blueprint

[dim tapir]

Knight in shining armour ❤️

[brittle osprey]

how?

[lime fulcrum]

Instead of Actor, select PAwn

https://i.imgur.com/dWvBLeq.png

See the "Pawn" one

[brittle osprey]

OH

so would the code that reposes be on the character bp or the button bp?

[lime fulcrum]

Keep in mind that if you make an Actor class then a child of that actor class would be a bit more complicated to reparent if you depend on the parent functions and events

The button should tell the player controller to posess the new pawn

then the new pawn might have a code where a certain key re-posses the original player , like the ESC key or something

[brittle osprey]

just to clarify, im not actually casting right?

[lime fulcrum]

casting what?

exactly

you only do it if you have like an object referencer of the class ACTOR but you need the function of the child class like your custom actor BP

[brittle osprey]

ok i kinda understand that. so what node tells one bp to do something else? im only really (slightly) familiar with casting

[lime fulcrum]

what ya mean something else? Like a function or event within that BP?

[queen sphinx]

someone explained to me was to think of casting as “treat as”.

[lime fulcrum]

Yeah... that can work as simple to understand explanation. 🙂

[maiden wadi]

Casting is an incredibly simple idea, but to fully understand it would require a semi indepth understanding of memory management at a low level. "Treat As" is probably the best easy way to follow.

[brittle osprey]

let me explain my logic or how im thinking of this: after the button is set up and recieves input (in this case the "E" key) it activates the button. Then, nothing. So what tells the button to talk to the player bp? does it just do it automagically? do i then put the "possess the pawn" on the player controller after?

[icy dragon]

I coined that explanation hehe

[lime fulcrum]

😄

For me CAST AS simple means "I know all your secrets" and I threat you to do what I ask or else

[brittle osprey]

an uderlying question i have is a rather simple one: WHERE do i put code that talks to other code? even college didnt answer that question....

[lime fulcrum]

You don't "PUT" code

I'd suggest to implement interfaces

[brittle osprey]

heres the code i have for the button itself

[lime fulcrum]

@brittle osprey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_hLUkm7v44&ab_channel=MathewWadstein

[icy dragon]

I'm having hard time picturing the mechanism you wrote, but sounds like something interface/event dispatcher could do

[maiden wadi]

Please don't overuse interfaces either. It's not wise or helpful.

[lime fulcrum]

The cool part of interfaces is that an interface sends a message to any object.... IF that object has that interface implemented, it can then execute the event associated with that message and you can pass variables

[icy dragon]

Ultimately the goal is to make the code functional and easy to manage.

I'm sure someone will disagree on that.

[lime fulcrum]

Honestly I've been using interfaces all the time with zero issues

Of course, I'm not abusing them

[queen sphinx]

@icy dragon What you mean easy to manage?

[lime fulcrum]

https://tenor.com/view/oh-my-god-jake-gyllenhaal-saturday-night-live-omg-jesus-christ-gif-25522129

[icy dragon]

Ha, stealing from BP from Hell tumblr again?

[queen sphinx]

so not mine, I start making things into functions and macros

[lime fulcrum]

My complex BP look like this.... Functions, Events and a few macro

[icy dragon]

The times I use interfaces are for stuff like HUD events, passing information from actor BP to anim BP (as I want it to be applicable to NPCs)

[sacred canyon]

does anyone know how to do a simple click and drag camera, for moving on x and z? I kinda did it but just missing something

it resets every time I click, but can be dragged around in one spot

for some reason I can hardly find a thing about this online

bet Id have more luck looking for a unity tutorial for this, if I could understand any of it

[dim tapir]

I have an ability where I want to build stacks (bleed) on the enemy hit. I thought I was done but then I realized it builds stacks on my character instead of the different targets. Any idea how to track stacks on individual characters instead?

[queen sphinx]

@sacred canyon not sure on this one, are you trying to make like a map that can be drag around on the screen?

[sacred canyon]

my game just has a side view camera like a 2d game but its 3d

[gentle urchin]

shouldnt you be saving mouse position?

[desert juniper]

I'll just need to frame this and take a look at it whenever i feel bad about my code

[queen sphinx]

might be because when you reclick it rests the values. When you need something that got the new value.

[sacred canyon]

yeah I just dont quite know what Im missing

[queen sphinx]

Do you re set the values of the object after moving the location?

[sacred canyon]

wait hang on Im gonna try something else, maybe I could switch between controlling the cursor and directly moving the camera instead of it
nope

[gentle urchin]

whenever button is held, record and add mouse delta

[sacred canyon]

wdym

[gentle urchin]

LMB down -> set Bool true

Mouse Axis -> Branch (Bool) > true > Get Camera -> Add Relative Location

[sacred canyon]

yeah thats what I did

[gentle urchin]

works like a charm

[queen sphinx]

What is the number adding too? did you call an x,z cordinate in the blue print?

before the click and drag function

[sacred canyon]

https://gyazo.com/93ae3a306ee4dc01a5d95fe7d4bd954d

[gentle urchin]

results in this

[sacred canyon]

isnt mine basically the same thing?

[gentle urchin]

Not really

[sacred canyon]

then whats different I dont get it

[gentle urchin]

Look at the nodes and you'll see a difference 😛

My setup assumes the camera is the players pawn

otherwise you'd need to remote access the camera via reference : P

Im purely adding the mouse delta to the actors relative location ,

while you're doing some weird setting cursor location, then if held, adding the location *-0.5 to the relative loc

No clue how that works in the first place. It shouldnt, really.

[sacred canyon]

nah that was just to slow it down a bit

but thanks your way worked its just my head is hurting trying to do these things in this heat

[gentle urchin]

You might wanna clamp the values at some point to avoid player moving out of bounds

[queen sphinx]

Oh that is a good idea...

[sacred canyon]

would also be nice if the cursor would stay fixed to the world location, kinda did it here by disabling the cursor component movement script but the real player cursor still moves of course https://gyazo.com/1b5462863d0479b476c1115a517995b2

not a problem though, just a preference

[gentle urchin]

Not sure what you mean

do you want it to stay on the initial click location?

Yours seem to be jumping whenever you let go

[acoustic lava]

Wtf

I think some people need to learn how to use functions

Ect

[gentle urchin]

learn to stay organized at all

[sacred canyon]

yes, and as you can see in your video the cursor slides away from where it was in the world, I fixed that but that caused the resetting

[gentle urchin]

embrace the functions

[gentle urchin]

it slides due to mismatch in speed

[sacred canyon]

yeah, Id like to fix that but I guess its fine if not

[gentle urchin]

dragspeed at about 50 makes it more or less gone

depends how nitty picky you wanna be 😛

[queen sphinx]

@acoustic lava When i started learning unreal there was discussion thread about if blueprint would replace C++ and they had that as an example of how Blueprints can start looking complicated. But as we all know, that is if you but no effort in cleaning them up.

[gentle urchin]

like, it's not perfect, but this was also a 0 effort thing 😛

[sacred canyon]

yeah I got it pretty much accurate by changing the speed

[gentle urchin]

you can also see that the pawn and mouse moves on different frames

cursor is ahead of the actor moving

this can be mitigated by moving the actor to post physics update

instead of pre

[sacred canyon]

Im kinda having a problem at the moment with some ui stuff though, with a large amount of buttons that all need to do something, it seems theres no real way to clean that up without custom scripts or something, its really annoying, like lets say on click button1 -> set button1 colour to something, theres no global "button pressed" node so you have to do it for every single one individually (even if they go to the same event I mean)

[gentle urchin]

Huh

there are tons of ways

[sacred canyon]

Im using a sphere component for the cursor currently so it doesnt seem noticeable

yeah I know there are these crazy mad scientist solutions to this but none of it seems feasible or just more work than it currently is anyway

[gentle urchin]

How about bindings?

wouldnt that work for you ?

[acoustic lava]

Yeah, lol, I mean eventually BP could feasibly replace C++, but thats along way away

[queen sphinx]

agreed, but for a dyslexic like me, bluePrints are the key

[sacred canyon]

this is for a customisation system, what I wanted to do was make an array of meshes, and then the button name would have a number to pick the array index, but this still needs the individual button clicks anyway

[worn gyro]

If I have an actor class like Lootable, and it has multiple different child classes, is there a way I can randomly spawn Lootable without having to make an array and doing some random int.. like if my Lootables are ever expanding, I don't want to have to keep going into this list and adding more items to this array I just want it to find a random child of this class before spawning

[gentle urchin]

given a bunch of meshes you could procedurally create and setup button mappings for this

custom widgets procedurally made, bound to the very same function

doesnt matter if its 1 or 100 hats

the code remains the same

If you wanted to have some border indicate which hat is currently selected you could also provide a reference to the button widget

[dense thicket]

Anyone knows why i cant Teleport my char?
It just prints out "hello" and does nothing else

[gentle urchin]

You're trying to teleport the controller

You probably want getPlayerPawn instead

[dense thicket]

oh...

lemme try haha

Ah... you beautiful human being.. you were right haha.. thanks a bunch 😄

[sacred canyon]

well I cant rely on generating the actual buttons since I have to do it all so specifically thanks to the damn ui editor

each button has an image for its mesh, and theyre all in a scroll box which makes it extremely awkward to edit the layout of them

[gentle urchin]

How so?

Just add them as children to the scrollbox

Icons can also be inputs to the button widgets,

Id theres more you may even want to make a db for it

And pass the entire row in :p

Mesh, icon, text, value idk

[sacred canyon]

look Im not like, a genius with these things

some things I can manage myself some things my brain will just say no

[gentle urchin]

Alright no worries

[sacred canyon]

its kinda what I meant by like more work than it currently is anyway, true itd make things more convenient for adding more but yeah

thanks for the advice anyway

[gentle urchin]

It all depends on the amount really

Procedural setups has a higher cost right now, but gets cheaper for each extra mesh added

Wouldnt bother for 5 meshes

[sacred canyon]

yeah thats another thing, I doubt Ill need hundreds

[queen sphinx]

I appreciate the advise, even though i am not directly benefitting from it now.

[mild shadow]

I'm running into an issue with Widgets, where the variables I'm passing in to my Create Widget blueprint are not being propagated to the actual widget being made. Anybody know if this is a known bug for UE5, or just a weird widget issue?

Parent Widget:

Child Widget:

The variables being passed in to the child widget that are 'Exposed on Spawn' are 'None'. Despite them very much NOT being none in the parent widget.

Is this maybe due to the order that Widgets are initialized in?

Also, if this should be moved to #umg let me know, I figured a code error was better suited for this channel.

I have the exact same setup in a different location, where instead of having 5 widgets as variables, I'm adding dozens of child variables to a ListView. It works perfectly fine there. 😓

[dawn gazelle]

So you're getting a print string that says "Valid" then getting "Item Not Valid"?

[mild shadow]

Yep

So after it's printed 'Valid', showing that the object is valid in the parent, it is then NOT valid in the child widget.

Which is.. very frustrating

Actually, based on the logs, it's saying "Item not Valid" before it even validates the data in the parent widget?

LogBlueprintUserMessages: [Item_Sword_C_UAID_7085C2A6E2DBF82301_1313007767] Server: Attempted to Equip Item
LogBlueprintUserMessages: [Head] Server: Item not Valid
LogBlueprintUserMessages: [Torso] Server: Item not Valid
LogBlueprintUserMessages: [Legs] Server: Item not Valid
LogBlueprintUserMessages: [LeftHand] Server: Item not Valid
LogBlueprintUserMessages: [RightHand] Server: Item not Valid
LogBlueprintUserMessages: [EquipmentWindow_C_0] Server: Found  in Equipment Map
LogBlueprintUserMessages: [EquipmentWindow_C_0] Server: Found  in Equipment Map
LogBlueprintUserMessages: [EquipmentWindow_C_0] Server: Found  in Equipment Map
LogBlueprintUserMessages: [EquipmentWindow_C_0] Server: Found  in Equipment Map
LogBlueprintUserMessages: [EquipmentWindow_C_0] Server: Found Item_Sword in Equipment Map
LogBlueprintUserMessages: [EquipmentWindow_C_0] Server: Valid```

But either way, it's not displaying the proper child widget. It's showing one without any thumbnail.

[dry condor]

what is "equpment component" pin ?

[mild shadow]

A piece of dummy data I was using for testing, it doesn't do anything/isn't necessary.

[dry condor]

ahh ok

[mild shadow]

So, I guess based on the logs, the issue is more accurately:
Why is my widget creating/displaying the parent before actually creating and assigning the children widgets(?)

[dry condor]

because you create the parent first

i guess

[mild shadow]

Am I forced to create the child widgets and then pass them into the parent widget, for everything to be handled properly?

[queen sphinx]

What are you trying to achieve ?

[faint pasture]

That seems to make sense

Parent is what spawns child so parent is first

[mild shadow]

That makes some sense, but the logs "Item not Valid" mean that it's running the constructor for the children, before finishing running the constructor for the parent(?) I think

Since it's creating the children with no variables being passed in

[faint pasture]

Ya that's weird

[mild shadow]

this just feels very wack

[faint pasture]

Have you tried the other init events?

pre init or whatever

[mild shadow]

I've tried the pre construct for both, and it's the same thing

[faint pasture]

Have you tried save Item to a var?

Is Item never valid in child or just invalid at construct?

[mild shadow]

trying that now, 1 sec

same issue if I promote it to a var before passing it in

[mild shadow]

As far as I can tell, never valid. Any ways to check its' state while running the game?

[dry condor]

just bind it to a random key

[faint pasture]

Print it on tick or whatever passes for tick in widgets

[mild shadow]

Bound it to a key, and it's 'None' during the game too.

Ah, getting runtime errors now too, from printing it: Blueprint Runtime Error: "Accessed None reading structure Name_4_6952C8D840CFC06EEAD31ABE864CDDF5". Node: Print String Graph: EventGraph Function: Execute Ubergraph Equipment Slot Blueprint: EquipmentSlot

So, it's definitely None after the Widget has finished initializing.

I'm probably breaking a Widget rule somewhere here

[queen sphinx]

what is your end goal with the widget? Might be a work around.

[mild shadow]

The widget is just a window that displays the thumbnails associated with objects in a map

[leaden niche]

is there anyway to "filter" out particular actors from a camera? I just want to hide the player/s if someone is in a cutscene. I want anyone else outside the cutscene to be able to see all the character though so i can't just set the actor to hidden.

[mild shadow]

I made a 'Window' Widget, that contains multiple 'Slot' widgets. Where each 'Slot' widget is a simple thumbnail.
the 'Window' Widget (Parent) has multiple 'Slot' widgets, and creates them during the On Construct event.

It (Parent) passes the 'Slot' widgets the right thumbnail to use.

I guess I could just remove the 'Slot' widgets, and have all of it in one window?

But, that feels less reusable.

[faint pasture]

What happens if you send a primitive like Int?

or the key from that map

Are you ever adding the widget to something visible?

[mild shadow]

Yea, the widget is appearing on the HUD properly, it just doesn't have the thumbnails.

It's using the 'Slot' widgets with a default value

[faint pasture]

When do the child widgets get added to their container?

Just cuz I'm seeing this
https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/create-widget-bug-construct-not-working-if-not-added-to-viewport/358731/8

[mild shadow]

The parent Widget is set up like so:

Wait...

Alright, cool, it's setting the slots properly in the Parent Widget.

[faint pasture]

Are you not adding them to slots at runtime?

[mild shadow]

If I set the slot to be a newly created slot widget, I can access the items from it properly(?)

[mild shadow]

Is this different from the construct event?

If so, that would explain the issue 😓

[faint pasture]

Are you sure it doesn't just do that anyway without you spawning the 5 on construct?

you might have 5 widgets that exist on the screen with default values, and be building another 5 that you never add to any visible container

[mild shadow]

That's very likely

I have each of those 5 widgets in the parent set as variables, and I overwrite them with the newly created slots

my understanding is that, since that is happening in the Event Construct, it would then display the newly created ones

but maybe not

[faint pasture]

ya i think you're constructing 5 with defaults and creating but NOT constructing another 5 with custom variables. I'd expect you have to add to slot or whatever after construction

[mild shadow]

Hm, how would I even do that with a Canvas/Anchored positions? Any ideas?

[faint pasture]

ooh I dunno

[mild shadow]

Doing that with a ListView worked fine, for my widget that needs to expand/change dynamically.

But this needs to have them is set positions

[faint pasture]

maybe anchored SIzeBox?

[mild shadow]

[faint pasture]

I'm really not sure

You anchor something, but you create the widget then add it to the something

Try that

[mild shadow]

👍

wrong thumb

ty, will try

[faint pasture]

Although if you already have the 5, why not just pass them the values?

is it always 5?

[mild shadow]

Yea, always

[faint pasture]

I think you can just feed them the textures

[mild shadow]

Ah, so instead of creating the widget and replacing it, I can modify the ones made automagically

Aight

[faint pasture]

Might have to consider PreConstruct vs Construct but that should work

[mild shadow]

that makes sense

[queen sphinx]

Wondering, would it be kind of like ammo being tracked on a gun? The gun holds the ammo count, and it updates the widget on which one you have equiped?

[mild shadow]

Yea, exactly like that.

It's an Equipment UI, that tracks the gear 'equipped' by a player.

[dry condor]

yeah you can manipulate it all you want before you add it to the viewport

or render target or w/e

[queen sphinx]

Will the equipment be in different slots? or will slot 1 always be helmet and so on?

[mild shadow]

The latter, equipment will be assigned specific slots

That got it working 👍 thanks!

Good to know that this stuff is bottom up

[queen sphinx]

might want to post this question in Multiplayer .

[faint pasture]

What was it?

[mild shadow]

This!

Instead of creating new widgets in the constructor of the parent, I simply modified the ones that it made automatically.

[opal pulsar]

Hello, is there a way to know if the player's rotation has changed since the last frame without storing it inside of a variable?

[tawdry surge]

Get last update rotation

[willow island]

What's the difference between normal render target and array? Do they stack?

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/BlueprintAPI/Rendering/CreateRenderTarget2DArray/

[junior hedge]

keybind prints value perfectly but tick prints 0

[lapis fog]

Hey!

Unique ID's... Im trying to get a unique ID (that is stored permanentely) for every other device, being it every Oculus Quest in which my project is installed.. (The idea is to send this unique id to our server and use it to store this information, so that we register a specific id to a specific client/oculus/project)

I found this setup online
the green nodes with the "left, mid and tight/ append) are not important..
But i would like to know how to make that new guid only work and give a id once... and store that number somewhere "forever" - may sound simple.. but I can't see any obvious way for it

I can't rly find anything that's "easy-to-read".. since I'm a complete noob in programming ...

So if you know of a way to make this work.. It would be lovely if you could explain it as if I was 5 years old ahahaha

Thanks!

[cyan bone]

@faint pasture You showed me this technique yesterday to make all lerps on one function.
Im doing now something inspired on your technique.
But i have a different actor just for this.
I called it Global_Movement_Manager.
Is this good, or not?

[dawn totem]

Ok so question about Data Tables vs Variables. We have an Inventory Variable utilizing an inventory struct that not only references the data table but also gets populated with the same data in the data table into the variable for quicker access.
My question is, is it better to do it the way we are doing by keeping both the reference to the data table and copying the data from the data table into the nested struct holding the item data. Or should be just be querying the data tables to get the data that we need from the data table row each time?

[faint pasture]

The end result will be something like a subsystem or network manager actor but yeah that's how I'd do it.

[cyan bone]

thank you. Should i spawn 1 Global_Movement_Manager per player in case its multi ?

[faint pasture]

Although a manager per squad might make sense as the squad is the unit of LOD and relevency etc.

[cyan bone]

Yeah i thought about that. But from my logic, 1 actor that manages all squad's units movements is more performant?

though the movement of the squad is local to the squad blueprint

one thing is the squad movement, another is the soldier movement

[dawn totem]

A little bit more of a reference of what I am talking about

[cyan bone]

Wait i didnt understand. LOD? What has LOD to do with movement?

[faint pasture]

I mean you wanna LOD your squad as a unit, and presumably do relevency on it, so it might make sense to have the logic live at the squad level too.

[cyan bone]

ok, but the Global_Movement_Manager was going to be awesome

with structs

so i have 2 structs of movement, the struct of movement, and the struct of passer of movements from squads. And at the end of each movement. I check if the passer as something, if it has i will check if its containing in the CurMovement, if not i pass the new movement order to it. And delete it from the passer.

[faint pasture]

Yeah I like global movement you just need to be careful about relevency etc.

[cyan bone]

need to study it first

i never heard it

okay i see now. its like replication

[cyan bone]

maybe i should go first with the local manager because of this.

yup i go with local manager

oh, i could also do it like. whenever i move the soldiers, i spawn an actor that moves the soldiers. then after soldiers moved, destroy actor.

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius

[faint pasture]

Ew no lol

[cyan bone]

lmao why not? its like its cheaper even? Its spawned to move. Then its destroyed, so better?

No need to have an actor for all units only when they move

move soldiers in formation or attack or reform. thats all.

the other movements like squad movement dont need lerp

well there is a little effect just at the start

else if im gonna do an actor for each squad that permanently deals with the movements. Then at that point its best to just do it inside the squad a timeline.

[faint pasture]

Spawning isn't free and neither is splitting your movement logic up over an arbitrary amount of throwaway actors. Either update each squad internally in tick or do it globally.

That's like spawning an actor to jump, makes zero sense.

Tick -> update all soldiers in this squad
Or
Tick -> update all soldiers in the world

[cyan bone]

ok got it

thank you

but like if you think about it

you have 100 squads

if you select 1 squad and move it. The others are not moving.

They are moving as squads.

Which doesnt need the lerp

So you will have moments where nothing is moving actually. Or its mostly only the squads you have selected and just temporarily.

The soldiers moving is just an animation effect.

[junior hedge]

why does this not work?

i want text to update but stays at 0

if I print string at event tick it prints 0

but keybind works fine

[cyan bone]

https://streamable.com/zn6idg
For example, you see here. There is just an effect im lerping my units inside the squad relatively a bit to the back and a bit to the sides, so to give the illusion of natural moving. But thats just at the start. All the rest is just squad single movement.

[bold shard]

I am trying to set a UI element to be in the middle of my screen, but it keeps being ~25% away from the right edge. I get the viewport size, multiply it by a param I have set to 0.5, and user the result to set the X position.

[desert juniper]

why not just set the anchor to the middle ?

you don't need to do any math

[bold shard]

I think the math is correct, so I assume I failing to take into account some kind of scaling or viewport to screen thing.

Because I want to be able to have it appear in different locations.

[queen sphinx]

@junior hedge Is this for a HUD?

[junior hedge]

widget bp

[trim matrix]

is there any way I can get a specific player pawn in game that is spawned from a player start?

[queen sphinx]

@junior hedge

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=unreal+engine+score+system&docid=608020013478459486&mid=11FF7E06DA60D1FA771D11FF7E06DA60D1FA771D&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

[junior hedge]

this is quite lazy you think?

[queen sphinx]

well yes and no.
Because this is what I am currently using.
and this involves adding the score count to the Player BluePrint as a Variable

then to added to my HUD it involves binding the score to the hud using a function.

[junior hedge]

the variable isnt being casted to the ui bp though

its directly implemented in it

[runic parrot]

Does anyone know if there's a pure node to get "Array index" only if index is valid? i hate to keep doing the check

[trim matrix]

I have something similar

it takes the score from the current game and adds it to the hud

but I don't bind it because I heard binding is a bad way of doing it

well, not hud just score UI

[junior hedge]

its a bug anyways

i just launched the project and its completely broken lol

[junior hedge]

also you are getting all actors every frame

[ocean meadow]

Hi! does anyone know how to fix an inventory issue where I place one item over the other and it overlaps it?
Thanks!

this is my lovely slot swap function that I made that Datura showed me! (I made a minor adjustment to fix up an item duplication bug)

[queen sphinx]

it triggers the score when there is an update. Since what I am currently working on: Only needs to update when I kill something.

[junior hedge]

how do you call variables into functions?

[junior hedge]

this is a bind, bind happens every tick

[ocean meadow]

You make it localized I think?

I'm sorry for not knowing T_T

[junior hedge]

are target slot and target slot local?

[ocean meadow]

You mean target and source? yes in this function

[junior hedge]

so they cant be used out of it

that doesnt make sense then how do they have values when you arent setting them

[ocean meadow]

I called this function into my On Drop function in inventory Slot, is that a problem with it?

[junior hedge]

My Geometry, Pointer Event, Operation

how are you importing them into the function like that

[queen sphinx]

did not know that fired every tick.

[ocean meadow]

I only use Operation instead of "My Geometry, and Pointer Event" Since the gentleman I learned from on this tutorial didn't use them.

[junior hedge]

not answering my question

how did you import operation into the function like that

like in your begin node theres variables that you can drag

[ocean meadow]

Please give me a moment 😅

[junior hedge]

nvm its inputs

[ocean meadow]

I created a draganddrop operation blueprint

[junior hedge]

i already found the answer, you need to input the variables in details

[ocean meadow]

So for the on drop function right?

Please elaborate, I'm sorry if this is troublesome T_T

[ocean meadow]

Yes I did that previously as the two inputs for the Slot Swap function, is there anything else?

[runic parrot]

Does anyone know why my movement animation is not working when i use "Simple move to location" but it works when i use "Add movement input"?

[sharp rapids]

I'm trying to create a top down camera like a strategy game, and I'm trying to detect when the mouse position is at the edge of the screen to move the camera, but I'm not sure what's the right way to detect mouse position?
I thought about 'Get Mouse Position in Viewport' / 'Get Viewport Size'
But 'Get Viewport Size' is a cosmetic node so i'm hesitant to use it in gameplay
Is there some other way?

[runic parrot]

Your mouse position on the viewport is cosmetic, what is the problem?

that method should work fine, not sure if there's somep roblem that may arise with that later

[gentle urchin]

It doesnt

Unless you provided two ss and i missed the bind part 😄

[sharp rapids]

I thought this was a Gameplay related thing
I'm using the mouse position to move the camera, it's not widget related
It needs to be sensitive and accurate all the time and the engine tells not to use Cosmetic events for gameplay purposes

[gentle urchin]

Pretty sure thats where i ended aswell

Or did i actually make widget borders... gotta check

[sharp rapids]

I tried using it, but it seems to give different values during fullscreen and windowed mode?

[gentle urchin]

opening

[sharp rapids]

Actually, I found it
'Get Mouse Position' From 'Get Player Controller' / 'Viewport Size' works perfectly
Idk why 'Mouse Position Platform' gives different values 🤷‍♂️

[gentle urchin]

that might be it

compiling shaders is slow today

[sharp rapids]

When is it ever not slow?

[gentle urchin]

true

never!

ugh

[runic parrot]

Anyone any idea? D:
it's a default actor inheriting from "character"

[gentle urchin]

what does your animation react to?

velocity ?

if so, check that velocity changes during simple move to

[runic parrot]

it's the default movement component, i think it works on velocity.
Velocity changes both on "Simple move to" and "add movement input"

[sharp rapids]

https://tenor.com/view/unreall-gif-15193874

[gentle urchin]

animation happens in the animBP

Turns out

i ditched the project that had edge scrolling

ugh

well , you got it working!

[runic parrot]

What should i be checking in there? it seems like the same setup of "Third person blueprint" without changes, but on that one movement anim works

[gentle urchin]

Is this a different char?

Make sure it uses a valid AnimBP

[runic parrot]

The weird thing is that it animates okey if i use "add movement input"

but both change velocity okey

i just replaced the pawn for the "top down character" on the default pack and it animates okey, i'm gonna check for difs

[gentle urchin]

Thats odd, i agree

Surely we're missing something

[runic parrot]

"use acceleration for path" was disabled, that was it

ty for the help

[junior hedge]

He showed a bind at first

Get text bind

He was getting all actors of class in it

[gentle urchin]

Ah.

[junior hedge]

Also is this just a bug?

Because I restated the project and now it's just completely busted now lol

Actors didn't spawn, casts don't work now

This was just a test so I'm not really worried if it was corrupted or something

[gentle urchin]

Well i cant see the variable being updated anywhere

Sounds like you've forgotten to save the new gamemode changes or smth?

[gentle urchin]

Casts not working and actors not spawning suggest wrong gamemode / classes

[junior hedge]

Maybe it got corrupted?

[queen sequoia]

hello, I have a qeustion, I implemented ALS Community on Ue5, and Im Trying to re add all my states that I had on my previous Anim bp, Problem is I cant fins where your supposed to add new states, does anyone know where its located, Thank You

[gentle urchin]

Overlay states

?

[gentle urchin]

I wouldnt go there first but sure

[rapid crescent]

I'm surprised I couldn't Google a good answer to this... I'm looking for a way to determine whether there is an active and working Internet connection. I don't see many answers about how to check this(HasActiveWifiConnection does not guarantee that the wifi is actually connected to the Internet). Does anybody have suggestions how to check Internet connection? (Both for PC and Mobile)

[gentle urchin]

Try to reach a known reliable host

[junior hedge]

Good idea

[gentle urchin]

Success = internet
Failure = no internett

[junior hedge]

Google.com

😎

[gentle urchin]

Was about to say a google server 😅

[junior hedge]

Google>

If Google is down the world has ended

Only way

[rapid crescent]

Well what if I want to display a Network indicator in the UI and have it update when Internet is lost or restored? I would need to constantly see if I can reach google.com which is not the desired approach

[gentle urchin]

something has to check. Why not you?

[junior hedge]

Wouldn't it be constantly pinging to the game?

If it doesn't get a ping back then display it

Most mp games show the amount of ping you have to the server so I don't think it would be nessasarily performance intensive

[rapid crescent]

hmmm yea latency indicator good example, probably has a constant connection to a server

alright, thanks for the feedback/ideas... gives me something to ponder

[near wolf]

Hi, i'm trying to enable input when the character enters a trigger box and be able to play video and sound. What am I doing wrong ?

[solar sequoia]

have you used breakpoints to figure out what part of this isn't functioning?

[near wolf]

not sure what you mean by breakpoints, but the nodes are firing when entering the volume

just the media doesn't play

[static pilot]

Atleast you should tell whether the problem is in enable/disable input or the video part.

[solar sequoia]

you can select a node and press F9 to create a breakpoint, which will stop Play in Editor when that node is fired

[near wolf]

I get an error : Accessed none trying to read property MediaPlayer

[solar sequoia]

Breakpoints can be used to troubleshoot basically everything and will allow you to narrow down exactly where it's going wrong

[static pilot]

You have to set the default value of the media player variable

[near wolf]

The problem is here for sure

not sure what is it not working

ok I made it work, it starts when I click the button

now I need to be able to stop it with the same button

what node can I use for that

nvm It works now

[viral lantern]

Hey everyone, I'm trying educate myself on the highlighted nodes. What is this icon? Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[solar sequoia]

that means it's replicated

[viral lantern]

ahhh

thx dood

[solar sequoia]

a lot of stuff is automatically replicated, even if you're not using it. Doesn't affect performance or anything

[viral lantern]

I see

I'm not able to get "Target ChildActor" node to appear at all

I assume they're variables being linked?

[small gale]

anyone can help ? im new

[viral lantern]

I'm a designer -_-

[solar sequoia]

yeah a node that starts with "target" has been dragged off of an object reference to get one of its variables. In this case it's just a coincidence that they're both named Child Actor

[solar sequoia]

is this not in a character or something? idk what the error is because it's not shown

[viral lantern]

😮

[small gale]

"this blueprint is not a character, therefore target must have connection"

[solar sequoia]

it's exactly what it says. The Jump function tells a character to jump, but the engine doesn't know what character to target

I can only assume this is in your controller, so you can get a reference to the pawn and then cast that to a character reference

You'll notice that calling a function will say "Target is 'x'", or you can hover over the Target pin to see what it takes. That's your hint as to where this function belongs

calling a function from outside of the BP it belongs to is no big deal, you just need to reference the instance of that actor that you'd be targeting

[viral lantern]

I did it! thanks Cepaceous!

[solar sequoia]

no problem

[hollow schooner]

Hi guys, I'm currently trying to figure out how to use the varient set manager to switch between cameras.

I am working on a car configurator and I have a main Camera Pawn that the user can use to orbit the car configurator I'm working on. I've added a camera to the interior so the interior can also be configured etc.

How do I switch between the two cameras? The thing is that one of the cameras is part of the Car's blueprint, and the other camera is part of the Pawn blueprint 🧐

[solar sequoia]

I have a setup to swap cameras that uses the character's camera and a camera actor. I might suggest that you do something similar, because that lets you use "Set View Target With Blend" while targeting the camera actor that's attached to the car

so every vehicle has a camera actor in the construction script, and that is passed to the controller when the pawn enters

[hollow schooner]

"Character's camera" being my car's INT camera?

[solar sequoia]

no, the pawn's

[hollow schooner]

I'm pretty new to UE so I'll need to read that a few times to fully comprehend

[solar sequoia]

I'm assuming this is something like GTA or Battlefield, where the pawn's view switches to the car's?

[hollow schooner]

So I basically add a second camera to the Pawn that is located where I want it when the car is stationary?

[solar sequoia]

incorrect

the car has a camera actor attached to it, which you can reference to set the view target to

[hollow schooner]

Basically. I'd love if I can get the Camera to animate into the car to a specified location (instead of just instantly switching between two cameras)

[solar sequoia]

that's what the node does yeah

[hollow schooner]

okay, so the node I'm looking for is "view target"?

[solar sequoia]

the "blend" in "Set View Target with Blend" is a time

[solar sequoia]

a "View Target" is the camera the controller is currently focusing on iirc it's the actor whose active camera the controller focuses on

actually, you can just use a normal camera component on the car

[hollow schooner]

Okay, I'm just thinking about how to implement the "Set View Target with Blend" 🧐

[solar sequoia]

if you'd rather play around with it to figure it out, that's cool, but I can also just tell you

[hollow schooner]

I need to create a new event, right?

[hollow schooner]

Yeah that would be great, I can then analyze and learn from it afterwards

[solar sequoia]

unless you already have an event for the vehicle being entered or left

[hollow schooner]

No, I have an event where the camera moves to a target location on startup though

I can also focus selected objects and have the camera move to that location

so I assume I could use that system somehow?

[solar sequoia]

you could, yeah

assuming it doesn't travel through a wall or something, that node I showed you is pretty smooth

[hollow schooner]

Im struggeling to see where to attach it. My thought process is that I create a new Custom Event that I trigger via the UI button in my UI BP which sends the tastk to "set view target with blend". is that the correct way of doing it, or is there an eeasier way?

[solar sequoia]

I don't totally get what the UI has to do with it. I guess I was picturing this being triggered by the pawn interacting with the car or something

[hollow schooner]

No, sorry

I want to trigger it via a UI button

So the user can select "okay I want to configure the Interior now" -> press teh button -> camera moves into the cockpit of the car -> user can now edit the Interior materials etc

[solar sequoia]

your widget can get a reference to the controller that owns it, cast that, and then run an event in your controller BP

plus it makes sense as it's kind of a controller thing anyway

[hollow schooner]

what is?

[solar sequoia]

changing cameras is something that makes sense via the controller in this case because it supersedes the pawn

it doesn't really matter but it's easier to do it that way anyway

this returns a controller reference iirc

[hollow schooner]

Okay, just so I understand, I should add the camera toggle functionality via the player controller BP?

[solar sequoia]

yes, and call the event from your UI

[hollow schooner]

Okay cheers, I'll see if I can get something to work

[real notch]

I made an actor blueprint, and then created a child blueprint based on that one. The static meshes I place in the child don't move when I move the parent because they're not being childed to the parent's scene root for some reason. Any ideas?

These screens are from viewport (editing blueprint) and outliner. I don't understand why it's not nested in the outliner

[solar sequoia]

those are all inherited, right?

meaning you created them in the parent and they appeared in the child because of that

[real notch]

The "Scene" is from parent

The rest is child

[solar sequoia]

so you sent 2 screenshots of the same BP?

[real notch]

Yes, but one in viewport and one in outliner

To show that it's doing something I didn't expect it to do.

This is the parent

[solar sequoia]

did you change the BP after placing the actor or something? for all I know that would cause it to do that

[real notch]

No, I placed it anew

[neat stream]

Hi there, I have found away to transform a Map to a JsonField ... which result in a nicely formated json.

I wanted to know what could I do to transform it back ? Parse it and regenerate the map?

[solar sequoia]

That is kinda weird, I'm not sure why that's happening

[real notch]

I have another child blueprint with just a cube, and that one does move. I don't get it.

I just recreated it and now it works fine. Idk, seems like a bug to me. I was the bug

Apparently the child was static. Lesson learned: always check the output log because you might be making a pretty dumb mistake

[young meteor]

Hello kind Experts. I'm new to UE5 so please forgive me if this is a stupid question.

I'm making a "Tower Defence" game and I'm running into performance issues when I create towers with "splash" damage.
I'm spawning a projectile with 2 collision spheres. 1 for generating overlap event on impact and one for grapping all actors (enemies) within a radius when that happens.

My FPS drops very low and the more splash towers I create the worse. But the problem arises already at the first one.

I've tried to minimize and disable as much code as possible without any noticeable difference.
I've then tried lowering graphic settings etc. just in case but this seems to have no effect as well.

I've found a quick guide on performance stats and I think the issue is not on the GPU side but rather on CPU (or otherwise).
Here is a screenshot that hopefully give more insight:

"Tick times" and "Overlap queries" seem to be what it is about.

I've read more and there might be some overlap settings that are part of this?

• I've set the collision presets to "Spectator" for the Capsule of enemies I'm hitting.
• I've set the collision presets to "CharacterMesh" for the Mesh of enemies I'm hitting. (though I don't think I'm using this Mesh at the moment since I created a sphere for starters)
• I've set the collision presets to "OverlapOnlyPawn" for the Sphere of enemies I'm hitting. (sphere for easy representation since I don't have complex monsters yet).

Any help or directional guiding would be highly appreciated.
Thank you very much. Let me know if you need more info.

[hollow schooner]

So, I set this event up in my CameraPawn. Does it look right to you? Also, how to I send the button info in my UI to that event?

[mental trellis]

Using get all actors of class makes me cry

[hollow schooner]

😦

[mental trellis]

How do you trigger the event?

If it's a keypress, disabling input will stop you triggering it.

[hollow schooner]

I want to trigger it via a UI button. But i havent set it up yet

[solar sequoia]

you're probably trying to disable movement for the pawn, right? the "Target" pin on that node needs to reference the pawn, and you'll actually need to plug a self reference into the controller pin, because that pin doesn't default to self

[willow phoenix]

a flipflop is an adventure on its own here 😄
may i ask: does this work as you expect it to work right now?

[solar sequoia]

call that in your UI and then cast the output to your player controller class

[hollow schooner]

It's not connected to the button yet, so it does nothing right now (the next question would be, how to I send the button press data to the event?)

[willow phoenix]

enable input on the blueprint and make thhe event print "hello"

[solar sequoia]

@hollow schooner you also probably should be getting your pawn and vehicle pawn reference another way

[hollow schooner]

Like that?

[solar sequoia]

no, try to get the node I showed there. Turn off context sensitivity if you have to

[willow phoenix]

more like: get a "is valid" class, check if your object is already set. if not, get actor of class and set the object.

[solar sequoia]

what are you casting to?

[hollow schooner]

To the Pawn

[solar sequoia]

is that where your event is or something? the widget node returns a controller

[hollow schooner]

I wasnt able to find the event

[solar sequoia]

well that's because you have context sensitivity turned on, and you weren't dragging off of a reference to that class

you know how casting works, right?

[hollow schooner]

Like that?

[hollow schooner]

Is it "sending" the result to a different BP?

[solar sequoia]

it's not

[hollow schooner]

Then I have no idea

[solar sequoia]

it's not "casting" like "casting a fishing pole" it's more like seeing if you can turn a round peg (generic reference) into a star-shaped hole (specific reference)

[hollow schooner]

Not sure I Understand 🧐 I'll check the documentation to save you some nerves

[solar sequoia]

so that Get Owner Player node returns an actor reference, but you need a reference to your camera pawn. Your camera pawn inherits from an actor, because it's a pawn, so you can test if the return value is also a specific class, and doing so will allow you to address that object by the class that you need to

[hollow schooner]

Not sure I understand what I need to do :/

[solar sequoia]

I'll find an example

[hollow schooner]

To me, this seems like the logical solution:

press button -> Toggle camera

[solar sequoia]

sure, so compile it and see what it says

[hollow schooner]

error 😦

[solar sequoia]

it needs to know which camera pawn to perform that on

that's why you need a reference

although I will say it makes more sense to do this on the controller imo

[hollow schooner]

My player controller BP is completely empty though, aside from this:

[solar sequoia]

you can just add the event in there, or make a new custom event for the moment

the way you've described your setup makes it sound like your UI should probably be communicating with the controller instead of the pawn mainly

just create and name a custom event in the controller so I can show you how this works

[hollow schooner]

ok

[solar sequoia]

yeah there you go

[hollow schooner]

I'll remove the custom event from the Pawn then, right?

[solar sequoia]

you can leave it for now

[hollow schooner]

ok

[solar sequoia]

let's work backwards a bit, though

in the UI, you can turn off context sensitivity and search for the name of that event to find the node to call it

[solar sequoia]

so if you compile it will say that "self" is not "x" class, and that's because you need to be able to tell it which instance of that BP to target

this node can be called from a widget and will give a player controller return value

[hollow schooner]

I cant connect the node to the toggle camera node though

[solar sequoia]

yep

so if you hover over either of the blue pins, they'll say different things. That's because they return different types of references, even if it may be the same object. That's just how the engine does it

all casting does is test if the in type can be sort of "refined" to be a class that inherits below it

so the cast will succeed if the return value from "Get Owning Player" is also the class you're trying to call something in

[solar sequoia]

yeah, like that

[hollow schooner]

So now when I press the button, I can execute an event in the PlayerController BP`, right?

[solar sequoia]

specifically in the controller that owns that widget, yes

[hollow schooner]

what do you mean with "widget"?

[solar sequoia]

"Widget Blueprint" class

like the thing that has the click event

you use "Create Widget" to spawn them when your game is running

[hollow schooner]

When I say button, I mean a button in the UI of the WidgetBP

[solar sequoia]

yes

[hollow schooner]

Not sure if I am mixing up words

[blazing pollen]

guys does anyone know how to fix the npc acceleration in UE5 ?

it has speed but 0 acceleration

so moving without animation

[solar sequoia]

no, you're correct. Although you should probably rename that to something more specific, seeing as all widgets are blueprints

[solar sequoia]

something to describe what the widget is or does, possibly

[hollow schooner]

I have all of my UI in the WidgetBP

[solar sequoia]

you don't have to use _WDG at the end, but that's what I do to stay organized at a glance

[solar sequoia]

that's fine, I guess, but sooner or later you'll definitely want to create widgets for different purposes

[hollow schooner]

okay that makese sense

[solar sequoia]

you can even organize it somewhat by doing that

[hollow schooner]

Anyway, we've now managed to send the button click to the PlayerController_BP

[solar sequoia]

I have a UI widget that uses other widgets I've created on its canvas

[solar sequoia]

yep, so you should probably replace the "Get Actor of Class" node with some other logic to get a reference to your pawn / the car

it's pretty easy for a controller to reference its pawn using this node, but you might have to think about how you're going to be interacting with the car, in order to get a reference to it

For example, does your pawn run up to it, do you click on it, is it bound to the UI in some way

[hollow schooner]

Let me showcase my App so you have some more context

[solar sequoia]

something I've referred to as the "physical relationship" between things that need to reference each other, even if that's a pretty major oversimplification

[hollow schooner]

Here you can see the current UI and camera interaction. Orbit and Zoom. Once the user presses the gray button on the right of the UI, I want the camera to move/switch into the car with no more user input (rotation, orbit etc) being allowed.

[solar sequoia]

you're already accessing it using the UI, just use that same method to save a reference in the player controller

[hollow schooner]

How do I reference the camera of the Car and the Pawn though? I assume all I need to do is plug those references into the two "set view Target with blend" nodes, correct?

[solar sequoia]

that's all you need to do, yeah

however, you shouldn't use "Get Actors of Class". That cuts corners, can cause issues, and isn't even that much easier than the other way

[hollow schooner]

I've removed the previous node tree from the Pawn character, so the "Get actors of class" shoul dhave been removed. How else do I reference the cameras of those BP's though? 😮

[solar sequoia]

the way the node works is you just need a reference to the actor, actually

Like I showed, the controller can easily get a reference to its pawn

[hollow schooner]

Via casting?

[solar sequoia]

no, you literally just call "get pawn"

casting doesn't get a reference. It checks to see if an object also belongs a class that inherits from the original reference's class

[hollow schooner]

In my brain I would need to switch the two green nodes with one another for the bottom "set view target", but they wont plug in that way 🧐

[solar sequoia]

my bad, it's the controller version of "get pawn"

you probably also want to replace that "Get Player Controller" node with "get a reference to self"

[solar sequoia]

@hollow schooner that's all you need to do, actually

[hollow schooner]

Okay, and how do I switch them around for the other "Set view Target" node?

[solar sequoia]

so on the A Exec you're telling the controller to target the pawn's camera, on B you need to have a reference to the car actor in order to plug it in

[hollow schooner]

Oh okay

[solar sequoia]

so like I said before, your UI already communicates with the car in some way. How do you have that set up?

[hollow schooner]

Using Get all Actors lol

[solar sequoia]

I will mention that you probably want to switch to the car the first time you click the button, meaning the pawn should actually be on B

[solar sequoia]

I would not do that if I were you

start with how the car is being spawned

like if it's being spawned by another actor, that actor can store a reference to use later

[hollow schooner]

The car is always in the scene. Not sure I understand the question

[solar sequoia]

It's instanced in the level, so you can reference that instance of the actor in the level BP

there would still be another way to do it, like line tracing from the pawn or something similar

[hollow schooner]

Im already using line tracing in the pawn for Auto.DOF

[solar sequoia]

depth of field?

[tropic estuary]

Hello.

[tropic estuary]

how to instantiate objects in a line?

[solar sequoia]

what event is that supposed to be hooked up to?

[hollow schooner]

LOL you're right. I forgot I unplugged it the other day. AFAIK it should be connected to TICK

[solar sequoia]

I would also not use tick so generously. Line traces are pretty efficient, but I find that most of the time I can find a way to set something up other than running it all the time

even a timer that checks 60 times per second can be more efficient, because that can be turned on and off

[solar sequoia]

do you mean spawn them in a line, or am I misunderstanding

[tropic estuary]

yes.

should I use an actor blurprint?

[solar sequoia]

@hollow schooner one thing at a time, though, let's think of a way for any of the relevant actors to communicate with each other

[solar sequoia]

depends on what you're trying to spawn, I guess

[tropic estuary]

is this good?

[solar sequoia]

looks alright

the "coin" is an actor, I guess?

[hollow schooner]

The camera works

The toggle

no idea why

but it does

sort of

[tropic estuary]

i just googled it

[solar sequoia]

or are you asking what you should use to manage them being spawned?

[tropic estuary]

I just need to instantiate them in a line. its my first day in blueprints

[solar sequoia]

so in your idea, does it make sense for them to already exist within the level? or is an event supposed to create these actors at some point while the game is running?

[solar sequoia]

not sure why it would, you're still missing a reference to the other camera, right?

[tropic estuary]

I want to instantiate just a primitive cube from the contents browser

in a line, 1-10 e.g

[solar sequoia]

you want to put it in the level? or do you want to spawn it at runtime?

[hollow schooner]

Yes, hence why it's output location is wrong

[tropic estuary]

spawn at runtime yes

[solar sequoia]

you should think about the context in which you want them to spawn

[hollow schooner]

Ah, it's probably just going to world center 0,0,0

[solar sequoia]

kinda sounds like it would be a level thing, even if you don't want them to be there to begin with

[solar sequoia]

test that, but most likely

[solar sequoia]

is your eventual plan to have the different vehicles spawn from some UI element to preview?

[solar sequoia]

like, I know this one is just placed in the level, but eventually you'd be spawning them, if I'm not misinterpreting

[hollow schooner]

Yup, even when car isnt even in frame, it moves to WOrld Origin

[tropic estuary]

On play, the objects should be instantiated in the level at poistion 1 through 10 on the forward axis

[solar sequoia]

so... if it's supposed to happen when the game begins, why not just put them in the game level to begin with?

[solar sequoia]

yeah, so you need a reference to it

[hollow schooner]

No, this is just supposed to be a car configurator for this single car At least that's the plan right now. Seeing that the camera navigation is currently done via the Pawn, Nothing is stopping me from adding varient sets with different vehicles

[hollow schooner]

Right

[solar sequoia]

so maybe the level / viewing stage loads, creates the UI, then spawns the vehicle and stores a reference to it somewhere, maybe the player controller

for now, you can hard code it by referencing that actor directly in the level BP, but I'm always a fan of making things as robust as possible

[tropic estuary]

i want to do some procedural placement

[hollow schooner]

I tried to reference the Car via adding a variable and referencing the player object, but that didnt change the camera movement:

[solar sequoia]

okay, so the level has a "BeginPlay" event, you could fire off your logic there

[tropic estuary]

cool

[solar sequoia]

in fact, it probably gave you an error, because you're not setting a value for that variable anywhere

[hollow schooner]

No error, I assume because the car itself is being referenced?

not sure

[solar sequoia]

?

[hollow schooner]

Isnt this a reference to the car?

[solar sequoia]

well that value isn't set, so it definitely would give you an "Accessed None"

[solar sequoia]

no, that's a variable that can reference that class, but it doesn't know which object of that class it's referencing

atm that variable is kind of an empty container

you need to find some way to set that variable's value to equal a reference to the instance of the object

[hollow schooner]

Is this such an unusual thing reference objects from other blueprints?

[solar sequoia]

no lol

[hollow schooner]

seems like an overly complicated way to get a reference

[solar sequoia]

that's the baseline of how actors interact

[hollow schooner]

Then It's probably just me not comprehending how to reference

[solar sequoia]

it makes a lot more sense when you think about how the two objects are supposed to interact with each other

for example,

in an fps your player character might do a line trace to see if it hits something, and the line trace will return a Hit Actor. That's a direct reference to the thing you hit, even if that reference will need to be cast to a more specific class to use its functionality

same thing for an overlap event, you can see what you overlapped with

The whole concept of referencing other objects is much less abstract when you can put it into context

[hollow schooner]

Well I get those two examples, and they are rather simple because they dont actually reference specific components, you can just use preset nodes that check for overlaps (AFAIK)

[solar sequoia]

well you could do something like this. The value I'm hovering over will be a reference to the actor that was just created

so let's say a player presses a button to throw a grenade, which is its own class of actor. If we save a reference to the actor we just spawned, we could, say, tell it to blow up when the player presses the same button again

these are just examples of how you should be thinking about the relationship between actors that should interact

[hollow schooner]

But I want to access the camera of a bp. Not the Car itself

[solar sequoia]

no, you just need a reference to the car actor

that's how the view target node works

[hollow schooner]

Okay, If my understanding is correct, the view target node will end up outside of the car then? not inside?

[solar sequoia]

it will end up wherever that actor's camera is

[hollow schooner]

Therefore, I should probably target a custom actor located inside of the car?

okay

[solar sequoia]

you don't need to reference the camera component, but that's what it will use

[hollow schooner]

oh okay

[solar sequoia]

that's because the function tells the controller to use "x" actor's camera as its view target

[hollow schooner]

question still remains how I am able to reference the car without "all actors of class" 🧐

[solar sequoia]

the level will have a reference to it. Now you just need to reference the controller from the level

"Get Player Controller 0" is... fine, I guess, if you're not doing multiplayer, ever, but there is a better way to do it that isn't much harder

[hollow schooner]

Are you refering to the outliner or what do you mean with "the level will have a reference to it."

[solar sequoia]

yeah, so it's in the level. When you open the level BP you can add it to the event graph

you actually have to select the actor and then right click in the level BP

[hollow schooner]

Im not sure anymore if I even have a level blueprint

[solar sequoia]

you do lol

[hollow schooner]

where would I find it

[hollow schooner]

Ah, its completely empty

[solar sequoia]

yeah, it is by default

I've used level BPs incredibly little, but it makes sense to do so in a lot of cases

take a game like Arkham Asylum as an example. Plenty of stuff happens when you're in "x" location, or you beat a specific enemy that's already there

the main advantage a level BP has is that you can reference instantiated actors or things like trigger volumes

[frank tide]

How could i fix input not working?

[solar sequoia]

by figuring out why it isn't working

[frank tide]

thats what i need to find out

[real notch]

Figure out how to set up inputs, and then compare it to what you have currently. There are too many possible reasons to list

[solar sequoia]

in what context is it not working? Do some inputs not work, do no inputs work, does it not work if you do such and such thing. You're giving me little to go off of here

[frank tide]

nothing works

[solar sequoia]

on what, your pawn?

check if input is enabled

check if your controller is consuming input

[frank tide]

Blueprint type : normal

[solar sequoia]

try different combinations of actors until you figure out where the problem stems from

check that you actually bound inputs, I guess

@frank tide use breakpoints to determine if the input events are firing or not

[real notch]

Is there a way to spawn an actor without it being in the world yet? It's getting destroyed instantly after spawning, before the rest of my blueprint can run. Red arrow is where the actor is destroyed, so setting the spawnpoint fails because target is pending cleanup.

When I say destroyed, I'm talking about gameplay related reasons. It's being killed before I can finish running the rest.

[solar sequoia]

It's more like you shouldn't be destroying it until you're done with it. What causes it to be killed?

[real notch]

I tried reading some of the messages when I saw "level blueprint" mentioned. If whatever blueprint you're using is in the same scene as the camera, you can just set the reference in the details panel. Alternatively, you can add the second camera to your controller and move them independently, or create another pawn you can take control of.

[hollow schooner]

Yeah I'm currently just trying to create a new camera

[real notch]

Sure, I can make it work that way. But I want to know if it's possible to not spawn directly. It's a curiosity more than need

[real notch]

That's another option, yeah

[solar sequoia]

You should only spawn the camera once BTW. Maybe do a validity check and spawn one if false and then save that reference

[solar sequoia]

To my knowledge, you can't, because spawning is congruent with it existing in the level

[verbal vortex]

I'm currently on tutorial - https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/courses/kry/build-a-third-person-character-from-scratch/lo4/setting-up-inputs-and-building-control-systems. What if there is no "event possessed" node in event graph? My parent class in the right top screen is Actor.

[solar sequoia]

Actors cannot be possessed iirc. It needs to be a pawn

*or lower

[real notch]

If there's no "event posessed" it might not be a pawn I think

[solar sequoia]

@real notch i find that expose on spawn properties cover a lot of pre-spawn stuff. In what case might you want to do it your way?

[hollow schooner]

So, I got it working, however the CineCamera that I am spawing is using the default settings. How can I edit these?

[real notch]

It does, but I don't know how to spawn the blueprint directly, which is why I have to cast it. I just have a class reference

[verbal vortex]

Thank you and @real notch. That is solved. That's funny that I have answered on my own question in the end of it.

[solar sequoia]

I might just be misunderstanding, but the point of a BP is that it creates an instantiated copy of it, which is why BP is specifically used before runtime

[real notch]

Change them in the node? But I would either use a camera in the scene and reference it, or create the secondary camera in begin play

[solar sequoia]

I find that most of my questions are obvious before I can finish typing them haha. Sometimes you just have to see it in writing

[real notch]

Yeah. For context: I have data assets that hold a reference to a blueprint to spawn. So when spawn time comes, I use that class reference to spawn the blueprint:

But I think the answer is that I need to put that in my dataasset class

Because of course it is.

[solar sequoia]

Would it not also make sense as a default value on the actor itself?

I don't really get where the data asset comes in. Those are generally hard-coded and read-only

[real notch]

It can't

Well, the data asset represents a troop (tower defense).

So it has stuff like health, movement speed... And a blueprint

The blueprint is what actually gets spawned, and the data asset is what configures the troop.

It's part of a larger system that spawns waves

[solar sequoia]

Have you tried storing the data asset on the spawned actor through expose on spawn, then using it in the construction script?

[mental trellis]

I think you've gone about that the wrong way, personally.

I'd like the blueprint to the data sheet, not the other way around.

[real notch]

You don't know the rest of my system though

[mental trellis]

Well, I can see the advantages of both I suppose.

[frank tide]

how can i destroy object off scene?

[real notch]

It was (for me, when I built it) the only way to make it exportable and still usable in blueprints.

I'm 100% sure it's not the best solution. But I needed a way to make them listable for both UI and the spawn routine (waves config)

[real notch]

storing the data asset on the spawned actor
Yes, but that didn't work for me since it's not on the base class being spawned.

But I think the answer is that I need to put that in my dataasset class
👆This was me realising that 😄

[solar sequoia]

Make it a variable, then

[real notch]

What?

I need to add the property on my data class

[solar sequoia]

make the tower actor have a "Data Asset" variable that's set through Expose on Spawn

[solar sequoia]

no, you don't

[real notch]

Lmao

Yes, I do

The class reference is of type ATroopBase (edited again because I copy pasted the wrong name)

I can add the variable on the blueprint but that wouldn't change a thing on spawn.

The type would be wrong and the pin wouldn't show up

[solar sequoia]

if you're referring to how it doesn't show on the node when using a variable class reference, there are ways around it

[real notch]

That is what I am talking about yeah, what ways?

How can I spawn a class reference as a specific type?

Can I cast a class reference before spawning?

Haha, I can

That's awesome

[solar sequoia]

that's what I was going to suggest, yeah

[real notch]

Still belongs on the troopbase, but this is good to know!

[frank tide]

Please reply

[solar sequoia]

so you just cast to the base class, which has a variable that can be set so the actor carries that value when it runs the instruction script

[real notch]

Ask better questions?

[solar sequoia]

"off scene" is really nondescript

one that's not spawned? one that fell out of the map?

[frank tide]

i mean so its deleted

[solar sequoia]

lol

[real notch]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/ProgrammingAndScripting/SpawnAndDestroyActors/#:~:text=When testing in the editor,the Level will be destroyed.

[frank tide]

thx

[real notch]

I think they meant "out of" or "off of". Or "from"?

[solar sequoia]

yeah, I realize it now. I stand by what I said lol

[real notch]

😄

[faint pasture]

How many troop subclasses do you have?

Are they data only or also add logic?

[real notch]

Both. Different animation, different types of firing, different number of targets

The core logic of destorying an enemy and what should happen is in the base

[faint pasture]

Can't you just add the animbp and mesh and firemode and targetnumber to the data asset?

[real notch]

I could but I don't want to

I'll likely forget something

What if I want to fire 5 projectiles in stead of one

Stuff like that

So instead I have 1 base troop, and 1 base blueprint for each similar one

For example the regular turret and the double/triple barrel turret

[faint pasture]

int ProjectileCount

[real notch]

Well, sure

But I don't see the benefit

[faint pasture]

I mean you don't have to, but that's an avenue worth thinking about if things get really wild

[real notch]

It's not like I have boilerplate now 😄

I think I'll have 4 classes with maybe 3 types for each

So I suppose it's not that wild right now

[faint pasture]

We're doing something similar to you. An Item is represented by a struct with a soft ref to an item BP, just because a lot of our items have unique mechanics.

[real notch]

Yeah

I'll have flying troops as well

And one that digs

[faint pasture]

Do they actually fly or walk but up in the air?

[solar sequoia]

aka 3d vs 2d movement

[real notch]

Heh?

Oh right

3d, the idea is that they can't be hit sometimes

Because they increase altitude

You need specific towers to stop those

[solar sequoia]

much like PvZ's balloon zombies

[real notch]

I don't know what that is

Oh, plants vs zombies or something? Never played it

[real notch]

Yeah

This is not a serious project. It's just a mobile game that I'm building 3 times

Blueprints only, c++ only, mix

I did c++ and bp only, doing mix now. The fastest one I'll shove in the app stores :p

Which is also why I'm not incredibly willing to change the architecture. I want them to be as similar as possible.

[hollow schooner]

I cant find the camera that's in my scene in the "Class" Dropdown option

[real notch]

You have to put the instance of the blueprint you're working on in the scene

In the level, outliner, whatever it's called :p

Then select it and in the details panel you can select the camera

Which should also be in the scene

[hollow schooner]

I cant drag the PlayerController into the viewport

[solar sequoia]

? If you're trying to reference it in the level, you can't really because it doesn't exist until the game mode spawns it

there are other better ways to get a reference to it

[hollow schooner]

I mean Ideally I would get the camera in teh Car, but I havent been able to manage that either...

[solar sequoia]

aren't you spawning it from the controller?

you have a direct reference to it

[hollow schooner]

I dont understand what you mean with spawning. AFAIK Im not spawning anything. At the start of the game, everything is already in teh scene?

[solar sequoia]

yeah, but your idea was to spawn a camera actor, right?

[hollow schooner]

Well only because I couldnt get the camera in the car

[solar sequoia]

you can do the first one; you just need to stick with one method here

[hollow schooner]

whatever is easier

[real notch]

Paying someone :p

[solar sequoia]

try putting a camera component on the car actor and positioning it where you want it, then just set the car as the view target via a reference

[real notch]

So you're controlling which camera is active in your controller, then just find the camera on start?

As in, in your controller, find the camera

Or tell your camera to tell the controller about its existence

[hollow schooner]

I've tried that. The car has a camera in its blueprint

[solar sequoia]

cool, so set that actor as the view target via a reference

I've told you how to do it 100% of the way through at this point

[hollow schooner]

I know, but I dont understand how to do what you are saying

"set that actor as the view target via a reference"

What does that mean

how is that done

[solar sequoia]

use the view target node and plug a reference to the car actor into it, just like you did for the pawn

if the car already exists in the level, just reference that instance of it in the event graph and use an event to communicate that to your player controller

[real notch]

Are you talking about the level blueprint again?

[solar sequoia]

yeah, that seems to be the primary way to do it, as the actor isn't being spawned to save a ref, and it moves so a line trace can miss under some circumstances

[real notch]

But it's already in the scene

[solar sequoia]

yes, so I'm saying to use that

[real notch]

Idk, I've been taught to avoid the level blueprint unless it's something like a cut scene or a single-level game/prototype

[hollow schooner]

So I should remove this chunk and move it into the level blueprint?

[solar sequoia]

no

[solar sequoia]

using the level BP means hard coding things in a lot of cases, but I haven't really heard not to use it, generally

[frank tide]

hey, i have got little problem. I have got this blueprint that should create new object and then remove old one. But problem is the new object won't do the rest of the code. How can i fix this?

[real notch]

I've heard of low-res cameras, never seen a low res screenshot before tho

[solar sequoia]

In the level BP you should get a reference to your player controller so you can set the value of a variable that's stored on it, that variable being a now-valid reference to that car actor

[solar sequoia]

what does "new object won't do the rest of the code" mean? what object? what code?

[frank tide]

The object should do this code, but it won't move (Old object is working)

[solar sequoia]

is tick disabled or something?

[frank tide]

yeah

[solar sequoia]

so what happens if you put a breakpoint on the relative location node?

[tawdry surge]

@solar sequoia you know you can just make a variable, mark it instance editable, and then set the reference directly from the details panel of the actor instance in the level.
Unless you're doing a unique 1 off thing, level BP is a bad place to put anything

[solar sequoia]

in this case the reference needs to be stored on the controller, which isn't spawned until runtime

and I agree that level BP isn't good practice, but it's somewhat relevant in this case

[tawdry surge]

You can put it on the character and have the controller grab it on possess

[solar sequoia]

yeah, that's true

[real notch]

lol

[solar sequoia]

there are a dozen ways to do it, but at this point I'm just trying to help him get it done some way, and hopefully that helps him learn

[real notch]

I wouldn't put that logic on the controller.

I'd put it on a blueprint that lives in the level

Let it tell the controller it exists

And then kick off the logic

But I'm a noob, also.

[solar sequoia]

true, I mainly suggested this way because it sounds like the possessed pawn is just there to hold a camera, basically

[faint pasture]

Camera component on car and on character. Are you possessing car?

[solar sequoia]

I think it's more of a preview thing

[faint pasture]

Is this a GTA style thing where you can walk up to a car and drive it?

[solar sequoia]

it is not. I asked the same. It's like a forza car preview and you go from a spinning camera to driver's seat

[jolly island]

Hello, does anyone know how I can access this node? I'm trying to merge skeletal meshes in character blueprint.
https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.0/en-US/BlueprintAPI/MeshMerge/MergeMeshes/

[solar sequoia]

can you find it with context sensitivity turned off?

[jolly island]

No

[solar sequoia]

Couldn't find anything on google, but here's someone asking something related on here
#cpp message

there isn't any documentation or anything, so it's either new or maybe it's a plugin? I don't know if that would be indicated somehow

[tawdry surge]

Its in the skeletal merging library. Docs are pry in source
But if you try to make a skeleton merge param struct and you can't then it's definitely in a plugin

[hollow schooner]

It's a configurator where you can orbit and zoom around the vehicle. I have the Camera toggle functionality, but currently it is zooming into centre of worldspace as I cant figure out how to reference the car's interior camera (I added a camera to the car BP)

In the Level BP I can reference the car when selecting it in the viewport, however I cant cast my button press from the UI to the Level BP

[solar sequoia]

the button already fires an event in the controller. You need to reference the controller from the level, if that's the way you've decided to do it

[hollow schooner]

Not sure that helps

[solar sequoia]

another option would be to line trace from the pawn to hit the car actor, but you'd have to ensure a consistent placement so you don't just miss

[solar sequoia]

you can do that, but a lot of people dislike player index nodes because they can cause issues in multiplayer

[hollow schooner]

BUt that node isnt doing aynthing?

[solar sequoia]

?

[hollow schooner]

It's just sitting tehre, not connected to anything

[solar sequoia]

yeah

you would cast that to your class of player controller and pass it the reference to the car actor

although I'm liking the line trace method more the longer I think about it

[hollow schooner]

This still makes no sense to me

[solar sequoia]

you need to turn that generic player controller reference into a reference to the class of player controller that you use

because that's where the event is, not on "Player Controller"

a cast is a test to see if an object reference is also a more specific object type sort of "down the line" in subclasses

[jolly island]

I went to the plugins and there was a skeletal mesh merge plugin from epic. I enabled it but still can't find the node.

[hollow schooner]

Okay and how do I do that?

[solar sequoia]

by casting

that is a description of how casting works

[hollow schooner]

I already have the cast node in there though

what is missing?

[solar sequoia]

it's not the correct node

you're not casting to the class you made; that's the regular player controller class that's built into the engine

think back to the context in which you used a cast before

your widget was able to give you a reference to its controller, but you needed to do something in a class below that, the controller you created, so you cast that reference

[tawdry surge]

@jolly island did you restart the engine

[jolly island]

Yes.

[hollow schooner]

Like that?

[solar sequoia]

yes, but you don't need to fire the event this time, right? you need to set a variable

you can drag off of your cast reference and search for a variable name to set

[hollow schooner]

So I remove the blue connection?

[solar sequoia]

just remove the custom event call

[solar sequoia]

so you do this and then you set it using the reference you can get directly, since you're in the level BP

[hollow schooner]

Like that?

[solar sequoia]

that variable you're setting actually exists in the level BP. You need to create a variable in your controller, and then drag the blue pin from the cast node and search for it

you can copy-paste that "set" node into your controller and there will be an option to create that variable there

[hollow schooner]

What variable type should it be?

oh sorry

I just pull out and "promote to variable"?

[junior hedge]

You dont need the cast at all if you are in bp

Unless the actor you want to modify doesn't exist at the start

[solar sequoia]

if you do that it will make that variable in the current BP, the level

[solar sequoia]

he needs to set a variable in the controller from the level

[junior hedge]

I thought that said player character lol

Mb

[hollow schooner]

is this correct so far?

Now I need to someone get that"Car Reference" node in teh level BP, right?

[solar sequoia]

yeah, if you drag off of the blue pin on the cast node you can search and find it

[dense mica]

I opened this box in BP graph by mistake and I wonder whats the shortcut to open this again, anyone knows?

[solar sequoia]

that needs a target because "self" is the level BP in this case

[solar sequoia]

yeah, there you go

[hollow schooner]

and that casts to this:

[jolly island]

Managed to find it, had to delete the c++ code I had made earlier when I tried to implement the mesh merge from the old tutorial