawning a ball. I'll post a webm in a second after processing

[junior hedge]

can you do a print on beginplay and lmk if it runs twice?

[woeful light]

one second

It only showed once

Alright this shows the events happening

I Disabled the Auto Possess Ai and now a ball doesnt spawn at all

So...

HOWEVER, even with these two settings, it still spawns two balls.

That shouldnt be logically possible

[faint pasture]

Show your player pawn BP

Whole thing if you can

Or at least everything that could touch the ball spawning

[woeful light]

I'll show the ball spawning parts

[faint pasture]

Print off OnPossessed, does it fire twice?

WHy not just spawn ball on begin play

[woeful light]

Which Possessed? The Pawn

s?

[faint pasture]

the one that's doing the spawning

[woeful light]

It prints twice

[faint pasture]

Yeah might be something goofy with the whole auto possess thing

anyway, either gate it with a DoOnce

or spawn the ball on begin play instead

begin play and possession will happen at the same time

or on the same frame anyway

[woeful light]

Yep Do Once fixed it. I imagine in a real game scenario, I'd be spawning it on command, but this was a silly scenario I wanted to find the answer to. Kinda sad that its a bit of a goofy behavior

[limber parcel]

the what?

[runic parrot]

Does anyone recognizes this plugin?

[foggy escarp]

I think it's dark nodes

I use it. I use this with electronic nodes, auto size comments, and blueprint assist.
Not only is it 50x easier to read the blueprints, but it's probably 5x faster to make them and easier to stay organized.

[runic parrot]

oh both are $, nvm.

😔

[foggy escarp]

Yeah, worth it

I'd pay double honestly

If nothing else, electronic nodes and blueprint assist

Their default settings aren't perfect. But after a year of using them all, I've got it all dialed in.

Clean code is like a drug for my addiction to blueprints.

[tawdry surge]

Idk why people think those right angle lines are easier to read. They automatically cross and overlap all the time

[junior hedge]

all lines are mid

[icy dragon]

https://github.com/brumenn/FlatNodes

It's a free plugin, and not a honeypot repo

[icy dragon]

Same tbh
I feel like it's not any easier to read than the cables

[thin panther]

IDK maybe its just me but i find it easier to read than the cables, maybe it comes from me being used to reading circuit diagrams etc

[limber parcel]

@faint pasture i downloaded the project files from this tutorial now and its actually giving me worse results than what i have now

[desert juniper]

I like the look of electric nodes when done right.
I found though that I was often spending more time rearranging the nodes to look pleasing.

besides, don't you all just try to keep cables straight when reasonable anyways?

like so

[remote meteor]

i would avoid lines cutting through nodes when possible

[lyric rapids]

is it possible to only activate a function when ive touched the ground 3 times if so how would i go about doing that

[tawdry surge]

On landed->increment int->branch(int>=3)->do function

[signal orbit]

can anyone tell me why my basic light flicker blueprint isn't working? i'm quite novice to blueprints

[lyric rapids]

ok i can do that but the fact is i want my function to run in the tick function

oh wait i can set a bool for after the event landed

then activate that to activate the functuion in tick

[junior hedge]

whats triggering it?

[signal orbit]

i'm trying to run it as an event in my level sequence. the code doesn't simulate even if i use event tick though.

i don't know why it wouldn't be simulation though, it looks fine to me

[junior hedge]

you gotta realize how much 11 intensity is

try doing like 500-5000

or something

[signal orbit]

right but what i'm saying is that when i click "simulation" to enable simulation of the blueprint nothing happens

i'm not seeing an execution flow, which i'm assuming means my code isn't running

anyone have a solution?

[spark steppe]

i would use an select float node as input for intensity

and a random bool to switch between on and off

[signal orbit]

my reasoning for using the random float in range node is to make it so each time the light flickers it's a different intensity

[lyric rapids]

how do you set a bool true for a certain amount of time

[signal orbit]

but i'm still so puzzled as to why the code isn't running @spark steppe it's driving me nuts because of how simple it is

[spark steppe]

what should actually start it?

[signal orbit]

i'm using an even track in sequencer that points to "trigger flicker"

this is the sequencer director

and the code for "trigger flicker" is here

[spark steppe]

does it not turn off or not turn on?

[signal orbit]

it doesn't do anything at all, and when i run a simulation i don't see an execution flow anywhere in my code

[lyric rapids]

?

[spark steppe]

make an event for it, set it to true, use a delay node, and set it to false on the delay node completed

[lyric rapids]

cheers

[signal orbit]

if anyone knows a solution to my issue please let me know, i've been desperately trying to figure out a way to make my light flicker without a light function material

[foggy escarp]

If you have blueprint assist, it's simply just ctrl+r done.

[faint pasture]

Is anything calling Trigger Flicker?

[signal orbit]

i believe it's getting called via this SequenceDirector blueprint that was made when i created the event track in sequencer

[faint pasture]

Test it by calling on begin play and simulating. Make sure it works before making sure it works with sequencer or whatever else.

make sure your light is stationary or dynamic too

[desert juniper]

you're joking right?

[foggy escarp]

Nope

It's automatic

[desert juniper]

no i mean.. the result is terrible

before 'auto format'

after:

nothing will ever beat just doing them by hand imo

[foggy escarp]

If u use it with electronic nodes it has automatic reroutes

[desert juniper]

I love blueprint assist, for assisting with the BP, but not for actually reformatting the order of my nodes. I tend to keep my nodes in a readable order with as few crossings as possible
I find that the only way to get good, consistent, and human readable results is to do it manually, and do it right.
q is your best friend

it might be much nicer for the material editor 🤷‍♂️ that's where they showcase the plugin

[faint pasture]

Imagine not doing your BP like this

I do wish there was a comfy way to make data flow vertical while execution flows horizontal

[desert juniper]

this is the one place electric nodes does excel for me

[faint pasture]

Or the other way around, which is just how code works. Execution goes line by line, with each expression being horizontal

[desert juniper]

they do a good job at stacking vertical variable getters

from their examples

[tight schooner]

I'm also a dirty node stacker, though I will expand things out horizontally if the stack gets too absurd

[faint pasture]

Ya I stack once it's settled. makes it super compact to see what's going on

[pulsar lantern]

Very brief question, I found a forum post about this but from years ago, are uint64s still unsupported in blueprints? Working with PRNG algorithms and int64 is not enough as I need the higher prime number that doesn't fit in an int64. (Right now I'm just converting to FString for display but it sucks not being able to pull uint64s into blueprints.) (I'm in UE5)

[desert juniper]

I'm terrible at math, so I tend not to stack. need to see where things are going for debugging
(bad code. do not run on tick like me!)

hmm, I remember rider complaining about uint(anything) a while back when trying to expose it to a BP

[faint pasture]

For instance this is an entire tire model

[faint pasture]

This runs on tick like 20x over lol

[pulsar lantern]

Just did a quick test, you are correct, I cannot UPROPERTY any uint 😦

[faint pasture]

This works for me

uint8 is the only uint I've used tho

[pulsar lantern]

uint64 and uint32 will not work in a UFUNCTION for me

[faint pasture]

Why would you need those, making an idle game?

[desert juniper]

yup there we go

[pulsar lantern]

I'm working with PRNG and WFC, and want to be able to tweak the generators in-editor/in-game

The prime number used for the modulo will only fit in a uint64, and for Linear Congruence it will go through every uint64 number without a duplicate as an random number generator

[desert juniper]

my god. lol this is too much for my fragile eyes to handle 🤣

[faint pasture]

Interested in your WFC approach, I'm doing the same thing lol.

Doing overlapping model with uint8 bitmask tiles.

so 8 colors possible

Working on the ingame editor rn

[faint pasture]

Why are you doing your RNG that way, speed?

[pulsar lantern]

I'm in very early stage lol, currently just implimenting the rng algorithms, and lots of learning.

I'll be fully 3D, and the RNG will drive constraint weights and blending.

[pulsar lantern]

Yes it's extremely fast. I want to be able to have a near-infinite world, and it does this by determinstic RNG driving the generator. I don't have to save world data, because whatever coordinates you were at last, you'll generate chunk seeds up to your coordinates and then render the world only around you

[faint pasture]

I'm trying to get it fast enough to not require threading, and be able to generate the map data in a tick or a couple ticks.

[pulsar lantern]

(deterministic via seed)

[faint pasture]

How does that work with WFC? Doesn't WFC end up differently with different starting states?

Like if you solve from left towards center, and right towards center, you'll get a different center

[pulsar lantern]

The RNG will generate all the constraint weights that get fed into the WFC, rather than a reference image

[faint pasture]

I mean for infinite world. There is no one arrangement a certain place will end up in, but it'll depend on what you collapsed before

[pulsar lantern]

well that's the thing about seed based rng. When you start with the same seed, if you're on the 75th chunk it will get the same exact derivitive seed off the world seed every time its generated with that seed, and since the chunk seed drives the WFC constraints the WFC will collapse with the same tiles on that seed

[faint pasture]

How do you get a chunk to be continuous with a neighboring chunk then?

Like say you had 3 chunks, and you're in chunk 1, then walk to chunk 2.
Someone else has same seeds etc, is in chunk 3, and walks to chunk 2.
How do you guarantee it's the same?

Or are you doing each chunk on its own and doing some blend at chunk boundaries?

[pulsar lantern]

That's why the RNG has to be fast. Right now I generate metadata like biome and blend weights on each chunk up to the one your on, and keeps generating until all the chunks in visual range are seeded with their metadata. Then it renders only instanced objects and terrain around you.

[faint pasture]

So does the WFC cross chunk boundaries?

[pulsar lantern]

I'm still working that stuff out as well, it's not perfect. Basically a chunk get's a 'biome weight' that dictates the blending across chunks, and this weight spans multiple chunks

this weight also influences the WFC constraints

with the same seed, it will generate identically every time

[faint pasture]

As long as a chunk is not influenced by neighboring constraints it'll work. I don't recall the title but there was another game doing something similar and they ran into the same problem I'm talking about. They ended up just rolling with it as they didn't need persistence but you might find it challenging.

[pulsar lantern]

It actually doesn't matter if they're influenced by neighboring constraints. Because I always generate everything in the same order, it'll come out the same as the chunk weights and constraints are generated

If all the numbers are linearly generated in the same order controlled by the initial world seed, you can do whatever you want and get the same result.

The real challenge, and what I don't have solved, is being able to start generating at your coordinates without re-generating all of the chunks in order before you.

All this math is actually extremely performant, and I can generate 20,000 derivitive seeds in about 4 seconds so I'm not worried about re-generating everything from chunk 1 every time you load back in.

[faint pasture]

Yeah that challenge is what I'm talking about

[pulsar lantern]

What I might do is push all the chunk/biome/blending metadata in the save file, so that you don't have to save tile data and you can just... resume.

I'm still in the heavy research phase so a solution may reveal itself in the future

[faint pasture]

The results of a chunk depend on its neighbors, which depend on their neighbors, ad infinitum. If you don't force constraints at the chunk borders then it's doable but I don't see any other way to make sure you end up with the same thing at chunk XY when you approach it from different directions, as it'll have a different boundary condition (different collapsed neighboring chunks)

If you do solve it I'm sure you can sell it for a lot of money.

[pulsar lantern]

Hahaha that's why the current implimentation will continue generating minimum data all the way around but it's definitely not the optimal solution

Honestly it's not a bad idea to ditch WFC and just use compound noise for generation (Minecraft and Factorio) but that's to the needs of each individual project

[faint pasture]

One thought that comes to mind is to have noise generate "seed crystals" for each chunk, but you still end up with the infinite neighbor problem.

[pulsar lantern]

jfc how did it not occur to me the option of combining disciplines until you said it

[faint pasture]

I'd try just doing a chunk on its own and finding an algorithm for blending edges

but that might end up gross

[pulsar lantern]

This is actually an amazing idea, but also adds infinite complexity

Oh I replied to the wrong thing, I mean using noise to generate biome zones

and WFC for everything else

@faint pasture

https://nuclear.llnl.gov/CNP/rng/rngman/node4.html
https://nuclear.llnl.gov/CNP/rng/rngman/node8.html

You might also find this useful. I've been poking around at patterns institutions use.

(Edit: Wrong algorithm)

Fixed the link, the 64bit one is the really attractive one

the 2^64-2^10 + 1 modulus has significantly reduced patterns, however

[faint pasture]

Have you checked if it's faster than FRandomStream?

[pulsar lantern]

I actually haven't

[obtuse dawn]

So im having this problem where my spawn point is suposed to be going to random spots and spawning enemys but it just stays in one spot and spawns three of them this is the full codw

would anyone know how to fix this

[tardy bolt]

Hi guys, just a high level question. When working on any system or mechanic or problem solving in general, how should I approach it? Like we approach UNIVERSE from a perspective of maths, physics and chemistry etc.

[desert juniper]

IMO, a good way to design complicated systems is modularity, and decoupled logic in mind

layout your requirements first and figure out the interactions between each one before you start implimenting

in a perfect world

[tardy bolt]

I see, so in a way fundamental structure depends on variables, functions and classes, as well as subsystems?

[desert juniper]

Architecture is the word you're looking for

https://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/contents.html

there's a good resource on programming patterns

[tardy bolt]

Yes, I’m reading that one as recommended earlier

[desert juniper]

awesome.

[tardy bolt]

Lastly, compared to from scratch approach, how much stuff is premade and ready to use in BPs by default?

As I am coming from a Unity background in coding, where everything is done from scratch

[desert juniper]

Unreal does a lot for you.
there's a lot of built in systems for each discipline.
You'll still need to implement everything on your own

[desert juniper]

Unity also has a ton of prebuilt systems, components, etc

unreal isn't a easy button. I'd say it's more complex than unity out of the box, and thus a tougher to use engine in general compared to unity.

it's all about perspective.

[tardy bolt]

I’ve spent quite some time to learn it, specially wrapping head around Bp

I approached it from Unity perspective and tried to make things from scratch, making my own life harder

Even something as simple as jump, which is pre-made, I tried to do from scratch and got lost 🤣

[desert juniper]

well, you'll find all the same issues in unreal if you try to create your own character movement component

[tardy bolt]

Yup, so I stick with what’s offered and build on top of it

Unreal offers the relief of designing stuff and testing it asap, unlike Unity where essays have to be typed before getting results

[desert juniper]

this will likely be a great resource for you https://learn.unrealengine.com/
start from the bottom and work your way up

[desert juniper]

Blueprints is still programming. It's just done in a visual manner.
if you don't yet know how to program, best get learning 😄

[tardy bolt]

I know how to code basic things, if not complex systems. Though I get the idea what you mean by architecture

There are just no proper example videos to show best uses of fundamental nodes overall

[spark steppe]

there are

check mathew wadsteins youtube videos

[tardy bolt]

Please share

[spark steppe]

https://www.youtube.com/c/MathewWadsteinTutorials/videos

[tardy bolt]

That I know about, anything else covering basics extensively?

[desert juniper]

#blueprint message

[spark steppe]

haven't found anything that i could recommend

[tardy bolt]

Btw work I do lays in high level category

Gameplay programming than systems, as I happen to be a game designer

[desert juniper]

also: https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning?application=unreal_engine

[tardy bolt]

@desert juniper will start there

I think it is also a good idea for me to stay away from animation related stuff as well, hate that stuff. I love cubes for prototyping purposes.

[spark steppe]

why stay away from it?

[foggy escarp]

This is how I like using BP assist

[modest terrace]

Hi Guys, just a question , I have a map variable and to add a key value pair i just have to use the Add node , right ? Or do I have have to use the set map node after that ?

[livid marlin]

hit location is somehow not working what reason are there
or at least the niagara and sound doesnt work
but it does before i copy and paste every sound and niagara to line trac

or my line trace is not getting surface type

[white elbow]

Which functions should be performed by a pawn, and which ones by player controller?

[spark steppe]

just add

[tight schooner]

@white elbow One can potentially possess multiple pawns, so pawns should only have code related to their functionality specifically. Like movement for example. But if the player presses Start/Esc or whatever to bring up the main menu, you should do that in player controller, cuz you want that stuff to work regardless of which pawn is possessed

[tight schooner]

Do some debugging with print nodes, draw debug, and breakpoints so you can narrow down the issue

Make sure every part of your BP is producing the data you expect

It sounds like you don't know where the issue lies

[livid marlin]

so in print string ,there should be arrows on hit location but its not even there

im thinking either hit phy material or location aint working

[spark steppe]

lerp from vector a to vector(b.x, b.y, b.z + c)

[tardy bolt]

It doesn’t help much into prototyping and I tend to work on First person games most of the times

And I feel it is unnecessary specially in ideation process

[white elbow]

How do I make a detached camera that follows the player but doesn't turn with him?

for a top-down shooter

[dry condor]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/AnimatingObjects/Paper2D/HowTo/TopDown/

[covert bough]

is there no way to read a text file to a string using blueprints?

[signal orbit]

does anyone know of a way i can make this custom event run every tick, as if it's running on event tick?

[gentle urchin]

Why not just run it on tick?

[modest terrace]

I made a data table and connected it to a struct and I can get the rows using the Get Data Table Row names Node but I cant find any node which I can use to add a row there ! Is there a way for that ?

[tawdry surge]

No. Datatables are static data

[trim matrix]

anyone know how I can detect which direction something overlaps with box collider ?

[versed sun]

i never used it but there is a plugin for it https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/data-table-nodes?sessionInvalidated=true

[spark steppe]

wonder how it would write back to the data table on runtime oO

probably only temporary changes?

[versed sun]

looks like it...

[spark steppe]

then you can just use a map in the first place 😄

[modest terrace]

I was using maps first, but I am trying debug an issue i am facing with the add node, nothing was working so i tried to use a data table.

probably gonna sleep now and try to debug that tomorrow 😅

[spark steppe]

what was the data type you used as key?

Name?

[modest terrace]

yeah

[spark steppe]

ok, just wanted to get sure that you didn't have any weird data type as key

Name shouldn't make trouble

[modest terrace]

Just to give u a full image , these are the connections, i printed everything, the values are correct

[spark steppe]

that looks fine to me

[thorny forge]

Hey guys, I'm trying to approach a Lidar effect for my scene, as if everything is a point cloud. Just based on this how would you approach this? Post process shader, line trace and decals or something else? Unfortunately the meshes are generated but don't interact with niagara because theyre not real meshes, they're live streamed in from an external source and they generate no distance meshes

[wooden raptor]

Hi guys! Can someone help me with this one? I did this onChanged event for a BoxSelection, but is there a better way to do this? I mean i tried with the select Node, but it seems different with that. Any help is appreciated 🙂

[spark steppe]

@thorny forge could probably be done in post process, using the depth buffer to determine the size of the points

[spark steppe]

search for the switch on string node, there you can add values in the details panel when you select the node

[thorny forge]

Yea thats what I was thinking. Thank you :)

[wooden raptor]

Nice, thank you @spark steppe ! 😄

[remote totem]

Hey guys, I have a single blueprint instanced in a grid (this is a proof of concept setup), let's say that blueprint contains a static mesh actor of a box that has simple functionality that on component hit it changes scale or something. Question is, can I connect instances in some way, considering they are the same BP ? I would like to have this kind of interaction - instance that is being hit has a radius around it that samples other instances around it and if you active one instance - it activates all other ones in a radius around the one you activated

[spark steppe]

that sounds scary

you can get all actors in a region

but be aware, if you have a grid that will trigger a chain reaction (most likely)

[remote totem]

that is the question basically, eventually this has to be a constraint setup, imagine that destroying main pillar of the house should lead to activation of physics and geometry swapping of nearby instances of other meshes

[gentle urchin]

Id do a loop distance check

[remote totem]

I fear that implementing it in the same BP will lead to chain reaction

and I only need to break or activate one that will lead to activation of those that are connected to it

"connected"

radius here is a maximum simple case

so on activation you would get all actors of class in a radius and activate them ?

[gentle urchin]

You could always set up some graph with connections

[remote totem]

that's an interesting topic, I'm not really strong with UE, I'm mainly a Houdini TDish guy, can you point me towards graphs in UE ?

or official documentation will suffice ?

does it work with instancing ?

if we have a house which is fully built from a point cloud with diff instancing setups can it be sampled ?

maybe you've seen how matrix demo was setup with Houdini, that is the case for me

everything is a point cloud, etc

[vivid inlet]

hi, is there anywhere i can find out the precise node set up for a save system?

i already have a save instance, etc, i have a save point the player saves at that works, etc, and i have objects that act a certain way (i.e. a door closes) depending on what variable is true/false at EventBeginPlay but I really can't seem to figure out the precise node setup to save/load these things into the game if that makes sense.
thanks!

[modest terrace]

is there any better way to check if a variable is null or not ?

[tawdry surge]

Is valid

[versed sun]

also, you can right click Looking At and "Convert to Validate Get"

[modest terrace]

yeah, that looks much neater

[gentle urchin]

I dont think you need to validate it either

[tawdry surge]

You dont

[gentle urchin]

The interface simply wont do anything if the target is invalid /null

[limber parcel]

you can add delay until next tick node lol

[gentle urchin]

Call it from event tick.

[vivid inlet]

Do you have to 'create save game object' every time you want to same something?

[gentle urchin]

Not if you already have a valid savegameobject

[rain egret]

confusion, so i have all those attached actors and i should be able to group them together just like that in the blueprint as well

[vivid inlet]

Ah, okay, thank you. :)

[rain egret]

i dont get why its impossible to do that tho, right now i have to wait for the ship to materialize with all modules, then pause the simulation, select all its children and then group them

[gentle urchin]

No wonder movement is costly 😅

[rain egret]

yea i get that, but i feel like it should be possible to group them from the blueprint, like get an array of all attached things, then pull a node from there and select the group node, which doesnt exist, sadly

[junior hedge]

Like to move them?

Select them and in the topbars there should be a group option

I just woke up tho so idk where exactly it is

You select all but the first

Then group them all to the first one

[rain egret]

i am having a modular building system, right now if the ship moves all attached things get transformed as well which is costly. so the prefered way would be to just group all attached modules so instead of having transform 59 times, its just 1

all this is supposed to happen at runtime from the blueprint

[junior hedge]

Ahh idk then

[tawdry surge]

As long as they all attach to the root they should just come along for the ride.
But you may wanna move to c++ for this. iterating over lists is MUCH faster in c++

[rain egret]

yea my current plan is to make a custom node that would do enable me to use the group actor functionality inside a blueprint

[tawdry surge]

I'm still sorta lost on why your grouping them. Groups are more for in editor. If they attach at runtime then moving the root should move them all

[rain egret]

well upon profiling it turned out that moving many attached actors at once is costly due to them all having to be transformed. i read that grouping actors removes the need for transforming each indiviual part

[zealous moth]

@tawdry surge remember that validated get is 17% faster than isValid

@rain egret your issue is you have too much going g on at once. It is easier to deal with 1 complex actor mesh than hundreds. My guess is that they aren't instanced at all. Whatever you use to generate, use more complex geometry instead.

And instance it

[rain egret]

whats instancing, i keep hearing that but when i look up instancing actors i only see tuts on how to make child classes

[tawdry surge]

I'm sure that 17% is nothing to worry about outside of a for loop on tick, but I do forget about that node and it's more compact

Instanced static meshes (ism) and hierarchically Instanced static meshes (hism)

[rain egret]

the majority of those parts that are attached to the ships frame are wall actors. they use procedural mesh to conform to the shape, i cant just feed the mesh data into a PM component thats on the ship actor to skip having to attach all those actors, the reason for this is that each wall element ought to be moved when clicked on, and unless PM has a on click event that tells me which section of the PM i clicked on, this will not help

i appreciate your help, i really do, but i have thought of all those things already

and they just dont work with the system i have

[gentle urchin]

you can fetch the hit section by trace

[rain egret]

alright imma try that

[gentle urchin]

So what I'd do is;
Whenever something is placed (a wall, a floor etc) you merge it into the main PM

Whenever something is selected (For moving, deleting etc) you extrude it into its own PM

which has a lifetime duration of that specific event of moving/delting/changing the section

[rain egret]

are you talking about the element index?

[obtuse dawn]

So im having this problem where my spawn point is suposed to be going to random spots and spawning enemys but it just stays in one spot and spawns three of them this is the full code

[gentle urchin]

I never correctly recall which one of them it is , but its one of those 3 yes

[obtuse dawn]

would anyone know how to fix it?

[rain egret]

sorry, i dont know much about AI but you could try adding a print string to see if you get a random spot on each repeat or if it stays the same

[rain egret]

would have been too good to be true, but they dont work, i only get -1 or 0

i dont think they work on PM components

so back we go to grouping

[gentle urchin]

troublesome to test this myself x)

hmm

you're right, no data

[rain egret]

your idea was good however, lets say the PM has two walls in it section 0 and section 1
you make a line trace and get the face index, now you could use it get the section you hit right? sadly no since even it it worked, the triangle data on those both walls is identical

but hey i wanted to get more into c++ anyway so why not now

[gentle urchin]

Would use two walls instead of two sided material?

[rain egret]

yes, it just looks better

[gentle urchin]

I see

So im still not sold on why this couldnt be done in a material

not saying it would be easy

but it would save you some heavy performance

So instead of spawning proc meshes

you instead add instances of a fixed wall tile

the raw positioning is done when it's added,

and the vertecies are manipulated by the material,

using the per instance data

[rain egret]

that sounds interesting for sure, but the creation of the PM isnt really heavy at all

[gentle urchin]

No,

but moving it is

my suggestion would leave you with 1 single ISM component per unique ship component

possibly shared among all ships if desired (altho that requires yet another system setup)

[sand gazelle]

Here's one for ya: So the first image works while the second image does not work. The print string is printed correctly in both cases. Whhahaaaa? When the event is set to multicast the print string only fires on the server.

[rain egret]

i will think about it, that sounds hella complex

[gentle urchin]

I've never tried it myself , but I can imagine such a system work quite well

I'm successfully moving up to about 2k instances with not to much work or drop in fps

[rain egret]

but what about collision

that would only be a visual fix

[gentle urchin]

true,

they support collision

guess it would be a tad less accurate tho

since only the visual is stretched

so you'd need the instance to generally fit to where its placed ..

not sure about the precision you need on this

perhaps its not a great suggestion afterall

[zealous moth]

@sand gazelle order of operations issue?

[rain egret]

that would be a great idea if ships were uniform, but players can edit the base shape of the ships and cause all sorts of monstrocities

[blissful widget]

Holy shit the saturation on the character is nutty

[zealous moth]

It is unlit

[sand gazelle]

Not that I can think of. What order would you be referring to?

[zealous moth]

Boolean set incorrectly in order

Or the event to set it s not replicated

Do a F10 check

[sand gazelle]

The top bool is coming from the actor BP. It is true that the multicast isnt working for that event

That could just be the real issue

But then i have to figure out why its not working

[zealous moth]

But it is on tick so I suspect your other event isn't done when it dhould due to order or replication

@sand gazelle either print string everywhere or put an observation toggle

[sand gazelle]

in the top it is setting every tick from the actor BP. In the second it is running from the event. The string is printed correctly in both cases

[shadow field]

not trying to interrupt

so i have tiles that are numbered from 0-39 and i got everything to work finally but as the character reaches the last few spaces so lets say you land on 38 and you roll a 6 it automatically goes to grid 0 and doesn't continue, so essentially i need it to count 39, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4

[real notch]

I'm trying to move my camera using touch. All it needs to be able to do is move (x/y) and zoom (building that part later). So far I have this: https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/js3-0b_y/ but it makes the camera shake (video). Anything obvious I'm doing wrong?

[tawdry surge]

@shadow field i think there's a wrap function to do that for you

[sand gazelle]

Aparently RPCs must be run on actors. Is the animBP of an actor count as being run on an actor?

No matter what I do I only get this event to run on the server. Even when I move the rpc to the actual BP of the actor it dosen't work but it does work when playing standalone

[shadow field]

awesome worked like a charm thanks

[zealous moth]

@sand gazelle that's new to me

@shadow field you need logic to wrap around the index

@real notch it seems to toggle between Start point and end point. I would put this on tick

[real notch]

It's not, I checked. It's running in the order it should be running. It's jumping between two values, but not the start value. It's hard to see because I sent such a short clip

[sand gazelle]

Well, I seem to have solved it. I must have not set the actorBP event multicast when I thought I had when testing before. All I needed to do was move the multicast to the actor BP and its working

[zealous moth]

@real notch why do you use a 3d vector?

Instead of 2d

I mean I work on mobile and depth van make the camera look like it is panning but it is changing depth

[real notch]

Because this is the version without zoom

[zealous moth]

Try 2d

[real notch]

I tried tick btw, no difference

I also tried 2d before, no difference.

Which is good I think, because I need 3d eventually because of zoom

[real notch]

https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/-ptcbd0_/ you do mean like this, right?

I've made sure the depth is consistent by putting an empty actor with a box collision at landscape height, using a dedicated channel for the purpose of moving the camera around.

So Z is always 0

[lyric rapids]

how much it too much for the tick function

[real notch]

I got rid of the shaking by lerping. This tells me there's some issue with the trace in combination with movement, because moving the camera is going to change what the trace returns also. So not sure how to fix it, but maybe it helps someone to help me 😄

[gentle urchin]

A lot

[lyric rapids]

Oh so theres a bit of leg room then

[gentle urchin]

Depends on what you wanna do, but yes

Is it the best place to do lots of things? Usually not

[prisma gulch]

#umg message

[rain egret]

squize you will never believe what i just learned

so after asking the cpp guys a channel down how to use the group actor function in a custom c++ node that i made they told me that wasnt my problem and that moving those actors wasnt the problem.
the actual problem was the navigation

i had that ticked and after i unticking it, it shaved 5ms off

5 moving ships only produce 10 ms now

[gentle urchin]

Nav recalc

Thats a big taskn

[lyric rapids]

How do i clamp my horizontal velocity at different points so i want 3 dofferent clamps one at like 1500 one at 2000 and one at 2500 how would i do this and how would i activate them separately

[gentle urchin]

I had to remove that for my ism aswell

[mighty spoke]

why does multigate Out 1 never fire? And how do i fix it?

[gentle urchin]

looks like you want a sequence

[rain egret]

this is what you want

what does update component to world mean, i cant find anything on this online

[mental trellis]

UpdateComponentToWorld updates the component's World transform

[rain egret]

that it does, so it happens when you move something

[mental trellis]

Yes.

[rain egret]

hm so theres no performance fixing there

alright thanks

to be honest i am happy to know that the real culprit so far was some checked box

10 moving ships now only produce 17-20 ms

which is a great step in the right direction

[gentle urchin]

Massive step!

[eternal bough]

has anyone had issues with not being able to create a local variable in bp where it says name in use even though its not...?

[lyric rapids]

?

[prime stump]

Hi, is there a way or a command for the player to be able to change their rendering mode between directx 11 and 12 through a settings menu?

[tight schooner]

Maybe ask #graphics but I suspect UE can't produce a build where you can select between multiple APIs...

[gentle urchin]

You can launch the game in dx11/dx12 by a command line

Could atleast

[zealous moth]

@lyric rapids a bit late but essentially simple math is fine. You can transform, get, etc at no cost. The issue comes with loops, very complex operations or loading too many ticks at once.

[lyric rapids]

So ive got a lot of like if this bool is true do this function

[gentle urchin]

Branches is usually a good thing

So you dont do stuff you dont need to do

[tawdry surge]

Branches/switches are useful. A ton of them, like anything else, isn't great

[dawn gazelle]

If the input or output nodes of the function use the name you're trying to use, then you can't use that name for a local variable, nor can you reuse the name of a variable that already exists in the class as a local variable.

[lyric rapids]

Is that ok or nah

[zealous moth]

@lyric rapids it will not proceed past it if it doesn't need to

[gentle urchin]

Not sure how many branches you'd need to make a dent in the profiler

[lyric rapids]

No i mean is a lot of them happening in tick ok

[pine trellis]

I am getting this error when I open unreal, anyone know how to fix it?

[zealous moth]

Yes it is fine

@pine trellis known issue you have to edit a value somewhere

Google it :/

[cursive grove]

Is there any way I can pick a random point in a radius around a specific world location, without using navmesh volume? How expensive is the navmesh volume in general?

[zealous moth]

@cursive grove purpose? To navigate to?

[pine trellis]

@zealous moth I cant find any links

to fix it

[cursive grove]

I want my enemies to roll around while idle

at the moment I get a random point and add force to it

[zealous moth]

@pine trellis I guess reinstall :/

@cursive grove pick a world location as a vector. The randomize the X and Y and make a new vector?

[cursive grove]

The 'random' always tends to push them to a specific corner

is the navmesh bounds volume expensive?

[mossy perch]

Can't for the love of me get EOS to work properly.

[dry condor]

can someone help me understand why i have to add that print string to make this work like it should? without the print string length returns 0, with the print it has the expected value

same thing happens with another array

[zealous moth]

@cursive grove no. Excess is but a regular one

Is not

@dry condor the check is done each step and the set isn't done immediately. Only after set is done

[dry condor]

hmm let me try something

@zealous moth its weird imo, how does the print string change anything ? because if i change to to "delay to next tick" it doesnt work, the debugger shows the arrays content when i hover over the left side of the length node but the int stays 0

even changing it to a 2 second delay doesnt change anything. i dont understand how this works tbh

[scenic scroll]

Hello folks, I am having an issue i could really use some help with as I cannot find a simple solution to what feels like something that should have one

I am making a starship game, where starships should have modules (engines, wings, etc) that can be damaged and destroyed. To simplify creating starships in the future, I want modules to be their own actors separate from the ship's blueprint (added as child actors, so they can interact with the ship, since all ships are the same class) However, I am running into an issue

To have the module get damaged by collisions, lasers, and radial damage, i need it to have a collision box, which needs to be in its own actor BP to make it so it doesnt't need to be set up for every actor of every ship (which is the whole purpose of this system, simplifying future ships being added)

The collision box needs to be able to hit other ships amongst other things, otherwise it won't be able to recieve damage from ship collisions.

Yet, the problem is, the component (example: an engine) will collide with its owner / parent (the ship) and cause it to explode

What can I do to avoid this? How can I make the component not collide with its owning starship? or am I missing something or trying to address this issue the wrong way? Any help or feedback would be much appreciated, since I am clueless on what to try next to fix it

[desert juniper]

does it really need a collision box for each component?
Why not just check which component the laser hit?

[dry condor]

i think for the collision with self problem you can set the collision preset to custom and ignore pawn

[trim matrix]

Hi, I'm trying to implement an inventory system that cycles through the items you pick up via the last index element, it's working as it should in game functionally but for some reason I can't wrap my head around atm the UI is not updating properly and only removes the icon of the first item you use, a none of the ones that remain. Would appreciate if someone could correct my error?

[scenic scroll]

Remember every component (of the starship- i should be calling them modules so it's less confusing)

Every module is its own actor, because i'm working out the "base mechanics" of the game and one of my goals is to have an easier time adding new starships later (i plan to add a lot, and I also want to make the game moddable), so I am trying to make module classes (like engines, wings, etc) that i can later drag and drop into the starships as child actors, change stats and 3d models and all that, and that work almost out of the box, handling their own damage and then "communicating" any changes to their parent starship

[desert juniper]

so big thing I've found. Child Actors are really problematic & buggy. They're not like unity prefabs at all
be careful working with them

[scenic scroll]

Do you have any alternative ideas of how i could achieve peak modularity and optimize my workflow instead?

I will fully admit i suck at this for now, first game i'm making from scratch, so I'd love it if i could avoid any major mistakes from the get go

[desert juniper]

I'd argue that you can just go for a component based approach. you can have all the logic you want (such as additional module spawn points, module limitations, stats, etc) all on the component
Modularity is going to be the difficult part, as you'll have to abstract a lot

Another approach may be a data driven approach

[real notch]

Any reason why pinch gesture axis mapping would always return 0? It's in the player pawn, InputTouch event is working.

For context: I am trying to move the camera closer on pinch, and I couldn't think of another way of doing it

[desert juniper]

The end result would be a single actor with a bunch of static/skeletal mesh components

[zealous moth]

@dry condor the peeked at value can only change when going to the next operator

[scenic scroll]

In what sense? is it not possible to have a common... "entity" that manages the code of all engines, which i can then reuse with few changes for different starships?

[real notch]

Enable Gesture Recognizer
Are you kidding me

[scenic scroll]

components can have blueprint code inside of them?

I'm sorry if that's the dumbest question ever

[desert juniper]

absolutely

[dry condor]

@zealous moth do you have any resources where i can read up on this, cause im still kind of confused 😄

[zealous moth]

@dry condor I learned by trial an error.

[desert juniper]

and creating modular code/components/etc usually takes quite a bit of architectural work.
It's by far the better approach, but will just require a bit of extra dev time

[scenic scroll]

Oh, absolutely, but modularity isn't just to make my life easier, it originates from the fact that the damage model is modular, and relies on those "modules" being able to be damaged separately

or that's my goal, at least

[scenic scroll]

Which class of component would be best for this kind of stuff?

[desert juniper]

StaticMeshComponent and SkeletalMeshComponent

[dry condor]

@zealous moth fair enough, i still dont really understand what a operator is or why the Interface Message doesnt count as one 😄

[desert juniper]

both are children of MeshComponent, so you could start there with a base class, or just have the option for both in the same component

[zealous moth]

@real notch there is a project on the marketplace with a solid gesture manager I use. Better than the built in one

[scenic scroll]

Wait, how could I house blueprint code inside those components? I thought those were just for 3d models / rigged 3d models?

[desert juniper]

I think you don't yet know what components are. one sec

[zealous moth]

@dry condor Operator is a song by Papaya

[desert juniper]

you can then just add that to any actor

If you want your actor component to be a child of StaticMeshComponent, or USkeletalMeshComponent (or in my screenshot example: MeshComponent) then just select the appropriate class

[real notch]

Cool, I'm now going to build my own because I'm stubborn 😄

[tight schooner]

There's too much BP for me to fully wrap my head around at a glance, but it seems like you need to answer some basic questions like whether certain events are actually being called or not. Or if removing a widget also removes it from the array (in which case you would be removing 2 items from the array at once) — I don't know the answer offhand.

Do some basic debugging with print nodes and breakpoints. Make sure the BP is being executed and is producing data in the way you expect.

[trim matrix]

The main thing to look at is the bottom two images, the two above are just showing how the item cycle is working (successfully), and I'm applying that same logic to the Inventory widget. I know that the events are being called because it's an event dispatcher so in the bottom the player inventory index, and the widget index events trigger at the exact same time.

[tight schooner]

The thing I'm wondering about is the Icons array. After dropping an item, removing a widget and removing the last index, how long is the array?

That's the only hunch I got offhand

Array —> Length —> Print String/Text

should answer that

[trim matrix]

the add item function is triggered in the inventory widget when the player collects an item, and at that point should add a new icon widget and be added to that inside an array.

Okay I'll check that, thanks

[scenic scroll]

I did not know this at all. Thanks a lot! Your UI seems a bit odd tho so i ask just in case- this is the same in ue4, right? (not sure if you're in ue5)

[trim matrix]

The length is returning the what should be the correct amount of icons/items, but now removes every icon at the same time..??

[dry condor]

thats UE5 UI in the screenshots

[desert juniper]

yeah I'm on UE 5

but there's very little changes for all the basics

[scenic scroll]

As long as it all applies backwards, then that's great! Thanks a lot for answering my questions, I was really struggling with this!

[vivid inlet]

bruh, making a save system in ue4 is like the most complicated thing ever. i'm thinking about downgrading to an earlier version to use a save system extension.

i already have the blueprints set out for a door to close if 'IsOpen' is true on EventBeginPlay but just no clue how to load the variable into it at start. i've looked at every tutorial.

[dusky axle]

why I can't create reference to any actor in controller class but in level bp it is possible?

[gentle urchin]

Its basically just to load the aaved atate of the variable, and if it differs from the actors default state run some initializing to update its state accordingly

[gentle urchin]

Hard refs from the world outliner is only possible in the actor that owns them, so to speak

Why youd need it in your playercontroller is another question

[dusky axle]

then what's the way of acquiring ref for some actor?

I want it to set the default camera (is the better place for it?)

[vivid inlet]

yeah but how do I do that? XD

[gentle urchin]

Well the typical ones are by some sort of interaction by some trace method, or letting one actor register to the other during beginplay,

There are also world iterators like getActorOfClass but I wouldnt recommend them generally

There's usually a better way to achieve it

The class in question could access the playercontroller (Get PlayerController) and provide itself as the new view target or camera

[dusky axle]

i made it in level bp right the way u told so

[gentle urchin]

The same way you would trigger the door animation upon interaction, just this time without the actual interaction part

[vivid inlet]

Yeah, that part I have coded out already just fine, it's the whole saving and loading that doesn't seem to work. I can't seem to figure out the right way to put the nodes in to implement the changed states. I think I need an array.

Doesn't seem to be any good tutorials out there and any I found don't work.

[gentle urchin]

If its just the door you dont need an array

[dusky axle]

is "set target view with blend" node still upo to date?

[gentle urchin]

Load game from slot -> cast to my savegameobject class -> get door state -> set door state

[vivid inlet]

Okay, I'll try it thank you. :)

[tight schooner]

my wild guess is removing the widget marks it for "destruction" and also removes it from the array, but you're in a better position to examine that. At least you've narrowed down the mystery a little

[gentle urchin]

Try it, but yes it is

[green temple]

So I have a C++ UClass Uobject that I inherit with a BP version, which I'm trying to use to Spawn an Actor, but I cant seem to find the node in its event graph that lets me do that

It just doesnt show up

Even if I try to use PlayerRef, (which is a pointer to a character) it cant find the node. It seems to lack the World context or something but I dont know how to solve that. Any help?

[iron bone]

advice on how to have a character ease out of an animation? Want to have a player character hold their gun up for a second after firing before putting it back down

[terse stream]

Hey folks! My dynamic navmesh starts rebuilding in a worse resolution if I increase the camera height, very similar to an LOD. I searched the web and went through the project settings and I have to have missed the settings, but I need it to keep "LOD0" all of the time. Can someone please help me?

[tight schooner]

it's pretty related to how you implemented the animation in the first place. I'm hardly an expert but I think that stuff is normally handled at the animBP level

If you're doing your animation directly with blueprint tick logic & timeline components then that's another story

#animation might be a better channel for the former?

[iron bone]

thank you! Yeah I'm sending a variable from character blueprints to the animation blueprints to let it know it's firing. Going to try a few more things and then post in the animation thread!

[open arrow]

is there a way to stop a sound wave , without using an audio component?

[still plume]

Hello. I don't know if is the correct session...
I have a scene with a 5 or 6 static mesh and 2 lighting, all the background is black and there isn't a skysphere. I have try tobuild and i reach the 80 fps with lowless to 40 fps. I try to check the profiler but is different to unity and i don't understood what's the problem
Any one can help me to find the problem?

[tawdry surge]

@green temple is the BP you're trying to spawn an object or an actor?
Cuz objects can't spawn

[woeful light]

Whats the difference between the red one and the blue one? The red one works

I assume the blue one is directly calling the interface?

[iron bone]

the red one is the custom event and the blue one is calling the event

[woeful light]

Ah so because its an interface, then there's nothing to call I get it now

[iron bone]

Blue one needs to be called with either a trigger or input event

[woeful light]

I was wondering why I wasnt receiveing any messages but realized I was using the blue one instead

Its set up to be called with a left mouse click to the object with that interface and function.

In controller:

So basically, blue to call, red to receive

[iron bone]

I'm not a pro but pretty sure lol

[woeful light]

Im going to be using C++ majority but learning BPs simply for the foundation

[tawdry surge]

Yes blue to call, red to receive

And its much faster to prototype in BP and then covert to c++ as an optimization step in the vast majority of cases

[woeful light]

does the BP automatically make C++ representations?

Like is there visible code that I can see from what Ive created?

[tawdry surge]

No, but anything in BP usually has a c++ version that is easier to find knowing the BP node for it

Nativization was dropped cuz it sucked

[pine trellis]

can someone help? I am getting an unknow structure on my blueprints but I dont see any errors in the blueprint how can I tell which stuck is unknwon

[tight schooner]

So there's a fat stutter in the middle of your graph. Sometimes the profiler will tell you what it is and sometimes it won't. What happens in your game at the moment of stutter? Is a new shader or particle system spawned/displayed in that frame?

idk a lot about profiling but based on your screenshot it doesn't seem to be GPU-side. Good luck figuring out what it is

(typing "stat raw" in the console will help you see the moment of stutter in realtime)

[tawdry surge]

@pine trellis looks like your selection platform is referencing a struct it doesn't recognize. Did you change the struct asset recently and not save it or something?

[green temple]

Trying to spawn an actor

Issue I'm having is that I cant even get the node to spawn actors inside of this Class (that is just an object)

[pine trellis]

@tawdry surge I might have been doing some struct editing not to long ago should I just disconnect each node until the error stops? or maybe delete my saved and intermidate folders?

well it looks like its just the base stats?

[tawdry surge]

@green temple objects can't spawn actors afaik

[still plume]

I find Pool Trhead7 and pool Trhead1 make an avg of 8 MS each now i try with stat raw

@tight schooner

[pine trellis]

@tawdry surge I dont understand if the blueprints complie and give no errors how can anyone find out which struct is bad?

[onyx violet]

does anyone know how to calculate a vertical and horizontal movement axis and turn it into a radial speed calculation so it's the same speed diagonally, I think it would be called normalizing a vector

i'm wanting to take a vertical and horizontal movement axis values -1 - 1 from axis events

I see there is a node for it, but how exactly does it work, do I need to get the vector from a rotation?

[tawdry surge]

@pine trellis I have never had this particular issue before, I was just reading your log. I know messing with them in BP after they're implemented can be touchy. I'd just delete and replace the ones in use on the graph currently and then if that doesn't work try remaking the struct itself

[eternal bough]

ya its not that... and I always name my local with LOCAL at the end to make sure its not colliding specifically with those.

they are for sure colliding with other local variables from other functions with same name

[woeful light]

Is there a reason the GameMode Override isn't working? It keeps using the GameMode from the title screen I made rather than the one I have set specifically for that level in World Settings.

The documentation says it should be working as appropriately

[tawdry surge]

How do you know it's not using the override gamemode?

[woeful light]

So, it is using it now that I fixed a logic, but the World Settings never updates on the side on level change. So it was probably me misinterpreting the editor display. Though that seems like an unfortunate thing to not be able to see the game mode change visually. I suspect I'll have to make a Debug logger for that.

Ah wait...there it is. In the Outliner.

Unreal has a lot of nuances Im going to have to get use to

[terse stream]

Hey sorry for pushing, but has anybody an idea about my problem with the navmesh?

[lyric thicket]

so I made a geo script BP to create some terrain, it works, but in the sequence it seems like after the third pin (out of four) it just stops executing

but I don't know why

the first step is I make a plane, like this

then I add some perlin noise

then I'm trying to overwrite it with another different compute mesh, I allocate it, add a rectangle and perlin noise just like before, but it just doesn't work

(this is a simplified example, earlier I was trying to do something else with the mesh but I simplified it and the issue was still there just to try and figure it out, and I can't)

Anyone know what's up with it?

hhh this makes so much more sense in C++ lol can I do this in C++ instead of nodes

[copper steppe]

Does it actually stop executing though, or does it only seem like it does? haha

[lyric thicket]

i don't know if it actually stops

there are only 4 pins

but the 4th pin is supposed to increase the texture scaling, and if I cut the third pin it does but if I don't cut the third pin it doesn't

I'm suspecting that this is an issue with references

it probably actually is increasing the texture resolution, just on the TerrainMesh which is no longer bound to the dynamic mesh object that's actually being shown, that's my guess

[copper steppe]

Well why not add a "Print" to the start of that execution, just as a sanity check.
I'd guess it might be a reference that might have become invalid though

[lyric thicket]

yeah

like this?

i mean, what I think is happening is: Rather than binding the output of the perlin noise in the third sequence to the Terrain Mesh by value, thus keeping the Reference valid (as I expected it would), it's binding the Terrain Mesh variable to a completely different value

In that case, how do I change the value of the reference inside of a BP var instead of changing the reference to a different object? I basically want to copy the value into the Terrain Mesh

aah I should just do this in C++ lmao

[copper steppe]

You mean casting? or haha

[lyric thicket]

sorta idk

[vivid inlet]

For when a character speaks I'm using 'Play Sound At Location' - GetActorLocation. However, I find that if the character is running it plays the sound at where they were at when it triggered.

Is there a way to get the audio to constantly stay with the character?

[terse stream]

@vivid inlet Use an Audio Component on your character and play the sound through it.

[vivid inlet]

ah, thank you. :)

[shadow field]

how would one trigger an overlap only after the character player has stopped moving?

[terse stream]

Do a boolean check on tick. Unless you're able to catch something like the button release of the player.

@shadow field

[shadow field]

so make a boolean and attach it to the characters velocity or something because i assume you would have to figure out if the character is moving staying in the first place to use a bool?

[terse stream]

Exactly, you can use this boolean for example

[shadow field]

yeah i tried that one and it never fired

[terse stream]

It's not an event, just a variable that you need to observe every tick

[shadow field]

oh every tick

got it

[terse stream]

yes but that's why it's bad for the performance

a better way would be to find out if the player is not pressing any "movement buttons"

[shadow field]

well is ai based

[tawdry surge]

Or just check if velocity is 0 on the overlap since that's when you care

[shadow field]

so no buttons pressed to move character

[woeful light]

Getting through these BP tutorials, Im going to be happy going to C++. All the bak and forth between objects is a bit unituitive

I know its suppose to mimic abstract calls between objects but lines of code would be far more readable for me

[true valve]

What's the math to calculate something like this: I want to select a value from 180 to 90 as I increase my speed from 0 to 1000.

[terse stream]

@true valve Do you want to go smoothly from 180 to 90?

[zealous moth]

What are some good mobile games action game plays? I can see mech arena as one where you move and shoot. Any others?

[iron bone]

not sure if I should post this here or in Animations but has anyone ever had these weird tails added to the ends of bones? I've had a lot of issues with aim offsets and just realized that my characters skeleton looks weird

second photo is how it is supposed to look

[terse stream]

That usually happens if you import and export a lot between Blender and Unreal, because by default Blender has an "Add Leaf Bones" option checked during the export

@iron bone

[iron bone]

I see

So should I try to re import again without leaf bone?

[terse stream]

you will have to remove all bones that you don't need/want and then export without leaf bones

it all depends on what you want to achieve

[iron bone]

Also do you think these leaf bones would affect things like aim offset?

[terse stream]

hard to say because idk how your aim offset and character look like. Usually, the animation does not worry too much about additional/unused bones, but it can be a reason

[iron bone]

thanks so much for your help!

[terse stream]

Sure!

[onyx violet]

does anyone know how to calculate a vertical and horizontal movement axis and turn it into a radial speed calculation so it's the same speed diagonally, I think it would be called normalizing a vector. i'm wanting to take a vertical and horizontal movement axis values that range from -1 to 1 from axis events. I see there is a node for it, but how exactly does it work, do I need to get the vector from a rotation?

[terse stream]

If you're using a character movement component, you can simply use the "Add Input Vector" Node. It will make sure not to increase the speed above max speed.

@onyx violet

[onyx violet]

there's something more specific i'm doing

not simple to explain fast really

so my game is a soccer game

and I'm adding a mechanic where when the player touches the ball, it slows him down for a short time

I was doing this by just taking a float variable and changing it's value from 1.0 to 0.9 for 0.2 seconds then resetting to 1.0

then when the event for movement is called just multiply by that

the problem is if people are going diagonal it doesn't slow them down at all

because the combination of horizontal+vertical axis inputs is still >= 1

so I wanted to figure out the math for normalizing the direction vector

also could use this for a few other things as well

[terse stream]

I'm not sure whether I understood you correctly, but if you just want a vector of lenght 1 you can use the "Normalize" node. You can also always Clamp a vector's size if needed.

[onyx violet]

i'm not sure if that's what I need exactly

the issue is the float value

[terse stream]

Okay then let's do it this way: What type of variables are you dealing with? I assumed you have two floats (range: -1 to 1) for X and Y movement axis

[onyx violet]

yep

[tawdry surge]

Why are you not just using the settings on the character movement component

[onyx violet]

what do you mean MW?

what settings spefically

[tawdry surge]

Your player character is a character right?

[onyx violet]

yes

did you read above what i'm trying to do?

[terse stream]

then you can scale max speed

[tawdry surge]

Ok so the character movement component handles all of that for you

[onyx violet]

I tried that, the thing is with high ping

it ends up desyncing sometimes

if the player for example

starts sprinting right after he touches the ball

which slows him down

then it's basically changing the max speed a lot and getting desynced sometimes

on low ping not that bad

on high ping really bad

but also shouldn't be like that even on low ping

not that bad like i said but can still happen

[terse stream]

How are you changing the max speed? And for what else do you use it?

[onyx violet]

I use input actions to set the max movement speed on the player controller then calls to character and sets it on that

i was thinking I could make a system where it 1st sets the speed on character

then callsback to player controller after and sets it there

i think it would help with being synced up but also sort of could be annoying for high ping players

since they have to wait for the callback from server to actually start sprinting

[tawdry surge]

Why is the controller involved. All the capsule movement is run by the cmc.
If you're not working with it, you're gonna have a time trying to fight it

[onyx violet]

what do you mean why is the controller involved, that's where the input comes from

if you don't set it on both server and client it desyncs

and makes really stuttery movement

[tawdry surge]

Yeah.. the controller takes in input. It doesn't care about the speed of the character.
If you wanna save it somewhere other then the player then player state is a better place to hold things you wanna replicate.
However the only place the the speed is actually applied should be the cmc on the character

You still need to set it on server and client tho

[terse stream]

Yup

[onyx violet]

yeah i'm not sure how this is supposed to help me, did you read what I wrote above

about what i'm specifically trying to do

[onyx violet]

I am only applying the speed to the cmc, just doing it on the character/server and controller/client

[terse stream]

I believe that your issue is composed of multiple things. There's a chain of events/actions that need to happen in a specific way for you to reliably change the Max Speed of your cmc, because that is one good way of controlling the speed of your character. To make it reliable though, you need to make sure that all of the variables of the cmc are set in the correct place (which is almost always your player character blueprint). This is also the only place where you replicate the speed. If you do this correctly, you won't have any stuttering.

[tawdry surge]

If you're setting the max speed on the cmc then it's already normalizing your inputs and calculating velocity for you based on acceleration, friction, max speed, and a few other things

[onyx violet]

so you're saying I don't need to set it on the player controller then?

[terse stream]

Yes 🙂

[onyx violet]

hmm, i remember having issues when I didn't

but I guess I'll try it again

should the character event for changing speed be run on server? or not replicated

[terse stream]

The player controller is a class that is mostly for forwarding the inputs of the player's input device to other classes. Like a bridge between the mouse/keyboard and the character.

[onyx violet]

yeah

[tawdry surge]

Run it on client, call an rpc and run it on server

You could try multicast or rep notify too

[terse stream]

I'd recommend running it on server first, then replicating it to all clients via a multicast, but that will lead to a worse experience for players with high ping, because they'll have to wait until the server replied to make them change their speed. But it will avoid stuttering.

I'm not a networking pro though.

[onyx violet]

ye

ok but let's say I did want to go with the other option

which is the normalize vector for the 2 axises

would you guys have any idea how that would work?

[terse stream]

I'm not so sure about your current setup, but normalizing a vector means "making a vector of length 1 with the provided direction"

What I think you want is something like this

ah wait

I think I might've gotten the wrong node

but basically this

you can leave Z at 0

[onyx violet]

so would I have to make my 2 different movement events into 1 then?

[terse stream]

What do you mean by 2 different movement events? Your input axes?

Could you send a screenshot of your setup?

I think I'm misunderstanding

[onyx violet]

yeah, because before I would do it with 2 events, with this it looks like both horizontal and vertical will have to be calculated at the same time

well I guess I could still use 2 events

[terse stream]

You definitely have to handle both at the same time. Otherwise the X does not know when it is going diagonally and have to slow down more

Also it simplifies your code and is more performant

[onyx violet]

hmm ok I will give this a try thanks

[terse stream]

Sure, let me know how it goes 👍

Btw if anybody can help me with NavMeshes I'll be happy to receive some tips with an issue of mine

[faint pasture]

Animbp should have zero to do with RPCs

AnimBP observes the state of the actor and drives animation with it

[spark steppe]

LogOutputDevice: Error: Class named NPC_Component_C creating its CDO while changing its layout
anyone had something like this happen before?

[sand gazelle]

Ahh so replication on animBPs doesn't work?

[spark steppe]

i'm kind of lost of how to fix it, i had it fixed yesterday by accident (had this issue on all my actor components, fixed one and it was gone for all...)

now it's back

[faint pasture]

Replication on animbp isn't a thing