anyone know anything about the fbx scene importer?
#ue4-general
toxic wagon
errant brook
Does anyone happen to know why when I view models the background scene is night instead of day? It changed when I updated to 4.18
opal ocean
4.18 is a later version
errant brook
anyone know why unreal will sometimes ignore the import scale when I reimport a static mesh? I have to save and save and save again to get it to randomly use the right scale on import.
plush yew
should i update to the latest version of unreal
half mango
anyone got any experience with sequenecer?
im trying to watch videos but i dont get it
i think my IQ is like 40
opal ocean
40?!? you're lying! The doctors tell me IQ is measured from 1-10, and I'm a NINE. ๐
safe rose
Wonder if this means Unity will be making some games.
Although they say it's for engine dev
opal ocean
they cant let epic have all the fun
warm bluff
Ey all~! Got a problem o.O my whole editor is lagging most of the time and restors as soon as I click back on the preview viewport, like I'm writing some code and it starts lagging out of no where fps drops really low from 120 to like 15 lol anybody got ideas?
weary basalt
@warm bluff Your editor is most likely throttling because its in the background. There is an Editor Preferences setting to change this.
warm bluff
oh yep! Thanks lots!! ๐
strong hornet
is there a way to make Discord so not resource hungry. Its slowing my system to a crawl
livid haven
I don't imagine there is. You could use the normal web browser interface?
Though if the Discord app is actually slowing your system to a crawl... either something is very seriously wrong or you're using a potato.
strong hornet
seems to be working better now thanks @livid haven
livid haven
NP
narrow zealot
Hey, so...
How do I apply a material instance to the material?
I right clicked the material, hit create material instance...
And then whatever I do with the instance just doesn't apply to the material itself.
Any pointers?
cloud cobalt
@narrow zealot Instances are materials. They're not applied to a material
They're applied to meshes, like regular materials
narrow zealot
But I can't select it from the materials list
livid haven
There are materials, material instance constants (MICs), and material instance dynamics (MIDs).
Materials are what you design.
MICs are materials and a set of constant values to provide as parameters to the material.
MIDs are materials and an interface to set there parameters at runtime ("during gameplay")
You can apply materials and MICs in the designer/editor.
MIDs have to be created and applied at runtime.
narrow zealot
It's good, I think.
south ridge
Btw, this was a point that interested me. MID is a MIC that has an exposed interface to refershing the state of variables on GPU (updating the uniforms), they are equivalent as far as performance and overhead is
But every change of a MID parameter will re-send those values
But it is not very likely you'd be changing them so much it'd be a bottleneck
cloud cobalt
I actually found that updating MIDs could be a bottleneck, but I was updating every mesh in the game every frame
So, reap what you sow
south ridge
Well, I assume less than like 300 updates per frame
cloud cobalt
Yeah, for more it was much more.
south ridge
At that point, drawcalls are your concern too maybe
regal mulch
Is there a way to tell Unreal Frontend to not save cooked builds to the SavedFolder?
Cause it seems like perforce marks that folder as readonly, which makes my cook process fail -.-
regal mulch
Seems like using multiple cooking workers fails, but using 0 (1 with that setting i assume), works
ยฏ_(ใ)_/ยฏ
obtuse sable
My UE is crashing when i import an fbx is tehre any way to figure out why?
It happens right after its done decompiling the shaders
regal mulch
CrashLog maybe
In Saved/Logs
Should state at the end off the most recent file what might have happened
narrow pasture
if i have arrays that store a recipie list, should i load them from a config file or set the arrays when the game lauches?
lean junco
does it import into other software?
narrow pasture
nah, im just looking for a way to store the recipies
for now im just doing a Do once on event tick
and doing a make array
i guess itll work until i find a better way
plush yew
lol
who is the owner of that giant channel?
xd only for ask.
@leaden harness lol discord staff of the discord app or of the channel xd?
leaden harness
App
quasi lake
Can you login in epic launcher now?
toxic wagon
bah I always seem to encounter issues with obscure things no one knows anything about
anyone know anything about the fbx scene importer?
empty adder
Hey. Does anyone know why my game gets brighter and brighter when i press play? thanks
Lel, just as i asked i found the issue
Auto Exposure was on
sry
toxic wagon
I've had that happen multiple times
faint cedar
Is it possible to find the location of a virtual bone in BP / code?
toxic wagon
should be the same process as getting a normal bone
faint cedar
Doesn't work in BP
knotty brook
My iOS developer account is a part of two teams, and even though i manually pick the right mobile provising profile and individual cert unreal keeps trying to cram them in the wrong team, any idea?
knotty brook
nm, issue with unreal it looks like when you have a bunch of teams you belong to (as i do) and the package names get ambiguous...
a clever use of the delete key solved my issue ๐
pallid compass
has anyone here made 9 slice borders before for ue4?
sacred crater
boreal meteor
Does anyone know, when will 18.1 hotfix will come out?
upper heart
boreal meteor
Thanks
upper heart
np
pallid compass
gos dam what is with borders changing thickness depending on how far in or out you are zoomed?
grim ore
maybe its a certain size but due to amount of pixels it cant display them all when zoomed out?
so its thinner
upper heart
wow auto exposure is annoying in a mesh preview scene
good thing I can change it ๐ This default night scene stuff in 4.18 is kind of weird
pallid compass
oh wow i cant find any tutorials or courses on making game UI's D:
wary dew
oh, hey mathew.
pallid compass
@grim ore i tested it outside the UMG editor making the screen smaller is making it bigger so its staying the same pixel width, and not scaling with the UI :/
pallid compass
Appears to be a bug and yes UMG border
wary dew
two years later and i'm still referencing your tutorials. thanks for everything you've done.
pallid compass
aparently its been around since 4.8?
grim ore
oh hmm... using the border settings for an image? it kinda makes sense as the border settings are a % of the source image but the end result should still be a fixed size if you set it to fixed
pallid compass
Yeah i am
grim ore
@wary dew glad to be of help. I am doing more in the background right now but still hoping to do more on the channel again
@pallid compass yeah super weird... I guess it's a bug. so making your resolution smaller for your game window is making it stay the same size and not scale with the UI?
wary dew
i've got to get back to work, but i'm glad i got a chance to thank you in person
i'll see you around
grim ore
yeah I bet its the parent box around the border that's causing it
lol was trying to start up my UE4 but apparently I have not ran 4.18 on this machine so it's trying to compile shaders on an AMD a10 oy....
pallid compass
oh boy haha
god dam, i really do wonder how epic make there UI for paragon and fortnite
id love too see there UMG struct setup
grim ore
Im sure what you want can be done its more of an issue of the right settings for the parents so it scales the border properly
patent siren
anyone know a command on a development build to show wireframe
ive tried
viewmode wireframe
and showflags.wireframe 1
minor thistle
ALT+1 or ALT+2 i think (?) not sure about CL
last kite
Congrats @plush yew https://twitter.com/Valkrysa/status/928140617967747072
Twitter
plush yew
thanks ๐
sudden agate
Anyone has a Substance Student Licence?
My Licence expired, I got a new Licence *.key file, but painter says it is not valid...
warm swift
Hey guys! I am looking to work more on implementation in unreal. Was wondering where I should look to find levels or game demos where I could go in and implement new sounds. I know GitHub is probably the desitination, but I was unsure how to find exactly what I am looking for once I am there. Thanks for any help!
weary basalt
Try the ShooterGame or StrategyGame on the Launcher Learn tab. They are free to download
sand wolf
Your best bet would be to mess around with sound in general. Just have fun. Don't be afraid. And see the results.
Thats my personal take on it at least.
warm swift
Thanks! I will check out the learn tab and keep those thoughts in mind. Looking forward to contributing more here in the future.
weary basalt
Good luck!
last kite
I have substance indie ๐ฆ
empty adder
Would anyone know why my chracters location always stays at the same coordinates, even though i walk around
fixed it
was using Get Player Controller instead of Get Player Character
gg
opal ocean
๐
tawny brook
Anyone know why my player controller breaks (if this node gets executed, it sends player to a new map)
https://i.latouth.com/2017/3YjKTg9G.png
"add ak47" causes it to break
empty adder
How would i go about making a function count from 0 to 100 in 5 seconds?
fierce tulip
in material divide time by 5, let it run for 5 seconds, lertp 0 - 100
south ridge
out = 20*current_time()
fleet wraith
Does anyone have problems with the Random Int node? I set the max int to 2 and ran it 50 times and it only hit 0 and 1. not a single two
ornate forge
is it possible to receive OnHit events from BSP brushes in projectiles?
fleet wraith
@ornate forge let me know if you find out, i've been trying for ages to get my projectiles to be destroyed on collision with bsp
@south ridge yeah maybe but it seems weird to do that lol
ornate forge
it prevents me from using BSP for prototyping
south ridge
It is, in fact, not inclusive of the upper bound @fleet wraith
I checked the source code
fleet wraith
Thanks man i appreciate it
south ridge
return A > 0 ? Min(TruncToInt(FRand() * A), A - 1) : 0; this is the code for RandomInt, where A is your max
fleet wraith
zzzz
south ridge
zzzz?
fleet wraith
nothing typed in the wrong window
lol
appreciate it
PS i'm an idiot. It literally says that in the tooltip...
floral heart
TruncToInt looks like it makes A a more likely result. Min would do the same but seems redundant. What am I missing?
worn granite
@plush yew mentor or tutor?
plush yew
tutor
worn granite
Budget?
plush yew
no buying just a tutorial like how to make first person destroying walls and weapons
empty adder
How do i get a object reference from a actor?
worn granite
tutor is paid, like a teacher. mentor usually is free.
plush yew
mentor then i just want to get a tutorial to get started
opal ocean
there are lots of youtube tutorials on FP destroyable actors, and weapons
worn granite
Plenty of content out there, can't really go horribly wrong
plush yew
ok
fleet wraith
@plush yew start with the unreal engine youtube channel
that's wherei'm starting ands been helpful
plush yew
ok thx
upper heart
Anyone else ran into 4.18 packaged games opening on the wrong monitor?
opal ocean
problem with youtube tutorials, is being unable to listen to music at the same time ๐ฆ
pallid compass
Has anyone here used trim sheets before?
pallid compass
@frank escarp do u have a link or info too there work regarding Umg so i may look at it?
warped silo
(x from #virtual-reality ) Anyone have insight into why the UE4 VR template keeps the MotionController actors separate from the Camera in the PlayerPawn? What issues are introduced by rolling them into a single pawn?
fleet wraith
Does anyone use Perforce?
weary basalt
He asked in the #source-control channel.
magic scarab
okay
fleet wraith
Yeah sorryi i noticed the source control tab after i asked
@magic scarab do you host locally or online?
fleet wraith
whats the size?
fleet wraith
can i link it to my regular amazon account or is it separate?
plush yew
Will a 4.16 project be stable if I run it in 4.18? Assuming the 4.16 project is compatible with newer releases.
fluid stag
serene otter
I'm trying to do some raycasts for my vehicle to check if it's grounded. In Unity, I would put empty gameobjects in the places from which I wanted to start my casts
is there an analog in UE4?
some kind of object or component I can add to my blueprint that's basically just a location/orientation?
as of now, I'm just making child actors, but I don't know if that's unnecessarily heavy
opal ocean
sockets?
plush yew
SceneComponents
zinc bison
this is a strange question, but i have a personal project that im bringing to a local gamejam and i plan on letting some people work with me for a potentially short period of time
and i dont want them to try to claim ownership
for something they play a minor role in
what sort of document would i create for this situation?
tulip vault
https://i.imgur.com/dGRGZFs.jpg Mwahaha
I finally have a world to work with after hours of slaving in blender
gotta make it pretty eventually
floral pagoda
@tulip vault What are you making?
tulip vault
A sci-fi game based on two planets and all the space-goodness
floral pagoda
ok
tulip vault
been looking for modelers and blueprinters forever
faint cedar
I just have a statement, anyone particularly sensitive to profanity please avert your gaze
FUCK the vehicle system in UE4.
tulip vault
Pardon his french
south ridge
Doesn't it feel great when you remove a ton of obsolete resources from the game
Mmmm
It's finally time for me to just delete a whole layer of old obsolete actors
Since we have a new really nice level editor, implementing which also partially broke those old actors anyway
warm mountain
hey guys I need some help
regarding destruction
when creating a 3d destroyed building for games
do you guys generally construct the building including the interior of it and use dynamics such as ncloth in maya to destroy it and save the debris?
or
Is the destruction process done in UE4 and kept in a destroyed state?
south ridge
The building is just a static ruined building?
south ridge
You should prepare the building model in your 3d editor
warm mountain
gotcha
If I do it in a 3d modelling software would it be too much of a hassle to hand make every debris and broken columns to say?
I don't see a lot of videos of people manually doing it but I see a number of simulations being done with in built dynamics to achieve the effect
just looking for the best practice to handle this
south ridge
I think you should make a skeleton of the building and destroy it using physics simulation
And then manually add rubble, rebar and other details
warm mountain
gotcha
next maple
Hey, had a meeting with someone from Intel today and they want to know whether there is any limit on how many cores can be used by UE4.
Does anyone know the answer to this? (limits in editor and builds)
pallid compass
so my zbrush keeps opening off screen and i cant move it, any advice?
wary wave
UE4 has multiple binaries and applications, so that question is not that straightforwards
Lightmass as an example will use absolutely everything you can throw at it
UE4 games will use however many threads you create, and the OS is responsible for distributing the load
strong hornet
does windows 10 have a built in FPS overlay?
wary wave
at the moment all 7 of my CPUs are doing something with the editor open, but I couldn't tell which are being used specifically by UE4 processes and which are elsewhere
no, I don't think it does
unless the new game tools do
strong hornet
ok tks
@pallid compass might be your windows monitor settings. Are they set so two monitors share a extra wide desktop?
pallid compass
the usually are but im on 1 screen rn
next maple
Interesting @wary wave
next maple
Haha, yeah I figured
It's tough, they want to know specifically whether UE4 can support their newer 10-18 core CPUs, but no one really has that so hard to confirm lol
cloud cobalt
@next maple Some parts of the engine will run better, like Lightmass
Building the engine or C++ game code will also be faster
Other things will be unaffected
next maple
That makes sense, can't really imagine anything outside of compiling code, shaders or building lighting would really required that much CPU anyway
But still curious to know from a technical perspective what limits there are (including whether there are different restrictions in editor vs a build of the game)
cloud cobalt
From a technical perspective, multithreading (using multiple cores for your code) is really fucking hard
The bulk of the game logic is still run mostly on one thread in UE4 ; there is a render thread, a sound thread, etc so it's not that bad, but as a gamer with UE4, you're better off with a 4-core, high performing CPU rather than a lower-frequency 16 core CPU
cloud cobalt
As a developer, cores get more useful because you have 50 tools open and you're doing some tasks that do use cores effectively
next maple
Yeah, have done some multi-threading stuff in the past, pretty horrifying at times especially to debug haha
south ridge
It's very CPU-intense on simulation. I need to add proper MT support for the physics for UE4, but it's planned as a very specialized solution
next maple
But wouldn't be suprised if UE4 was utilizing MT support wherever possible on the backend
Seems like there is a limit to 8 worker threads per tick based on this?
https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/blob/c9f4efe690de8b3b72a11223865c623ca0ee7086/Engine/Source/Runtime/Core/Private/Async/TaskGraph.cpp#L1138
pallid compass
You can offload things to other threads through c++, however if you dony know what the $ยฃ$*& you are doing, your prob gonna cause more damage
and its not always better to MT
cloud cobalt
@next maple It's worse than that, ticking is mostly a one-thread thing in UE4.
Most objects don't support MT ticks
next maple
Oh okay
pallid compass
correct me if im wrong stranger, but you can offload heavy math and things like that, but you cant MT ontick stuff or core logic thats going on
south ridge
You can MT ontick stuff for core logic
If you write it correctly
You can absolutely set up shadowing of actor states with relative straightforwardness and offload your actor logic into another thread (C++ only, obviously)
cloud cobalt
Basically, offloading math stuff is what's easiest in MT, because you can just start a task and get a simple result later, yeah. Doing your game logic in ticks imply that you're 100% sure that the threaded tasks are completely independant, which in practice is rarely the case
south ridge
In that case, your main thread still has to handle all sorts of basics and act as an arbiter for data, plus physics are effectively running on the main thread
next maple
I guess what I am getting at is that I understand none of the code we write is going to be multi-threaded by default or anything, but wondering whether UE4 is doing MT stuff behind the scenes when processing animation graphs, doing EQS lookups etc
cloud cobalt
@next maple Some things are MT in the engine yes - animation, sound, graphics for example
south ridge
@cloud cobalt in some cases you can have interdependent ticks ticking at the same time, provided the data is shared between them with specific rules and restrictions
In fact, that was the topic of my bachelors and masters at the university ๐
next maple
And to extend upon that, whether it caps out early, or whether the engine can (or even wants to) utilize something like intels crazy 18 core cpus
south ridge
And it's the basis for how our internal train logic simulation works
next maple
@south ridge that is brutal haha
frank escarp
but multithread tick cant touch the engine
so good luck with it
needs to be 100% self contained
pallid compass
In most cases i think you get better peformance by optimising than trying to off load everything else to threads, because you are also asuming people have good multi threading cpu's
south ridge
So based on that, our trains have weakly coupled interdependent systems that all run on separate threads. In fact, every little component could be simulated in its own thread
pallid compass
but thats just an opinion i cant clarify
south ridge
But due to obvious OS overhead in task switching, the threads are merged until there's a certain proportion of them to the CPU count
next maple
Yeah, only time I have ever needed to use MT stuff was when I was doing some simulation work for the Australian Defense Force, but can't really talk about specifics there because of NDA
south ridge
I strongly believe in asynchronous approach to simulating physics and logic (game logic would count as that)
frank escarp
you might be better doing fancy simulation on a fully separate thread and just reading results
south ridge
There are two layers here
frank escarp
the thing with async ticking is that it needs engine support and tool support
they actually have stuff like that on Destiny
pallid compass
oh?
frank escarp
but they have it as a task system, building a graph
the whole engine works like that
everything is tasks on top of tasks, with sync points
south ridge
You can provide access to shared data by providing a shadow copy (which is what UE4 likes to do btw), you can provide simultaneous asychronous access to some variables (with no thread synchronization), or a mixture of two
frank escarp
ue4 does have that stuff, the Task Graph
south ridge
If your actor A depends on actor B, do you really care that there's a 1-tick-off error in when actor A has received knowledge of actor B's position?
frank escarp
its what async ticking uses, in fact normal tick is one of those tasks
@south ridge you can setup depdencendies
south ridge
@frank escarp I'm talking about something else
frank escarp
you can setup your tick so it runs after the parent object is finished or similar
ah
south ridge
dependencies would solve this problem serially
south ridge
Yep
frank escarp
i used it to see how could the system work
but couldnt really find a reason for using it, it was far too much to setup everything, and the "expensive" parts of game code cant be multithreaded like that
traces, spawning, and pathfinding
south ridge
It is a valid solution, but there is an alternative solution (conceptually) based on reading same variables at the same time without regards to when they were updated, combined with placement of barriers which act like dependencies, but on a smaller scale
frank escarp
yolo
south ridge
Imagine a path finding algorithm, but the values in all cells are a little fuzzy
Instead of knowing that obstacle is located in cell (x,y), you have a fuzzy obstacle that spans multiple cells. But this fuzzyness is a result of how you handle unreliable information from actor that's in middle of updating itself
frank escarp
somethting ive investigated is to have actors have 2 ticks. An async tick, and a sync tick. The sync tick depends on the async tick, and will execute on the next tick group
south ridge
Btw, back to UE4, there is a cheap way to do a little bit of async work
Using the Async<>() feature
Which is just a fancy wrapper for three different ways to create tasks or threads in UE4
frank escarp
thats pretty much std::async
south ridge
The default uses task graph
In our game, I have some actors set up an async task that starts at the end of actor tick and ends when the actor tick starts
So it runs (at most) for the duration between this actors ticks (while everything else is happening). It's just very easy to set up.
next maple
So basically when I go back to Intel with my answer as to whether UE4 will support 10-18 core CPUs, the answer is... yes and no? haha
south ridge
The answer is "Well, yes, but can you write code that'll make use of those cores?"
next maple
In short, will help with development due to quicker compilation of code and shader and faster lightbakes, but for players they are unlikely to see much of a difference (unless the game specifically requires it due to some crazy simulation etc)
frank escarp
@south ridge have you tried ticking During Physics?
thats a trick robo recall told
they moved their AI work to During Physics
that way the total time is less
south ridge
Yes, but in my case I need both a prephysics and an asynchronous tick
For two different sets of logic that run at the same time
So I was too lazy to add a second tick function
wary wave
AI during physics?
south ridge
Instead just made that async thing. But I have many actors set to duringphysics!
wary wave
that sounds like a recipe for disaster
south ridge
@wary wave it's fine. The transforms are updated before PostPhysics starts
So duringphysics the actors have same transforms as they had at prephysics
BUT
I'm not sure what happens if you line trace against moving geometry at that point
I think it will cause a lock and stall until end of duringphysics, since PhysX is busy writing the scene (simulating)
next maple
That's crazy
south ridge
The sequence is "PrePhysics - DuringPhysics + PhysX write - Transforms updating/PhysX read - PostPhysics"
next maple
Anyways, thanks for the help everyone, but getting pretty late over here in Australia so I better head off
south ridge
But you have to enable substepping and re-enable the bit that puts PhysX onto task graph as a separate thing
Because I think they changed it so right now it works like
PrePhysics - PhysX write - DuringPhysics - Transforms updating/PhysX read - PostPhysics"
Or something like that
With substepping enabled, PhysX simulate is called in task graph, but they changed the task to be created on main thread
It used to be "on any thread"
cursive dirge
I think they used async traces in robo recall anyway
I wouldn't take too many tips from it unless you are trying to replicate the exact same thing ๐
and even then, you'd need to understand the systems to be able to properly exploit them
frank escarp
async traces are simple, you just store the result and read it next frame
they are guaranteed to be ready next frame
but of course they are a worse syntax and use than normal traces
cursive dirge
yeah, but they probably count on them not being executed during physics, even if their AI system is running there and possibly needs data from those traces
just saying one shouldn't just naively stuff things in some stage without understanding what happens in the background, even Epic did something like that on their game
lean junco
@frank escarp hey man, sorry i missed your post yesterday. i did see yoiur vid.. game looks sick !!
oh btw.. houdini 16.5 is pretty broken.. lots of things comming up on forums.. sidefx usualy fixes things very fast.. like next day fast, but maybe stick to 16 for the next few days ๐
vale osprey
Yesterday I got my physics actors phasing into another dimension without using any custom physics code. Starting to suspect that itโs just a collision issue between constrained objects. No idea how to debug this or re-produce.
@cursive dirge do you think collision callback could help with that? I could try using PVD on it but again, no idea if it can detect such issue.
From Engine point of view itโs not even a bug, just a warning that object is out of bounds
keen spoke
Hey there
I recently started Developing in UE4 and i have some problems. ๐ฆ
Anyone willing to help me?
I have problems while Packaging my Game
it gives an Unknown error
I don't know what to do ๐ฆ
fierce tulip
unknown? no proper mention of it in the logs/reports?
fierce tulip
all i can do is ctrl + f and look for errors, im not one who fixes those kind of things.
frank escarp
its allways something of the like of "packagin error: somthing happened"
so yeah, control-f "error" and see what pops up
keen spoke
I am doing Ctrl + f and nothing is happening. Where should i do it?
also the last message on the log is: PackagingResults:Error: Error Unknown Error
even though i have 0 errors and 0 warnings
Is Visual studio required to package Unreal games?
(Windows (64-bit)): Program.Main: ERROR: AutomationTool terminated with exception: System.Exception: Couldn't update resource
How can i fix it? ๐ฆ
fierce tulip
delete the saved & intermediate folders according to a google search
https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/207655/packaging-error-couldnt-update-resource.html this one mentions something else. so its guesswork i guess
frank escarp
@keen spoke you got read only in some places
but yeah, saved + intermediate nuking works well
feral echo
how multiplayer is dealed in big studious? Is gameplay programmers still need to think in both dimensions and how they should replicate data or there is someone else who handle such stuff?
keen spoke
hmm... Even if i delete saved&Intermediate folders it does not work! ๐ฆ
frank escarp
@feral echo gameplay programmers make the game multiplayer from the very start
wary wave
it's basically impossible to seperate multiplayer from the code
so your programmers must deal with it
feral echo
well, that sad lol
frank escarp
i wasnt in a big studio, but in a small studio (3 programmers, Heavy Gear Assault).
wary wave
scale of the team is irrelevant
frank escarp
we had different roles and "sectors" of the code, to avoid stepping on each other
wary wave
the need for networking has a huge impact on how the code needs to be organised
frank escarp
One of them dealt with movement features, and he had everything properly replicated and making sure of that
other dealth with server backend, features like accounts and scores and server browser
and i dealt with some stuff like creating new game modes or AI
normally AI "just works", as it emulates a player
but i allways tested with multiplayer
and so did the others
we never really tested in fully singleplayer game
devout gulch
coding multiplayer game is like coding multithreaded application
retrofiting is usually disaster
cloud cobalt
@feral echo To give a specific example, the firing logic for a weapon in a shooter is something that's very intricately multiplayer specific code
Because you want to fire effects & sounds locally while you tell the server you fired
feral echo
Yeah, I understand that. I just thought maybe a things could be a bit easier if there was some layer between replication and actual gameplay code
cloud cobalt
The problem is that you literally don't want the same behaviour on different players when you fire a weapon, for example.
You want the firing player to have effects popping immediatly on his screen, while other get effects when they get the information from the server
This is because it would feel super unnatural to have effects happening after the server responds
As a result you get a completely different code on the local client, other clients, and server. And you can't automate it
Multiplayer makes everything much more complicated because you need to work on how the same logic is going to be implemented on all players, because you need to make sure it's at least a bit cheat-resistent
Replication is very automated in UE4 already, that's not the hard part
frank escarp
it also depends on your game, and the weapon, and the type of netcode
if you have more code running on the player, then the game is more responsive, but easier to hack
if you have more code on the server, a laggy player willl have lag on everything he does, and will feel bad (also server cpu costs), but it will be unhackeable
cloud cobalt
Another example of hard MP work is the "fast projectile" problem. How do you handle an object that moves so fast, its lifetime becomes smaller than the typical lag value ?
(hence why MP games only know "instant hitscan" and "slow-moving bubble gun")
wary wave
eh, that's not really a problem
deterministic ballistic paths
shouldn't be using projectiles for objects that are that fast, even in singleplayer
cloud cobalt
We have fast projectiles ourselves, with nice features like bouncing against surfaces and realistic speeds
wary wave
most games use hitscan because it provides immediate feedback and it's easy to implement, hehe
cloud cobalt
We got it to work really well in single player by hacking a bit
But it could just not work in MP
wary wave
but deterministic projectiles are the way forwards
cloud cobalt
Anyway, my point is that MP is hard. Competitive MP is harder.
I've done an UDK MP game that was a PVP shooter and it was quite a ride
cursive dirge
@vale osprey I still don't know if that happens on clean new projects or with projects that have gone through some migration process
if I get Cryengine to do that on PhysX 3.4, I'll let you know ๐
as then it's for sure PhysX issue
frank escarp
i do VR mp
wich is EVEN MORE hard mode
becouse the replicated data is a fuck ton more, and you need to have 0 latency
or it will feel horrible
my prototypes were quite great, but stupidly easy to hack
most of the stuff is client side and the server replicates/checks
green spear
Help! My level is not showing up in the Content broswer after I had a crash. And replacing with the Backup doesn't help. The level contains a Landscape Streaming Proxy and I would love to not have to reimport 589 files again just because one went corrupted.
cloud cobalt
@frank escarp I consider hacking to be a lost cause for indie games, anyway
We just can't keep up
vale osprey
@cursive dirge this on 4.16 that was ported to 4.17 version - new project, not MMT
frank escarp
@cloud cobalt yeah, but when you have a literal "Server_NotifyHit" call...
thats so fucking easy to hack
keen spoke
hey
frank escarp
just call Server_NotifyHit() on every player
frank escarp
needs more serverside checks to see if the hit actually hitted
one thing i was doing is sending the shot data. Start location and end location. See if start location is near the player, and if there is free line of sight from start location to the target
and well, if the victim is close to the hit location
frank escarp
who is going to bother hacking my game
plush yew
how many people are going to be playing ur game
lol
Yeah
exactly
its kind of a non-issue
frank escarp
but still gotta at least keep "some" safety. At least basic checks
so its not incredibly trivial
plush yew
mhm
frank escarp
im going to do a new MP game now
at least a new prototype
basically counter strike but in gearvr
i saw there is no "onward" or "pavlov" style game on gear, so gotta fill that
and will help as a test of how the mobile market rolls
plush yew
๐
grim ore
Does anyone here happen to have one of the gtx 1070 wielding laptops and run UE4 on it? if so are you happy with it.
frank escarp
yes
its my VR demo machine
its stronger than my desktop with a desktop 970
the bad part its that its a fucking monster
the one i got is MSI G72 pro i think. 1070 gpu 17 inches screen
grim ore
ok cool. Theres one on clearance locally for ~980 us for the asus one I was looking at.
plush yew
Lol
grim ore
which is super cheap comparatively and it would be way better than my laptop with a 940m
plush yew
This is what I have https://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-GAMING-GDDR5X-Technology/dp/B06X3QRQJR
grim ore
nah its best buy they do that
grim ore
it was replaced with the newer one so they open box clear out the old ones and the gaming ones always get a huge slash
no one wants gaming machines in my hick town lol
frank escarp
you can resell it on ebay for 1400 and get a nice profit
its a ridiculous steal
if i saw a deal like that i would buy it to resell it for money
grim ore
ok cool. It looks like a good one so I wanted to get some feedback thanks ๐ I was in there looking at a new one with a 1050ti for $700 but this seems worth the extra money
plush yew
Lol
A day after ice poseidon plays this game its like number 5 on twitch
It seems like if you really wanna get into the game industry you should be in korea
lmao
frank escarp
you mean like playerunknown did?
they played a lot of streamers to stream the game
and then it was very well received and cought on, and thn went huge
what in the fuck is that game tho
plush yew
LOL
plush yew
Ice Poseidon played it like 2 days ago
and now everyone is playing it
its shit tho
LOL
Like its legitimately crap
cloud cobalt
Streaming is something that can make a few lucky games happen for some time
If the game really is good, it sticks, like PUBG
plush yew
Personally I believe anyone with enough money can make a good game
lol
if someone gave me 100k right now
i could make a great game
the guy who made PUBG was lucky enough to find a good publisher
who could really bring it to the next level
cloud cobalt
Luck alone doesn't net you a publisher
Having a working games, industry experience, good pitch for your great game concept does :=)
Also my own game had zero budget. I mean, definitely not zero, but < 1000โฌ
Obviously we don't have PUBG-type sales, but we're very happy with our game
Which is what you should aim for, because PUBG happens once a decade
frank escarp
im defintely doing that
im not getting rich, but DWVR has gone beyond 30.000 in pure sales(before store cuts). Given its budget was 5k dollars, it went quite well
once i receive sony money ill have to pay Epic...
plush yew
@cloud cobalt also, the dude who made PUBG was literally living off of welfare (according to an article i read, i think it was written by kotaku)
so like
he didnt have any experience
in the industry
lol
frank escarp
he was a modder
cloud cobalt
^
frank escarp
with a incredibly popular mod
playerunknown battlegrounds did not come out of nowhere
there is a reason why it has playerunknown name on it
cloud cobalt
The guy has been trying for close to a decade
frank escarp
he was a very popular ArmA modder
he then went to create the battle royale mode in H1Z1
frank escarp
where he had limits
plush yew
like from reading the reviews
the reviews are terrible
lol
like everyone says its crap in the reviews
frank escarp
so when he actually was able to do a game without any limits, it went fuckin huge
becouse the people from the arma mod were like
"this is great, but man, arma is so clunky"
and the h1z1 guys were like "this is a cool idea, but fuck p2w microtransaction bullshit"
so suddently he apperas with the proper "standalone product", and pays streamers that stream shooters to show it
and it went huge
frank escarp
maybe on the modding days
plush yew
or did he have a publisher at that time
^
found the article lol
Legit got rich from taxpayer money
frank escarp
btw, bluehole made fucking TERA
frank escarp
they know how to mmo
probably bluehole supplied him with a small team of a few devs
and they made battlegrounds
its very clearly made in no time whatsoever
lots of marketplace assets, mismatched
they developed that on no budget on small amount of time
cloud cobalt
@plush yew Not sure about Ireland but welfare money is something you generally pay for first when you work
At least here in France you don't get any if you haven't worked first
plush yew
Honestly tho u know what annoys me
i can barely get more than 300 views on youtube
lmao
Like thats just annoying
Lmao
frank escarp
rip
plush yew
it was a cheating video
for Runescape
lol
but now i cant gett any viewers
and my subs are dead
xD
cloud cobalt
The thing with games is that there are just wayyyyyyyy too many games for everyone. Like probably 95% of PC games are never going to be played by more than 50 people.
cloud cobalt
So you need to account for that, and understand that no one has a successful game by chance
Getting on Steam with a great game that everyone loves is just not enough
frank escarp
there are 3 things of a game
1: its memeability/virallity
2: its quality
and 3: its marketing
high 1 (memeability) means free marketing
the second one quality is important, but only past one level
if the game is half good, its 1 and 3 all that matters
to get sales
unless the game is absolute god tier
keen spoke
Hey
cloud cobalt
Basically the highest barrier to having sales/views is getting people to notice it, among the 100 other games that got on Steam that week.
keen spoke
Any tips for Packaging a game?
frank escarp
in this case, you could give playerunknown score of 1: 10, 2: 7, 3: 5
keen spoke
I try to package my game and it doesn't work. It gives an Unknown error. ๐ฆ
frank escarp
it has stupid high virality/memeability
becouse its great to stream
and being an MP game, people try to convince people to get it
as a game by itself, is good but not amazing
and its actual marketing push was alright, it was relatively unknown until it went viral
something llike "AAA of the season" would be 1: 7, 2: 8, 3: 9
typical indie gem would be 1:0, 2:9, 3:0
plush yew
u know though
I have a question
Being unique vs Making money
Whats ur thoughts?
Because personally, I think being unique is a huge waste of money.
frank escarp
making money
you could say im a huge sellout, but becouse i want to have a sustainable business
being unique is becoming an starving artist
plush yew
^
thats how i feel lmao
its better to just redo what WORKS
than trying to invent a market
once you have the money, then invent the market
frank escarp
for now, i just want to keep doing products that bring profit, if small
as long as i dont lose money, im cool
every game published is new skills learned
every project is a learning opportunity so you can do the next one better
cloud cobalt
@plush yew Doing something that works is also a good way to be the 155455840 2D platformer
Sure, it works, but good luck getting a sale.
wary wave
wat
frank escarp
outside of the few indie darlings?
cloud cobalt
I've got a NES I'd love to show you
frank escarp
talking current time
frank escarp
the amount of indie 2d plataformers is staggering
wary wave
'never did' is past tense
plush yew
lol
cloud cobalt
So what's your game @plush yew
opal ocean
lots of great platformer/meteroidvanias that are awesome
wary wave
and platformers that are good still do reasonably well
there are just a lot of not very good platformers out there
frank escarp
the point is that there are literally thousands of indie plataformers. At least try to do a 3d one
now that is VERY rare
frank escarp
3d plataformers outside of mario
plush yew
but also adding my own ideas xD
cloud cobalt
So you're doing an open world game solo ?
cloud cobalt
It sounds like a great way to fail at quality
plush yew
@frank escarp its small
cloud cobalt
(just like Rust ?)
wary wave
I mean Rogue Legacy is a super simple 2d game maker platform / roguelight
plush yew
lol
wary wave
and it has something like 1.3 million players
frank escarp
and super meat boy is also a huge success
cloud cobalt
That's why indies suck at it
frank escarp
they also appeared at the start of the indie bubble
now, no one will look at a 2d plataformer
literallly no one would give a shit becouse its 1 out of literlaly thousands
and good luck convincing people that yours is better
even if it IS better, no one would still give a crap
plenty of awesome plataformers released on steam with sub 1000 sales
and i mean actually awesome ones
plush yew
@frank escarp dont u love it when u have a team of people
and then they disappear 1 by 1
^_^
wary wave
Sonic Mania has sold hundreds of thousands of copies, Cuphead has over a million players, Rain World sold nearly 100k copies and that's a pretty small developer
wary wave
you might not like the genre, but there are a lot of platformers for a reason
frank escarp
cuphead has microsoft behind it and it looks truly incredible
wary wave
(because people like platformers and make them)
frank escarp
rain world also looks awesome, it went huge due to how good it looked
wasnt rain world also a successful kickstarter?
cloud cobalt
@plush yew I've got a team of two myself. Keys to staying together for four years : we both had kind of the same project, merged them together and decide everything together based on very strong feelings we have for what the game should be. We share the money too.
wary wave
Hollow Knight has over half a million players too
frank escarp
hollow knight did it right
wary wave
so does Dead Cells, IIRC
frank escarp
i remember its gifs going huge on reddit
plush yew
@cloud cobalt yeah
wary wave
Speedrunners has something like 2-3 million players
frank escarp
the thing is that to create a successful 2d platformer/similar, it needs to be god tier. And also have "something" to stand out
wary wave
it's not even that good, lol
frank escarp
most of the time, graphics
wary wave
every game needs something to stand out
genre is irrelevant
an uninspired shooter will struggle just as much
cloud cobalt
After doing two indie games, the advice I usually give is...
- make sure to plan for a game that exploits every one of your strengths as a dev
- start alone, stay small, stay focused
- have a full design doc somewhere for what your game is going to be, before you even prototype
For example we're two devs and none of us is an artist, so we went with a style that would work well with little effort
fiery harbor
1+2 I completely agree with and its exactly what I do, but #3 is the opposite of what I do
cloud cobalt
And a workflow where we don't need to texture objects manually
frank escarp
that is exaclty what im investigating to abuse the hell of
you have been seeing my experiments with procedural art
becouse my actual art skills are horrible
but i do know tech
jaunty quest
Is it possible to update from 4.17.1 to 4.18? I'm not on my PC and I would love to have the information ๐ (Wondering because it wasn't the case from 4.16 to 4.17). Thank you!
cloud cobalt
Here is an example of asset that doesn't has any manual texturing - just an unwrapped mesh with vertex paint : https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/006/438/365/large/gwennael-arbona-highresscreenshot00000.jpg?1498590384
Pretty decent for a pure mechanical thing
opal ocean
vertex paint in ue4, or the 3d editor?
cloud cobalt
In 3D editor
opal ocean
nice
frank escarp
looks good
plush yew
Lol I found a crash
frank escarp
thats also the kind of things im experimenting with
plush yew
xd
fiery harbor
@cloud cobalt I would actually say your point 1 is incompatible with point 3. if your strengths do not include game design, then theres really no point to writing a full document aboutt that before you even started working on the game
cloud cobalt
Makes sense - I just recommend having a basic idea of what you're doing
frank escarp
my strenght is definitely not design
thats why i make my games mechanics first
i do prototypes before anything else
fiery harbor
I have no clue about game design, so I have no idea where my game will go actually. I'm a programmer, not a game designer. I make sure it has some core gameplay that works very well and release it in early access and hope the players tell me in what direction it should go
frank escarp
then i try to build a game around that
the amount of dropped prototypes i have is kind of absurd
cloud cobalt
Basically, I know I'm never going to be good & fast about texturing assets, so I work hard to make sure I don't need to. I'm pretty good at playing with materials and doing intricate simulation stuff, so my game is a simulation with plenty of logic.
-> know your strengths and use them.
fiery harbor
yeah, I know I can do programming, so I made game game so that it really only needs programming
cloud cobalt
If you hate game design, well, do what you want to do and listen to feedback.
If you hate AI, do a MP game, if you're alone and can't level design for shit, do a procedural game
It's obvious, really
fiery harbor
yes
plush yew
frank escarp
the idea is to use procedural to aim higher than i normally can
fiery harbor
@frank escarp though I do more procedural lol
frank escarp
i want to keep procedural under control
fiery harbor
you can use blender, I can't even do that
frank escarp
not 100% procedural, but use it as a enabler
you have seen the design on Kynlin for the jam
i made a rocky geneator and applied it to the whole level
looks much better than it should look
cloud cobalt
I know we aimed way too high with our current game, we barely manage the complexity of the code. But at least we're having fun most of the time and stay motivated
What i'm never going to do is look at PUBG and tell myself, I need to do a Battle Royale game now
I know this is neither something I want to play, nor something my skills can tackle efficiently
fiery harbor
you can add a battle royale mode to almost any game
so if you see 90% of your community asks for it I guess it would be stupid to not do it
but only additionally
opal ocean
I'd love to go semi-procedural levels in my one project, but I'm also not strong enough at programming for that...
frank escarp
but i couldnt have a map..
Nintendo demonetized Dunkey...
dammit nintendo
a video of a super big youtuber praising the game
and they demonetize
cloud cobalt
@plush yew Basically don't obsess about success, obsess about doing a great game, and then do your best at marketing it.
fiery harbor
indies often completely suck at marketing though
cloud cobalt
It's because marketing is primarily about money
plush yew
@cloud cobalt im obsessing about not working as a tech support person my whole life
lmao
i feel like
a janirot
janitor
LOL
cloud cobalt
Well, I also have a day job to finance my game dev
plush yew
$48,000 a year man
is what i get
lol
and i dont feel like its enough to do what i want
cloud cobalt
But I've got no delusion about being the next PlayerUnknown or the next Notch, because that's unlikely as fuck
opal ocean
better than being unemployed
plush yew
@opal ocean very true
i was unemployed for ther last like 2 months
just got this new job
and i get to work from home too!
so i can work on my game when customers arent calling in
^_^
opal ocean
I got laid off about a month ago, unlikely for me to find work till february
cloud cobalt
That sucks
opal ocean
industrial electrician
opal ocean
while working, yeah
plush yew
XD
plush yew
I was listening to the radion nthe other day
and they said that 290k people are unemployed?
thats just people filing for unemployment
frank escarp
i got laid off from Heavy Gear Assault (becouse money ran out and half the team had to leave), and 3 months later i published deathwave in steam lol
i was sick of not finishing games
cloud cobalt
@plush yew If you want to live from gamedev, there is no surefire way. What I'm trying is doing a high quality game that people love and recommend to their friends ; so basically every request from players is something we take super seriously, every bug gets fixed
frank escarp
nah its neraly impossible to live from gamedev
even if you are employed by AAA that just means you get fired the moment the game gets released
unless...
you are that boss
plush yew
^
cloud cobalt
Or you can work at a company that doesn't fire people
opal ocean
same way with electrical. Jobs done? goodbye!
plush yew
What i dont understand
is why is the game industry sso though
considering theres more money in it
than hollywood
its almost as if hollywood is easier
frank escarp
hollywood isnt easier
opal ocean
easier to get molested apparently
cloud cobalt
Because everyone wants to work in the game industry
frank escarp
games are also risky
cloud cobalt
So everyone is fighting for it
opal ocean
thats why I'm staying hobbyist. I'm just not talented enough to compete
frank escarp
the moment one game flops, the studio dissapears
opal ocean
or it succeeds and gets bought by EA, then dissappears
frank escarp
even more volatile
most of esports is forced as fuck
only the "real" e-sports are good
Valve makes fucktons of money from it
becouse it keeps the playerbase interested
cloud cobalt
@plush yew Games are going to be like music. You don't do music expecting to live from it
You just do it, and if you're really good and can sell yourself, you can make some money some day
if you think actors & compositors & other artists have permanent contracts working on safe stuff, well.....
We live in entertainment, and there is wayyyyyy too much offer for the demand.
plush yew
@cloud cobalt honestly
im really lucky though
when i was in the runescape community i had one of the largest web forums
And some of them became streamers now
im pretty sure i could contact them eventually
and ask for some help lol
plush yew
I thought about it but the game isnt ready yet lol
frank escarp
make a game FOR streamers, and you will get huge
doesnt matter
just ask them
streamers have a specific set of needs, if you talk with them they can help you make the game more streamable
wich will make you have more streamrs
wich will mean many more salles
opal ocean
set of needs?
cloud cobalt
Meme-worthy games, really
frank escarp
true
but also more serious one
playerunknowns is super streamable
becouse on the downtime, the streamers can banter with audience
but it gets tense
cloud cobalt
https://imgur.com/gallery/yD2zcCH
^ this is like 100% streamer material.
^ this is comedy gold so streamers will probably love it
Same goes for ridiculously hardcore games
plush yew
@frank escarp ya man
im making a survival game
But shit is difficult on my own
i just finished creating like 40 destructible meshes
cloud cobalt
Anyway, got to go. Have fun guys
plush yew
for my trees and such
frank escarp
lots of shitty survival games in steam due to unity packs
so make sure to be interesting
plush yew
@frank escarp ya
plush yew
mine is going to have super powers
lul
which are OP
amongst many other features lol
its so difficult for me to get a playtest tho
becuase idk how to put my steam into early access
so i can get keys to people
lmao
frank escarp
then you can already generate keys
plush yew
dont have enough photos and such lol
plush yew
hm
opal ocean
wish I had money to have a development machine that blocked reddit ๐
plush yew
@frank escarp yo so
is this a joke
Steam has to approve ur keys?
thats actually dumb
void geyser
does anyone have any examples of commercial games that used some assets from the UE marketplace?
frank escarp
they allways approve them
unless you ask for half a milllion
@void geyser all of them
Ark, conan, playerunknown
and you can find marketplace content in pretty much all games
plush yew
Yep
Because literally
not many people hgave the money
to pay an artist
$80k a year
to work fulltime
lol
plush yew
they do
void geyser
or at least hire a freelancer
void geyser
got it
void geyser
๐
plush yew
lol
rocks, trees, grass, props in general
imo if u want to get into art u HAVE to become a character artist
anything else and it just wont work out imo
void geyser
yeaaaaa i have no art skills at all - coder through and through, with maybe a bit of music haha
frank escarp
@plush yew uhm, no
there is a huge overuse of character artists
everyone wants to be one
want money? become an FX artist
a good one
ask Luos
if he gets business
frank escarp
not the same fx
frank escarp
game fx is very special
frank escarp
thats why its so rare to find
becouse normally fX stuff is for movies, but that wont work
game fx needs a blend of art skills and technical trickery
plush yew
mhm
maya particles
dont do shit in engines
lol
Any performance drawbacks for semi-procedural materials in UE?
pallid compass
check the instruction count
keen spoke
Hey
I actually need Serious help with Unreal
I can't Package my game!
It gives a: AutomationTool terminated with exception: System.Exception: Couldn't update resource. Error
please someone help me
fleet wraith
If Skeletal Meshes have collision, why do character components need a capsule collision? It forces you to use a terrible hitbox instead of just using the mesh's collision as the hit box
mighty kiln
ionic sedge
@fleet wraith Because capsules makes more sense for grounding a character. Think how it would look like if your collision for ground detection on a running character was on the feet for example, it would look terrible.
You can still use the mesh or a static asset for hitbox stuff (traces/overlaps).
fleet wraith
So on the begin overlap event for a character, how do I tell it to use the mesh not the capsule
opal ocean
when you're doing a hit trace for a gun, click Trace Complex
ionic sedge
You enable Generate Overlap Events on the mesh.