multiplayer

[verbal ice]

But I wouldn't switch to the GMC just for performance reasons

[lost inlet]

yes, on Steam this will represent the 64-bit Steam ID

which is persistent

and on pretty much every other platform this will represent an immutable user ID of some kind

[grizzled stirrup]

Thanks!

[lyric heart]

i fixed it with a retry system

basically keep retrying untill the thing is valid

[honest bloom]

I like to call that "hitting the wall many times till you realize its a wall"

[lyric heart]

what is hour-glass wait ?

i could limit it to a certain amount of try to stop it from looping

but theoretically it should be at some point valid during load

[dark edge]

Show what you're trying to actually show, but the answer is to use begin play and repnotify usually as the timing for when things are ready

[dark edge]

Why do you have this? Player Name should just live in player state directly

[lyric heart]

https://streamable.com/qqihnj

it works pretty good right now

doesn't matter how the order of load

it always is correct

[lyric heart]

it does livin in player state

[lyric heart]

beginplay was unreliable for loaded stuff

i could probably put the same code in the beginplay though

[dark edge]

Then what is this? Or do you mean "Try set player name on some widget"

where does the variable that is onrepping live?

[lyric heart]

yes on some widget

[lyric heart]

player state

[dark edge]

Rename that function then, that function sounds like it's setting player name

which it's not doing, since it's triggered on the replication of player name lol

I think PlayerState defaults to a very low replication rate

and it shouldn't be telling UI anything, at most it should fire a dispatcher

[lyric heart]

i try to set the player name

[dark edge]

which the UI can be bound to

Be very clear if you mean setting the name, or updating the UI

they are different things

[lyric heart]

makes sense

[lyric heart]

i'm just saying get the widget, set the text

[dark edge]

The widget should fetch the text

nothing should know or care about UI

[lyric heart]

wdym the widget should fetch the text ?

when ?

[dark edge]

widget should fetch the text on its initialization and also fetch it when the onrep fires through a dispatcher

widget cares about stuff, nothing cares about widget

[lyric heart]

oh right so set an event instead of just setting the text

whats the difference though ?

[dark edge]

plenty. In general your game should work whether or not UI is around, and UI is a view/control layer that talks to the game

[lyric heart]

i mean i code the way i have learned

[dark edge]

Now I don't know if PlayerState is guaranteed to be around when the widget wakes up, you need to check that. The hardest part would be handling the widget being alive, and not finding a playerstate to even bind its update event to.

[lyric heart]

i had problems with the state not loading

and also widget not being ready

so i just did this it works great

[dark edge]

widget not being ready shouldn't matter, the only thing that should do anything about updating text is the widget. set it up like this:

Widget:
Initialize -> fetch playerstate you care about -> bind UpdateText to playerstates OnNameUpdated dispatcher -> call UpdateText
UpdateText -> fetch name, update the text

PlayerState:
OnRep_Name -> call OnNameUpdated dispatcher

nothing should be talking to the widget. Nothing needs to have a ref to it.

[lyric heart]

well i mean theres many ways to do a thing

this is just what i have learned so far, i will look into dispatchers though

[lyric heart]

for stuff like that i think the retry thing i'm doing works

basically what i have is wait untill the pawns ready, wait for the widget

then set the text

[dark edge]

Sure retrying is fine. Retry from the widget

the playerstate doesn't give a shit about the widget

widget can retry getting the playerstate if it wants

[lyric heart]

i mean is it really that much different ? is this just because it's preferred ?

i don't see the big gain from doing it the way your saying

[lyric heart]

so with rep notify and the authority check

the client needs to be within a certain range of the server ?

i tried always relevant on the player and enemy still same thing

[dark edge]

playerstate is always relevent

the widget comes with the pawn

if the pawn is there, the widget is there

[lyric heart]

Ok so the widgets work fine for the name Ata distance but my health isn't working

The hits and health are not working when I'm at a distance of server player

[dark edge]

so far we've been talking about name, this is the first mention of health

[lyric heart]

Yes I fixed name it's np

This problem is my hits not working

It works fine within range of server

[dark edge]

show the hit not working

[lyric heart]

https://streamable.com/gt9565

i checked always relevant

i didn't up the net cull because from what i read always relevant is supposed to override that

[dark edge]

you're gonna have to show the code path from the animation to health update

[lyric heart]

they are both just collision, has authority, change variable, on rep, change display

you can see it stops working for both

the player and enemy

[dark edge]

you need to show the code path

the enemies are spawned on server and replicated right?

[lyric heart]

yes

[dark edge]

not doing anythign crazy like spawning AI on client

aight

[lyric heart]

no it's on the server, i use switch on authority

on begin play

[dark edge]

u know what it might be

skeleton ticking

[nova wasp]

yeah might be the server doesn't see the bones move

[lyric heart]

?

[dark edge]

yup that's it 100%

[nova wasp]

if the server is what decides if it hits based on the server collision

[dark edge]

on the server, the sword isn't being swung

[nova wasp]

then the server has to animate those characters even if they are not visible

[dark edge]

mesh -> always tick pose

[nova wasp]

might need AlwaysTickPoseAndRefreshBones to move the actual kinematic bones? I forget

I'm not sure if refresh bones is needed for kinematic transforms

[lyric heart]

i did always tick and refresh bones

works !

thank you

[nova wasp]

one good middle ground is OnlyTickMontagesAndRefreshBonesWhenPlayingMontages because it will only update when someone is playing a montage (I assume you have a montage for attacking)

but ofc if the other player has to be hit on their skeleton then it must update as well I guess

[lyric heart]

yes thats a good choice because the attacks are montages

[lyric heart]

yes that works

thanks again

[nova wasp]

keep in mind when it says tick montages that also applies to montage events and states

so if this stops ticking montages those just kind of stop

[lyric heart]

Wdym ?

It did work, but it could break?

[nova wasp]

this is if you use one of the options that DOESNT tick montages

and switch back and forth

from being rendered or otherwise

[lyric heart]

Oh ok ya tick on montages seems logically correct consider everything is still replicated and then my onreps work still on montage

[lyric heart]

I'll try this out and see of any bugs

[valid imp]

I'd like to yell my love for actor dormancy. I dived into it hoping to gain a few frames after some profiling, and it exceeded all my expectations.

[crisp shard]

Are you doing this with blueprints? I’ve found it doesn’t really work correctly in blueprints, for example if i have something set to dormant as default, it doesn’t seem to actually set it to dormant. Initial gives similar results, so I’ve actually never used it to potential because of this

[valid imp]

Nah, in CPP. I'm already beyond the threshold where I need to really optimize stuff. On actors with non-frequent operations on replicated members, I set DormInitial in the constructor, then I call FlushNetDormancy before operations.
Because I have many, many actors like that (I have basically an infinite 3D maze, lots to replicate, but really not often), I really reduced my stuttering.

[crisp shard]

This is exactly what I’d like to do. But it literally just doesn’t work in blueprints lol. Essentially, you can’t set things to dormant as far as I’ve tried. But tbh I could have missed something to do. My big play was to set those actors update frequency to like 5

100 by default seems a bit insane anyway

[valid imp]

Yeah, I guess it only makes sense for a Doom-like where everything moves all the time except the map itself.

[silent valley]

I am working on a climbing mechanic via extending CMC. I followed a decent guide which worked for single player, now I am trying to get it working in multiplayer. I extended the SavedMove and the mode is switching correctly, the bit that is not working is when I change the capsule orientation to follow the normal of the mesh he's climbing on. The sever and client disagree and it is causing major orientation glitching.

I looked through the base UCharacterMovementComponent and it seems that they never change the orientation of the capsule away from vertical.
Is capsule rotation something I should just avoid for multiplayer?

[nova wasp]

character capsules do not sweep changing their orientation at all, it's very much something that is not mathed out much

you can change their up direction I guess

I don't know how you are changing the capsule orientation

if it works locally then in theory the server should be able to follow along most of it...

show debug for net corrections at the very least and try to compare the input and result on both sides

vlog would be useful here to track it over time (perhaps with the timestamp etc)

[silent valley]

Just via the usual SafeMoveUpdatedComponent call. But there's some code that lerps from current orientation to surface normal, and I suspect that's where it's going wrong. That, and, if the position is different on server+client slightly then the surface normal may be quite different.

[nova wasp]

"code that lerps from current orientation to surface normal" in what step of the movement update?

and is "the posision" the final transform or a seconary variable you made?

[silent valley]

PhysCustom is where the code runs.
Now I'm looking at it, I think the client and server are in agreement because there's no net corrections going on.
The problem is when one client is observing another, their orientation is flip flopping.

[nova wasp]

and yeah slightly differing positions could give big changes in results... I wonder if you could just smash the normal into the sent input

difficult to verify on the server but if this isn't a competitive game I doubt people will spoof it

the position of the normal hit on the rock in world space should be fairly consistent though unless the rock moves. even then it could be sent relative to it

[nova wasp]

if this was just simulated proxies I would definitely not say "The sever and client disagree" because to me that implies a server correction

for sim proxies this is way nicer beacuse all you have to do is interpolate the values correctly

[silent valley]

yes I agree, I was wrong in my initial evaluation. definitely an issue just for sim proxies

[nova wasp]

which is easier said than done in some cases but you might want to see if you can bake your normals (well, not bake but just... use) into the smoothing steps of the cmc update

[silent valley]

Does the sim proxy run a subset of the CMC code? Maybe it's not running the code to set the orientation?

or it's expecting the orientatio0n to be replicated but it's not

[nova wasp]

the cmc on sim proxies is very simple... it just gets an onrep and then moves in that way and then does some math to smooth the mesh offset from the capsule

because of this it's VERY important to see both the real capsule and the skeletal mesh at the same time to see what is actually happening with its true position which jitters a lot compared to the real mesh's final offset pos

[silent valley]

is there some debug vis I can enable?

[nova wasp]

it might receive the transform of the actor in the onrep but idk how it would rotate and resolve in the same way without knowing about it

[nova wasp]

sort of, there's p.visualizemovement

honestly easier to just add some vlog shapes to the variuos steps

or use the actor rewind debugger (if it's okay with this situation)

[silent valley]

visualizemovement does not show orientation, but I can see already that the position is glitching too.
I'll look into vlog, thanks.

or change the movement so it does not rely on changing the capsule orientation 🙂

[nova wasp]

are you quantizing the location heavily?

[silent valley]

not intentionally.

capsule location is being moved via SafeMoveUpdatedComponent

ohhhh hang on, I'm also calling UpdatedComponent->MoveComponent after that to snap to the surface

I'll need to refactor that to go through SafeMoveUpdatedComponent

maybe

[exotic thicket]

All variables in GameState are replicated by default? Or do I have to set them to?

[latent heart]

Most, if not all, of them are afaik.

Common ones like PlayerArray etc are definitely.

You can check the individual vars in the source and see if they have the Replicated tag in their UPROPERTY.

[dark edge]

Isn't PlayerArray actually not replicated, just kept in sync through some other mechanism?

[woeful ferry]

yea, when a playerstate spawns, it registers itself to that array

so naturally when they replicate, they'll be added

[silent valley]

I found the problem! the PhysClimbing function had a check for bCharacterWantsToClimb and if that was false it would switch to Falling mode.

On Simulated proxies this bool is always false, so it was constantly toggling in/out of climb mode.

I'm not quite sure why this is. On Autonomous proxy the bool is set by inputs and replicated to the server via saved move. But it seems like this saved move is not replicated/applied to simulated proxies?

For now I wrapped the switching to Falling mode in a if (CharacterOwner->GetLocalRole() > ROLE_SimulatedProxy) check, which seems to have fixed a bunch of issues.

[nova wasp]

sim proxies never see inputs from saved moves, only the result and how it affected their replicated variables/velocity/pos

[latent heart]

Well, not "Replicated", but reconstructed on the client side, for that one. But the point is it's available on the client.

[sage lance]

only pain

[dark edge]

embrace the array

[sage lance]

arrays wont work

[dark edge]

What's the setup?

your map is of what to what

[sage lance]

i have a lot of maps but i use them to map various enums to structures or references

[dark edge]

how large are these maps, as in total number of key value pairs?

[sage lance]

the largest one i have is 150 keys

but i dont really need to rep that one

[dark edge]

It's probably literally faster to iterate and check (Array.Find) in the small case anyway

This is why you need to do multiplayer on day 1

[sage lance]

yeah ive been doing mult but i added some new systems

its just breaking for multiplayer saving

i have a save game object with a lot of maps

the client needs to load its save

[dark edge]

I think TMap has a function to crank out arrays of keys and values

[sage lance]

i did see someone like wrap it for replication

converty to array -> rep -> convert to map

[dark edge]

yeah that's what I'd do

or just have it be 2 arrays from the get-go, for small sizes it doesn't matter

[sage lance]

one of them is a kill log

[dark edge]

TArray<thing> Keys
TArray<thing> Values

why is a kill log not just an array of kills

[sage lance]

150 monster names to structs

[dark edge]

oh its counts

that's still not that bad

you're not sending it every frame right, just at GimmeTheSave time?

[sage lance]

no this is just for loading client saves

[dark edge]

yeah I'd just make arrays work

[sage lance]

i basically have made the maps just get updated in multicasts

[lyric heart]

thats a bummer

[sage lance]

so you think like convert all the save data to arrays on saving and then on loading use arrays

[dark edge]

I'd just have an array of monster,kill structs and call it a day

[sage lance]

Okay but then its not indexable by the monster name enum

[dark edge]

so just find it

[sage lance]

and id have to use loops to add stuff

[dark edge]

you can look at a lot of enums in the time it takes to hash something

[sage lance]

pretty inefficient

[dark edge]

probably more efficient for small arrays

also since monster name is an enum

just cast it to int

and thats its index

[sage lance]

pretty hacky but its something ive thought of doing

[dark edge]

You have an array of KillRecordStructs whos size is MonsterNameEnum.Size

although enums for stuff that's really gameplay data is a bit icky to me

should be a GameplayTag IMO

[sage lance]

its there a better way to arrive at a dictionary type structure that will rep correctly ?

[lyric heart]

UEnum::GetIndexByValue

[sage lance]

yeah ive done similar things for like selecting random enums

[lyric heart]

then you would just put them in the same order as the array

and get by index but select the enum, get index

getting by index i believe is still O(1)

[sage lance]

yes

[dark edge]

getting by index is literalyl the fastest way to do this

[lyric heart]

i mean get array of values from map, make array

or just hard code it

[sage lance]

well id have to convert many maps to arrays but not an impossible task

[dark edge]

btw friendship ended with TArray, now TSparseArray is my best friend

also friendship ended with TMap, TMultiMap is my other best friend

[dark edge]

ya dun fukt up a-aron

[sage lance]

makes no sense why you cant rep a map

[dark edge]

I think at the core of it is the fact that even if you end up with the same logical data, the backign data of a map would look different based on how you got there

with the whole hashing and collision and buckets and all that jazz

[sage lance]

all it needs to do is send the map structure and it will contain that

[dark edge]

You and me could agree that the map looks like:

Tom, 34

But we might not agree on what bucket that data is in

[sage lance]

yeah but that can easily be handled locally

[dark edge]

idk, make the pull request and see if Epic bites

[sage lance]

do you know where in array.h the replication is handled?

[thin stratus]

Given it's still not a thing 10 years later, you can trust the fact that it's not an easy thing, or even something one should try to do. Stick to Arrays if you need replication.

[lost inlet]

I'm sure writing your own netserialize would be fun and not painful at all

[thin stratus]

Gotta be an Iris one to ensure it also stays relevant.

[sage lance]

im not someone who enjoys easy things more into the challenging

[thin stratus]

Aight, good luck!

On another note, I just noticed that the Iris serliazer (NetSerializer probably too) of FHitResult recalculates the Distance locally from the FVector_Quantized. Good thing I didn't quadruple check my code to find out why there is a difference between Server and Client when it was coming from the HitResult replication cutting away precision.

[sage lance]

added to my todo list haha 😄

[exotic wasp]

idk why TMap doesn't have replication because fast array serializer sends deltas as a map iirc

I can't think of a time where I've needed to replicate a map though

[grand kestrel]

There is no way that happens

[dark edge]

What are you talking about, it's obviously easy to replicate TMap and they just have been lazy about it for a decade.

[lament flax]

[grand kestrel]

Good point, it will definitely happen

Gotta say, if they replicated it, I would not want to use it
Better to make your own struct

Can't imagine the pointless overhead with replicated TMap for general use

[nova wasp]

It has been done before

but I can kinda see why they never bothered to implement this in an official capacity as its pretty simple to work around

also on smaller arrays just doing AddUnique and searching by iterating will sometimes be faster than a tmap anyways

albeit more annoying

[plush mauve]

Is there any solution to replicating maps? I tried using a struct but that variable then just refuses to replicate?

[fossil spoke]

TMaps do not support replication.

Usually you will create an array of a struct that has a property that is the type value and then another property that can uniquely identify it.

[nova wasp]

hilariously the message literally above this is talking about map replication

it is possible if you completely make a custom serializer but... don't do that if you can avoid it

array setup is far more simple

[plush mauve]

Whoops, sorry, I should have scrolled up. Thanks for the responses.

[maiden plinth]

Hii everyone, I'm trying to create something like a spectator feature, my client 1 is a character class and client 2 is a spectator pawn whose view target is initially set to a actor with a top down view during that time when the client 1 is moving in the view his movement is very smooth after that when the client 2 view target is changed from that top down view to the character there is suddenly a movement jitter visible in the character(client 1) can anyone explain why there is this jitter as character class comes by default with client side prediction so why when I set the view target to the client 1 it shows that jitter and how can I fix this ?

[twin vessel]

Is there any reason to not move CheckJumpInput inside PerformMovement?

I cannot see any reason against moving it there. But i might be missing something

[thin stratus]

I assume you are following the Capsule Transform and the MeshComponent Transform is interpolated/smoothed.

[thin stratus]

Doesn't the comment above it say why it's placed where it is now?

[maiden plinth]

I'm setting the view target to special child actor which is attached to a spring arm with a small lag which is attached to character mesh

[thin stratus]

Hm, not sure then. It does look like the mesh is moving differently than the capsule.

[glacial seal]

hmm I just noticed that after this implementation, server is able to see what happen in the client side but what happen on server is not shown xD

[twin vessel]

In ForcePositionUpdate it says // TODO: this is basically copied from MoveAutonmous, should consolidate. Or consider moving CheckJumpInput inside PerformMovement().

While in ControlledCharacterMove it says // We need to check the jump state before adjusting input acceleration, to minimize latency // and to make sure acceleration respects our potentially new falling state.
But in all three functions where CheckJumpInput is called, the same operations on Acceleration are performed, and PerformMovement is called right after

[thin stratus]

You gotta apply the AnimLayer within an OnRep that specifies the currently equipped item.

[thin stratus]

Is there a reason you can't just leave it like this?

[twin vessel]

I want to override the jump logic if there is a wall in front of the character to implement a mantle mechanic, but if i set the movement mode to anything that is not walking or falling during the mantle, OnMovementModeChanged will reset the jump state including bPressedJump.
This is annoying because CheckJumpInput happens before bPressedJump is store in SavedMoves

The only reason against it that i can see would probably be that changing acceleration before ReplicateMoveToServer makes it so the move cannot combine, but i bPressedJump already blocks combine before the end of a move.

It just feels like it is wrong for it to not be there

[glacial seal]

    UFUNCTION(Server, Reliable)
    void Server_EquipmentLinkAnimLayer(USkeletalMeshComponent* AttachMesh, TSubclassOf<UAnimInstance> AnimationLayer);
    
    UFUNCTION(NetMulticast, Reliable)
    void Multicast_EquipmentLinkAnimLayer(USkeletalMeshComponent* AttachMesh, TSubclassOf<UAnimInstance> AnimationLayer);
        

void UEquipmentComponent::Server_EquipmentLinkAnimLayer_Implementation(USkeletalMeshComponent* AttachMesh,
    TSubclassOf<UAnimInstance> AnimationLayer)
{
    Multicast_EquipmentLinkAnimLayer(AttachMesh, AnimationLayer);
}

void UEquipmentComponent::Multicast_EquipmentLinkAnimLayer_Implementation(USkeletalMeshComponent* AttachMesh,
    TSubclassOf<UAnimInstance> AnimationLayer)
{
    if (UAnimInstance* AnimInstance = AttachMesh->GetAnimInstance())
    {
        AnimInstance->LinkAnimClassLayers(AnimationLayer);
    }
}

        On Item equip i called this (it is replicated as Item was spawn)
    //Link animation layer if not nullptr.
    if (IsValid(EquipmentFragment->GetEquipmentLayer()))
    {
        Server_EquipmentLinkAnimLayer(OwningSkeletalMesh.Get(),EquipmentFragment->GetEquipmentLayer());

    }

[thin stratus]

I usually don't reuse the Jump flag for traversing stuff.

[stoic rover]

Anyone know an easy fix for spawning actors on the server, not replicating to clients

[twin vessel]

I'm expanding the cmc for general purposes, so i wanted to provide a hook to stop the jump mechanic under certain conditions, and execute other logic instead

[thin stratus]

"easy fix"? I mean, you either do it correctly or not :D
Is your actor marked as replicated? Are you sure you are spawning it on the Server? Do you maybe have a reliable RPC on tick somewhere or stuff like that?

[thin stratus]

If you don't see an issue then just try it.

[thin stratus]

That's a multicast. Shitty idea for something that has state.

[glacial seal]

how do i further improve it?

[glacial seal]

ah i see haha

[stoic rover]

Yes its replicated, spawning on server, i did also try using an RPC but its spawning duplicates, also tried rep notifies

[glacial seal]

what is a better way ? learn about OnRep?

[thin stratus]

Somewhere you are equipping your item. That is hopefully happening on the server already. That currently equipped item is probably replicate, or?

[thin stratus]

I mean, you should learn about that anyway. You barely use Multicasts usually, so if you never used that before then you potentially have a sh*t ton of wrongly coded multiplayer logic o.o

[twin vessel]

I asked mostly to understand if it was a bad idea to begin with. But if there is not any counter indication i will give it a try

[glacial seal]

equipping item and unequip it is working as it is able to spawn equipment to attach to player hand or removing it

[thin stratus]

You'd need to move it into ReplicateMoveToServer and PerformMovement I guess.

[twin vessel]

ReplicateMoveToServer calls PerformMovement already

[thin stratus]

Yeah, but too late.

It already needs the Acceleration earlier.

[thin stratus]

Yeah, then you should have an OnRep for the Equipped Item soemwhere already.

That should trigger the LinkLayer fwiw.

[glacial seal]

it was using server reliable and multicast xD

[twin vessel]

It seems like Acceleration in ReplicateMoveToServer is used only for SetMoveFor, why would it need to have a post jump Acceleration?

Well i'm stuck regardless cause not having a source build i need to copy paste the functions and i need some CVars that i cannot access

[stoic rover]

Could you DM me if your available so i can elaborate more? Thank you

[thin stratus]

Cause Jump puts it into falling which will clamp the Acceleration differently.

[twin vessel]

I tested it and if i move the logic to PerformMovement it works but applying root motion there causes corrections, if instead i move it to UpdateCharacterStateBeforeMovement it works fine under any aspect.
In both cases i get no correction for the default jump logic.

[twin vessel]

Yeah i get the need to clamp the acceleration if we jump before SetMoveFor, but i do not see the reason why the jump should happen before that

[glacial seal]

@thin stratus thanks! OnRep solve my issue ;D

[lyric heart]

How would you go about displaying health of all other players in your group ?

i did get it working, but i was wondering how would be good

i used onrep and some loops/checks

[dark edge]

we need a sarcasm font

[exotic wasp]

if you use a onrep you probably don't need to loop or check anything

[lyric heart]

well one thing i have to associate the widget with the user so i use a unique id

s i need to loop for that

but also i had to use a workaround

[exotic wasp]

why do you need a loop?

just add a delegate to the onrep of whatever holds the player HP and have your UI bind to that delegate

no looping, no id needed

[lyric heart]

hmm

idk what your saying i think use an event ?

dispatcher

for me it's ok because i only have a couple players

[exotic wasp]

I can't entirely remember what they're called in bp but I think that's it

[lyric heart]

yes event dispatcher

i'm not sure here, so the widget will bind to the event

[exotic wasp]

UI should pretty much always communicate through delegates

[placid cloak]

Throwing this out there in hopes someone knows of a way. I need to run memreport -full on a headless server to find out why a crash is happening. The problem is the server doesn't have a built in console to run this from. I tried adding it through the command args in properties but that's just ignoring it or messing with the level being passed in. Any thoughts?

[lyric heart]

this isn't ideal for a large group

and also have another loop

i will try with event dispatcher

but i'm not sure how to go about this lol

[exotic wasp]

Your game logic shouldnt change regardless of if your UI exists or not

A delegate is the best way to do that

[lyric heart]

i just want to avoid all the loops tbh

it works and is ok for a small game like i'm saying for my purpose it might work

[exotic wasp]

In your onrep for HP, add an event dispatcher

Then your UI bind to the event dispatcher in beginplay or something

[lyric heart]

hmm ok

[exotic wasp]

When the onrep gets called, the event dispatcher is broadcast and the UI then updates

[lyric heart]

hmm but i need to tell each on the correct player

[exotic wasp]

Not sure I understand

Where is the health stored?

[lyric heart]

so when it fires off i actually want the local stuff to change

the health is on the player

[exotic wasp]

Actor?

[lyric heart]

yes

[exotic wasp]

You might have issues with relevancy later, but you just need to get a list of teammates when your UI first initializes

[lyric heart]

so the player state has a list of all players

thats what i'm using

[exotic wasp]

That works

[lyric heart]

and it works and one logs out it fires off and everything works

it's just that for each player onrep i'm doing all this loop

[exotic wasp]

So UI BeginPlay->loop through teammates and setup UI

Each player actor health has its own onrep

[lyric heart]

well i also need to setup when a player joins

because that would just say when you join and show the players, but when others join it wouldn't show up

so i set it up in the player controller

on acknowledge possession

with a few retry hacks

and on game mode, login/logout

i'm trying to think of how to fire off the proper event on whatever machine is running ?

i was going to use rpc, but i assumed onrep would be more performant

but i think with all these loops, perhaps an rpc would be better

[exotic wasp]

RPC is probably more performant but you should never use them to change state on clients or to react to changes in state

OnRep is ideal

[exotic wasp]

The client sets up the binding to delegates themselves

The OnRep will trigger on any client where the actor is relevant

[lyric heart]

hmm

[exotic wasp]

The only way to control what machine "receives" the OnRep is by controlling relevancy

You probably don't want that here

Relevancy will actually probably cause issues if players are far apart because the actor will despawn on clients

[lyric heart]

ya i want them to be able to spread across the whole map

not a huge map, but still

i have the enemy and players, always relevant

[exotic wasp]

You can also toggle "always relevant" which is probably fine

Yeah

Enemies maybe you don't want them always relevant

But for a small coop game teammates being always relevant is perfectly fine

[lyric heart]

well i want the players to be as far as part as the map allows

as far as if they want

[exotic wasp]

They can always do that on the server just fine

It just keeps the actor loaded on every client at all times

So you will still get health updates and such

[lyric heart]

wdym always on the server ? if they go to far from server player the on reps don't go off ?

would i have to do something on the client side to display ?

and then let it sync later ?

[exotic wasp]

When an actor becomes not relevant to a client, it is effectively destroyed on the client

When the actor becomes relevant again, it gets constructed again and goes through BeginPlay

Server always has everything loaded for itself because it's the server

If an actor is too far away and becomes not relevant, the client doesn't know it exists and will not get OnReps

So you either have to make the actor always relevant because that's where your health is stored, or relay the health through something that is always relevant to all like PlayerState

And tbh, probably makes more sense for clients to bind to a delegate on PlayerState. then in case the actor being possessed changes, the UI doesn't care because it just binds to the PlayerState

Sorry if that's a bit much

The pinned messages here have some good resources

@lament flax saves his notes online and has some decent replication sources

[lyric heart]

i can also put my loops in c++ might be just fine like that

atleast untill i can figure out what your saying, i think i get it the health shouldn't be on the player, it should be in player state

but i have no problem getting the health

or setting it normally

just getting every other players health and updating on my ui when other player changed

but events seem the best way to go, i'll look into it thanks

[exotic wasp]

Performance isn't an issue here

[exotic wasp]

Well, health can stay on the actor if you want. But changes to health on the server would get forwarded to the PlayerState which then replicates to every client

[lyric heart]

thats all i'm worried about lol

if the way i'm doing it doesn't cause a performance issue then i'm fine with it

for what i been trying to get working, a lot of the sync stuff is a pain

but now it doesn't matter how they log on, order, timing

everything syncs up

the real test will be with latency i guess over the actual web

[lost inlet]

I guess you were meant to put this one in #source-control ?

[coarse cave]

Oops, yeah

[glossy gate]

heyy, right now when I try to interact with an editable text box with a client doesn't let me interact but with the server yes. I think it could be maybe a focus issue or something but I'm not sure and I don't know how can I be able to interact in the client too. if anyone can help me pls

[nocturne iron]

Does Unreal’s replication system provide a built-in way to check if an actor’s state has replicated on the client? Like some sort of counter or “change id” that increments each time replication happens, so you can confirm you’ve received the latest server state across actor channels?

[halcyon ore]

Not that I know of for like per var sorta deal
(There is a function that gets called for the entire actor)

But, from what I heard.
Vars and stuff is repliable, so it should happen, as soon as possible.'

What are you intending to do?
Just knowing when client has a value change, but from the server? (since server needs to send the change)

[quasi tide]

PostNetReceive can probably be used for what want perhaps.

[nocturne iron]

I have this inventory system...

// Ther user calls this function, which saves the OnResponse delegate along with a request guid. 
UKhaosInventorySystemComponent::TryMoveItem(FKhaosInventoryRequest_MoveItem Request, FKhaosInventoryResponseDelegate_MoveItem OnResponse);
// Which calls
UKhaosInventorySystemComponent::Server_MoveItem(FKhaosInventoryRequest_MoveItem Request);
// Which calls, on success, it needs to call the OnResponse delegate.. However, only if the UKhaosInventorySystemGameState (which holds state) component has also replicated the change from the request. 
UKhaosInventorySystemComponent::Client_MoveItem(FKhaosInventoryRequest_MoveItem Request);

So my solution is having something like this

// Where Revision is UKhaosInventorySystemGameState::Revision. This way I can call the Delegate if we are up to date, or wait till the UKhaosInventorySystemGameState::Revision >= Revision.
UKhaosInventorySystemComponent::Client_MoveItem(FKhaosInventoryResponse_MoveItem Request, uint32 Revision);

Hope that makes sense. Basically I am trying to ensure sync between actor channels.

[nocturne iron]

I never got what that was for, it has no params? Is it just "anything updated"?

[halcyon ore]

Not sure I follow the inventory system.
But, sounds like you would just want an on rep variable?

[nocturne iron]

Yeah, I think so.

[halcyon ore]

Or, are you trying to keep multiple moves in order?
So, if I move it from 0 -> 5, then someone else does 5 -> 3 You wanna have moved in the correct order, and such?
Cuz, that also sounds like what it is?

In which case, your over-complicating it.

[nocturne iron]

It's just to make sure that when the calling client receives it's acknowledgement from the server (though Client_MoveItem). It does not call the OnResponse delegate assiated with the request before the game state is also up to date.

Otherwise there would be bugs where the client tries to do something with a newly created item in the OnResponse callback, and the action fails client side validation because the state is not synced.

[halcyon ore]

I feel like now i'm more lost, or your describing it weird?
Client moves it, has a callback, but the callback fails, because the client didn't move the item it just moved?

[nocturne iron]

In actor channel 1 (player controller): Client sends a request to move the item. Now the server updates inventory state and acks the requesting client.
In actor channel 2 (game state): Inventory state was just changed, and is being replicated.
The issue is that i cannot assume that actor channel 2 has replicated the state on the client when the client recives the Client_MoveItem RPC, and thus I need some sort of sync key to determine it. That key is passed with the ack to Client_MoveItem, can can be checked against UKhaosInventorySystemGameState::Revision.

if UKhaosInventorySystemGameState::Revision => Client_MoveItem's revision we know it's safe to call the OnResponse delegate, i.e. it's safe to trust what was sent in the response struct.

[halcyon ore]

Oh, I see.
Its a miss-understanding of how I usually envision item replication.

Then, yeah.
An on rep would make the most sense here.

[nocturne iron]

How do you usually do it?

out of curiosity

[halcyon ore]

I replicate the items themselves, then just move them around with reliable RPC's.

Request Move
Server Move
Client Move

Since its reliable, it should keep everything in-sync.
So, when the client has its RPC move replicated, it moves the item, and done.

Should be all in-sync.

[nocturne iron]

I see, I am not really able to do that here with FastArrays.

[halcyon ore]

Ah, I see.
Yeah, I don't use any of that special stuff.

It makes the items that part of like unknown if sync'd but the item themselves matter far less, then client clicking on raw meat, but server thinks its a sword or something goofy.

[obsidian ermine]

Store health in the player state which is copied in the Gamestate and is replicated to all regardless of relevance.

[trail cave]

Hello! Has anyone encountered compiling a dedicated server on Linux if the project includes Wwise? The client build is purely on Windows, the Wwise license is purely on Windows, and Wise is not required in the server build.

If everything is clear with sound calls, just wrap them in a macro and that's it. But what to do with Wwise volumes and portals on the map and in the BPs, i can't wrap them in a macro))

I understand that wrapper classes can be created, but they would be inconvenient to configure, as Wwise classes have many parameters, and transferring all of them to a wrapper class for each one seems like a hack.

But maybe there's a better solution?

[fossil spoke]

The WWise licence will only cover their SDK code. It will not cover the plugin. So any plugin code, like Actors that wrap their SDK is perfectly acceptable to use as you will.

Therefore, all you need to do is to compile out any calls to their SDK.

A Blueprint callable function is not covered by their licence, the call to their SDK that the Blueprint callable function calls is what you want to remove.

So the Blueprint function becomes an empty stub basically.

[lament flax]

Personaly i make the PC call a reliable RPC on server with slot info and the client will get the replicated state through OnRep

And next to the server rpc call in the widget i would also update the slots like the change already happened to have some fancy item prediction

[halcyon ore]

Update the item like it already happened?
That seems wasteful?
2 reps to move an item?

Nvm
Brain fart. 😛

[lament flax]

not 2 reps

1 local "update slot display" for local client prediction

the server will rep the state back anyways

[cursive mirage]

When making an indie multiplayer game, is there a difference in frame performance (game heaviness) between Unity and Unreal Engine?

Please consider the game design as Lethal Company.

[thin stratus]

What exactly do you want to know? Most of this is up to the developer, not the Engine.

[cursive mirage]

I see.
When I asked GPT, it said that Unreal Engine is photorealistic, and because of its high performance, it tends to be harder to optimize and generally heavier than Unity.

I’m glad to know that’s not really the case. Thank you.

Sorry for asking something so trivial.

[thin stratus]

Yeah, you can make all kinds of games with UE. And maybe UE is initially a bit overloaded, but especially for an Indie Multiplayer Game, UE offers a lot more stuff out of the box. I'm pretty sure you can make an equally unoptimized mess with Unity if you aren't making sure your code and assets are fine.

[pliant cypress]

if (SoldierCharacter->IsLocallyControlled())
{
    if (bWeaponEquipped && EquippedWeapon && EquippedWeapon->GetWeaponMesh() && SoldierCharacter->GetFPSMesh())
    {
        LeftHandTransform = EquippedWeapon->GetWeaponMesh()->GetSocketTransform(FName("FP_LeftHandSocket"), ERelativeTransformSpace::RTS_World);
        FVector OutPosition;
        FRotator OutRotation;
        SoldierCharacter->GetFPSMesh()->TransformToBoneSpace(FName("hand_r"), LeftHandTransform.GetLocation(), FRotator::ZeroRotator, OutPosition, OutRotation);
        LeftHandTransform.SetLocation(OutPosition);
        LeftHandTransform.SetRotation(FQuat(OutRotation));

        FTransform RightHandTransform = SoldierCharacter->GetFPSMesh()->GetSocketTransform(FName("hand_r"), ERelativeTransformSpace::RTS_World);
        FRotator LookAtRotation = UKismetMathLibrary::FindLookAtRotation(RightHandTransform.GetLocation(), RightHandTransform.GetLocation() + (RightHandTransform.GetLocation() - SoldierCharacter->GetHitTarget()));
        RightHandRotation = FMath::RInterpTo(RightHandRotation, LookAtRotation, DeltaTime, 30.f);
    }
}

hand is rotating, but weapon rotation is getting wierd

[exotic wasp]

Client RPCs?

It won't keep state synchronized if a player late joins or relevancy changes

[nocturne iron]

Cant figure out why UKhaosInventorySystemComponent::OnRep_Backend (replicated subobject) is being called with nullptr on owning client. What am I missing?

// AMysticPlayerController
class AMysticPlayerController : public APlayerController
{
    UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category = "Inventory")
    TObjectPtr<UKhaosInventorySystemComponent> InventorySystemComponent;
};

AMysticPlayerController::AMysticPlayerController()
{
    bReplicates = true;
    InventorySystemComponent = CreateDefaultSubobject<UKhaosInventorySystemComponent>(TEXT("InventorySystemComponent"));
}

// UKhaosInventorySystemComponent
class UKhaosInventorySystemComponent : public UActorComponent
{
    virtual void BeginPlay() override;
    virtual void GetLifetimeReplicatedProps(TArray<FLifetimeProperty>& OutLifetimeProps) const override;

    UFUNCTION()
    void OnRep_Backend();

    UPROPERTY(ReplicatedUsing = OnRep_Backend)
    TObjectPtr<UKhaosInventorySystemBackend_GameServer> Backend;
}

UKhaosInventorySystemComponent::UKhaosInventorySystemComponent()
{
    PrimaryComponentTick.bCanEverTick = true;
    bReplicateUsingRegisteredSubObjectList = true;
    SetIsReplicatedByDefault(true);
}

void UKhaosInventorySystemComponent::BeginPlay()
{
    if (ensure(GetOwner()) && GetOwner()->HasAuthority() && ensure(!Backend) && ensure(BackendClass))
    {
        Backend = NewObject<UKhaosInventorySystemBackend_GameServer>(this, TEXT("InventoryBackend"));
        check(Backend->IsSupportedForNetworking() && Backend->IsNameStableForNetworking())
        AddReplicatedSubObject(Backend);
    }
}

// UKhaosInventorySystemBackend_GameServer
class UKhaosInventorySystemBackend_GameServer : public UKhaosInventorySystemBackend
{
    UKhaosInventorySystemBackend_GameServer();

    virtual void GetLifetimeReplicatedProps(TArray<FLifetimeProperty>& OutLifetimeProps) const override;

    // Replication plumbing
    virtual bool IsSupportedForNetworking() const override { return true; }
    virtual bool IsNameStableForNetworking() const override { return true; }
    virtual int32 GetFunctionCallspace(UFunction* Function, FFrame* Stack) override;
    virtual bool CallRemoteFunction(UFunction* Function, void* Params, FOutParmRec* OutParms, FFrame* Stack) override;
}

I feel like I am doing everyting written in the docs.. https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/replicating-uobjects-in-unreal-engine

[exotic wasp]

Use the replicated subobject list later in that resource

And is the actor you have this on replicated?

[nocturne iron]

How do you mean?

[nocturne iron]

Yes.

I set bReplicates=true and bReplicateUsingRegisteredSubObjectList = true in constructor.

[exotic wasp]

I think you might also want to create the New object only on the server and have it replicate down

Also not sure the name is stable since you're using NewObject

[nocturne iron]

Yeah, this is what i am doing here

    void UKhaosInventorySystemComponent::BeginPlay()
{
    if (ensure(GetOwner()) && GetOwner()->HasAuthority() && ensure(!Backend) && ensure(BackendClass))
    {
        Backend = NewObject<UKhaosInventorySystemBackend_GameServer>(this, TEXT("InventoryBackend"));
        check(Backend->IsSupportedForNetworking() && Backend->IsNameStableForNetworking())
        AddReplicatedSubObject(Backend);
    }
}

[nocturne iron]

Hmm, I will try to return false on that one.

Though I just needed to name them the same in NewObject.

[nocturne iron]

Aha! That was the issue. Thank you very much :)

[exotic wasp]

I think the networking system tries to look for a stable name first, then goes elsewhere

Stable name would be for something you can uniquely create on both client and server and have them match

Or assets

[nocturne iron]

I see. That does make sense.

[tame sapphire]

Hi all, looking for a bit of direction on this one. Just not sure how to plan it out. Basically I have server AIUnits that a player passes 'Actions/commands' to and the server executes this command at a certain point within the turn. However I want to start the game with players being able to choose a spawn tile. I got the logic for selecting the tile but I'm just mentally blocked on how how to show/hide the tiles dependant on if the server unit is alive or dead.... didnt see a game logic kind of channel so asking here as it is multiplayer

in my head im setting on the player controller if the unit is alive or dead and updating the hud and showing/hiding the tiles then but fdor some reason it just doesnt make sense and im after input on a direction to go if it doesnt

[tame sapphire]

Im assuming on the destroy of the event i hide all spawn tiles and on event destroy i show show them and update the HUD at the same time? or should the unit begin and destroy events call the 'Command controller' attached to the unit and update from there

[gray blade]

can anyone answer, im trying to make a system where when you transition levels in a session data like inventory and health travel. im aware the game instance is usually the go to but since the GI is persistent the whole engine runtime and i dont want the data in ouside the origin lobby is it a good idea to save it inside the playerstate?

(ugh just came to the revelation seamless travel doesnt work in editor)

[torn hull]

Hey, I’ve got a progress bar for something like health. It doesn’t need to be updated every tick, only on certain events. The “health” variable is replicated on my health component, but when testing with lag, I noticed the widget bar that uses the replicated variable gets out of sync on client.

I made a workaround by creating the same variable on my character (not replicated) just to update the widget. The downside is I now have to update two variables: the one on the component and the local one.

Is this a good idea, or is there a better way to handle updating replicated variables on widgets?

[gray blade]

its not really a big seal since an int or a float are using 4 bytes of memory as long as it fixes your issue

[plush mauve]

If I have a very large replicated struct array on GameState with maybe 10k-30k entries, is there any reliable way to know when that array has finished replicating for the first time on client login?

If I make it repnotify, when does the notify fire.... only once when it has completely finished replicating? Or does it replicate large data in stages and fire multiple times?

[verbal ice]

depending on how big the elements are you're going to run into issues

You might hit the size limit per bunch

i would make your own system to chunk it and reassemble it on the other side

which would solve your problem of knowing when it's fully ready on the client

[nova wasp]

may as well send size of the array

[torn hull]

Hey, by default components exist on all instances of the character. Is it possible to make a character component only on the server? I want to create a detection radius for a certain character, but if it exists locally someone could just hack its radius, right? Also, there’s no need to create this on all clients since only the server will fire the overlap event. Should I just destroy it on locally controled characters? It seems to work fine

[nova wasp]

you could also add it dynamically only on the server but this should okay assuming the object can't do anything between spawning and ending play

[thin stratus]

In C++ you have more control over it. In blueprints you would need to remove it the way you currently do. You still pay the price for creating and destroying it but at least it won't be part of the updated component transforms.

In terms of cheating, there is nothing the client can do unless you allow them. If the component doesn't have an ServerRPC, or is altered by one from the outside, that modifies the radius on the server, then nothing can happen anyway

[nocturne iron]

Is there a good way of doing per-connection filtering of fast array entries? I basically need a relevancy check per entry.

[nova wasp]

no

maybe if they point to a specific sub object, those can be filtered

[nocturne iron]

Well shit.

[nova wasp]

the easy thing is to just make multiple fast arrays

[nocturne iron]

Oh, how?

[nova wasp]

making replicated sub objects and filtering them with groups etc

iirc you should be able to just not replicate them to some clients but

I don't know what the data actually is

or why it filters per client

making a whole new object for replication is not free of course

[nocturne iron]

Hmm. Okay. I am looking to add some sort of relevancy to items, such that they are replicated based on their proxy actors position, what inventory they are in etc. All items UObject subobjects of the game state. Not sure what the best pattern is here.

[nova wasp]

so why not just have it on the proxy actor? is this some kind of global list of them?

having a network manager is a great idea for some things but idk if this should be a global list of spatial things

[nocturne iron]

Yeah, i have a InventoryStateComponent on the game state which holds a list of inventories and items. Just the data, then the proxy actor refers to it by handle. So the items, and their data in themselfs are not spacial. I have a lot of data on the items in a component like system, where each item trait has their own data. They are called item fragments. So I thought it made a lot of sense to keep a state component with that owns the data.

[nova wasp]

having fragments tends to be in a definition at least in Lyra

which is just a class path networking wise

[nocturne iron]

I have two types of fragments. Static and instanced. Instanced fragments has per instance data, which is individually serialized to the database. Static fragments are just gotten from the item definition primary asset.

The spacial relevancy of the actor proxies is easy. But in the current implementation, the non-relevant item data is also replicated to all clients, which inefficient due to replicaing too much data and insecure since a client would be able to just read the memory and see what items are in the game.
That is really the part I am looking to change. How do I make relevancy per subobject, and how do I connection-specific view for lookup.

[nova wasp]

I still don't see any part of this that needs the global manager on the gamestate

[nocturne iron]

How should it be then? Who owns the subobjects?

[nova wasp]

the actor instance that they represent, no?

[nocturne iron]

And then change ownership when the item is picked up?

[nova wasp]

I guess idk why the handle here to the gamestate matters unless you want to have them sort of exist even when not nearby to serve as a global lookup

[nova wasp]

either that or just recreate the instance entirely

[nocturne iron]

Hmm

[nova wasp]

Forgive me if I have been rattling off an iris-specific feature... I assumed groups were in the old netcode as well https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/iris-filtering-in-unreal-engine#group

[nocturne iron]

No problem.

[nova wasp]

is there a notion of "teams" or alliances in this game? could there be a bucket per-team?

or are there more than a handful of potential sets of items you want to send

[nocturne iron]

So, the inventory system is designed for a survival extraction shooter somewhat like Tarkov, or Dayz. We have ~1-2k items per map. I am still a little conflicted on the who owns the items question. I guess you could have a point that the actor/object representing them should also own them..

[nova wasp]

if the items are on the floor then they should just replicate by distance, no? I'm confused

you could probably do something fancy and pack them down into a network manager for each rough area or grid cell like Mass replication does (they have a manager actor for groups of entities called bubbles but idk exactly how they transition between them)

[nocturne iron]

It just seems like a lot of sync barriers, and not sure what effect is has on rollback. The current implementation is highly transactional, so it's easy to have a list of "predicted transactions", there is also that the user API has an OnResponse delegate for each requested action. That means that the per-client system component needs to wait for all side-effects of the request to be fully replicated before sending a response, which is somewhat easy with a central manager- and likely also doable if the items are owned by actors. I guess that would just be OnRep if they are reconstructed

[nova wasp]

yeah the single holy list does help avoid dupes I assume

also

the idea of this transaction does not have to be replication, the replication could just be representing where the item is

the transaction could be a series of reliables

where other clients just see the results as the represented areas

the representations could just be a potential request into the global manager, but the representations are spatial etc

[nocturne iron]

This kinda boils down to the philosophical question of is an item actor the item, or just an interface for item. The interface for an item model works very well for UI, because the UI is totally decoupled from the actual item, so server build can just disable the game feature providing inventory UI and work anyway. But for world actors it more nuanced.

[nova wasp]

which is kinda what you do now but what I mean is to not have the instance data in the global manager replicated, but maybe sent alongside the sort of spatial thing where they are results from the holy database

indices sent that you arne't close to or can't really own are ignored etc

[nocturne iron]

Hmm. yeah.

[nocturne iron]

No, it's needs to be per connection filtering.

[nova wasp]

so the holy gamestate list could serve as an authority only thing

where it is sort of the goalkeeper of the item and serves to represent the path it took to get to where it is

but the players see an actor with stuff on it etc

they don't need to know about the gamestate, they just need to see an item on the floor and press E on it

[nocturne iron]

That might not be too bad

[nova wasp]

but I honestly have never had to make something like that from scratch so don't take my word for it, there might be some nice examples around of people making similar pvp/extraction etc survival games where item transactions are an issue

[nocturne iron]

I am wondering what not having that list on the client would mean. The only think I can think of is prediction of actions, like showing green text if i can pick up the item based on some fragment condition, and red if not. If the client only knows the actor, that would have to be a server RPC to get that information. Also other types of "can I move an item here" checks, that are currently done based on the clients version of the "holy gamestate data".

It's a pretty smooth solution for solving the relevancy issue tho.

And likely the simplest and fastest as well. Due to replication graph / iris.

[glossy venture]

Hello everyone, currently bashing my head against the wall known as "Steam Advanced Sessions Setup" in UE 5.6. I've been through every tutorial and fix and just can't get it to work. I have what is nearly a default thirdpersongame going on but with a main menu screen to create/join sessions.

Every single time the Join Session node fails where it has the "failed to join session2" print string. I've got no idea what I'm doing wrong or what I could even troubleshoot at this point. Got some experience in single plalyer games, this stuff throws me for a loop. Would greatly greatly appreciate any help or insight getting this rudimentary multiplayer system working.

Also note this isnt a packaged project, all testing has been done in the editor with 2 windows for testing 2 players.

Thx for any info/assistance in advanced 🙂 👍
(there are many videos but this is the written guide I'm trying to follow: https://unreal-chronicle.hanayou.dev/docs/miscellaneous/advanced-sessions-setup
I'm stuck on Testing Multiplayuer in the Editor, since I can not get Join Session to work)

[lyric heart]

when you test, test on the listen server itself as a listen

[lyric heart]

to test the actual steam stuff you need to have two computers or two accounts running somehow

but if you package your game

when you run it

while steam is running

[mystic estuary]

Hello, I have a fast serialized array with structs that contain object ptrs. Everything gets replicated as it should, but when I started testing it, client-side it seems to GC the uobject eventually. Server-side it's always valid, but client gets rid of it for some reason. The outer of the object is an actor component which the client has, I double checked and MyUObject->GetOuter() inside PostReplicatedChange() is correct... The server never GCs it unless it doesn't want to have the object anymore.

What could the reasons for it to be GC'd in case the outer is valid? Is there any way to hook to something that would tell me what object got GC'd?
nvm I was changing the outer server-side after AddReplicatedSubObject, so clients had it set to the old outer which got destroyed

[lyric heart]

you should be able to see your game name next to your name while your playing

[lyric heart]

so when you hit host does it travel to the listen map ?

[shy gust]

hey all , I dont think this issue is unique to Steam networking but, with steam implemented in my racing game, im noticing I need Seamless travel enabled on all my gamemodes .
However , enabling this makes restarting the scene kind of impossible? as in the Restart Game Node, no longer works , im not sure if there is a work around, I use the restart game node mainly for restarting the races in all my various modes in my game, its pretty important.
but if anyone has any ideas id really appreciate any and all insight, thx

TLDR how do you handle restarting in seamless travel scenarios?

[nocturne iron]

You should always be able to server travel to the same map again.

[grave lynx]

hey, I have a actor, inside, I use SetOwner(MyPawn) if the player interact with it. I override OnRep_Owner(), I added a log inside but this funtion seems not triggered, any idea?

[shy gust]

oh wait..that..makes sense , iunno why i didnt think of that , thanks lmfao

[nocturne iron]

It's not perfect in all cases. Try it. If it works it's a quick solution.

[nocturne iron]

Do you have UFUNCTION on your override function?

That is

UFUNCTION()
virtual void OnRep_Owner() override;

[grave lynx]

compile error

Override of UFUNCTION 'OnRep_Owner' in parent 'AActor' cannot have a UFUNCTION() declaration above it; it will use the same parameters as the original declaration.

[nocturne iron]

Ah, my bad. Though that was required.

Are you calling SetOwner from server?
bReplicates = true?
Is the actor relevant to the client?

I also assume you expect the OnRep to be called on the client, not on the server?

[grave lynx]

yes

[grave lynx]

and yes

[nocturne iron]

Does the actor have a new owner before you set it? (HasNetOwner())

[grave lynx]

it's a actor, so null I guess

[nocturne iron]

When in the object lifetime are you setting the owner?

[exotic wasp]

fully closed editor and compiled?
are you positive your actor derives from your class with the override?

[fallow mango]

does anyone know why an animation would affect player position on server, but not when playing as client?
some setting within the player bp

it's going through an RPC and works with a different character, just cant seem to find why

[glossy venture]

Thanks for the reply! I have been testing with Play As Listen Server set for the Net Mode. Was just trying to test everything out in editor before properly connecting it to Steam to test the packaged product. Got plenty more game to build before packaging, just need to make sure players can interact in real time before I can develop much further.

When you hit host it doest travel to the listen map, even for both players without a problem! Only issue is no matter the order the Join Session button has never worked, and always returns the "Failed to join session2". So all I have right now is both players who are able to host their own games, both of which use the same listen map.

[dark parcel]

step one is to show code

[mystic estuary]

Hello, does anyone deal with moving uobjects between different outers? I want to give a different outer for a replicated uobject, but it seems not to replicate that change. I had to change it client-side, as well as move the sub object from actor channel to the new outer for it not to be marked as garbage when the original outer gets destroyed. It seems to work, but the approach seems wrong, I feel like it can break easily. Did anyone else try to do something like this?

[verbal ice]

changing outer especially in a replicated context is very prone to issues like the ones you stated

what you're doing is pretty much what I've had to do as well so that sounds right

Make sure you remove the object from the previous outer's replication list, and add it to the new one

[mystic estuary]

Yes, that's what I do, but I still have to manually unregister the sub object from actor channel client-side

Otherwise it gets marked as garbage when the old outer gets destroyed

[verbal ice]

yep

[mystic estuary]

Did you have any other problem with that?

[verbal ice]

an interface that may help you is IActorSubobject_Interface

i think thats what it's called

[mystic estuary]

I'll look into that once I'm at the computer

[verbal ice]

you can slap it on the UObject and it has functions the engine will call when it's created/destroyed from replication

but that's about it

keep in mind the object will be recreated on the client

i wouldn't attempt to move it there

you'll end up with dupes

or worse probably

[mystic estuary]

So it'd be better to recreate it server-side, and don't change the outer altogether?

[verbal ice]

You can change the outer on the server

Just know that the client will recreate it

[mystic estuary]

Are you sure though? The only reason I had to deal with it is that the object got GC'd. I move it from one fast serializer array to another, which reside in different actors, yet the object got GC'd as if it's the same one

[lyric heart]

I'm trying to access the HUD from the player controller, but it keeps failing ?

I'm looping through the player array

And using the controller of the current in the loop

To call an event in the hud

Hmm, I'm trying to update player cards when postlogin

I generate the cards on possession np, but when others join after I'm having an issue rebuilding the cards

[trail cave]

Thanks! You're my savior) I just downloaded Linux files of plugin without license for Linux and all compiled. Thanks! 🔥

[trail cave]

Show your code

[trail cave]

HUD exists only locally on each client, no server instances

[lyric heart]

so i tried even calling the event elsewhere and it still not working

[lyric heart]

why looping through the player array and getting hud through controller is failing ?

[trail cave]

Looping in server? The reason I wrote above

[trail cave]

You need to create in player controller Run On Owning Client event and in it call event in hud

When you looping server controllers - call this event(Run On Owning client)

[lyric heart]

i have tried this

it doesn't work

maybe i was doing it wrong

in the controller i have an event

that sets runs an event on the hud

this works fine when ran from the controller

but when in game mode, on postlogin it's not working as expected

[trail cave]

Show your code)

[lyric heart]

this is on postlogin

it keeps saying FAILED

[trail cave]

Reread my solution)

HUD dont't exist on server

You call Get HUD in server

You need put get HUD in controller event

[lyric heart]

so pass the player ?

not the hud

i'm not understanding lol

[dark parcel]

HUD is local to each player

listen server has one

clients have one each.

they are local, not networked nor reachable by other player other than the owner.

[dark parcel]

Maybe what you want to do is,
As server -> Tell every client to do X?

In that case,
As server -> Loop every controller -> Execute functions in that controller via client RPC.

RPC is for event based though, the cards should always be updated via OnRep imo.

Updating variables with RPC is recipe for disaster.

[trail cave]

betteer solution to read documentation about networking, to unerstand how all it works. As said ColdSummer - if u fix that function and it will work - it's doesn't matter, because the current method for updating cards is incorrect in itself.

https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/networking-and-multiplayer-in-unreal-engine

[lyric heart]

i'm updating widgets, and only on login/logout

[dark parcel]

z1kot shows how server can tell clients to run function.

But for what you want to do, you shouldn't even talk to anyone's HUD.

[lyric heart]

ya the docs

[dark parcel]

You don't want to update anyone's widget.

server don't even need to know anyone's widget or any player widget for that matter.

what you want the server to do is to propagate STATEs

So in this case, think of card as Inventory and items. They are normally represented as actor component.

Server -> Get Player -> Get CardComponent -> Set Card values or w/e.

the card can be a replicated variable. Clients will eventually get the server value on the next Net Update.
In which they client can do OnRep (Card)-> Broadcast.CardUpdated.

and here, the Widget listen to the broadcast

[lyric heart]

i'm creating them dynamically

[dark parcel]

so whenever the card is updated on client side, it updates the widget.

Yes, and the answer remain the same

[lyric heart]

its not the update thats a problem

it's creating them

[dark parcel]

Having server telling clients, hey update your widget

is noob mistake, sorry for the language.

just my honest opinion

and yeah im noob too

but I believed Im over that stage

[lyric heart]

ya i'm really new to networking

multiplayer is really difficult imo

[dark parcel]

yeah but once you understand replication it's actually the easy part.

[lyric heart]

i guess i can use onrep

[trail cave]

it's best practices, not abuse)

[dark parcel]

the next part is hell

Physics and real time combat

[lyric heart]

idgaf about all that

i just want these damn cards to work lol

i been stressing for hours over this crap

[dark parcel]

give your self weeks

I dunnoe about others, but I went through countless errors.

until one day, it click.

[lyric heart]

try that didnt work

[dark parcel]

show code

[trail cave]

@lyric heart Check again my message))))

[lyric heart]

wdym ? the get player controller not work ?

[dark parcel]

Player States != player controller

show code?

[trail cave]

Multiplayer or singleplayer - it's doesn't matter. Widgets always just listening, also in singleplayer you must not call directly update widget)

But singleplayer forgives many problems and it works) But not in multiplayer)

[dark parcel]

Many youtube create dependency with the widget =(. They even do Hp subtraction there.

so when widget doesn't exist, game break.

[haughty ingot]

He’s not casting a player state to a player controller…

[trail cave]

Hahhaha))

[lyric heart]

fact

[trail cave]

Yep, sorry, didn't see

[lyric heart]

and it's succeeding

[trail cave]

@lyric heart

[dark parcel]

Show code X_X

[lyric heart]

yes i just tried this it didn't work

[trail cave]

Second reason - client version of player controller didn't exist at that time when you calling event. And it will not replicate to client

[haughty ingot]

PostLogin is generally too early to do anything with the player state IIRC.

Depending on if you’re doing seamless or not, HandleStartingNewPlayer is the function you would want IIRC.

[dark parcel]

RPCs are for event. so Like welcome message, or good bye message.

For your cards, just make your card a replicated variable.

what ever the server set the client will eventually update.

[thin stratus]

Wild suggestion: If one needs to react to a player joining locally and needs access to the PlayerState of said player, one could use the BeginPlay method of the PlayerState.

[nova wasp]

assuming an object is present in multiplayer that is a distinct property or object is always a bad idea

replication-wise at least

[thin stratus]

Iris seemingly makes this worse, as even the few order rules we had for RPCs and Properties went out of the window.

[nova wasp]

one simple thing is if you have 2 things that can show up at random times is to just have both do the same "are we both here yet?" call that can only trigger once and puts them into an initialized state and does the actualy "do stuff" code for whichever one is second

[haughty ingot]

I love how whenever someone is asking for specific help on a topic they don’t understand, it devolves into everyone talking more in depth into something the person clearly doesn’t understand

[nova wasp]

Iris internals are them literally bending over backwards to make it at least resemble the old order

relying on the old order was a bad idea in the first place imo but yeah there are some weird onrep orders sometimes

[thin stratus]

Glad we do something you love. Hope you enjoy the ride.

[trail cave]

It's not solution - to ask a question and get fast answer. Because he don't understand multiplayer and just right answer fix his current problem, not future problems. But if he understands more - he can make less mistakes in future

[thin stratus]

Seems like the original issue was mainly accessing the HUD on the server and expecting it to be valid.
But yeah, I do see a lot of tutorials and such use PostLogin to notify players about a new player.
And that's not necessarily wrong, but if it requires certain other actors to exist locally, then it quickly breaks.

[thin stratus]

While fair and I support that thought, I'm pretty sure Elliot meant the Iris talk.

Or maybe my suggestion, but I can't say I posted that to actually answer the question of the poster.

[haughty ingot]

No I just meant everything in general, it was a joke tho. Not to take literally

[lyric heart]

...

now it's broken lol

[trail cave]

@lyric heart Fast solution for your problem.

But i recommend to read docs, there're many useful info and good examples

[nova wasp]

it's kinda difficult for us to follow along with what changed here without seeing what the code is and what the result pressing play is

[trail cave]

@lyric heart repeat it and if it still don't work. Show your code TryTryAgain event in player controller

[lyric heart]

ya i'll have to fix it i broke the fkn thing

[thin stratus]

I mean, engage is here for like 2+ years or so. And I'm pretty sure they worked on multiplayer stuff before. Confuses me sometimes when I see peeps still struggle that hard and then also fail to actually post proper information instead of "now it's broken lol".

[lyric heart]

brb

[nova wasp]

no shame in multiplayer stuff being confusing I guess

[thin stratus]

Yeah I guess. Just somewhat expected some of the basics to be there by now.

[lyric heart]

this is my first time doing multiplayer

[trail cave]

it's ok

[haughty ingot]

I’ve seen that phenomena a lot and I just attribute it to wanting to make a game more than learn how to make a game and improve. (Not to say that’s exactly what’s happening in this situation, but in general).

That’s why it’s often more you’ll see people wanting to just have their code fixed instead of explained. (Again, not saying this scenario, Engage).

[thin stratus]

Guess I just remembered wrong. All good.

[lyric heart]

now all of a sudden the player isn't spawning ?

i have a backup but i'm hoping not to lose a days work lol

[haughty ingot]

The ladder half though

[thin stratus]

Blame Epic Games for exposing some functions as ImplementableEvents and some as NativeEvents.

HandleStartingNewPlayer is a native event.

You gotta call the Parent function, otherwise you are overriding the C++ code.

[trail cave]

show your code, pls)

[thin stratus]

It's the lack of the Parent call in your simple setup you shared.

[haughty ingot]

They made some changes to gameplay cues a while back (not sure if they reverted), that had the same “feature” and it drove me up the wall

[thin stratus]

It fully replaced this:

void AGameMode::HandleStartingNewPlayer_Implementation(APlayerController* NewPlayer)
{
    // If players should start as spectators, leave them in the spectator state
    if (!bStartPlayersAsSpectators && !MustSpectate(NewPlayer))
    {
        // If match is in progress, start the player
        if (IsMatchInProgress() && PlayerCanRestart(NewPlayer))
        {
            RestartPlayer(NewPlayer);
        }
        // Check to see if we should start right away, avoids a one frame lag in single player games
        else if (GetMatchState() == MatchState::WaitingToStart)
        {
            // Check to see if we should start the match
            if (ReadyToStartMatch())
            {
                StartMatch();
            }
        }
    }
}

[lyric heart]

ok, yes that was the problem

thank you

[thin stratus]

What sometimes gets me is BeginPlay itself. It's not a Native one, so calling the Parent on it in the first Blueprint child class won't do anything.
But if you have a custom C++ parent class and you are doing something in BeginPlay, it usually calls AFTER the BP one due to that.

[trail cave]

But why it's calling my event in player controller and debug print string return hud name?))

[nova wasp]

calling the parent is super unintuitive in bp in general for me and I wish it was kinda more clear "hey, there COULD be a parent here but there isn't" which of course is sometimes the point but should at least be clear

[thin stratus]

E.g.

void ASomeActor::BeginPlay()
{
  // Doing something that is required inside a child BP's BeginPlay would work here, but now the Actor as a whole "hasn't begun play yet".

  Super::BeginPlay(); // This sh*t is calling the child BP's BeginPlay.

  // Doing something that is required inside a child BP's BeginPlay is too late here.
}

[haughty ingot]

Inconsistencies make us stronger in unity

[thin stratus]

Why wouldn't it?

[trail cave]

I didn't see, he wrote player not spawned) Sorry

[haughty ingot]

@lyric heart can you take a clear screenshot of the entire extent of everything you’ve connected to the HandleStartingNewPlayer event?

[lyric heart]

i'm not using that event, it fkd everything up

atleast i don't know how to use it

[haughty ingot]

Do you know how to call a parent function in BP?

[thin stratus]

UE knows exactly what class, super class, event, etc. it is displaying with a node. They could easily add a button to Event and Function nodes that spawns the Parent call node whenever the Event is inherited and the Parent is another BP or when the Event is from a C++ class and a NativeEvent. Having us to remember and rightclick the node to spawn it is annoying, yeah.

[lyric heart]

this doesn't work

[thin stratus]

@lyric heart Please start explaining what doesn't work. You will drive people away from helping you like this.

[haughty ingot]

I understand it’s frustrating, but you need to put in effort as the person asking for help, to expect others to give their time

[lyric heart]

it's not updating the huds in each player

[thin stratus]

What does TryTryAgain do anyway?

[lyric heart]

you would assume it would try try again on each one ?

[haughty ingot]

I think it’s a spin wait

[lyric heart]

it works, it creates the widgets

[haughty ingot]

Can you post a screenshot of it, please?

[thin stratus]

The code in the image you shared can't be at fault. If you put a print string into TryTryAgain and it calls properly for each new player on all connected players and the new one, then it's not at fault.
Which means TryTryAgain or anything after that is at fault.

[haughty ingot]

Ok let’s, start over

[thin stratus]

That's not enough info to help with. Which of these events are all calling and which aren't? You have a PrintString node there. Put more into it. Check if everything calls the way you want it.

[trail cave]

Now I understand what you said about) I think only one must answer for asker. If not, it's unreadable list of messages, which more confusing asker)

[haughty ingot]

wait no, that’s not what I meant

[thin stratus]

That only works if the person answering 100% knows their crap though.

[lyric heart]

ffs all i want is cards for the players lol

the try try again works for when possessed

it shows the ones that already logged in

i run it on acknowledge possession

[haughty ingot]

All you want is to have everyone update their hud when a new player joins, right?

[lyric heart]

i want to remove all created cards, and create cards based on the player array

which trytryagain does

set all widgets is on the hud

[dark parcel]

That's easy. As server -> Get all player -> Get each card variable, set to null. Done

what ever you want to set the value, just do it in the server as replication goes from server to client.

[thin stratus]

@lyric heart The big thing here is that you have all the options to debug this instead of showing these images to us hoping we spot the issue.
You have Breakpoints and PrintStrings. If something somewhere doesn't work, then a PrintString and a Breakpoint would both indicate that.
You clearly don't know where and why it fails, so please do yourself the favor and figure that out first.
Put PrintStrings along the whole execution chain, from PostLogin or whatever you use up to where the Cards are created.
And print meaningful information with that, not just a random string. Print the Object DisplayNames, the PlayerNames, etc.
Once you have that it should show you where it stops working.

Because right now all you do is show us parts of your code, saying "code works" but "it's broken".
Who the hell should know how to fix that with that info?

My light doesn't go on. But the bulb works (haven't tested), the breaker is in (haven't checked) and the light button is functional (haven't pressed it).
Please tell me why the light doesn't work.

I'm gonna die in Hollow Knight a few times now. That'll be more enjoyable I guess.

[lyric heart]

i'm generating them on them each time

they are not created yet

[lyric heart]

hmm, ok

it's failing on the cast to hud

[trail cave]

How can a person(which know 100%) help if everyone starts writing in parallel? engage don't understand what he do and solution is to help step by step with code screenshots or try tell basics. In this situation he need just solution step by step, but every saying smth and he gets even more confused.

[thin stratus]

Good, that's a first clue. Are you sure the HUD class is set to your BP_HUD Blueprint?

@lyric heart ^

[lyric heart]

-.-

[thin stratus]

If you are unsure, please print the DisplayName of the TargetHUD variable when the Cast fails.

It will either say the wrong name or none. None being invalid then.

[lyric heart]

its empty

[trail cave]

he said about this

[lyric heart]

running as owning client fixes the cast fail

but for some reason it's still not working

[thin stratus]

Running what as onwing client?

[thin stratus]

More PrintStrings/Breakpoints.

[lyric heart]

if i knew the problem i'd solve it lol

i can't figure where its failing, it seems to run just fine

like it's not stopping

[thin stratus]

Do you think any of us know the problem in our code without debugging it?

[trail cave]

you don't need all this checks. just

and just in hud get game state and make your logic

[lyric heart]

thanks but thats exactly what i've done and doesn't work

[thin stratus]

You are still at the stage of figuring out the problem.

it seems to run just fine
It certainly isn't, otherwise you'd see your expected result.

[lyric heart]

-.-

[trail cave]

where is fail? in controller event or in hud event?

[haughty ingot]

Cedric’s just angry because he’s on his 10th death in 5 minutes hollow knight

[lyric heart]

i've tried so much stuff lol i'm really frustrated tbh

[trail cave]

I'd like to help you, just answer my questions about fail

[thin stratus]

Take a break maybe. But you won't get around debugging the code and sharing the exact results with us.
We can't help without the info.

[lyric heart]

the try try works

the code i sent doesn't work

when i mean doesn't work

it just doesn't do what its supposed to do

if i knew why i wouldn't be here

i'd fix it myself

[thin stratus]

@lyric heart Sure, you still won't get around putting PrintStrings in and showing us the result of all of this.
"Doesn't work." "Doesn't do what it's supposed to do." is all not gonna help us helping you.

Cause, as you said, if it was working and doing what it's supposed to do, you wouldn't be here. (:

[haughty ingot]

https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask

http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

[dark parcel]

you never send the updated code though.

making it almost impossible to even know what's on your end.

[dark parcel]

This make no sense btw, why is the server passing a HUD?
Remember HUD are local to each client, server doesn't have the client's HUD, so I don't even know what you are passing there.
In any case TargetHUD will be null.

[lyric heart]

i'm wanting to update all huds when a user logs

when they come into the game, update all lists of widgets

for every player

i've tried several ways and it's not working

there is not a fixed amount widgets

i'm destroying and recreating based on player array

but it's not working

and yes i said (not working) becausei have no clue why

i have not tried onrep but i don't want this as a state i just want it to fire off when people join

and what would i even do ?

on rep what ?

[dark parcel]

Card is a state, stop trying to tell client to update via RPC.

Client update their own widget when their values are updated, simple as that.
Client widget will just listen to their OWN world state. It reflects values that they currently hold, regardless what it is.

Anything that needs to be sync = don't RPC it.

[lyric heart]

hmm

[dark parcel]

1. Player enter the game -> HUD is created -> Hud gets the Card component -> Hud bind to all the delegates (e.g CardUpdated).

following soo far?

above is all local logic.

nothing networked.

you just have to make sure that the card component exist. If it live inside a player character then you need to ensure that the client already possess a character.

[lyric heart]

i mean it works fine when player enters the game

it loads accordingly

np

[dark parcel]

you are approaching the problem incorrectly

[lyric heart]

but when people login, i need it to update on all machines

[dark parcel]

the sooner you accept it the sooner you will be able to move on.

People update stateful things with RPC all the time

and say, look it work.

untill it doesn't.

[lyric heart]

i wonder it's the way i retry ?

so in a loop i do if fail, delay and retry

but the retry is inside the loop body

do you think this is fkd ?

i'm new to latency as well

something i never really had to deal with

[dark parcel]

not about latency but you are adding more complication.

Code can be clean with proper event triggered.

[lyric heart]

why this doesn't work is all i'm asking

and is this a failure ?

will it goto next loop value ?

[dark parcel]

OnNewPlayerJoin -> Tell the clients that a new player join.

Client receive the RPC -> It execute function to create a widget for that new player and reflect it's state.

Why tell client, destory and re-create everything.

[lyric heart]

even if it's wrong

[dark parcel]

What you want is just to push a new widget for every single player that join.

[lyric heart]

i just want to know why it's not working

[dark parcel]

I don't know what's not working.

[lyric heart]

and i think this loop thing is an issue

hmm

[dark parcel]

but I can see you are doing it incorrectly.

[lyric heart]

thanks i will try with event eventually

dispatcher or whatever

[dark parcel]

Yeah but that's not even networking related

[lyric heart]

right but it's true right

it will pull the wrong value ?

if you delay and call an event inside the loop

i think i fkd that up

[dark parcel]

not sure what delay even do here.

Delay inside loop doesn't do anything afaik.

cuz the default bp macro loop runs in a single frame.

[lyric heart]

do you not understand what i'm saying ?

if i have a loop

and i have an event inside the loop

if i call the event inside the loop on a fail

to "retry"

[dark parcel]

on a fail?

[lyric heart]

of like a cast fail or something

a different path

and then i run the event again

to try again

[dark parcel]

I have no idea what you are saying

[lyric heart]

ok nvm

[dark parcel]

also delay does nothing here

[lyric heart]

i'm pretty sure i'm correct

[dark parcel]

no logic that you need requires delay whatsoever

New Player Join -> Tell clients, a new player has join, go push a widget to your HUD for this new player.

The new widget is but a view model that show the Cards of that player.
So that specific PlayerState-> Get the character of that player -> Get the card component -> Get the cards and display it.

Player Left the game -> Tell clients, hey that player have left the game, go destroy the widget that belong to that player.

[lyric heart]

ok i'll try this

[tardy fossil]

could even possibly have the playerstate just do its thing on begin play and not deal with RPCs on player join/leave

[lyric heart]

my biggest issue is reorganizing the widgets

but i'm working on this approach to just add a widget when logged in

[lyric heart]

I can't create a widget in the controller ?

Only local player controllers can be assigned to widgets

[dark parcel]

1.) PlayerState BeginPlay

Hud Logic

and the widget

Card container is just a widget that has a horizontal box, where whenever a new player join, a new widget (player card) get pushed in.

@lyric heart

gonna sleep, gl.

[lyric heart]

i think i figured most of it out, if i'll look at what you posted if it's not working

i created the widget in the player state

and used a multicast

[dark parcel]

I just notice there's a bug on my end

client have some extra values but oh well, i can't look into it now.

[dark parcel]

Don't

but I can't stop you

if you insist

you are just shooting your own foot

[lyric heart]

once i learn the dispatcher method then i'll be better of

but it's not a bunch of players

it's just a few players

[dark parcel]

doesn't matter really, you are complicating it.

[lyric heart]

i'm not worried about complication, i'm worried about performance

[dark parcel]

You are still trying to let server telling clients what to do.

when it's client job to create it's own widget and view the state of it's world.

All server need to do is set the card values, no more no less.

Client can handle displaying it on their own end.

[dark parcel]

Nothing to do with performance btw.

[dark parcel]

I spot my mistake, I changed the values as client.

setting the card should only be a server action

[lyric heart]

why the ++ isn't working ?

if i set a random y i can see it fires off multiple times

and i can set the value initially as well

[limber gyro]

my guess would be it would have something to do with replication

[lyric heart]

i tried with + 1 it didn't work

[humble idol]

It's quite unorthodox to change the value of a replicated variable from a net multicast...

[torn hull]

Hey, I’m wondering what your recommendation is, since I don’t really have the experience to know what problems I’ll stumble upon later. I’ve got two different pawns for two different teams, where team members are selected at the beginning of the round. Those two characters have slightly different UI, but still share some stuff in common.

I’m in the early prototype phase, so the difference isn’t huge yet, but I’m wondering where I should create widgets in the long run. Right now I’m creating them on pawns, and I’ve got two different HUD widgets for each team member. At first I was creating them on Begin Play, but when testing with lag, clients didn’t get it without adding a delay node, and that felt kinda sketchy. So I moved it to On Possessed. Since you’re only possessed when the team is selected (not on level start or travel)

I was also thinking about creating them on the player controller, but then I’d need to switch every time based on a variable that defines what team member you are, and that feels like it could turn into spaghetti real quick.

Second idea is to create some widgets on the common parent that these team members are derived from, and only create unique widgets on the children. But then I couldn’t have one HUD widget where all the other widgets are, right? I would have to create individual widgets, or using widget switchers?

What’s your take on this when you’ve got two teams with different characters and different UI (but not completely different)?

[torn hull]

I quickly changed this creation from screen above to a parent, (like in the second idea I described), and I feel like it might be the best option. The plan is to create HUD child widgets as generic as possible, then just tweak some variables on them, like the name in this screen above, for example. I won’t completely avoid using widget switchers, but for now this still seems like the easiest idea.

[thin stratus]

OnControllerChanged is where you would want to create it.

OnPossessed is server-only.

OnControllerChanged calls for both, so there you can filter for IsLocallyControlled.

Pawn-specific UI you can create in the Pawn. Game-specific UI in the GameState.
Team-specific UI in, for example, a custom TeamState.

[mystic estuary]

It should be called ReceiveControllerChanged for pawns*

[thin stratus]

Yeah, can never remember the damn BP name

[mystic estuary]

Yeah, I hate the inconsistency

[thin stratus]

I would have to create individual widgets, or using widget switchers?
Not sure about the switcher, but it's probably a good idea to have one core Widget that acts as a base layer manager and then add the different widgets runtime into predefined slots and what not.

Depends on your game what you need.

[torn hull]

Okey, thanks. Is this a big differnece than calling on possesed from server and tnec custom event on owning client liek in my example, is this more performance friendly?

[thin stratus]

It's redundant would be one argument.

[mystic estuary]

It's just more correct, there's no reason to fire an extra RPC for something you already have

[thin stratus]

I wouldn't do it like that.

Your UI should pull the data from the other objects.

You don't really want to set the name on the UI like that.

[mystic estuary]

For your goal I would try to use UIExtension from Lyra. You can define extension points that can receive other widgets from anywhere in the code. It's a small encapsulated utility plugin to extend your UI in a modular way. You can pretty much copy it from sample project, and paste it directly in your game

[torn hull]

O I'll look into that, thanks

[torn hull]

Good to know, could you elaborate why?

[mystic estuary]

I doubt that that progress bar will be anything but stamina. Why don't you write "Stamina" in the widget itself?

[torn hull]

Cuz different team doesn’t have stamina but a stealth bar. I wanted to create it as generic custom progress bar in my HUD class with a canvas panel, and then just change the name for the eacch team

[mystic estuary]

How do you update the progress bar though?

[torn hull]

Im using set percent function Im calling fromm pawns where this widget is created. I made simmple function inside this widget. Screen on the left is from pawn, and on the right is function inside widget

[mystic estuary]

You rarely want your gameplay code to deal with UI. The UI should be self-contained, and pull all the data from your character, components, controllers and whatnot.

So, you would have your progress bar reading the stamina or stealth value depending on what it is. Most likely that would be two separate progress bar widgets. They might share a parent for common stuff, but they would be two different blueprints for ease for extension. One would read stamina, the other stealth value. You eventually might also want to add different visual properties to them depending on what they are, and it'll be very easy to do since they'll be already separated.

In case of UI Extension plugin, you would define an extension point where the progress bar should be, and then add the one you need depending on the team

[torn hull]

But what if it’s changed only on events? I don’t want to read this value every tick, only when needed. Then I should use an interface to trigger this event with some value as input? I don’t want to cast to my pawns on every widget to read its variable.

[mystic estuary]

Reading that on tick would be considered bad practice. You usually shouldn't cast to your pawns to read the value, because these values shouldn't be on pawns directly. Usually people create separate components to handle things modularly, even if you use it only in that pawn, it still makes sense to isolate your stamina and stealth in components to make it easier on you. This way, you would need to GetComponentByClass out of GetOwningPlayerPawn instead, and then use event dispatchers to read the values when they are changes

[torn hull]

Ok, thanks for tip, I'll try to do it. Im using components for stealth/stamina, but I didnt know about GetComponentByClass

[mystic estuary]

That should be enough to make it encapsulated. However, note that this is #umg territory 😄

[torn hull]

Yeah, that was unexpected turn xd

[thin stratus]

It just scales a ton better if your gameplay code doesn't need to necessarily care about the UI. It should only provide getters for data and delegates (event dispatchers) for important events.

[shy gust]

Hey all, Im trying to figure out when the player controllers are reloaded in a server travel restart (as in server traveling to the level were already in to restart the scene)

If im understanding correctly, the player controllers are not unloaded in this scenario, but the Game Mode is. So if I check for all existing player controllers when the game mode loads back in after the restart, all of the playercontrollers should already be loaded by that point correct?

[tame sapphire]

If I have an Actor on the Server and the actor has a static mesh. I can currently Hide/Show that mesh for all connected players, how would I go about showing/hiding for each player individually? e.g. looping through the connected players array and showing/hiding based on a var in the player state?

the server owns the tile so dont think owner no see workss even more so as any player could need to 'see' the tile if dead etc. Think this is the direction i need for it to work or even achieve what i want (its a spanw tile that you should only see if your dead/dont have a valid character)

[coarse cave]

I think that's typically done w/ either RPCs or and override of IsNetRelevantFor

But depending on your use case, you might just do it all on the client. If the client knows which conditions a tile should be visible/hidden, you could hook those events on the client (e.g. an event when they're dead, or don't have a valid pawn) and control visibility there.

[tame sapphire]

i updated the function to a multicast but i dont think im in the right ball park currently (I also changed the valid get to is not valid) will look into IsNetRelevantFor

@coarse cave thank you, I think the later part works for me in this use case

as in the following works for each player individually so i should be able to use this

[lyric heart]

geez i figured it out mostly, just got a few more tests but i think i got it working, not the best approach but one that works.

[thin stratus]

It should be in HandleSeamlessTravelPlayer or something like that.

[shy gust]

this is the closest thing that came up in the GameMode, I didnt find anything in the playercontroller

[thin stratus]

C++

Not sure this is exposed to Blueprints.

Multiplayer without C++ is wishful thinking.

You can use that method you posted but it will call for post login too

There should be one for seamless travel

But if it's not exposed then not sure.

C++ 😅

[shy gust]

I mean its gotten me pretty far already but ahh, brutal. thanks for the insight tho , I appreciate it. ill experiment

[thin stratus]

I know. But sooner or later you hit the wall.

[shy gust]

I dont doubt it , ive already had to jump through alot of hoops i didnt expect and make work arounds for my racing game.

[lyric heart]

https://streamable.com/rf1dhp

Got it, thanks for the help

[errant charm]

whats the best way to replicate a timer?
need the time remaing to be read by clients as well

[halcyon ore]

replicate either the end time, or the start time, and know the length of time.

Like, if all matches last 60 minutes, you can replicate the start time.
Or, you can just replicate the end time.

Both have some end result.

[shy gust]

I have a similar question about timers,

does anyone know if there's any method to create fps independent timers?
ive read alot of mixed information and settled on using really long Timeline nodes, but ive noticed that they are inaccurate if the framerate drops.

[coarse cave]

That's why you use a start time or an end time as suggested above. You'll only run into framerate related issues if you're trying to accumulate DeltaTime

[halcyon ore]

Shouldn't timers???
Be independent?

Technically everything is "FPS dependent"
Something gotta handle the math for stuff, and if that math happens less, then it happens less.

But 1 second on 1 FPS, or 500 FPS should still be 1 second?

Same reason why a timeline still has issues.
Cuz, the same thing that drivers timers, drives timelines, and everything

[fossil spoke]

Timers are already independent of frame rate?