multiplayer

[pallid mesa]

basically you can drive certain shader formulas with this input data

so you could define or drive the size

by passing to this shader a variable that determines how big your decal is going to be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVKVXjaT6QM

[mighty rover]

@pallid mesa Thanks, will give it a try now. If you're curious, this is the effect in action, in my game: https://youtu.be/fNzlFwYikXA

[pallid mesa]

that looks cool!

[mighty rover]

oldschool POGs action 😉

[pallid mesa]

now, you really don't want to spam spawn that circle

hahaha

[mighty rover]

haha exactly - cleaning everything up and it's one thing that's bugged me that I couldn't find a way to prevent the spamming of the spawned decal, so hopefully by tonight, I can figure it out

will post back if I have any more questions - thanks again

[pallid mesa]

no worries, there are more methods to do what you want to do

[mighty rover]

oh yeah? such as?

[pallid mesa]

simply scaling

using a mesh

for example

[mighty rover]

oh yeah, good point. I can just create a flat mesh of the shape (or even a plane with opacity mask) and scale it then it wouldn't be much different than the method I'm using now

[pallid mesa]

it doesn't even need to be plane

it just needs to work out for your perspective

[mighty rover]

that's a fair point 👍

[gleaming vector]

@winged badger yeah, that is what I did

basically I found that the instanced subobject was created and properties were loaded on the server

and then the subobject was sent to the client

where the properties were not loaded

[winged badger]

was it the replicated one from the server, or a local one?

[gleaming vector]

however, since nothing had changed on the server (properties were loaded and left blank), the initial replication didn't have the changed properties

so it was constructed and then just left there

the local one

Server: Constructed, Properties loaded, Sent to Clients

Client: Recieved, Constructed, Properties not loaded (since it was sent from the server)

the step where the initial properties was skipped, because on the server they were loaded and never changed

[winged badger]

normally, all replicated properties are sent with instruction to construct the object in the same bunch

[gleaming vector]

not if they are default

and, honestly, this isn't the first time this has happened to me

so i shouldn't be surprised

you can make OnRep fire if they are default

but you can't force the server to actually send the property

[winged badger]

instanced is fucked, when you put it on instanced subobject it gets even worse

[gleaming vector]

yep

i walked right into it

[winged badger]

oh ffs

[gleaming vector]

"whistles... OH GOD ITS ALL SPIDERS"

[winged badger]

server thinks the defaults are whatever you put into the instanced object on the actor CDO, because its instanced

[gleaming vector]

yeah, if you have a DOREP condition to fire OnReps always, it actually checks if it's the initial construction and if so, fires the replicated property OnReps regardless of if there is actually something from the server

[winged badger]

client receives "make this object, here is delta"

[gleaming vector]

yeah

[winged badger]

client makes the object from its CDO

[gleaming vector]

it's all fucked

i have to duplicate the objects

[winged badger]

i avoid using instanced like a plague nowdays

[gleaming vector]

well, i like it

because I can subclass data

which is a vital feature of what im building

(I'm building a MP vehicle system that is game-neutral)

(so things like "does this seat do anything special when a player gets in, like animate the player" has to be on a per-game basis)

so, just subclass the seat config

[winged badger]

any particular reason why a UObject, and not a full UActorComponent?

[gleaming vector]

uh, lighter

and they don't need to be registered

plus, i'm doing some stuff with array manipulation

i think im just gonna duplicate the object

set the dupe to be net addressable

and replicate that

that solves my problem... it's ugly but it works

[winged badger]

easiest way is

serialize the instanced one-> create a new one -> deserialize it from archive

i think

game agnostic, that a hobby project or a future plugin?

[gleaming vector]

client work

and i have a couple of use cases

could work as a future plugin

but i have no idea how i would sell it

[mighty rover]

@pallid mesa - I got it working. Thanks for the assist.

[wet oriole]

Hello guys,
In the game mode class I'm trying to pass player state from a controller to another controller client function but in the client the player state is null
in my game mode :
void AMYGameMode::PostLogin(APlayerController* NewPlayer)
{
AMYPlayerState* NewPS = Cast<AMYPlayerState>(PC->PlayerState);
for (AMyPC* ExsitingPC : PCs)
{
if (NewPS)
ExsitingPC->UpdateNewPlayerInfo(NewPS);
}
}

in the controller class header:
UFUNCTION(Client, Reliable)
void UpdateNewPlayerInfo(AMYPlayerState* InPS);
void UpdateNewPlayerInfo_Implementation(AMYPlayerState* InPS);
in the controller cpp:
void ARTS_PC_Lobby::UpdateNewPlayerInfo_Implementation(AMYPlayerState* InPS)
{
if(!InPS)
\\Some log
}

Why the client can't see the Player state ? As i know the player state is replicated to all clients!

[worthy apex]

Update from my SeamlessTravel issue:
I have managed to get my character be carried forward to another level using GetSeamlessTravelActorList() but the mesh is not showing, please help

[pallid mesa]

👍 @mighty rover

[ivory flame]

@ivory flame y don't u call create session on the server when it starts up? Then u could use sessions right?
@timid moss I don't fully understand how sessions work when I connect using IP address, because I don't know the way how to use Join Session with my dedicated server IP

[thin stratus]

Sessions are just information stored as a list you can retrieve

It requires a central place to store them, called a MasterServer. Steam for examples allows using theirs, which allows you to create and find online sessions. When connecting to them it just pulls the connection info from the session info.

@wet oriole most likely a timing issue. The state hasn't replicated to the other client yet

[empty axle]

hello, are there some rules about when the OnRep will be called on the client side? For example if the replicated variables would be set before BeginPlay on server, would their OnReps be called before BeginPlay? Or OnReps just can come in any time and there is no rules regarding them?

[chrome bay]

If the value is changed from it's "default" value when the actor arrives from the Server it will broadcast the OnRep's

Hard to say RE them vs begin play, since if the game hasn't "started" yet then BeginPlay is halted anyway.

[winged badger]

Client side: Spawn local version of replicated actor -> PreNetInit -> Set Replicated Values -> Call OnReps -> PostNetInit -> (if the World has/when the World calls DispatchBeginPlay) BeginPlay

[chrome bay]

Ah yeah cool, that's what I thought. So OnReps always first

[empty axle]

@winged badger thank you

[winged badger]

@empty axle if you spawn actor deferred, or use ExposeOnSpawn options in BP, you can use BeginPlay in a more generic way

as then server side whatever you plug in as ExposeOnSpawn or initialize between Spawn and FinishSpawning is available on BeginPlay, same as on clients

(as NetDriver doesn't send the Actor information the moment you spawn it, any replicated variable you set server side after BeginPlay, but on the same Tick, will be replicated before client's BeginPlay)

[empty axle]

So the actor spawn info and replicated variables set with using deferred spawning are send as one bunch?

[winged badger]

they are

well, anything you set between spawning an actor and netdriver sending it over really

which might not even be same Tick

[empty axle]

That makes sense, so it is safe to assume that those variables would be available on Beginplay

[winged badger]

it is

and that they can't get lost

[meager spade]

in BP its same frame tho. in c++ you have flexibility to call Finish Spawning when you like.

[winged badger]

same packet - either everything arrives, or nothing

[meager spade]

unless you are on about the net driver stuff

which could be a diff frame

[winged badger]

if your replicated variable is a pointer to another replicated actor, there is no guarantee that actor will have replicated before your actor referencing it calls BeginPlay

but non-pointer types are completely safe there

those kinds of race conditions typically happen during non-delayed match start

OnRep for pointer types should still fire when their NetGUID is resolved on that machine

[twin minnow]

Hey just wondering, are requests using FHttpModule encrypted in any way?

[twin minnow]

For example, SSL

[rough iron]

Hey, i am getting this error when i try to build from source (msb3075 exited with code 5). Any solutions?

[fossil silo]

Hey guys, I am working on a utility app for our UE platform, and I need to find any running instances of UE on our local network...I currently am able to scan the local ip range for specific open ports...but, when running a listen server, I cant seem to see any ports opening on my UE machine...

Anyone know which ports for sure are opened on a listen server, or any other open port by default w/ UE4?

[timid moss]

@thin stratus Sessions are just information stored as a list you can retrieve It requires a central place to store them, called a MasterServer. Steam for examples allows using theirs, which allows you to create and find online sessions. When connecting to them it just pulls the connection info from the session info.So you can still use sessions with dedictedd server?

[pallid mesa]

[rich ridge]

Yes dedicated server can and should and that's how it should behave,I haven't used steam anytime but coming from experience of Software Engineering and considering good design

Basically steams master server needs to tell your game we have found a match and steam is going to send you the found players and the dedicated server let them in via session

@timid moss

[limber gyro]

guys can you not get the game state inside a controller?

or am i missing an include

[grizzled stirrup]

If you spawn 10 replicated pickups that are pooled on begin play, in order to update their location when moving to desired locations and resetting, should I use a RepNotify FVector property or just set SetReplicateMovement(true) so that clients will see the pickups at the new location?

They are simple static actors so there's not actual movement to speak of, just updated locations from time to time when the pickup gets pooled / reinitialized

[limber gyro]

trying to get the gamestate inside the player controller, its returning null, does one know how to fix this?

trying to get it inside the tick function

[grizzled stirrup]

Why would you be doing it on tick?

Usually there's a bit of time before the GS is fully up and running so if you were getting it on tick there may be a few frames where it's null

[limber gyro]

i figured that after a while

its working now

im doing it on tick because i need to know if a round is over every frame

[grizzled stirrup]

@limber gyro why would you need to know that every frame?

Make it event based it's far more efficient

[limber gyro]

i know but i cant be arsed

[meager spade]

:/

lazy programmers are the worse programmers 😄

[grizzled stirrup]

I feel like stuff like that is how some infamous games that are built on a house of cards are made

"do it the easy way, we can fix it later"

reality- can't fix later without breaking 10 entangled parts of the game

[limber gyro]

its not entagled at all the game is relatively simple

and im being carefull haha

[wild lagoon]

Can anyone help me with a gamelift issue? i ran
cmake -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A x64 -DBUILD_FOR_UNREAL=1 .. inside [dir]\GameLift-Cpp-ServerSDK-3.4.0\out and got no errors. Then i ran msbuild ALL_BUILD.vcxproj /p:Configuration=Release and got the following error:

The lines that it is referring to in Microsoft.CppCommon.targets is this:

[fluid prawn]

I have a question for you networking peeps. I was wondering for network debugging is there a tutorial or a way to use wireshark to track the packets in flight from server to client.

?

I wanna test Client Side prediction because I wanna see how UE4 handles sending updates to the server if the clients frame rate is uncapped.

[silent phoenix]

If i wanted to start to learn about making a persistent dedicated server does anyone have any suggestions on learning resources?

[timid moss]

u would need to setup a database. actually u probably know that already

@fluid prawn I don't use wireshark much but I know there is this channel called Battlenonsense that does the kind of stuff you are trying to do

[silent phoenix]

Yeah Brian i'm more looking for info on configuring unreal server builds , pulling info from those DB and writing to it, etc

[timid moss]

if you are talkng about doing rest requests in game to get database values theres this. https://wiki.unrealengine.com/UE4.10_How_To_Make_HTTP_GET_Request_in_C%2B%2B

[fluid prawn]

I have another question brian

regarding client prediction if anyone knows

if the server ticks at 60

does that mean the client will sample its own moves at 60

or does it sample it at its own frame rate

[timid moss]

for the prediction right?

[fluid prawn]

i feel like that since the server is authoritative

yes

so if you have say

100 ms

server has 20 ms

20 tick rates

then

16 ms to 100 ms means the client is 6 moves ahead of the server

but the server acks the client every third tick of client

so I suspect the client will sample its moves 3 ticks of the 6

and do the delta

the issue im trying to wrap my head around is if you uncapp your fps

and it fluctuates

[timid moss]

your assuming that the framerate is what determines the distance your character moves. If you follow basic gameplay programming practices, the frame rate shouldn't affect your movement. You are supposed to multiply how far you move in a certain move by DeltaTime, that way your movement is dependent on time, and not your framerate.

or maybe im misunderstanding the question

[fluid prawn]

yea you're right about delta time

so no matter what fps

you get the sum

at one second

in UE4 i see

they send moves

[timid moss]

does that answer it?

[fluid prawn]

the thing I am concerned with is what it looks like when the client sends chucks of information to the sever and fluctuating frame rates

i am confused about that

[timid moss]

o

i see

[fluid prawn]

the only thing i can think is that

ue4 caps the sampling sent to the server by the servers tick rate

so if you have 120 fps and server ticks at unno say 60

it will chunk out 60 of the 120

[timid moss]

yea that makes sense

but again i wouldn't think it would eb a problem because of deltatime

[fluid prawn]

you send delta time

over the wire too

so yes

the thing is the delta time

sent

must be capped

so

1/60

so like

if i have a data set

of moves for 120 frames

how do you chunk that with another delta time?

muliply it by a scalar or something

every tutorial i've seen on client prediction is nice and always creates a situation where the client is capped at certain fps

but in the real world that doesnt happen lol

[timid moss]

true. is this the Character movement component you are using? or are you making your own. I haven't gotten too much into that stuff yet so I don't have enough knowledge

[fluid prawn]

i am overriding it

[timid moss]

o

i see

[fluid prawn]

ive spent a considerable amount of time in the CMC

and I wanted to do some fast pased movement

with velocity

[timid moss]

yeah i will be doing that sometime in the future and am sorta dreading it.

[fluid prawn]

and i get jittery netcorrections

ah

I did this

might help you

https://github.com/staticJPL/UE4SequenceCharacterMovement/blob/master/UE4MovementNetCodeSequence.pdf

I mapped out the networking sequence for the CMC

[timid moss]

i hvae made special movements before in a custom CMC but i havent gotten into what your doing i think

[fluid prawn]

nobody really has lol

[timid moss]

o wow thats useful

[fluid prawn]

its really hard

10k lines of code

so i combed through it

[timid moss]

yeah. no one talks about it too lol

ive read through it before

[fluid prawn]

the netcode for cmc is like the monster under the bed nobody wants to talk about

[timid moss]

its complex lol

[fluid prawn]

the thing is for any character movement you cant actually build a template for netcode

for all movement

the only one template you can technically do so is for velocity based movement

[timid moss]

have you seen the tutorial by SaberdartStudios?

thats useful

[fluid prawn]

is it the one with the max speed

and he overrides fsaved move n stuff

like they do in UT

[timid moss]

yeah

[fluid prawn]

ya i saw that

[timid moss]

theres also this that was more recent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoZyH86n_gs&t=273s

[fluid prawn]

dang

ok

bookmarked

[timid moss]

but yeah. im sorta hoping that by the time I'm finished with some of my other stuff Epic will have replaced the system with a better one. They said they were working on it so that it works with the ability sysstem

but i have a feeling that will take a while

[fluid prawn]

they are recoding the CMC?

[timid moss]

"Epic recently started an initiative to replace the CharacterMovementComponent with a new Network Prediction plugin. This plugin is still in its very early stages but is available to very early access on the Unreal Engine GitHub. Epic mentioned that they would like to have the plugin working by the end of 2019 but that is not a hard deadline, just a goal. It's too soon to tell which future version of the Engine that it will make its experimental beta debut in."

This was said a while ago and I don't think I've heard any real updates

[fluid prawn]

Network prediction plugin

isnt it already

technically done

what interfaces are they exposing?

I suspect they are just making it easier to override the CMC

to work with net prediction

i assume they give you a framework

[timid moss]

I remember hearing in #gameplay-ability-system that it would be integrated as part of it

[fluid prawn]

the net prediction and you implement their interfaces with movement

[meager spade]

i actually cant wait for it

meaning i no longer have to use bulky CMC for AI

[fluid prawn]

lol

man

[timid moss]

i almost am sorta unmotavated to learn CMC because of the news

thats y im studying replication graph and ability system rn lol

[fluid prawn]

I've been pissing around with cmc for a while it triggered me so much

[meager spade]

cmc is garbage

[fluid prawn]

i had to take a hiatus from it for like 3 months

[meager spade]

it works, sure

but its terrible

ah i made my own replication graph

based on ideas from fortnite and shootergame

[timid moss]

i haven't actualy made a serious game with it yet so yeah.

[fluid prawn]

you said they made a branch of it on git

i might work on it

with them or something

[meager spade]

yeah im not touching it till the framework is in a more stable state

its in 4.24

[fluid prawn]

I think for me its fine to override it and use it

[meager spade]

you can enable the plugin

[fluid prawn]

i can later port it over

when i went deep into their sockets code

it was really messy

to see how they move the pawn component

with replication

[timid moss]

yeah i want to wait on working on movement stuff for now because im sorta waiting for the updated system, but at the same time when the new system is finally out it will probly not be ready for production use right away so im guessing itl be a while.

but knowing me ill probably not wait for it.

im probably going to use CMC

[fluid prawn]

whats a good idea

that they release it

maybe this summer?

[meager spade]

thing is i don't see much happening with it

in the git commits

with is either good or alarming..

[fluid prawn]

jesus

we should make a team

and just do it

fk it

we will be gods

[timid moss]

wouldn't that be cool. not sure they would accept our PRs lol

[fluid prawn]

I mean

if they arn't doing it

[timid moss]

as someones once said "someones gotta do it"

[fluid prawn]

we should setup a branch

of ue4

and do it

would be doing a tim sweeny a favor

not just that im sure if there was an active community doing it

epic would intervene at some point

[timid moss]

would totally do it if I felt confident in my networking skills. I'd say im good but idk about THAT good

[fluid prawn]

it's actually not that bad

honestly at this point it feels better to build it from the ground up properly

than trying to hack the cmc

to do your bidding

if anyone is interested let me know

maybe rama wants in on it

the only issue and pain point is hooking in the animation stuff

[timid moss]

I mean I guess its not like CMC is impossible for me to understand. I could probably make progress but would eat up so much of my time hahah. and idk about u but im still in college

[fluid prawn]

root motion and such

[timid moss]

If you want to get serious about starting a team for this, maybe consider creating a discord server for this effort.

I'd join the server for sure

[fluid prawn]

I would I need to find people who are interested and want to

maybe i should just get the ball rolling myself or something

i think some parts of the CMC are reuseable

[timid moss]

hmmm. I like your idea. but who knows. maybe epic has lots of changes they haven't pushed yet

but i doubt it

[fluid prawn]

I wonder if someone here knows

[timid moss]

can we get the link here to the branch? I'm curious to see it rn

idk where it is

[fluid prawn]

UKaos

probably knows

hes got his eyes locked on it lol

[timid moss]

whos going to be the one to @ him lol

[fluid prawn]

@meager spade

there i did it

lol

[timid moss]

😅

[meager spade]

:/

[fluid prawn]

haha

[timid moss]

hahjahjja

[fluid prawn]

I Feel if i was a hot girl

his emoji would be

🙂

kidding

[timid moss]

funny joke

[fluid prawn]

I can look

if kaos is busy

[timid moss]

yeah i might

[meager spade]

https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/commit/ec7282f1d6d330b1acd2e710eaf5a0bb04146a3a#diff-606b94760987d6c4efe8bc160802f7a3

[timid moss]

😮

[fluid prawn]

😮

[meager spade]

https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/blob/ec7282f1d6d330b1acd2e710eaf5a0bb04146a3a/Engine/Plugins/Runtime/NetworkPrediction/Source/NetworkPrediction/Private/Movement/BaseMovementComponent.cpp

[fluid prawn]

there is only 2 contributors

it seems

[meager spade]

Dave Ratti is the guy working on it

same guy who worked on RepGraph and Gameplay Abilities

[fluid prawn]

so hes a god

so it looks like

hes doing a seperate class

for sim

and a new base movement class

interesting

[chrome bay]

It's great. I've been using it a little bit (the master branch version). Still some rough edges but it's definitely going to be a game changer.

No more ripping character movement apart whenever you want to add basic features...

[meager spade]

i just wonder how easy it would be to get AI system to use it

cause it would be so nice for our AI, which don't need all the complex CMC stuff

[gleaming vector]

net prediction is going to be great

i can't wait until dave finishes it

[twin minnow]

hey guys, is it safe to store access and refresh tokens locally? For example, if a user authenticates themselves through an OpenId provider and gets AWS credentials that will be used for calling APIs on AWS API Gateway, would it be ok to store these credentials locally? My worry is if the tokens get stolen, then someone can impersonate the client.

[cosmic badge]

anyone know how to disable the rendering for a client that is run with the '-server' command line arg? I'd like to just run the server without the render window

[rich ridge]

@wild lagoon Last time I tried building gemelift it didn't work because Gamelift is not updated to compile with VS 2019, so I will ended up cross compiling for Linux and test things with Linux Dedicated server for UE4.23

[wild lagoon]

wait really? i spent like 10 hours today trying to get it to work lol

[rich ridge]

@wild lagoon I didn't try that hard to build , as official docs of gamelift mentioned VS 2017 supported, so once it failed for me in VS 2019, I didn't bother as I just wanted to evaluate the platform so cross compiled for Linux and tested things out

Their Linux build instructions works fine

And anyways you want to end server to be Linux right, so better do it in Linux

Install VM Ware and build one

If you are worried about testing th dedicat d server on local machine then you need to be worried, you might be thinking you need a virtual machine or a Linux machine to run, but that's not the case

You can run Linux Dedicated Server inside you windows. Simply instance Linux Subsystem and run can run all Linux things in Windows including your Linux Dedicated server

[empty axle]

@winged badger thanks for making it clear for me

[meager horizon]

so im trying to start up a dedicated server on linux

im told in the docs that the correct thing to do is something like:

sh ./TowerBattle.sh /Game/VehicleCPP/Maps/VehicleExampleMap -server -log

but unless i put ?listen on the end of the map name, it wont open port 7777 so nobody can connect to it, but thats supposedly 'different', right?

as in its also a client, and spawns a player pawn?

[rich ridge]

@chrome bay I m now attracted towards Network Prediction Plugin, just wanted to ask does it required to do additional coding to make it work with existing system like ASC, Replication. I have 2 days Saturday and Sunday and was hoping to explore it more.

[chrome bay]

it's not integrated with GAS yet

[rich ridge]

Sad to know

How confident are you that in upcoming release it will integrated in all respective components being still in beta

Because I don't want to touch CMC at the moment and I do have a lot issues with root motion.

[chrome bay]

It's not going to be ready for months, and I wouldn't expect a new character movement system for at least another 6-9 months, maybe more

Obviously this is pure speculation because nobody outside of Epic knows

And their internal priorities are always shifting around

[rich ridge]

Ya man u r right.

At least 4.26 should be safe to assume that it will have Network Prediction Plugin

[chrome bay]

I highly doubt it

Especially not fully integrated with the rest of the engine

It's still highly experimental, they might abandon it entirely between now and then

I wouldn't put any bets on waiting for engine features to be ready months or years from now, just use what's already in the engine

You could be waiting forever

[rich ridge]

What if if they were using it for fortnite internally

[chrome bay]

If they were we'd already have it

It's more likely they're doing it based on what they learned from Fortnite

[rich ridge]

Yeah you are right instead of waiting it's better to act on your own

Anyways I will explore it on Saturday and Sunday

Thanks

[meager horizon]

https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Standalone_Dedicated_Server#Compilation this template is invalid for 4.24 it seems.
i get an error that UEBuildBinaryConfiguration is not recognised any more. can someone please share with me a more modern version of the build target that compiles?

this one seems more up to date, damn wiki is a rats nest https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Dedicated_Server_Guide_(Windows_%26_Linux)#5._Target_file_instructions_for_engine_version_4.18

is all this faff really still needed for a dedicated server build?

separately building the server executable, and dragging stuff about, manually cooking half the assets?

[chrome bay]

All I do is package the game in editor as normal for the client, then build the server in VS

Then copy the binaries and pdb's from the Binaries folder accross

[meager horizon]

its starting to do my nut in

UnrealBuildTool : error : Server targets are not currently supported from this engine distribution.

seems to me its being stubborn and i cant make a dedicated server unless im using a source distribution of ue4

[rich ridge]

@meager horizon hahaha, you need source version it won't build

[meager horizon]

ffs.

WHY?!

[rich ridge]

That's how epic designed the engine build toolchain

[meager horizon]

we've all got better things to do with our day than wait for unreal engine to build from source

and then to have to redo that each time theres an update :/

[rich ridge]

@meager horizon I don't agree on this with you, the source build gives a alot of insights to me

I do actually modify the engine to check why I m getting unexpected behavior

[meager horizon]

ive always tried to avoid modding the engine

[rich ridge]

It's one time process to engine rest is fine

It takes 30 mins to build the entire engine

In this time you could do 100 push-ups

@meager horizon I m working on mobile game, and blur doesn't work on mobile so I do modify Engine to make blur work on Android

I don't want to wait for epic to fix it. I raised a bug in 4.18 for blur not working and still its not fixed

[meager horizon]

ok, well this is my first dip into networking in ue4. i consider myself clued up as far as networking goes, but this is um... an adventure.

[rich ridge]

Sometimes I feel like these epic Engineer have become arrogant and thick skined after UE4 have become so famous, they only work mostly with good studios closely

They don't listen to common bugs at all.

[meager horizon]

i guess today im learning to build from source 🙂

[rich ridge]

It's very straight forward

[meager horizon]

yeah i suppose when i want a new release i can just do a git pull

[rich ridge]

Yes that's it

[meager horizon]

so my game started out soooo simple

and ive gone down the rabbit warren within 2 days.

for example. lets talk physics and networking. how to lose your hair rapidly.

so i stripped the driving physics and vehicle movement component completely from my prototype and started making my own deterministic non-physics one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0fDhnufBlw

but thats just the tip of the iceberg... ugh.

[chrome bay]

Yeah you need a source build to build the dedicated server

[meager horizon]

i wish it would just appear in my list of platforms

after ive got the source build built, i mean

[chrome bay]

I suspect it's because extra binaries etc are required, and they don't want to package them into the launcher version

[meager horizon]

rather than having to fanny around building a separate executable in vs then copying it into a packaged build

in theory building a dedicated server should take less dependencies than a listen server or client

not more

[chrome bay]

Yeah, I've never looked into why. To be fair though most games don't really use dedicated servers, or if they do they're probably already working from source and have a build setup anyways

Does seem strange though after all this time

[meager horizon]

im going to do it through a dedicated server to keep it all 'in house', in the same way games like fortnite are kept 'in house'

i have some non-ue stuff im going to tie into it

for authentication etc

but thats a long way down the road

[chrome bay]

Yeah that's fair. I'm not a fan personally, too many games launch with dedicated servers only then when the studio closes suddenly their entire catalogue is unplayable

looks at Paragon

[meager horizon]

lol, true

i suppose i could easily allow for custom listen servers without any extra hassle

you'd have to make a choice then, play on your friends or community run server, without the extra fandangles, or on the main servers with them

[chrome bay]

It's a good idea IMO. My usual intention is to allow for listen servers for private sessions, then for public use dedicated

[meager horizon]

when i say extra fandangles i mean stuff like cosmetic IAP etc

ive been dead against games like that for years, but im finding that people are more receptive to a free-to-play model than forking out a tenner for an indie game up front

it might even end up that i end up not bothering with the IAP side at all, depending on time constraints

@chrome bay are you allowed to share what youre working on?

[chrome bay]

Well.. day job is this: https://store.steampowered.com/app/686810/Hell_Let_Loose/
Project I'm referring atm though is my side one https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoozKjrfzhYaawZ8dNIkHP-US5Ddj5BC8

But the game it's based on is still alive and well today because of modding, so my intention is to be as open in supporting stuff as possible

It's also my original background though so maybe that's why I'm so open to it..

Also given the state of MP Indie in 2020 I doubt it'll ever get enough players to warrant a highly locked down server setup etc, I'll worry about that if it gets that far

[meager horizon]

i like the look of the tank game

in some ways it reminds me of tracked vehicles in starsiege universe

are you also going to do f2p?

[chrome bay]

Undecided atm, still not far enough along to really decide what to do with it

Long way to go

As a consumer I despise F2P, so we'll see 😄

[meager horizon]

hmmmm

setup.bat of the source build failed at 99% fetching deps 😦

web exception and big fat red error message

[bleak raft]

Hey 👋 !
Does anyone know of any good resources about network beacons ? I've been searching for a little while but I haven't found anything on how to use them. Alternatively is there a non Steam party system ( plugin, lib) ? The game I'm working on is only in local multiplayer. Thanks !

[jolly siren]

https://discordapp.com/channels/187217643009212416/221799385611239424/572592952887607308

[honest scarab]

Does anyone know if you can hold more than one game mode on a server. For example, if you get a game lift server, and your game is 1v1, can you have 4 separate games on that server totaling 8 people?

[chrome bay]

As separate instances yeah

[honest scarab]

So 1 server can hold separate game instances? And not interrupt games that are in progress?

[jolly siren]

1 physical server can hold multiple game servers (instances)

[chrome bay]

Essentially you run the .exe multiple times and give each one a different port

It's something you do on the amazon/server side - not in UE4

[cosmic badge]

@meager horizon I'm with you about the dedicated server stuff. yay more steps just to get back to actual development, seems like a terrible idea.

[stiff plank]

i followed this guide - https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Dedicated_Server_Guide_(Windows_%26_Linux)
and got it working!
However, when i made a third person project and actually joined as 2 clients on my local machine after running the server, I get some really hard stuttering every 2-3 seconds when just walking around. Can anyine help me troubleshoot this?

[lean flint]

I've followed the same guide and I cant figure out how to make the server host online. When I have the server running, I check to see if the port is visible online and it says there's no service running on port 7777. What step am I missing to make this run outside of lan?

[stiff plank]

@lean flint have you checked ur firewall settings?

[lean flint]

I have, its forwarded. I tested running a minecraft server on 7777 and its visible with that

[stiff plank]

Hmmm

Are you able to join locally?

[lean flint]

Yeah it works perfectly fine locally

Is running the server executable automatically supposed to run the service on port 7777?

[stiff plank]

Have you tried separate pcs on the same network?

I think so. But not sure.

[lean flint]

I didnt try that yet

[stiff plank]

Try that. And lmk.

Its possible that there is something stopping you from joining from a seperate pc.

[lean flint]

Ok I'll do that. It just seems like I'm missing something here. How do I tell the server itself to run locally or through the internet? The guide doesn't show anything like this

[stiff plank]

I dont think there is a difference. But I'm still learning, so not sure.

As i understand it, its mostly where you place it and what you leave open to access it.(not that I'm an expert)

[lean flint]

ok, thats what it seems to be

[shadow folio]

You now need to understand how the internet works with port forwarding, services/servers, ports, etc. The game instance is running on a computer listening on a port, ie waiting for a client to connnect and start the handshaking.

Are you trying to have the client connect to your machine outside your LAN?

[stiff plank]

@lean flint you cant connect locally from a seperate pc?

On the same network?

[lean flint]

im about to see if i can, transferring the client over now

and yeah Adam

my problem is that no services are visible on port 7777 when i run the server

[shadow folio]

Oh, I see where you did get something running on that port.

[lean flint]

yeah so its forwarded properly

@stiff plank i can connect on the same network from other devices

[stiff plank]

Hmmm

[shadow folio]

So knowing that, the game instance is running correctly.

I am assuming the client runs and you can play the game.

[lean flint]

yeah i was able to join into the current server game session

[grizzled stirrup]

At a NetUpdateFrequency of 10 is it common for OnRep bools to just never go through? I have an important reset function that has to happen on both server and the client when a character is pooled and reset, should I make that a reliable Client RPC instead of an OnRep bool when reset on the server?

[shadow folio]

@lean flint sorry, I don't have enough networking chops beyond this point to be a help

[lean flint]

np thanks for trying lol

[stiff plank]

@lean flint a weird problem. I am still a newbie as well, but i would try to isolate the problem with testing. Is it a network issue, or some issue with joining. Seems like a firewall problem, like unreal is blocked but minecraft wasnt somehow? Lmk if you find anything.

@shadow folio @lean flint when i made a third person project and actually joined as 2 clients on my local machine after running the server, I get some really hard stuttering every 2-3 seconds when just walking around. Have either of you ran into this? it happens when i join from the local machine as a client as well.

[lean flint]

yeea the main issue is the service isnt being put on port 7777, or yeah something else is blocking only UEs service

[hoary lark]

@grizzled stirrup replicated variables can never be relied on to receive all incremental changes during gameplay - they can only be relied on to always contain a "recent" value for a variable. if the important feature of a variable is to be each separate change of its value, the only way to do it would be a reliable RPC

[lean flint]

i havent gotten any stuttering when messing around locally

[grizzled stirrup]

Thanks HoJo, the bool is only set true on spawn and false on death but it seems it does't go through 100% of the time

I'll move to an RPC

[shadow folio]

@stiff plank It has been quite a while but I don't remember any problems, but then again at that time I was not trying to accomplish much in the game either.

[stiff plank]

damn, alright. Thanks anyway.

[lean flint]

@stiff plank ur experiencing stuttering using the standard thirdperson project?

[stiff plank]

yep, after i built it as a dedicated server

i run it, and when I join, stuttering when i walk

[lean flint]

is it like desync stutter? or fps stutter?

[stiff plank]

seems like desync

comp seems to be fine when it happens

[lean flint]

like moving around locally looks fine, but from client to client it seems like the actors are stuttering?

[stiff plank]

how can you tell the difference, turn on fps counter?

[lean flint]

yeah

[stiff plank]

let me double check quick. Can I just turn on my comps fps counter or does it have to be unreal?

[lean flint]

or its desync somehow if the actors arent lining up perfectly

i would just use unreals

[stiff plank]

kk give me 1 sec

[hoary lark]

@grizzled stirrup weird, but might be related to net relevancy too? I think reliable RPCs are always sent regardless of dormancy/relevancy too whereas rep'd variables won't be (don't quote me on that)

[stiff plank]

lol, im not running into the problem now. I gotta investigate more. wtf 😅

[shadow folio]

heh, why can't problems be consistent? 😉

[lean flint]

this is from the dedicated server guide. what this guy crossed out should be the servers local IP right?

[shadow folio]

I would think so

[grizzled stirrup]

Micro optimization question, I increment a NumPlayers int32 on PostLogin in the GameMode, but after seamless travel, this number would not persist as post login does not get called again past the first time a controller joins the game, correct?

[thin stratus]

The better question is: Why are you counting them yourself?

[grizzled stirrup]

What do you mean?

I can iterate over all controllers to get the count, but thought it would be nice to get a count once at the first post login and use that for the rest of the game (including through travels)

Oh there's a helper function GetNumPlayers() that does that iteration in a function already, I was just trying to avoid iterating every time I need the value and make a one time cached value at every seamless travel

[meager spade]

PlayerStateArray.Num() ?

is also an option.

[grizzled stirrup]

I inherit from AGameModeBase, don't think that array is available there

[thin stratus]

That's a GameState array

[meager spade]

gamemode has gamestate

game state has the array

^

[grizzled stirrup]

Oh right good point!

Thanks

Only downside is my AI have playerstates

[meager spade]

then you can't use that 😄

[grizzled stirrup]

So unfortunately doesn't help in this scenario if wanting PCs

😄

[thin stratus]

Filter them by !IsABot

[meager spade]

yeah or just use the loop, controller iterator is quite cheap anyway

[thin stratus]

Yop

GetNumPlayers is not expensive.

[grizzled stirrup]

I always hear the scary never use get all actors of class etc. but this iterator does seem cheap since I'll only have max 4 players

So will use it for convenience

Thanks!

I suppose GetAllActorsOfClass etc. are only to be avoided if frequently iterating over large actor sets

[thin stratus]

GetAllActors of class can be okay. It's just not good to use it in case you can't get a ref otherwise

I don't like beginners to use it to get refs

[grizzled stirrup]

I usually use it for example on the AI to get a list of players to find the closest one, or a list of spawners to choose the best one etc.

I could have the spawners report to the GM

And populate the array

But I believe if they are only reporting / the GM is only iterating once on begin play, it doesn't really matter

As even a slight hitch before the match has started doesn't really make a difference

Will try to keep all my heavy iterators on begin play, at least the upfront cost doesn't affect gameplay

[meager spade]

i use TActorRange

[grizzled stirrup]

YEsss

[meager spade]

so i don't have to cast

but it still goes through all actors

[grizzled stirrup]

I'm about to convert all my iteraors to that

[meager spade]

so still expensive

every tick

[grizzled stirrup]

But not once off

[meager spade]

exactly

[grizzled stirrup]

Or very rarely / event based

[meager spade]

i cache a lot of stuff on begin play

like minimap for example

grabs all actors using TActorRange

then actors are added themselves via the DynamicMinimapComponent

its mainly for static actors pre-placed in the world

[grizzled stirrup]

Nice yeah I do the same for enemy spawners / spawning all loot etc.

So it can be slow, doesn't matter

Once it's done it's done

[meager spade]

yeah profile it

you will be suprised, its not that expensive, just gets expensive if you have 50,000 actors and doing it every tick

😄

[grizzled stirrup]

Right yeah I'm always wary of stuff but in practice these things aren't even denting the FPS count 😄

[meager spade]

hitches is where it matters

hitches are worse than a constant fps drop

[grizzled stirrup]

Yeah I can definitely notice a hitch if iterating + spawning 100+ actors

But luckily that only happens once on begin play

[meager spade]

do you not spawn them deffered

ie, spawn them offset

[grizzled stirrup]

No need really

[meager spade]

eek

we do, we spawn 100 monsters at start of game pre-placed in the level (random spots)

we defer the spawns

[grizzled stirrup]

Server goes from 300 to 60 back to 300 fps while the "MATCH IS STARTING IN 10" message is shown

Good idea though it would then mean there's no hitch at all

[meager spade]

spawn them closest to players first, then spawn the ones further away last

[grizzled stirrup]

Do you do a timer so spawn X then in a few frames spawn the next batch?

[meager spade]

i create a timer for each spawn, next spawn does rand float .05 to .1f

and repeats till its done

[grizzled stirrup]

Nice yeah I love that kind of stuff

Do it for all AI tasks etc.

So everything is nicely offset

[meager spade]

same as my wave spawner

[grizzled stirrup]

And also have pooled all my enemies now so the spawn only happens once

And pooled pickups / damage numbers

No more constant spawning / destroying!

[meager spade]

yeah, we haven't gone fully pooled yet

[grizzled stirrup]

Was a nightmare to find all the bugs though

[meager spade]

that is next on my list

[grizzled stirrup]

Invisible pooled characters being active on the client

[meager spade]

tbh tho

we don't get many hitches

when spawning, due to the offset

[grizzled stirrup]

Honestly it probably won't make a big difference but I spawn in large groups and did notice if I kill 30 enemies at once and 30 more spawn there is a hitch but with pooling almost nothing

Then again

Deferred would fix that

[meager spade]

yeah but we have a wave system, spawns the monsters for that wave. We also have constant wave, where after X monsters are killed, X more monsters are spawned

but again not all the same frame

[grizzled stirrup]

Yeah I'd be very curious if pooling helps in that situation

Let me know if you get any numbers on it

Just feels nice though

[meager spade]

but we don't see noticable hitches

[grizzled stirrup]

Especially for other things like the UI damage numbers

Just knowing they aren't constantly being spawned / destroyed is nice

[meager spade]

yeah we use external damage number actor

not linked to the hit actor

handled locally

[grizzled stirrup]

Nice yeah I spawn 10 locally and just rotate them via pooling as needed

If there isn't one available due to 10 being used, I don't spawn any

[meager spade]

10 actors?

we just have one 😄

[grizzled stirrup]

Well if you damage 5 actors at once in my game I want to see 5 damage numbers

[meager spade]

handles upto 100 hit numbers

[grizzled stirrup]

Oh right you mean the actual actor spawnign the widgets

I just have 10 widgets

And the PC handles them

[meager spade]

oh we have a client only actor in the world

that handles it all

[grizzled stirrup]

PC for me handles the client RPC confirming damage

So was easist to do it there for me

By the way when you say deferred, you are still spawning regularly and not using theBeginDeferredActorSpawnFromClass right?

[meager spade]

yeah but the player controller spawns that actor

and holds the pointer to it

locally

[grizzled stirrup]

Is that a problem?

The PC spawns 10 and pools them

[meager spade]

no, just telling you my design pattern

if your one works, it works

[grizzled stirrup]

Ohh you mean your PC gets the local actor right

Got you

[meager spade]

it creates the local actor

[grizzled stirrup]

Yeah I just do the same without the local actor step

And hold the array of widgets on the PC

[meager spade]

yeah, i hate bloating the PC class

its already big as it is

[grizzled stirrup]

2 lines 😄

But yeah I know what you mean

I have a phobia against adding extra actors

So I usually bloat if it's reasonable

[meager spade]

i hate monolithic tho

a class should just be for what is for

[grizzled stirrup]

My PC is fairly small and reasonable at the moment only 800 lines

[meager spade]

PlayerController in my case != damage handler

if ya know what i mean

[grizzled stirrup]

PC in my case relays damage information

So I have it talking to the HUD

and passing through any info needed when you deal / take damage

[meager spade]

i just have a static function

ShowHitDisplayNumber(HitActor, EffectContext, etc)

can be called from anywhere

[grizzled stirrup]

On the local actor?

[meager spade]

local only

[grizzled stirrup]

Nice that makes it more flexible

[meager spade]

its a gameplay static

UKaosStatics::ShowHitDisplayNumber(HitActor, EffectContext, etc)

like that

[grizzled stirrup]

Mm yeah love statics

I have my utitily class like that

For common stuff

Like align to ground normal

[meager spade]

i have FKaosMath lol

[grizzled stirrup]

Thinking of making a debugging one too

[meager spade]

and FKaosUtils

which are C++ only statics

[grizzled stirrup]

It's a lot of fun reusing the common logic

Feels efficient

Btw about this: when you say deferred, you are still spawning regularly via SpawnActorFromClass and not using the BeginDeferredActorSpawnFromClass right?

Afaik the deferred one just lets you change some properties but still spawns on the same frame

[meager spade]

i use spawn deffered, but only to adjust stuff before spawning them

and that is not true

[grizzled stirrup]

Oh right yeah you can call finish whenever

[meager spade]

you can call FinishSpawning 5mins later

only in BP is it same frame

{
    FString RetString;
    if (!TestActor)
    {
        return RetString;
    }

    switch (TestActor->GetNetMode())
    {
    case NM_Client:
        RetString = FString::Printf(TEXT("Client:"));
        break;
    case NM_DedicatedServer:
    case NM_ListenServer:
        RetString = FString::Printf(TEXT("Server:"));
        break;
    case NM_Standalone:
        break;
    case NM_MAX:
        break;
    default:
        break;
    }

    return RetString;
}

[grizzled stirrup]

Is there a benefit to setting stuff before it finishes rather than setting that same stuff post spawn?

[meager spade]

this is a handy function

[grizzled stirrup]

That is very useful!

[meager spade]

when im logging

[grizzled stirrup]

YEah for debugging

[meager spade]

i can tell if it was server or client

[grizzled stirrup]

Really nice

[plush wave]

player states don't have references to controllers, right?

[winged badger]

not direct one

unless you changed it manually, GetOwner() will return the controller though

[plush wave]

I see

Would only work on the server though I assume

[winged badger]

nope, would work on owning client as well

[twin juniper]

Is there any tutorial about multiplayer AI with blueprints? I found one, but even the guy that records the vid doesnt know at all about AI and replication lol

[winged badger]

you do the AI logic as if you were doing single player, for the most part

all of it runs on server

[twin juniper]

But when I tell AI to chase the player, it only chases the server's pawn

[winged badger]

never use GetPlayerController/Character[0]

on a server

[twin juniper]

Hmm, so player reference should work

Thanks

Using the getplayercharacter/pawn/controller works without "run on server" replication (tho i dont need to use it just tried) but only chases server, either way i cant make AI follow any pawn without using "get" nodes

[winged badger]

that is terrible

client telling AI what to do

1 reliable RPC on Tick per player per client

point of AI is it being able pickup on whats going on in the environment

then "decide" on what to do

[twin juniper]

i know haha, you always hate my "tick" nodes on replication i was just trying if it will work this time

tried my luck

[winged badger]

GetGameMode->GetNumPlayers->ForLoop(0, NumPlayers-1)->GetPlayerCharacter[Index] will iterate through all player characters

GetGameState->PlayerArray->ForeachLoop->GetPawn as well

whats the point

every character on every machine runs that code

every character on server, every character on every client

and there is no guaranteed order for ticking

[twin juniper]

i understood, point was to check if i misunderstood the replication, i am studying it about 2 week or less

[winged badger]

and reliable on Tick is pointless, it just overwhelms the reliable buffer and fucks up even worse when a packet is lost

[twin juniper]

i know, you said that before

[winged badger]

then if it didn't resend it

for example

GetGameMode->GetNumPlayers->RandomIntegerInRange(0, NumPlayers - 1)->GetPlayerCharacter[RandomInteger]

will set Ai chasing after a random character

put it in SetTimerByEvent, 10, looping true

and it will pick a random character to chase every 10 seconds

[twin juniper]

understood, will do now

thanks

[plush wave]

Directly setting a replicated variable as a client only changes it locally, correct?

[gleaming vector]

correct

and your value will be overwritten when the server sends new data

[plush wave]

🙂

[gleaming vector]

which is, often, fine

as long as you know

[winged badger]

and if this is blueprint, OnRep will fire when you do that, on that client

[gleaming vector]

correct

[winged badger]

i hate that 😦

[gleaming vector]

and in the OnRep, you have a function param that tells you the previous value

[vivid seal]

Only in Cpp I thought?

[gleaming vector]

correct

[vivid seal]

Wish that was in blueprints 😦

[winged badger]

i wish it was not making local "replication callbacks" in blueprints

just feels completely alien

[fleet raven]

would be nice if someone figured out how to turn it off

[flint rose]

I'm having issues with a RPC from client to server not getting called. The owner is set to the character but does not seem to get called

BaseWeapon.cpp

void ABaseWeapon::Shoot(float Spread)
{
    ReduceAmmo();

    bInstant ? FireInstantBullet(Spread) : FireBullet(Spread);

    UE_LOG(LogTemp, Warning, TEXT("About to call SERVER_SetActualAmmo. My owner is: %s"), *GetNameSafe(GetOwner()));
    SERVER_SetAmmo(Ammo);
}

ABaseCharacter.cpp

bool ABaseCharacter::TryToShoot()
{
    ABaseWeapon* Weapon = Cast<ABaseWeapon>(CurrentItem);
    if (!Weapon) {
        return false;
    }

    bool CanIShoot = Weapon->Ammo > 0 && !bReloading && !bChangingWeapon;

    if (CanIShoot) {
        UAnimMontage* MontageToPlay = bAiming ? IronSightFireMontage : QuickFireMontage;
        MeshFP->GetAnimInstance()->Montage_Play(MontageToPlay);
        float Spread = MovementRecoil(Weapon);
        Weapon->Shoot(Spread);

BaseWeapon.h

    UFUNCTION(reliable, Server, BlueprintCallable)
    void SERVER_SetAmmo(int32 ActualAmmo);

[rich ridge]

@chrome bay I m exploring the Network Prediction Plugin, and they do have an example for GAS integrated with Network Prediction Plugin.

https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/blob/dev-networking/Engine/Plugins/Runtime/NetworkPredictionExtras/Source/NetworkPredictionExtras/Private/MockAbilitySimulation.cpp

[gleaming vector]

that is not GAS

it's simply a mock system

it's a number that changes

[rich ridge]

My bad I didn't see the Mock Part, I got happy by seeing "Ability"

[chrome bay]

Don't suppose anybody has experience remapping a net GUID for an object on the client do they? E.g, say I want server updates for a particular object to actually map to another object of the same class.

[winged badger]

could try IsNameSupportedForNetworking and Rename, maybe

its on the risky side though, one tiny error and clients get booted

[chrome bay]

Hmm yeah, that might work. Yeah it's quite nasty either way

[winged badger]

i'd give it about 20% to work, as i don't think unreal will send a name more then once

i'd cache the NetGUID with UObject* into a map somewhere

[chrome bay]

I have pooled projectiles which all works nicely, now looking at predicting the fire client-side. Since server/client could choose a totally different projectile from the pool atm so I'm thinking about swapping the ID on the client

[winged badger]

but can't say i read that part of the code

[chrome bay]

Yeah me neither.. will be an interesting experiment I guess..

[winged badger]

projectile is an Actor?

[chrome bay]

yeah

[winged badger]

you could physically swap the Actors

[chrome bay]

So I did think about that, but my concern is swapping all the state and particles etc.

Although hmm, I guess I could just move the particles around too

[winged badger]

it is less risky then swapping NetGUID

[chrome bay]

yeah definitely

[weary zephyr]

Hi all, I'm running into an issue that I sort of expected would have been common, but I can't really find anyone talking about it. Wondering if anyone here would be able to help me understand why its happening and/or provide a fix.

I run a dedicated server, clients join, then one of the clients uncaps his (clientside) framerate limit (t.maxfps 99999), and suddenly, that one specific client starts warping all over the place when they try to move - everyone else is fine (server framerate cap didn't change, nor did any other clients). Surely UE4 must be able to allow clients to run the game at the highest framerate they can pull, while functioning fine in a server with other players? I'll also note that all my custom BP logic works perfectly fine at all client framerates - it appears as though the only issues are with movement, which is using the default UE4 CharacterMovement component. Is the stock CharacterMovement component using tick for some reason? That seems strange if so, but I can't think of any other explanation :\

I've also tried using the Smooth Sync marketplace plugin for replicated movement instead of the stock UE4 character "Replicate Movement" setting, and am still having similar issues

[limber gyro]

Whats the macro name for a "run on client" replicated fucntion?

[limber gyro]

im having a bit of an umg multiplayer issue

maybe you guys can help

im trying to make a kill feed, i have it nailed down because ive done a chat before and its not so diferent, the issue is i have to call a blueprint function from c++ to add info into the killfeed umg, but blueprint implementable events arent compatible with networking

what would be the best way to acess the UMG function then?

[chrome bay]

@weary zephyr Most likely you're sending way too many moves to the Server in a short space of time, or if you've modified character movement somehow and it's not been done in a way that works properly with networking (that has to be done in C++ 99% of the time)

At extremely high framerates you will also exceed the saved move buffer very quickly.

@limber gyro UMG widgets cannot be used over the network or use network events

[limber gyro]

i know

im calling what i need in the player controller, and then it just gets the umg and calls the umg function with the parameters fro mthe server

[chrome bay]

You can't get the widget on the server because it doesn't exist

[weary zephyr]

@chrome bay Hm, the client will be sending a move to the server every frame?

is there any way to separate that from the framerate?

[chrome bay]

@weary zephyr It tries to combine moves together and throttles the send rate, but yeah ultimately it does that

And no there isn't

[limber gyro]

im not gettign the widget on the server im getting in on the local player controller

[weary zephyr]

I haven't modified character movement at all (except implementing a crouch function, but this happens when you're not using crouch)

[limber gyro]

ive already done a chat system i know how the netowrking works, my issue is mixing the blueprintimplementableevents with networking

[chrome bay]

Crouch functionality is built-in so if you're using that you should be fine

[weary zephyr]

I'm a little at a loss at how I'd go about fixing it though - do you have any ideas? Surely UE4 can function properly while allowing clients to run their local game at 1000 FPS for example

[chrome bay]

Not really

The client has to save a buffer of moves, one per frame

If they're simulating at such a high framerate that they exceed the move buffer before the server acks/corrects a move, then they will be hard-snapped constantly

[weary zephyr]

It starts causing issues when clients go over 144ish FPS (not sure the exact value, but it's around that), would running the server at a higher framerate (or changing update rates somehow?) fix this issue?

[limber gyro]

the question is, why do u need to have such high framerates? is there no way to achieve what you want without that?

[weary zephyr]

Clients generally like to have the highest framerate possible, especially for competitive games

[chrome bay]

They do but you have to set sensible limits

[weary zephyr]

and if the engine can pull 1000 rendering framerate, limiting clients isn't something I want to have to do

[chrome bay]

You can increase the size of the saved move buffer

[weary zephyr]

especially to something as low as 144

[chrome bay]

But 1,000 is never going to work

[weary zephyr]

How would I go about increasing the size of the saved move buffer?

[chrome bay]

If you look at the output log, you should be seeing a lot of messages like this:

CreateSavedMove: Hit limit of %d saved moves (timing out or very bad ping?)

[limber gyro]

144 is more than enough, our eyes cant see more than 125 i think

[weary zephyr]

@limber gyro there's a lot of misinformation (and partially correct) information out there claiming what "our eyes can see" 😛

[limber gyro]

and most peopel dont even have 144hz monitors to get a benefit form those frame rates

[chrome bay]

You can modify the size in FNetworkPredictionData_Client_Character::MaxSavedMoveCount and MaxFreeMoveCount

Ultimately however, it doesn't matter

In the real world, clients are never going to be connected to a server where they are reliably getting updates at 144 Hz

96 moves should be plenty for 144Hz though

[limber gyro]

im not saying your not right, i just think your gonna have way too much trouble for somethign that isnt even worth it

[weary zephyr]

Talking about competitive games, 144Hz is usually a minimum - people will be playing this game with 240Hz displays, limiting clients to less FPS than their monitor display rate is really, really bad 😦

[chrome bay]

Unless moves can't be combined

[weary zephyr]

In the real world, clients are never going to be connected to a server where they are reliably getting updates at 144 Hz 96 moves should be plenty for 144Hz though
I'm not sure if I understand this right

[limber gyro]

network wont allow

most servers run at 60hz i think

[weary zephyr]

I'd be entirely fine with clients sending updates to the server (and receiving updates from the server) at 100-144/second, just I want the local game running on the client system to not have an artificially imposed limit

[chrome bay]

You will have to put some limit in place

[weary zephyr]

even 60 would be fine for the network update rate

[chrome bay]

96 moves is already quite high by default

Even that should give buffer room

[weary zephyr]

is that configurable in the character BP or will I need to dig into the source?

[limber gyro]

if a player has 9999 frames he cant be sending 9999 packets per second to the server, that alone would probably make a DOS attack lol

[chrome bay]

YOu will need to subclass CharacterMovementComponent and use a modified FNetworkPredictionData_Client_Character

As I said the component will not necessarily send a move every frame. It will combine moves into single packets if it can, and send those at a lower rate

[limber gyro]

im not sure how unreal is sending packets to the server but i assume its on a per frame basis

[weary zephyr]

@limber gyro yeah, I'd be fine with sending 60 packets/second to the server, as long as the client was rendering the world at X FPS

[limber gyro]

it has to be capped

[weary zephyr]

thanks for the help @chrome bay I'll give that a try 🙂

[limber gyro]

for that you would need to have 2 independent clocks

[weary zephyr]

@limber gyro sending updates using framerate seems like a really awful practice

[chrome bay]

You just don't call the RPC every tick

[limber gyro]

im not even sure how u would do that

[chrome bay]

You don't need two clocks

[weary zephyr]

I have tick disabled on my character BP 😛

[limber gyro]

but hes using movement component, he has no control on how stuff is sent

[chrome bay]

This is what I'm saying, the movement component will handle it itself

Unless you have done something which prevents moves from being combined

[weary zephyr]

I even tried the Smooth Sync marketplace plugin

Unless you have done something which prevents moves from being combined
I haven't done anything like that

[chrome bay]

Smooth Sync is fundamentally different to how character movement works

[weary zephyr]

Yeah, thats why I tried it

but unfortunately still had framerate issues - on SmoothSync, the character just didn't move on other clients

but worked fine locally

(as in, I could walk around on my screen, but everyone else would see me standing in the spot I spawned)

[chrome bay]

Even if it did, you wouldn't have any client prediction

In a real-world scenario it would have huge input lag

That's what Character movement solves

[weary zephyr]

Well with Smooth Sync I was allowing the client to own their own pawn

[chrome bay]

In which case the client has full authority then and can easily cheat

[weary zephyr]

so no input lag, but other players did have a bit of a delay on my pawn's movement

yeah, that's fine for this use case

actually it's what I wanted - fully client authoritive movement

[chrome bay]

In a competitive high FPS game?

If you want that, just disable client corrections in the character movement component

[limber gyro]

thats good to know

whats the exact name of the varaibles to set to false?

[weary zephyr]

you mean these?

[chrome bay]

Bottom one

Just means the client will have complete and total control over where the character is

[limber gyro]

oh i thought you had to do somethign else

[chrome bay]

It will still send moves to the Server however

[limber gyro]

i already have messes with those

dont u have to set bServerAcceptClientAutoritativePoisiton to true aswell?

[weary zephyr]

I've legitimately been looking for months for a way to do that, apparently I'm just an idiot 😛

[chrome bay]

Character Movement is a beast

Takes a while to fully wrap your head around it

[weary zephyr]

Man, that's really annoying me now 😛

[chrome bay]

I mean it goes without saying though, unless you have good reason to, you shouldn't ever set it to true

[weary zephyr]

I had 2 projects over the past 3 years that I ended up scrapping, and a large part of the reason was due to not being able to figure that out 😛

It opens a lot of cheating potential and I totally get that

[chrome bay]

Giving clients full authority is basically asking people to cheat

[limber gyro]

ur suposed to set it to true when u need to move very fast for very short periods of time

[weary zephyr]

for some specific use cases, that's not as big of a concern as other issues

[chrome bay]

Well, it's a hack for that really. You can modify it to work with faster speeds

Just an easier option

[limber gyro]

ye, for me it works fine, i cant be arsed to mess with custom movements, documentation is outdated and it looks quite messy

[weary zephyr]

compatibility with garbage connections that are dropping packets and have unstable latency, some types of games where cheating isn't a big issue (MP puzzle games or something), games that handle anticheat in another way, etc

[chrome bay]

Yeah but in fairness if it's a competitive game and they have a terrible connection, tough luck for the player

[weary zephyr]

Haha yeah, fair enough, in most cases you're probably right 😛

[chrome bay]

Put it this way, we have maybe a few thousand players CCU on our game - and already there are rampant cheat programs and scripts out there for it

[weary zephyr]

going to test how clientside framerate affects stuff now

[chrome bay]

Unreal being open-source makes it even easier for people

[weary zephyr]

Yeah for sure

[limber gyro]

well now a days you dont make games taking into consideration bad conection, its not 1990 anymore lol

[weary zephyr]

I remember with Cube 2 and Tesseract, cheating was a HUGE issue there because 1. they're open source, AND 2. clients have full authority of not only their own movement, but over whether or not they hit opponents when they shoot

[chrome bay]

Yeah.. they asked for it then 😄

Division 2 was another example also IIRC, more higher profile one

[limber gyro]

favor the shooter is common in fps's

[chrome bay]

Favour the shooter can be done without giving them authority over the hit

[weary zephyr]

Hm :\

with that option ticket on, it seems a lot better, but still not right

[limber gyro]

thats a bit over my head tbh

[weary zephyr]

the client is still being warped around when they stop moving

[chrome bay]

What does the log say?

Spamming anything?

[weary zephyr]

the server log?

[chrome bay]

client

[limber gyro]

try setting bServerAcceptClientAutoritativePoisiton to true aswell

[weary zephyr]

is there a cvar for verbose logging somewhere? I'm not seeing anything related in the console

[chrome bay]

That one I mentioned is a warning so it should come up regardless

The pawn is properly possessed by the client too right?

And input is being added via AddMovementInput?

[weary zephyr]

movement

[chrome bay]

yeah that's fine then

[grizzled stirrup]

Does event begin play not get called on PlayerControllers after seamless traveling?

[weary zephyr]

possess should be done properly? I'm using a marketplace kit, but I'm looking at the BP now and it seems to be configured properly

[chrome bay]

@grizzled stirrup Possibly not, the controllers are kept

[weary zephyr]

bServerAcceptClientAutoritativePoisiton where is this?

[chrome bay]

Oh if it's marketplace... good luck

[grizzled stirrup]

Thanks just going through the GM code now, I think it may miss the begin play call post travel

[weary zephyr]

well it's a marketplace framework for the gamemode, not much else

[limber gyro]

i set it in code, but u should be able to set it in the constroctor or begin play

[weary zephyr]

but the possess node is being used when the pawn is spawned

targeting the player's controller

[limber gyro]

drag ur character movement and search for that vriable

[weary zephyr]

bServerAcceptClientAutoritativePoisiton on character movement?

[limber gyro]

ye

[weary zephyr]

nothing 😦

[limber gyro]

must not be exposed to BP's then

try removing context sensitive

[weary zephyr]

yeah I did, still nothing 😦

[limber gyro]

well, do it in c++

😆

[weary zephyr]

Yeah, I will, was hoping to avoid that 😛

I have the source generated for my project already, so I should just be able to do the edits in visual studio, save, and compile/build from the editor, right? Sorry, I'm not familiar with the C++ UE4 workflow much

[limber gyro]

you should

depends

if you change stuff in the .h ur gonna need to rebuild

not sure if u need to rebuild too if you change the constructor

but if you change it in the begin play you can just build from the editor

[grizzled stirrup]

If anyone is searching in the future, begin play does not get called on the PC when seamless traveling, only the very first time it is loaded in the map

[weary zephyr]

@limber gyro going to ask a dumb question because I've done barely any UE4 C++ 😛 I made a new C++ class to extend CharacterMovement, how am I supposed to go about setting that var in BeginPlay in C++? 😛

[limber gyro]

you dont need to extend

go to your character class that comes by default

and it should have a tick there

since its only for testing it will do

[weary zephyr]

oh, that?

[limber gyro]

GetMovementComponent()

no

on ur cahracter class

[chrome bay]

GameNetworkManager->ClientAuthorativePosition

bServerAcceptClientAuthoritativePosition is transient anyway

You can set it in the games DefaultGame.ini

[weary zephyr]

virtual UPawnMovementComponent* GetMovementComponent() const override; in Character.h?

Oh

[limber gyro]

do u not have a class clled "urprojectCharacter."

[weary zephyr]

Oh yeah, I do

[limber gyro]

thats the one

thats the equivalent of your blueprint

[chrome bay]

ClientAuthorativePosition=true```

No need to mess around in code

There are a lot of other settings in that class too

related to throttling etc.

[weary zephyr]

Man, I've been using UE4 for a few years now so I'm pretty experienced with it, but still, every time I try to deal with replication/multiplayer, I feel like I'm back to knowing nothing about it 😛

Thanks to both of you, I'll test that now 🙂

Ok so it's miles better now, but it still seems like there's some correction going on

and I'm not sure why - with those 2 options, shouldn't the server never be updating my local client on my position?

[limber gyro]

i belive so, but there might be some other stuff that u need to set

unreal is simply too big

[weary zephyr]

Yeah, it's huge 😛

Hm, this is very weird

I thought Smooth Sync overwrote most (if not all) of the network related settings in CharacterMovement, but with the 2 options you guys said, plus SmoothSync, it's almost working flawlessly

It seems like Smooth Sync isn't replicating control rotation properly like the stock component does, so I need to handle replicating the player's third person pitch separately, and some animations are a little buggy, but clients aren't warping around on any framerate

[flint rose]

When setting the owner of an object such as a weapon, should I set the owner as my character or the playercontroller?

[fervent yacht]

Multi feels like quantum states a lot XD.

[cosmic badge]

anyone know why I'm getting crashes with dedicated servers on Unable to load package (A:/Epic/UnrealEngine_4_24/Engine/Content/Animation/DefaultAnimCurveCompressionSettings.uasset). Package contains EditorOnly data which is not supported by the current build.

from what I understand its saying that things were packaged editoronly, but why is the server trying to use this?

[cosmic badge]

I figured it out, was in the wrong folder, derp

[gentle lion]

Hey guys do you know any good cheap relational database services? I'm trying to choose one for my games. What do you guys use and how is it?

[gleaming vector]

@chrome bay i looked into GUID remapping

it was bad