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#ue4-general
frank escarp
lean junco
lol
lean junco
then maybe not r dalvi for you
frank escarp
maybe that would be great becouse its precisely what i dont know
lean junco
just a sec, need to test something
frank escarp
looking at the video about houdini basics, he starts changing the viewport madly
and it reminds me of blender so much
wich has all this completely different UI configurations
lean junco
oh bugger, I just broke everything
my spawner spawns powerups, and if you collect them, the spawn enemies
ugh
frank escarp
in my game you bitchslap shadows
i was playing with having to llight up a zone, some bunch of torches, to continue
while shadows attack you
currently they dont attack tho
frank escarp
what?
thats a terrible prototype i made in a couple hours
the map is just flat with some columns, i really suck at level design
lean junco
just a extreme way of saying I think you're kicking my ass on this jam
frank escarp
i wanted to have something like traps and similar but i dont know how to put them
lean junco
but I'm here to play, not to win
so to spawn powerups.. i want to make the chances one out of say 10, do I random integer, then map to 1 to 10, and then check if bigger than 9?
frank escarp
do it with floats
random float returns a random float beetween 0 and 1
multiply it by 100, and thats your "roll"
for a 30% chance, then check if the roll is less than 30
fierce tulip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-xLFIiAPBU Ben never ceizes to amaze me
frank escarp
RIP frames
all those volumetric clouds
blended with a cubemap?
some clouds are volumetric, its clear due to how they blend with the rocks, but some of the farther ones look painted
fierce tulip
yea its part skybox texture, part volumetrics
plush yew
Is there a way to work on the same project with someone?
wary wave
composition is stellar
camera could do with being static, and the volumetric fog at the bottom seems to have issues
harsh mural
Question here: How do you guys go around creating a seamless "Main Menu" to "Loading Screen" to "Gameplay" transition?
I started exploring the idea on my side, and put everything in a Master Level, loading/unloading the sections based on some basic logic.
My project is simple right now, but it feels like it would be a huge mess to go this way with a bigger project.
Anyone have any idea how to manage this at a large scale? Am I missing something obvious?
harsh mural
But when you switch between levels, the Loading screen freezes if the loading is blocking
tawny brook
How useful is the new asset management framework? Is it worth updating to 4.18 from 4.16 to use it? Is it good for weapons as it claims to be?
lean junco
guys, is there a way to controle particle life from bp?
mellow jacinth
when I was arranging meshes, I noticed that when I rotate them, they rotate in intervals of 10 degrees. I was wondering how I would go about disabling it to rotate freely, so I could say rotate it to 127 degrees. I know you can get it to do that somehow, just would like to know how
grim ore
@mellow jacinth all of the snapping options are in the top right of the viewport, you can unlock snapping or change the amount there
mellow jacinth
Thank you
quasi lake
Hey bros,how to set an object to null in blueprint?
Would this set my LockedTarget to null?
gray basalt
what is the good way to create objects at start of the game ? (and place them)
vague shoal
Level BP
gray basalt
but the generation code is in C++
grim ore
@quasi lake yes setting a variable to nothing does that.
grim ore
It depends on what you were setting yes.
vague shoal
@gray basalt Are you using a gamemode class?
gray basalt
i m trying with an actor atm
grim ore
Yep some of the older nodes had the inline selector and they changed them.
gray basalt
thx
quasi lake
thx
vague shoal
I'm more familiar with how to do it in BP. Personally, I do it mixed, BP where I can but if things get too hairy, I create a new C++ node.
fiery harbor
@fierce tulip I think that scene looks pretty mediocre
the composition is very nice, but the assets itself arent that nice
on the thumbnail it looks awesome
in 1080p, not so much any more
fiery harbor
right click rename I would guess?
fiery harbor
why is that one thing in chinese and the rest in english?
fiery harbor
ok
quasi lake
Some stuffs are in chinese ,some are not,but it doesnt matter much anyway
fiery harbor
I would find that annoying and just set everything to english
quasi lake
Eh, as for a chinese dude,that's better than nothing I suppose
fiery harbor
it makes googling stuff easier when everything is in english
quasi lake
True
fiery harbor
I'm german, and I still set all my dev related software to english
fierce tulip
@solid matrix its 99% marketplace assets only, which makes it that more impressive that he got that result hehe
fiery harbor
@fierce tulip tagged wrong person 😄
fierce tulip
instaban!
fiery harbor
but yeah, didnt know it was marketplace stuff. thought he created all himself
fierce tulip
nah his own created stuff looks better. (or at least more 1:1 his artist expression)
quasi lake
You know most chinese dont know english well
fiery harbor
well you seem to know english well and you also seem to name your functions in english
quasi lake
Most dont know the different between you and your
Yeah ,functions in english just in case of any problem
like messy code or something
fiery harbor
how many chinese ue4 ressources are there actually?
so, if you google something in chinese, do you find much ue4 related stuff?
fiery harbor
no, I mean, are there any huge chinese ue4 forums are something like that
fiery harbor
so if you google some problem, do you find fitting results in chinese
quasi lake
In these 2 or 3 years
vague shoal
the Chinese do not google, they Baidu
quasi lake
UE4 is growing very fast these days
vague shoal
or they use a VPN
quasi lake
Baidu is bullshit
vague shoal
^
quasi lake
Every developer here knows lol
quasi lake
Because most useful information comes from foreigners,not chinese
vague shoal
Ever heard of the Great FireWall of China?
fiery harbor
I mean, I know its bad because of how it cooperates with the chinese government on stuff, but thats not really relevant for developers
quasi lake
Yeah firewall is one thing
fiery harbor
one would think that a billion chinese people could create as much useful information as americans and europeans
quasi lake
We get very limited knowledge without vpn
In game industry,not quite much
Most information is translated from English ones
frank escarp
the translation of unreal is also dreadful
im spanish, i ve tought on a spanish school
and literally the first thing
put it on english
vague shoal
I think we have all seen the dreadful traslations from chinese to english, I can't imagine going the opposite direction would be much better.
at least, not as far as machine translation goes
quasi lake
Well I think I'm at the level to get more english information
But tutorials for rookies
Are very abundant here
vague shoal
@quasi lake Are you using a translator right now?
quasi lake
Nope,pure typing
fiery harbor
I'm also using a VPN, but just for privacy reasons and its cheap and there isnt really any downside to it. in china its surely more important, yeah
vague shoal
Your english skills are excellent. Native?
quasi lake
I'm just good at language maybe
I speak japanese too
Best thing for me to be able to speak english is
to communicate with you guys
frank escarp
@lean junco i was looking at his high poly modelling tutorial (for houdini)
very good tut
but i found something very interesting
quasi lake
At daytime I talk to my local buddys at nighttime I talk to you
frank escarp
his version of houdini doesnt have booleans
so he is converting to volumes and then doing CSG on the volumes and then back to polys
wich i find interesting
lean junco
bools are new in 16
frank escarp
and are glitchy as hell
vague shoal
@quasi lake For what it's worth, I wouldn't know english isn't your first language, if nobody told me
lean junco
they had a cookie cutter, but it was as bad as other software bools
the vdb trick works great
english is like my 3rd langguage
quasi lake
@vague shoal thanks
vague shoal
Just a heads up to anyone thinking of trying it; You cannot use steam to stream the editor to another PC
lean junco
oh sorry. you are speaking to someone else
vague shoal
@lean junco Your english is good too. I'm a crappy american who only knows english and bad english
lean junco
lol
vague shoal
and enough spanish to follow a casual conversation
but thats entirely as a result of living in an area with a large Mexican population
midnight mantle
I wonder why SaltyFish is such a popular name
frank escarp
but that is not real spanish XD
midnight mantle
does anyone relatively well-known use the name SaltyFish?
frank escarp
its kind of like thick australian english vs british english or stuff like that
quasi lake
what
popular?
Oh saltyfish in chinese means
man without dream
lol
I dont see it popular among english communities though
vague shoal
@frank escarp Right, not Castillian spanish. Mexican spanish
midnight mantle
I swear I've seen at least 3 other people with your name
in various other places
quasi lake
I thought it's only used by me in this world🤔
midnight mantle
well...fish IS salty
¯_(ツ)_/¯
anyways, what's this about baidu
oh no google available in China?
I had forgotten
I used to get my chinese songs from Baidu like 10 years ago
I don't think they let you do that anymore lol
midnight mantle
download songs
quasi lake
Eh some old songs can be downloaded free
quasi lake
True back to work
long comet
@hot ledge Pm me with info about Zombie AI job Please 😃
worn sparrow
I just happened upon a page from the Unity Documentation, I'm now so envious of Unity users 😔
fierce tulip
holy f*** writing new posts and trying to format em properly on the forums is now a total clusterf******
this whole new forum thing is a joke
worn granite
Apparently so is self-censoring with asterisks
fierce tulip
:p
quaint hull
Hey everyone I have been using UE4 for a while but mostly as an artist, I want to focus on learning blueprints and gamedev as fast as possible without losing myself on "how to do X" tutorials, what course or document etc should I follow? What do you think is the best thing I can do to start prototyping my games? (btw I'm not new to gamedev I just don't know how to code)
worn granite
@quaint hull I know you don't want to "lose yourself" on "how to do X tutorials", but finding smaller examples/guides on how to accomplish particular functionality can be helpful.
cloud cobalt
Anyone seeing leading spaces removed from FTexts ?
worn granite
I'd say having a problem to solve rather than jumping in and following along is the better way to consume tutorials, but it can be frustrating when you can't find that short segment you need.
@cloud cobalt Can't say that I have - don't really pay much mind to FTexts currently
cloud cobalt
Basically we've dozens of broken texts with disappeared leading texts, it's incredibly annoying
quaint hull
@worn granite I have been watching videos for about an year on and off when I need to do something for a game, but then I pretty much forget how to do that thing the minute after, so I think there has to be another way, like for art /3d etc when I need something like in 3ds max I quickly google a tutorial to remind myself of how to do it, but in unreal its different, I need to understand blueprints as a whole if I want to make prototypes for game jams etc
worn granite
Hrm. Definitely you have to make frequent use of it, but not sure how a longer form series would help - besides the active practice and use of the knowledge you pick up.
Anyway, a lot of people pick up one of the two Udemy courses thrown around
So either of those should be good.
quaint hull
and then there is also the problem where I can't find tutorials for what I want to do, like if I want to do an fps there are tons of people already explaining how to, but if I want to make an unusual mechanic like tripple jump from mario theres no one explaining how to do it, hope you get what I'm saying :p
tawny brook
Has anyone used the new asset management framework?
quaint hull
Yea I wanted to know the opinion of people before following an udemy course I'm kind of in a high level when it comes to art, and from experience, art courses are complete trash and a waste of time, but I only found out after years of experience
tawny brook
If so, what's it like & is it good for a new weapon system
worn granite
Either way I think spending some time consistently on it is the key
true scaffold
Anyone else finding that thread subscriptions don't work in the new ue4 forums?
nm for some reason my email notifications were off
quaint hull
@worn granite thanks I'm working on an rpg, any idea where to find help for that beside youtube (everyone there is more interested in showing how to add animations to your character)
latent roost
What version of OS X/macOS?
marsh loom
beta
latent roost
latest Xcode 8 or 9?
marsh loom
but stable xcode
latent roost
might be some beta library that returns values not recognized by unreal engine editor
I had some strange side effects when participating in beta for 10.10
knotty brook
Anyone know if I can change the size aspect ratio for the "camera preview" window in the editor viewport? It would be awesome to make it iPhone sized to get a better preview of what things will look like in my portrait mode game
finite vault
Anyone know how to set the spline to the center of my road?
ashen brook
@cloud cobalt Haven't had the leading spaces yet, but line breaks are broken in FText variable fields in the editor
sounds like a regression
hopefully fixed in .1
cloud cobalt
I'm on 4.17
cloud cobalt
Just patched my whole code to not have any leading space in LOCTEXTS
It happens in the editor itself, too - I don't use the translation editor at all but I checked that even that doesn't have the leading spaces
So basically the "gather text" command removes them
It's pretty much okay, I know texts shouldn't have fragile formatting like that anyway. Just only happened with 4.17
livid haven
The damn leading and trail whitespace thing has been an awkward one forever.
cloud cobalt
I still have quite a few trailing one, but those appear fine
livid haven
Wish we'd just decided to strip it and tell you to go fuck yourself if you expect to localize whitespace...
As in, at the FText level.
cloud cobalt
Overall I struggle with shit limitations on FText
livid haven
There shouldn't be much to struggle with - what are you running in to?
cloud cobalt
I thing FText::Format still only has 4 parameters, to start with
livid haven
Why aren't you using the named vs ordered one?
That takes the payload of what to format?
cloud cobalt
Because 4-year old code
livid haven
?
cloud cobalt
I'm not rewriting 15,000 words that use {0} everywhere 😃
livid haven
{
return FTextFormatter::Format(MoveTemp(Fmt), MoveTemp(InArguments), false, false);
}
FText FText::Format(FTextFormat Fmt, FFormatOrderedArguments InArguments)
{
return FTextFormatter::Format(MoveTemp(Fmt), MoveTemp(InArguments), false, false);
}```Those have been around for a very very very long time
I wrote them.
They are by no means new.
cloud cobalt
You told me about them, but I didn't know about them for years 😃
sacred bay
livid haven
But you said you struggle with a limitation that doesn't exist... you could just stop using the "old" ones.
cloud cobalt
For new texts, I will, sure
@livid haven Can you uppercase text now, too, or is that not okay ?
livid haven
What do you mean?
cloud cobalt
FString has a ToUpper() method, FText doesn't
livid haven
No. Why would your FText need to be programmatically converted to uppercase?
There are few operations you can do on FText that can be done in a localization friendly manner.
cloud cobalt
Isn't case one of those ? I think browsers offer it, for exemple, through stylesheets. It sounds like a pretty safe operation.
Because it's pretty common to want the text uppercased at some point (or lowercased), and if you have 10 localized variants, you need to check them too
livid haven
But what are you upper casing?
If it's user input, then you're already coming from a string.
If it's existing text, you should already have it in upper-case.
Upper case is inapplicable for a slew of languages.
cloud cobalt
Let's say you have a "Main menu" string and you want it to be "MAIN MENU" for purely artistic reasons. It sucks to have to change localized versions of the string.
livid haven
Then why isn't it MAIN MENU in the first place?
cloud cobalt
Because you decide to change it for no reason at all
livid haven
?
cloud cobalt
What if you want to change all menu titles to uppercase for purely artistic reasons ? You somehow need to review all texts and modify all localized versions
livid haven
No, just go change the text. In the source/asset.
cloud cobalt
sigh
livid haven
It's something that is worth having localizers review.
cloud cobalt
"but then you need to change all localized versions of that text too"
If you want your website to display all titles uppercase, it's a one line code change that works well with different languages
livid haven
Correct. As you should. Because it's worthy of review. Because whatever you're using casing to communicate needs to be communicated differently in other languages.
cloud cobalt
That's pretty debatable, if you're doing only european languages you're probably cool with uppercasing everywhere, and you still have quite a few texts to change
livid haven
Yes, but we didn't write the system pretending only Europe exists. 😛
pallid compass
-scrolls up to learn random things-
livid haven
Because everyone else does that enough and then decides everyone else can go fuck themselves - because they took the lazy way out.
Which means months on its 100x harder to support other locales.
Or they just don't do it at all.
cloud cobalt
On the other hand it's just painful for small teams who don't target more than a few languages
livid haven
It's generally a poor decision to permanently sacrifice the ability to do things right at all just to make it easy for a select few. 🤷
Look, any localization team should be able to handle this trivially.
cloud cobalt
How does adding an uppercase method sacrifice anything ?
What if you don't have a localization team ?
livid haven
If you don't have a localization team, then this is all moot, because you're not localizing - you're shoving shit in to Google translate and copy-pasting it in to files.
livid haven
We don't make a 3D modeling tool and animation suite inside of UE4 for people who decide to not use a real, existing, well-supported tool.
Similarly, we're not reinventing the wide swath of effective and well supported localization tools that exist.
A feature called "translation history" makes updating the translations for your now-upper-cased strings trivial.
Because the tool you're using should be using "fuzzy logic" to recommend previously created translations for new strings with similar sources.
It's also available as JSON, which is easy to parse and digest.
cloud cobalt
Look, you have your own point of view of giant companies doing giant games for millions of gamers. I'm just saying, for people lile us who translate themselves for the 2-3 languages they're fluent with, things like that are annoying. And yes, even PoEdit makes it easy - It's just very annoying, because 100% of the changes would be safe to do programmatically.
livid haven
So if you want to do a programmatic fixup of those translations, that should also be trivial given that you have a way to identify the set of texts you changed.
You can do it programmaticaly. You just can't do it at runtime safely out-of-the-box because it's a bad idea.
You can even make a way to do it programmatically at runtime, but we're not shipping it out of the box because it's just giving people more ammunition to shoot themselves in the foot with.
livid haven
You can do some custom stuff with formatting to create a custom "uppercase" formatter.
Nope. Not that I know of.
pallid compass
or u had this about localization with someone else
livid haven
I've had to explain why FText only supports a very limited set of operations, but not uppercase specifically.
cloud cobalt
I'd definitely consider using an uppercase font in the future instead, so that the issue is moot
livid haven
That is also an option.
pallid compass
oh yeah that was it, ftext lmao i remember from awhile ago
cloud cobalt
Overall it just seems pretty arbitrary, because using bold or underlined text is also something that just doesn't work for like Japanese
But you can do that - because it's done at the font level
livid haven
But bold and underlining are not intrinsic to the string.
They're entirely external.
And also not supported at the FText level.
cloud cobalt
Eh, how do you underline a vertical script ?
livid haven
Think you're misunderstanding me.
FText has absolutely no conception of bold or underlining.
Nor uppercase or lowercase.
So I'm not sure what you're getting at.
cloud cobalt
What i'm saying is, the reason you can underline Japanese and not uppercase english is because one of them is done at the font level, and the other at the text level
But you could uppercase at the font level too
livid haven
Are you suggesting that uppercasing should be a font level feature?
I don't know that I agree with that, but sure - there's seemingly an inconsistency there. Sort of.
cloud cobalt
I'm not - I'm saying the "you don't want to uppercase all localized texts" argument is a shitty one, because it also doesn't make sense to underline all localized texts. Yet you can.
Not that I want you to remove underlining 😉
livid haven
But you can't. Not at the FText level.
What font you use to display an FText is itself localizable.
Meaning a font localizes what it does for underlining or bolding.
cloud cobalt
That is actually a decent point 😃
livid haven
Also, uppercase and lowercase are differentiated by different code points altogether.
Where as underlining and bold are purely aesthetic changes.
cloud cobalt
Yes.
livid haven
You've also got your weirder cases like German capitalization.
Not in the all Nouns are Capital Case, but in the "s" because a weird B looking thing
But I think only under certain circumstances? Not sure.
cloud cobalt
The glorious Eszett
surreal viper
ß?
cloud cobalt
It's being phased out, basically. In favor of "ss"
Super tempted to joke about that
Shouldn't.
cloud cobalt
Anyway, I see your point
livid haven
Won't go on a tangent about it, but with how very incredibly touchy they are about anything even tangentally relating to that part of their history, I would not have been surprised if they avoided using ss just because of the tangential connection there.
surreal viper
about that
there were a particle system library called HellHeaven (from france actually)
they basically renamed themselves to PopcornFX cause of the bad stuff attached to the "HH"
but for years all the namespaces were still hh 😄
livid haven
Natural language is complicated as all hell. Bold and underline being done at the font level is, to an extent, arbitrary. I think it's just one of those things where it's one of a set of features that most of the world supports in their languages, enough that font technology has evolved to support commonly used but semantically inconsistent features like bold and underline.
HH being bad because of the famous Nazi salute I assume?
cloud cobalt
CG text is shit on every level, to be fair, from encoding to rendering to localizing
livid haven
Aye. Again, I blame natural language.
cloud cobalt
I regularly encounter programs that can't handle my first name, including UE4
(try using UTF8 in your Windows username, and try packaging a game)
(actually I think even building fails)
livid haven
You mean using something outside the Basic Multilingual Plane?
surreal viper
I usually don't use non-ascii characters in account names / file pathes
I have an 'á' in my family name, I just replace it with 'a'
cloud cobalt
Maybe it's been fixed in the last few years though, because after I changed my username and dealt with the fallout, I didn't really want to test again
livid haven
Yeah, not surprised something shits a brick on non-ASCII.
For clarification, it's not using "UTF8", but using non-ASCII characters.
cloud cobalt
Yeah.
livid haven
The root cause is probably a combination of UTF8 and non-ASCII characters - you end up with 1 character only being part of a visible "character" in that case.
cloud cobalt
Basically I think one of the build tool decided the paths were ASCII
For something that's half C#, half C++ and running on Windows, I can't blame the devs really
cloud cobalt
Oh yeah, spaces
The stuff of nightmares
I mean, I get that real-life text is shit
But spaces as delimiters, that was a stupid decision
I blame UNIX
And possibly way before that.
livid haven
Yep. Hate it.
I don't remember what it was that shit a brick though, now.
It may have been indirectly related to UE4 work
Like running a VM or something
cloud cobalt
I really want to say it was UE4, but actually I think that's something that works
livid haven
I mean, whatever it was had to do with accessing something in the user directory.
Which isn't where I keep anything normally, but is where appdata ends up.
livid haven
Yeah, but isn't that one of those where you can but it's very heavily inadvised.
Yeah
Figured. 😛
I have half my user folder's folders symlinked to a different drive.
Because they recommend not relocating the Users directory or any one user's directory... but the contents themselves? Totally fine.
pallid compass
man making a hot metal shader in ue4 is hard D:
cloud cobalt
@pallid compass Got pretty decent results by using a baked AO
Manual hand gradients are best
Wanna share ?
thorn sable
Is it possible to select meshes in a cubed space and combine them into 1 mesh?
cloud cobalt
@pallid compass http://helium-rain.com/images/realism.jpg < not great art, but I like the hot metal there
livid haven
Neat!
I was going to mention this loc related issue I was having earlier. You might get a kick out of it, @cloud cobalt.
TL;DR: These "quote" marks used in some European locales, guillemets. Look like double arrows left or right.
Which one (left arrows vs right arrows) is the opening or closing quote varies.
cloud cobalt
livid haven
Which means that the built-in word wrapping logic can't assume which is which and thus can't assume either side is acceptable to break on.
Thus leads to word wrapping failing after a Russian translation that has these guillemets around a term. Text ends up clipping instead because there is no legal "break candidate" to word wrap at.
livid haven
Solution was to shove a Zero Width Breaking Space (ZWSP) in after the closing guillemet.
Except we discovered that ZWSP is/was classified in the same category as whitespace... but is not actually regarded as whitespace.
Which means the existing Slate font renderer logic tries to render it, can't find a glyph for it, and ends up falling back to the engine-level font that just shows an icon for which category the code point belongs to...
pallid compass
do they look hot to you, or major lack luster?
livid haven
So we had to shove in a dirty Char == 0x200B to catch the very specific case of ZWSP (code point 0x0200B). 😦
Hmmm, hard to say.
They do, but they look off. I think just because of the lack of distortion or sufficient contrast to see that they're actually emissive.
cloud cobalt
@pallid compass You need to make the edges less glowing. Or more. And more glow.
tawny brook
god i hate arrays
pallid compass
il crack the emissive up abit and stuff
livid haven
Of course, in space there wouldn't be distortion.
pallid compass
alright will do
livid haven
Whoa. Like 4 of us messaged at the exact same instant (as far as my Discord client receiving them).
tawny brook
wasn't like that for me
cloud cobalt
http://www.gh-ia.com/images/forging.jpg @pallid compass try emulating that
livid haven
Was jarring as half the screen jumped up.
tawny brook
lol
livid haven
Ah, yeah. That could work.
Wait, why does that look that way? Surface area to cool?
Corners have more exposed surface area and cool faster I suppose.
pallid compass
will do
midnight mantle
gradient
pallid compass
Is there away to shift the general gradient?
nothing i seam to try and do to shift it too the middle works on the v2 input
also sorry for high jacking your convo
tawny brook
does anyone know how to manipulate enum arrays in bp?
pallid compass
define manipulate
cloud cobalt
@livid haven Probably the edges have just less contact to hot matter nearby, too.
livid haven
@pallid compass Manipulate the UVs, not the output.
I think that's kind of the same statement - more surface area exposed to cool matter (air) = less surface area exposed (in contact) with hot matter (the rest of itself), but fair.
tawny brook
Halcyon, add/remove enums from it, read what's in it, make sure there's no duplicates. for example, i have an enumeration for all power ups. I want to add/remove specific powerups from the "Active powerups" array
pallid compass
id normally just have a struct that would hold related enums
and swap the structs around
really depends what holds what i guess
livid haven
What's the issue, @tawny brook? An array of enum values should work just like a normal array in BP or CPP.
tawny brook
minus the part i don't know how to use arrays in ue4
livid haven
BP and CPP are dramatically different, so that could mean anything.
Generally, dealing with data structures in BP is super awkward.
Mostly because expressing anything algorithmic in BP is hella verbose.
pallid compass
im so lazy using UDIMS rn
tawny brook
like i need to add enums to the array
remove enums, make sure there's no duplicate entries
all which idk how
pallid compass
You should try explaining what your doing overall, there may be a better way to do it than swinging enums around
tawny brook
Alright
let's say there's 5 different power ups
Ex1-5
Ex1 powerup has been picked up by halcyon (global powerups btw)
So the server adds Ex1 to an array to store which powerups are currently active
While a 2 minute timer is set to remove Ex1 from the array
While the 2 minute timer is active, Sion picks up Ex5 and that needs to also be active
So both Ex1 & Ex5 is "active" while Ex2,Ex3,Ex4 is not active so it's not in the array
Essentially different methods can check this array & see if Ex1 is inside
If it is, then make headshots 100% lethal and insta kill the enemy.
pallid compass
If it was me i would have an array if "Current Powerups" and a struct or ref too that powerup
of**
tawny brook
i have an Active Powerups array
pallid compass
I mean the array would be a struct containing information about that powerup
livid haven
You'd just be adding the enum value to the array when its picked up. When you need to check, you do a find. When the timer goes off, you do a remove.
Assuming everything else stays sane, you won't end up with duplicates, since ostensibly there's no way for you to pick up an active powerup on the map?
tawny brook
but how do i just "add the enum value" would this work?
https://i.latouth.com/2017/eg84X4QN.png
tawny brook
I want users to be able to pickup active powerups
so just find a type
if type exists, remove it
then make new one? (if they pickup an existing powerup)
livid haven
?
tawny brook
essentially picking up an active powerup would reset the timer
livid haven
I'm misunderstanding how your game system works I guess.
tawny brook
Alright
livid haven
Wait, so they're more like global rule modifiers?
tawny brook
Yes
pallid compass
Gave a function that adds event with timer, and have it collapsed in with the array that holds the information of the powerup
i dont see much need to seperate them
livid haven
And there are multiple instances of pickups that can activate the same rule?
pallid compass
It feels like your making your system non orthogonality
tawny brook
yes
pallid compass
if thats the right way to word it
pallid compass
(thats right sion, that book is stuck in my head)
tawny brook
I also don't know if i should make it per-player powerups then just apply it to everyone
cuz then it'd give me flexibility later to give a specific player a powerup
livid haven
So what's the handling for redundant activation of an already active powerup? Refresh? Stack?
Either way
tawny brook
pallid compass
maybe im potato, but it seams like it be better to condonse it too a struct of the information of t he powerup? unless you need to replicate the data alot. but thats just me
livid haven
You may be interested in Sets rather than Arrays. Sets are more or less like Arrays, but the idea is that they don't contain duplicates (among other things)
Which means that Set Add silently does nothing if it's a duplicate.
tawny brook
can i still manipulate a set easily?
livid haven
Same basic set of operations.
Add, Find, Remove.
Difference is that they're sort of auto-sorted, can't contain duplicates, and finding if something is in a Set is faster than with an array.
I won't go in to it, for your sake, but Sets are faster for searching than arrays (generally speaking) because they "hash" their elements and find them by their hash.
However, that's largely irrelevant with a small set (er... number of things).
So mostly a set will give you the behavior you want, as far as no duplicates.
pallid compass
god dam why cant i get a soft gradiant D:<
livid haven
Gradient is nothing more than some kind of color interpolation, not necessarily linear.
And by linear I mean the mathematical function for how values are interpolated.
livid haven
A radial gradient can still be a linear interpolation with respect to distance, for example.
So if you want a "softer" gradient, @pallid compass, that could mean using a different interpolation function.
livid haven
You have to manipulate the UVs for that.
Not the other inputs.
The UVs are what will change the way it lays out.
pallid compass
i got it
didnt have to tweak the uv's luckily
i wanted colour veriation on them
lmao
but there colour veriation is back to front
😂
livid haven
I suppose there are other ways to get the desired effect, but UVs are probably your safest, honestly.
If you wanted to shift your gradient up, just add to your V coordinate. Or subtract. Whichever.
frank escarp
well, you dont need to use the uvs...
use vertex colors
they are much easier to configure for that kind of thing
if you are looking for the heated blade effect where it goes from one color to other
livid haven
You're referring to that specific effect though, but yes.
I just meant, in general, trying to shift an tex coord based effect.
frank escarp
protip, add MORE bloom
livid haven
Making it not tex coord based, in this case, is probably wise.
frank escarp
allways looks good for ths things if you want an effect to look powerful
too bad they nuked the old tonemapper
this one shifts to white
in the old one, it would saturate
livid haven
I would love to see the actual tech for this stuff in Star Citizen.
frank escarp
most of it doable in unreal
make the material masked
paint it
using that render weird ass thing
livid haven
Watch the video. It's more complicated than it might sound like otherwise.
frank escarp
as the material is masked, you can do holes on it
gray basalt
why SetActorLocation is not working when called from a player controller ?
placid sand
Hey, i've begun learning UE4 and have started with the "level designer quick start" tutorial on the website. I need to ask a question about the tutorial, is this the right place to ask? i didnt get a response from #level-design
pallid compass
done and dusted
Further the heat source, the cooler it visually looks
ooohh iv seen this
i extrcti got holded of some SC textures and models
and seen how they do that
its nuts
Its so costly though
livid haven
The model breakage isn't profound, but the specific tech behind doing the heat and burn through and break through live in a performant manner is what I'm curious about.
livid haven
I mean, you could argue it's not performant, so that would resolve that argument. 😛
pallid compass
to phase betweem tje area's
It looks good, but its heavy af in terms of shaders imo
alot of transparancy and blend textures are used from what i could see
grim ore
@placid sand people are all over the place but there tends to be more here, ask away and at the worst they will tell you to go back into level design lol
frank escarp
tom looman did it
placid sand
ok, thanks
frank escarp
the "render damage into a texture and use it for fancy shit" technique
it is very, VERY costly
its not aboout the blending
its about render to texture
and running materials to make the heat decay
frank escarp
its basically running simulations on the damn texture
livid haven
Star Citizen is basically Crysis of the late 2010s, so... yeah.
placid sand
is BSP in the tutorial the same as the geomerty tab in the engine? https://i.imgur.com/CxvEiBL.png
frank escarp
except crysis releases
pallid compass
just for the outside of the gladiator
livid haven
Har har, very funny.
pallid compass
im not joking
frank escarp
but i love looking at their bleeding edge research
livid haven
Because everyone ships 150+ million dollar games from scratch with 300+ employees in 4 years starting with a crew of like 3 people, right?
frank escarp
no, Becouse star citizien is scope creep:the game
frank escarp
they could have done like elite dangerous
pallid compass
not including decal
frank escarp
start releasing actual stuff
frank escarp
and keep adding new things on top as expansions
livid haven
Have you been following the Elite Dangerous community?
frank escarp
but no, they want everything at once
i was
lately i forgot about the game
its incredible in VR and played tons of hours on it
only vr
pallid compass
ever time i play SC it runs like crap for me 😦
livid haven
So you're aware that it's been widely criticized for being as wide as an ocean and as deep as a puddle and barely any deeper years after release. Successful, sure.
And I like it.
But maybe not the best comparison point for how-to-ship-your-game-with-insane-scope-as-an-end-goal.
frank escarp
but the thing is
livid haven
And they're also stuck with tech decisions that permanently hamstring a lot of things. Looking at you, "peer to peer" networking.
frank escarp
they have ketp scope under control
they have released something
meanwhile star citizien is just a tech demo
a really incredible one
but come ooon
livid haven
But that's just factually wrong.
paper kernel
question: why are are my particle emitters disabling themselves?
paper kernel
AI leaves particle trail while moving
AI goes off screen for moment, comes back with particle emitter off
well, some of the emitters off often
livid haven
That's interesting. I'd ask why some particle emitters seem to turn off after leaving the screen and returning.
paper kernel
hmm
livid haven
Have you found a consistent reproduction?
frank escarp
so, if you want that to not happen, there is a setting
livid haven
I assume he means they stay off when they return.
frank escarp
on the particle system
i think its "update only when rendered"
wich is on by default
pallid compass
yeah they turn off when u cant see em
by default
crap what was the setting called for it..
livid haven
WRT the Star Citizen thing, they've got more than E:D's Arena thing is out now. They just definitely do not yet have the persistent universe part out yet. With any luck, by the end of the year we'll have a small sandbox of that.
fierce tulip
NEVER
paper kernel
👏
fierce tulip
set bounds properly @paper kernel
pallid compass
hmmm show pic of material
Lous
Random question while you are here
Something that has been bashing my brain for past 2 weeks
paper kernel
occlusion bounds?
pallid compass
Do you have any example, or know how shield effects are done like the ones in star citizen? i cant find a decent example anywhere or one to buy on the market place
fierce tulip
image?
pallid compass
from extracting there ship files, they use a low poly base mesh that wraps the ship
pretty much a circle around the ship
So my guess is some sort of fanncy Uv stuff, maybe idk
no one seams to know, and if u dont know then know one knows 😂
what was your issue again ezekiel?
I can show you there mesh and the Uv's for the mesh they use for the shields if it will help.
check the file type, it says bitmap
what did u import it as
fierce tulip
depends on final results, but generally they'd activate some dynamic mask thing. but I never really made one. its done trough blueprint/code
pallid compass
try Tga ezekiel
Hmmm, do you have any idea where i could dig a basica example?
sounds like something wrong with the texture file
basic example up**
or even something too start with
pallid compass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y4gdm7bAeQ is best shield example iv found on youtube, but no tutorial sadly.
pallid compass
wait wtf really 😮
fierce tulip
yea
pallid compass
my god i spent ages trying to find the person who mad that omg
pallid compass
Yeah its something, just trying to find an example to start with i guess
fierce tulip
hehe
pallid compass
dw everyone forgets stuff all the time 😂
pallid compass
ooo whats this luos ;o
ashen brook
@pallid compass any questions about it, ask away
ashen brook
math
pallid compass
I guess im just struggling to find good example
I tried doing it once
By having a mask that was like a ring of white and black on inside and outside
and making it go from small too big
but it was a big flop
ashen brook
the expanding circles were the complex part, the rest is pretty trivial refraction/opacity gradient stuff
pallid compass
May i ask for the basis of how u did the expanding ripple?
ashen brook
and the expanding circles weren't that complex
yeah, animated a radius parameter on a bunch of sphere masks with the impact point as the center
ashen brook
it's all in the numbers and the endless tweaking
pallid compass
make one and put it on the market place so i can buy it :9
ashen brook
sounds like a bother 😛
ashen brook
I made something a lot cooler after that, but it's under NDA
pallid compass
go dam it jan 😦
ashen brook
this video is from, uh... 2015 after all?
pallid compass
why wreck me like this
ashen brook
because I'm bored and you're an easy target of course ❤
pallid compass
-rolls eyes-
I keep digging but there not much in terms of dynamic shields it makes me sad 😦
pallid compass
-write a letter-
"Dear epic, how do i not be bad? tell me your secrets dam it"
ahhh i always get excited to see peoples work
ashen brook
"Dear Halcyon, you need to drink more coffee and git gud"
ashen brook
I find it amusing that "git gud" is basically a metaphor for "study and practice, over and over and over"
paper kernel
I'm concerned about my caffeine intake during megajams
ashen brook
😄
I started a teensy tiny mega jam game on my commute this morning
a mini city builder
but doubt I'll have time to bring it to a satisfactory point
fulltime job commuter life has its downsides 😢
paper kernel
battery things won't last long when you're compiling
ashen brook
hah, there's power outlets
ashen brook
😛
pallid compass
what ever floats your boat really
ashen brook
I played a bit of Aven Colony on the weekend with the gf, and started wondering how hard it would be to write some city builder/econ sim systems
seems like a good programming exercise
paper kernel
you could probably sink a lifetime to it
ashen brook
yeah but... I'm making up just the base architecture to build upon, you know?
i.e. class hierarchy and essential functions
like, this is a thing you can place, here's your interface for placing it, this is the grid, here's how the grid deals with variable-size footprints, here's how each thing you can place feeds into the overall economy system, etc
paper kernel
I guess you could do 2017 version and let deep learning build a city for you
ashen brook
probably, but that's beside the point - talking about the system architecture for a city builder, not the usage of said finished city builder that doesn't yet exist 😛
@pallid compass if you remind me on Friday when I'm back home and have access to my desktop, I can see if I still have that project somewhere and pull out the material for you
yeah but I'm thinking even more abstract tbh. I'm still learning how to program gud, so just getting intuition for how to set up and separate out functionality and class hierarchies without it ending up a tangled mess
i.e. what class holds what data and performs what functions, and how do I optimize it so it's scalable
hehe, and I try to be the most generalist I can be
ashen brook
cool 😃
pallid compass
-does a flip-
ashen brook
hehe
the only reason I learned programming in the first place is so I can make my own level and game designs 😄
pallid compass
Algorithms are the best for things like that
I spent 19 hours listening to a audio book on them
and they are god send honestly
ashen brook
I'm always driven to create an intuitive understanding of the systems I work with, rather than rote... that's probably why I learn best by trying random things and solving whatever problems I run into in the process as I go along
most cool experiments started with a "I wonder if it's possible to..."
or a "wouldn't it be cool if..." 😉
pallid compass
true true
iv spent alot of time faffing about with UV's
and doing very unusual things
i actually use UDIM's to prototype test everything
so i can quickly automatic map uv's, and slam them in a UV coord
very good for testing
but no scratch and grime masks
ashen brook
What if I told you you can just use a secondary UV channel for your scratch and grime
pallid compass
wait wat
ashen brook
or even better: have you heard about my enlightened lord and savior trim sheets?
pallid compass
whats a trim sheet
ashen brook
will find you some reading
pallid compass
GIMI DAT DBUFFER DECAL ALL DAY EVERY DAY
ashen brook
yeah, me too, but they have lots of technical problems that make them unsuitable for production
ashen brook
ok, biggest limitations of mesh decals, from memory (I have a file with grievances somewhere)
- no POM, because no tangents
ashen brook
- depth sorting issues you need to manually correct per mesh
pallid compass
oh isent there a node to do that?
ashen brook
- really wacky bugs when you mix them with translucent geo
ashen brook
yes, as I said, "which you need to manually correct per mesh" 😉
pallid compass
i havent used them heavily but was planning to use them for all my pannel lines
now im spooked D:
ashen brook
most people I've talked to agreed that UE4's implementation of mesh decals is not production ready
POM = parallax occlusion mapping
doesn't work on mesh decals
pallid compass
jan are u alex senechal
ashen brook
no
pallid compass
ahh
iv never used parrallax oc mapping before
well i just gave alex senechal my lunch money for tomorrow
#no regrets
pallid compass
dam
that metal trim sheet
it just looks like
mesh decal atlas
i am confuzzle
ashen brook
yep
pallid compass
is this not mesh decals?
ashen brook
very similar
pallid compass
ohh
ashen brook
but different
pallid compass
thank you very much jan
ashen brook
with mesh decals you have separate geometry for the decal
pallid compass
u have shown me the light
wait do
u
overlay this
in another uv coord
or something
ashen brook
with trim sheets you use a secondary UV channel and add extra cuts to the underlying mesh to apply the trim sheet
yes
it's all explained in the tut 😃
pallid compass
-downloading finished project to look-
okay last question then..
how can u do that if u already have your uv's in the right place
can u have two sets of uv's?
is that a thing?
ashen brook
yes
ashen brook
I'm not sure there's an actual limit on the number of UV channels, but I've used at least up to 4
well yes
if they knew what they were doing they'd be working in the industry instead of teaching 😛
ashen brook
you should ask @acoustic pollen what he thinks about the state of game art education sometime
pallid compass
man last week or the week before
i told everyone about my uni
and it was a roast feast
one of our tutors last week told people to
get this
"u have two uv channels, Diffusion UV & lightmass UV"
i was like
What..
do u even know what ur saying
and he was telling people to make two different sets of uv's or something? one for static light baking
ashen brook
the nomenclature there is... something? But in principle that is correct
pallid compass
at that point i pulled out my Paragmatic programmer book and rolled away on my chair"
ashen brook
static lighting requires its own set of non-overlapping UVs with adequate padding
pallid compass
like why would u make two sets of them
why not just make ur uv's
with a tiny bit of padding
your just slowing your self down
for an extra .7% resolution
ashen brook
because then you'll have light leaking and overlap errors
pallid compass
Idk if its me personally
ashen brook
a dedicated UV channel is required for static lighting to not look shit
pallid compass
But iv never made a set of UV's tight enough in my life for light bleeding
Yeah it bakes over in second channel
but why tell people to pack uv's right next too each other, then make a second set and give them space
when not do it in one go for efficiency
ashen brook
I see what you mean. Yeah, that's quite pointless
ashen brook
but in practice you usually have mirrored or stacked UV shells in your main UVs
which UE doesn't grok when it auto generates lightmap UVs
so what I usually do is do a plain old flatten unwrap in Max in a secondary UV channel, then tell UE to use that as the source channel base to generate lightmap UVs from instead of the first channel
the padding part is fairly pointless if you let UE auto-generate lightmap UVs
because most UV tools are crap and don't let you pack pixel perfect
pallid compass
what the hell, all them materials
ahh gotcha
that makes sense
What the...?
im gonna have to go to bed jan its 12 at night and iv got uni, but i can not wait to watch this omg
holy crap tho jan, these materials use a ton of texture samples
ashen brook
it's definitely not optimized
but it shows you the principle
if I could I'd show you my trim sheet master material 😉
but I can't, so I'll just go to bed
midnight mantle
I just noticed but
we don't have voice channels?
I could have sworn we had some in the past
🤔
livid haven
There were, seems like they got killed in the reorg.
trail atlas
Hey everyone
I think I need to talk to you guys for some input
What are your opinions on Arena shooters, ala Quake, UT, Warsow, Xonotic, etc.
And some more recent attempts/ pseudo attempts such as Quake Champions and Lawbreakers
weary basalt
@midnight mantle No more voice channels sorry. No one used them and they are to muhh trouble to moderate.
midnight mantle
oh :<
safe rose
@safe shoal You feel the same way huh? https://forums.unrealengine.com/unreal-engine/feedback-for-epic/1375368-sharp-decline-in-official-responses-from-epic-throughout-the-community/page5
livid haven
2. The Roadmap was shelved or at least morphed into something else, less recognizable etc.
3. Alexander Paschall left, and the new community manager's focus is clearly somewhere else.
4. It took a 'mini-petition' for Epic to re-see value in the Community Tools section of the forums.
5. Far fewer posters, and massive fall off in quality posts by regular posters. Discord effect???
6. Backlog of PR's / Unanswered AH posts as discussed above, and in lots of other posts etc.
7. No official reply to this thread addressing the core points, despite calling Epic to the thread....```
Versus...
Fortnite: BR has had 810,000 concurrent players, and has probably taken a huge effort to have rolled out as smooth as it has. They've said publicly UT4 people were pulled off of UT4 in creating it. Some of the engine community team may have be splitting time helping out with community stuff on those games (I haven't kept up with the forums for the games so don't know that for sure), etc.
Fortnite: BR hasn't necessarily brought in a lot of new monetary resources yet, given that it hasn't been monetized. PUBG, as mentioned earlier, surely has brought in some major cash: $60,000,000 if all copies were sold at $30 and Bluehole paid 5% without a special negotiated rate (it's only ~$15 in China though, so that is a big overestimate). But even with an influx of money, bringing in the right people always has a large lead time. Hopefully they can increase staff rapidly and avoid causing employee burnout.
All that activity is having lots of benefits to the stability/performance/battle-hardenedness of the engine. If your game uses a similar setup to any of their production games, things are now really getting solid without as many surprises as you would run into in the past.```Obviously, I don't represent jack shit and I only know what I know.
safe rose
Aye
livid haven
But I have mentioned how I worked over 360 hours in a 5 week period recently...
livid haven
So...
safe rose
Well, see, that's a big problem
I mean, is tencent really taking that much money?
That Epic can't gain a few more hands to help
livid haven
I don't see how Tencent is really related.
safe rose
Obviously I know poop about their business/money structure
livid haven
You don't just hire new people for current problems.
livid haven
New hires are a fucking awful burden for like half a year before they start to become awesome.
safe rose
It's been an on-going one for awhile
Made worse after Fortnite/Paragon contractor "layoffs"
livid haven
Contractors are handy because they don't have nearly as high an initial sunk cost as employees.
But, they've also got that useless for a while thing going on.
This isn't some secret spilling the beans, just theories, but the quality that an veteran Epic employee produces versus a short-term contractor is pretty drastic.
And Epic is about trying to maximize qualitry where it can - not saying the engine doesn't have it fair share of bullshit, legacy, and so on. Pragmatism bites.
I saw it at Hi-Rez.
Multiple teams, multiple games.
One of them suddenly shows great success? Shift those resources to the golden goose.
And you don't have a lot of time to capitalize on that window of opportunity.
Fortnite's hit 20 million players, is on both major traditional consoles (sorry, Nintendo), and looks set to hit China while PUBG is struggling:
http://www.pcgamer.com/pubg-faces-china-ban-for-deviating-from-socialist-core-values/ Take this article for whatever it's worth, which may be nothing.
Struggling to reach those markets, I mean, not struggling to be successful.
I don't know, I think the obvious business sense here is to focus fire on the big hit while you've got a chance at the pre-existing competition.
Like, imagine if Google Plus had come out and Facebook hadn't yet gone to mobile - maaaybe Google Plus would have had a chance if it could have nabbed a huge audience via mobile support ahead of Facebook.
Maybe not.
chilly sun
brrrrr handbrakes! .. u talking sensibly about this colon o nice
livid haven
But first to market is a huge, huge, huge advantage.
UE4 engine support isn't going to go away, that's madness.
chilly sun
not if ur a douchebag when u do it.. ppl dont like douchebags
livid haven
I have no idea what the hell you're on about.
chilly sun
epic's move was douchey - but ppl will follow ofc if they dont have other options
livid haven
Riiight...
chilly sun
always right Im too real not to be 😃 ❤ (tease tease)
livid haven
Nevermind The Culling
Or H1Z1
Or the actual movie Battle Royale
Or The Hunger Games
chilly sun
args invalid but nice try
fort straight up mirror matches johnny cage in mortal kombat n stuff
ok sry that was cryptic..
livid haven
You're all over the place.
chilly sun
no ur slow :p fort felt like it literally pushed pubg.. the rest sorta waited time, didnt "same same" as much altho a lot
livid haven
You can keep whatever brand loyalty. I was building a solid argument based on publically observable data.