well
#ue4-general
flat trail
my blueprints are a mess these days after i started working
people want a traffic system on 4 days, that i would usually use 1-2 months on
xD
fierce tulip
the array is done, but no way to change sockets, and useless to make dozens of ribbons invissi
since they need to be activated trough character animations not much you can do atm
pallid compass
thought about making a handling system for the weapons?
that makes the emitters location depending on X even to drive it
fierce tulip
project is too far in to make that feasable
pallid compass
moves the emitters*
livid haven
@fierce tulip Not sure I entirely follow. Are we talking about attaching a PSC via anim notifies and wanting to change which socket the emitter is attached to? Are we talking after it's been initially attached or are we talking about dynamically selecting which socket to attach to when spawning the PSC?
fierce tulip
the latter
floral heart
For the general case where the socket name is unknown?
fierce tulip
socket names will be known
celest creek
@grim ore Yea that does seem quite elegant... maybe a small delay would fix that order of operations problem
pallid compass
what drives the socket change?
celest creek
If it's even a problem
sick berry
@livid haven i have removed everything because what you have said
livid haven
@fierce tulip How about subclassing anim notify?
grim ore
@celest creek I never ran into the problem, and I would assume there would be none, but no guarantees 😉
sick berry
i have feeling perhaps this group maybe to sensitve
fierce tulip
nothing that can drive the socket change besides potentially the array that holds the weapon data
subclassing anim notify?
floral heart
Big groups have a problem with advertising.
pallid compass
hmm, what in game functionality asks for it? is it weapon swing direction? hit? etc
sick berry
I don't think learning is is a sketchi kinda thing
livid haven
@sick berry For what it's worth, I think you could just say, "Hey, hope no one minds this, but I've got a Discord server for learning Python over here, which can be really handy. <link>"
fierce tulip
the animation that swings the weapon
grim ore
Man I could really go for a McDonalds Big Mac, Large Fries, and Ice Cold Coca Cola right now. That would taste so good.
pallid compass
just trying to get a better understanding of the system
ah okay
so it could possibly always be socket 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 or Combo path 1 > combo path 2 etc
sick berry
i think i will pass on this group
livid haven
@sick berry But I think you're wildly misinterpretting, perhaps intentionally, what my point ever was - not what was said, but how it was said. But, whatever. Sounds like you want to take your toys and leave.
sick berry
happy stick around and keep reading it though
fierce tulip
nah, it can be any of a dozen sockets for each animation depending on the weapons
floral heart
(This group is also essentially an IRC plaeholder too. No voice channels!)
pallid compass
sounds like the sockets need mapping too the animation, then u can handle moving the emitters about easily right?
floral heart
Or did I hide the voice channels by accident? There used to be one.
celest creek
@grim ore Nice nice nice, thanks once again!
fierce tulip
nothing easy about it, there is no way to change the sockets of an animtrail
livid haven
@fierce tulip Yeah. Whatever anim notifies are starting those anim trail PSCs. You could use a different, custom anim notify to lookup which socket to attach to when it fires, rather than a fixed one?
pallid compass
Can you use two emitters?
sick berry
thanks @livid haven like i said i am happy to keep reading
pallid compass
cycle them as u change the socket
fierce tulip
@pallid compass cant do that, because ther is no way to not play em afawct
pallid compass
as you change from 1 socket to another, turn 1 emitter off, turn another on, etc
hmm
fierce tulip
@livid haven thats beyond my knowledge, I couldnt find anything in the anim blueprints that would be able to do that though
livid haven
But you are using anim notifies to start the trails, right?
fierce tulip
but my knowledge with that/code/bp is extremely limited
im just using the "play particle" thingy
livid haven
Oh, you're not using anim notifies then?
fierce tulip
lemme open project
pallid compass
i think im potato, not sure why u cant just turn 1 emitter off, and turn another one on at the next socket location
prob my lack of exp using trails
livid haven
Anim notifies are the ones you put in a given animation - if the animation plays, the notify will trigger and do whatever that class of anim notify does.
fierce tulip
there is no next socket location, 1 animation can have 50+ weapon variations, need to attach animtrail to the socket.
pallid compass
I would need to see a little clip to understand this better if you are allowed to show.
fierce tulip
@livid haven yea anim notify is being used
livid haven
Alright, so it's probably this one: UAnimNotifyState_Trail
Now, that seems to have two properties for the first and second socket.
fierce tulip
yuz
livid haven
Maybe...
pallid compass
right
this makes
more sense now
That 1 animation can be done with X amounts of weapons
and trail location for each weapon is different?
livid haven
subclass it, and override NotifyBegin in the subclass, and lookup which sockets to use and set the properties.
pallid compass
this ^
livid haven
Which means your override of NotifyBegin should probably do the look up before it calls Super::NotifyBegin, as I'm confident doing it after would be too late.
Or don't do any of that any just make a custom AnimNotify and duplicate the few, relevant bits of code from UAnimNotifyState_Trail
I mean, UAnimNotifyState_Trail looks pretty slim.
pallid compass
do u have a programmer on your team who can help you with this?
livid haven
Personally, I'd practically duplicate that whole class, remove some properties, and insert the logic above.
Definitely something you need an engineer for - I don't know if you are one.
Otherwise, yeah, you're somewhat boned trying to do this in this particular way.
fierce tulip
in other words, will need to alter code no matter what?
im not one, but we have a few
livid haven
This should be largely trivial work for an engineer.
Given the information I provided, at least.
fierce tulip
well, they know how to set up quite some stuff but never touched anything in this area
but yea, that will def. be valueble info
livid haven
Like, this shouldn't take more than like 2 hours of futzing with it and testing it.
Of course, this does mean you need to go change all those anim notifies to use the new class of anim notify the engineer makes.
fierce tulip
thats fine, i stayed away from the animtrails till this problem was solved
livid haven
That can be done programmatically, too, if there's a ton of them - but that's up to whoever's discretion: have the artists replace them or have an engineer get clever.
Cool.
livid haven
NP.
This is exactly, and I mean exactly, the kind of stuff I did daily on Smite, but that was UE3.
It seems to translate, more or less, to UE4 though. Anim notifies, anyways.
fierce tulip
and its this kind of thing that makes me feel we need much more control in persona hehe
cant even change color of a particle in it
livid haven
UE3 "anim trees" are like 95% unlike UE4 "anim graphs"
fierce tulip
unless workarounds
copy/pasted the convo in clients chat. along with the 2h thing XD
commence frustration after said 2h
livid haven
2h?
fierce tulip
"Like, this shouldn't take more than like 2 hours of futzing with it and testing it"
livid haven
Sure, whatever works. Discord, Hangouts, Slack, SMS text even.
fierce tulip
if it means anything, they are pro's, not some shanty dev group
so no pl0x do our work for us
livid haven
Oh I wasn't worried that it would be.
fierce tulip
you use slack?
livid haven
For reals though, this should mostly either be copy-pasting the class (dirty, I know) or subclassing it and doing a trivial bit of work to do SocketName = WhateverYouLookedUp; in BeginNotify
Yep
Edit: <Redacted my LLC e-mail address>
fierce tulip
mucho grande appreciado
livid haven
NP
fierce tulip
might wanna hide yo email now though hehe
livid haven
Not too worried - it's out there, but I guess I may as well save my self some spam.
fierce tulip
goodbye llc email, hello viagra & women in your area emails
livid haven
Just one 1 woman though. Got a rate limit on women per e-mail.
fierce tulip
blame english not being my first language lol
livid haven
I figured it was a typo and ran with it, wasn't trying to give you shit about your language skills.
fierce tulip
no worries haha, didnt think you would
livid haven
We gave someone else shit for mistyping lounge as longmeat earlier. 😃
fierce tulip
dafuq
livid haven
Auto-complete from phone.
cinder iron
That was me xD
fierce tulip
oh god, been there.
cinder iron
I can't trust anymore this device, self-note dont write to clients using this. They have enough having to understand my weird english
fierce tulip
lol
weary basalt
I try and limit how often i use my Phone with Discord lol
glossy ingot
Not sure if this question is better fit for the animation channel but here goes: Is there a way i can pose assets in the level editor?
fierce tulip
as in, set the animation and pick a frame?
lethal star
hey guys, is there an "easy" way to connect the socket from a mesh to a skeletal mesh instead of the origin point?
fierce tulip
@glossy ingot its as easy as placing the skelmesh, selecting animation to play, and write the frame you want to use.
less than a minute work
glossy ingot
Ah got it, im releasing asset packs for a few engines and need to figure out the documentation. Thanks
fierce tulip
good luck
mighty timber
Hey guys, anyone here able to tell my why my projectile is moving 1 unit per second on the x axis when i'm not telling it to move at all?
grim ore
does it use physics?
mighty timber
Nope
well, honestly idk, i think i've told it not to use physics but i'm not sure
could I share my screen with you?
grim ore
nope, can't do that right now. How do you know it's moving on the X axis?
mighty timber
Because I can select the ball and the x axis number is changing
and I can see it move
grim ore
do you have any code on it that is causing it to move? even if it's not on the X
grim ore
when you unhook or disable that code so it does not run at all does it still move?
grim ore
definitely sounds like physics then if no code could possibly be moving it. Under physics for the object is simulate physics unchecked?
you can always try locking the position under physics constraints and if it still moves then its code not physics
pretty much have to narrow down why it's moving before it can get fixed 😃
mighty timber
simulate physics is unchecked
grim ore
under constraints lock the position for all axis and see if it still moves
it shouldnt but if it does then something in code is making it move somewhere
mighty timber
still moves
grim ore
and at that point it's searching for nodes that can move objects in your project and seeing what is doing it.
you can use the global find to look thru all blueprints for nodes that can move and that might let you find one thats still hooked up causing it
verbal laurel
Hey 😄
mighty timber
I've literally been doing that for the past hour, found nothing
grim ore
did you use the global find?
mighty timber
ys
verbal laurel
And this
mighty timber
well, idk what to "global find"
verbal laurel
grim ore
and you unhooked every node that could set or add to position?
grim ore
you want to search for nodes you added that can move the object. Add position, set position, items like that
is this a project from someone else or did you create it from scratch?
grim ore
the object you created that moves, did you create that or just modify something?
mighty timber
I created it yes
grim ore
I guess you could post a screenshot of your code that doesnt move it but moves it maybe something is noticeable.
nothing should move on it's own tho lol. something is setting the position manually or using physics
mighty timber
I think my unreal engine is haunted.
a spooky ghost
i mean the ball is white after all
coarse cradle
what does the bound scale of a skeletal/static mesh do?
my skeletal mesh was flickering and I turned up my scale from 1 to 10 and it fixed it, but in the description it said by increasing the bound scale it reduces performancew
but I want to turn it up a healthy amount so I want to know what it does first
quasi lake
Anyone knows where are playercontrollers created?
I know they are added when postinnitialized,but I cant find the code when they are created in the world
Besides there are no playercontroller placed in the level
I'd like to know the inside stuff
glossy flame
quasi lake
thx
fiery hemlock
I didnt find anything about raw input like its used in csgo, Battlefield etc... Is this somewhere in the Engine? Im Not talking about the raw Input Plugin that is Used for Sticks.
There are a Lot of Posts in the Forums But there is No real answer to it.
Developing a MP FPS But the Mouse is sluggish. The Casual Players wont notice it. But professionells do. :/ Any advice or Help?
plush yew
Hello there. I'm looking for good UE4 Programmers. We need a programmer ASAP to start adding our models in game. Please contact me if you are interested.
livid haven
We need a programmer ASAP to start adding our models in game typo?
Do you need programmers or artists?
You say programmer twice, but "adding models" really shouldn't involve programmers. Also, maybe post in #looking-for-talent, @plush yew.
languid shard
Hey lads, throwing a guess here, do you think two Titan V would work for VRSli, even if the cards use the -similar but not the same as sli- nvlink ?
wary wave
waste of money
you might as well use a 1080Ti
similar gaming performance, and most engines don't support SLi anyway
cursive dirge
people could have others reasons than pure game perf for titans
like, if you do gpu computing on them
livid haven
True, but I feel like she covered both of those with qualifying it with game performance and game engines generally not supporting SLI.
Bit of a shame though. I recall hopping on the SLI band wagon when it first came out and not really having much to write home about, as it were.
wary wave
The question was "would it work for VR", to which the answer is "probably not better than the cheaper 1080Ti"
languid shard
@wary wave we are not aiming for gaming :p
Getting a titan V to game sure would be a waste
We're doing AEC engineering rendering in VR (should have mentioned it in the first post)
wary wave
sure, and in order to do so, you're using a game engine, right?
languid shard
yeah
wary wave
so my point still stands
languid shard
well
the low framerate I'm getting says otherwise 😂
we're not doing the normal workflow here
and the aim is not the same either
wary wave
you won't get significantly better performance out of a Titan V over a 1080Ti in most game engines
and most game engines do not support SLi
your personal application of said engine is largely irrelevant in that respect
languid shard
the Titan V doesn't even support nvlink, so multigpu isn't really something doable
"your personal application of said engine is largely irrelevant in that respect" uh ? 😐
wary wave
How you use a hammer doesn't change what a hammer is good at doing
cloud cobalt
SLI for game engines is just not well supported overall, and multi-GPU is only useful when you have exceeded what the best GPU in the world can do, which isn't really often
languid shard
well I'd be happy to find another realtime, VR compatible engine if it gets me better performance, but UE4 is the only engine I know that allows us to do what we want
yeah, the only application I see in sli right now would be VRSli
but cmon we're not even sure it works that well...
feels like nobody really benched it too
wary wave
some of that will depend on your requirements as to which engines will best suit your needs, but your best bet is probably going to be to adapt your content to suit your hardware limitations
UE4 does not support VRSLi out of the box
languid shard
I know I know
wary wave
NVidia's VRWorks branch may, but your mileage may vary
languid shard
I've already been working with VRWorks
cloud cobalt
@languid shard The real question is what you're trying to do here, something for PC gamers ? Something that's not going to be released ?
languid shard
@cloud cobalt no this is for VR stuff exclusively used by our company
so with controlled hardware setups
cloud cobalt
And you're sure a big ass 1080ti isn't going to cut it ?
languid shard
a 1080 struggles a lot already
paper kernel
problem is, not even nvidia supports sli properly anymore
floral heart
Why wouldn't a Titan V be better than a 1080 Ti?
languid shard
regarding adapting the content to hardware limitations, this requires a workload that I can't handle
I've posted a few screenshots while talking with Zoltan in the vr channel, lemme get them
this is the kind of model I'm working with
most of our projects come from AEC tools like REVIT
our goal is not to get photorealistic rendering like most architectural stuff
cloud cobalt
So what's wrong with that ? Looks pretty bad imho, why is it so demanding ?
languid shard
but to be able to check evey part of the model
well, every tiny bit is a single asset
cloud cobalt
Just like any game
wary wave
as in your entire scene is a single mesh?
cloud cobalt
Have you profiled it ?
wary wave
if your entire scene is a single mesh, this is your problem
languid shard
@wary wave nah, every part is separated from the rest
languid shard
we cant merge it, or we'll loose the data associated to that particular part
wary wave
an incomplex scene like that should not be difficult to render
not unless you have excessive redundant geometry, maybe
cloud cobalt
Have you profiled your scene to understand why it's slow ? Are you sure it's GPU-bound ?
languid shard
since the models are being transfered from revit to max, and from max to UE4 using Datasmith
we can't detect what has been instanced and what has not
lemme open the project and I'll give you screenshot of the profiler
UE4 really struggles to cold load our scene too 😦
cloud cobalt
Which is why I'm asking about profiling, since you could just have too many objects and be CPU-bound
Getting a SLI setup with huge GPUs should be a last resort imho, when you're positively certain it's going to help, and there isn't a better way
floral heart
Is there a good CPU-multithreaded rendering engine with VR support? 😅
floral heart
Mechwarrior Online used an old cryengine. I remember because my crappy dual-core PC was unable to run the game well during open beta, yet its performance improved when I restricted it to one core.
Which would be an example of bad CPU-multithreading.
languid shard
@wary wave would you recommend using fully baked lighting aswell ? We've been trying to get as much performance with a ToD featuring half stationary half dynamic lighting, but the performance was so so
wary wave
I would use baked lighting, yes
languid shard
Arma's engine ?
wary wave
also the forward renderer
languid shard
yeah forward is a no brainer
wary wave
I wouldn't use the ARMA engine to open a tin of beans, but you didn't hear that from me :p
(also, does not support VR)
languid shard
right so it seems that building project I made was deleted at some point, I would have to reimport the datasmith file to reevaluate it (gonna do it during lunch break)
I've found another project that, while not as big, has a lot of interesting stuff to profile
frank escarp
if you have trouble with the drawcalls, try to force the mobile forward renderer
or use SimpleForward
that one is single pass
high end forward renders every mesh twice
frank escarp
yes
frank escarp
stereo vr improves performance unless you have very few drawcalls
languid shard
alright
wary wave
Stereo is hit and miss in UE4
there's a good article on the Vanishing of Ethan Carter that's worth reading regarding VR performance optimisation
wary wave
(and an alternative AA implementation with source code, too)
what is that gigantic green bar in base pass?
languid shard
yeah
frank escarp
@languid shard a ridiculously huge basepass
languid shard
😐
frank escarp
thats couse you probably have a fuckton of drawcalls and/or polys
languid shard
a bit more than one ms though
frank escarp
2k is twice what one should have
how the fuck is that 1 ms basepass?
i had better stats than that and it was like 8 ms on DWVR
frank escarp
what pc
languid shard
that one was imported using an old version though
frank escarp
becouse that running at 1 ms is too good
languid shard
1080 OC + Xeon 6 cores @ 2.4ghz
frank escarp
oh
frank escarp
you have too many drawcalls
2k drawcalls on non-stereo is too high
unless you are targetting strong cpus
wary wave
I suspect no geometry is being instanced
languid shard
on a desktop VR setup ?
wary wave
also suggests no LoDs or culling
languid shard
damn
well HZB should be activated
uh
I just r.HZBOcclusion 1'd it
and I got 1k more dc
wth
frank escarp
hbz needs to do the occlusion queries
if your meshes are too simple, honestly you are better not even culling
floral heart
HZBOcclusion is more conservative. Your occlusion phase hardly cost anything anyway.
frank escarp
hbz renders a box against the depth buffer of last frame
and checks if its behind stuff or not
languid shard
what's the point of that kind of occlusion if it doesn't give you a perf boost ? 🤔
floral heart
Occlusion gives you a perf boost if and only if it culls things.
wary wave
*if and only if it culls things that reduce overhead equal to or above the overhead of actually performing culling
frank escarp
thats why i said that "if your meshes are too simple"
floral heart
Well... if it's not culling things and you still have the overhead, technically... 😛
frank escarp
i mean, are you really going the "draw box into zbuffer" test
when your mesh is a box
XD
floral heart
There's also precomputed visibility. I'm not sure how well it would work if that 'camera in the distance that sees all' is the normal scenario.
languid shard
well I'd try it
frank escarp
precomputed vis can work well
its essentially a grid that saves wich objects are visible from each cell
languid shard
if that precomputed vis didn't trigger a whole lightmap rebake...
languid shard
yeah but you can't only bake precomp vis right
frank escarp
you need to add a culling volume for it, and then it adds cells. Each cell calculates wich objects can it see
when rendering, it just draws whatever the cell you are can see
its a good system
but it scales horribly
for small maps its great
languid shard
x)
languid shard
so basically UE4 has no all case efficient occlusion system 😄
floral heart
Too bad you can't manually place cells for precomp vis.
frank escarp
nope
on my next game i do culling myself
becouse i can
(btw, unity is also garbage with this)
languid shard
plugin + marketplace 😄
frank escarp
the only good culling is the culling you implement for your needs
languid shard
I'd buy it if the performance gain is good
frank escarp
in my next game ill have procgen-d rooms, so i just alllow ue4 to render the exact room you are inside
floral heart
There is no all case efficient occlusion system.
It's like real-time GI, but without the fancy headlines.
frank escarp
did you know crash bandicoot did the "save data in cells" thing?
for the ps1
and they did it AT THE INDIVIDUAL TRIANGLE
languid shard
@wary wave should I do a deep profiling ?
frank escarp
every 1 meter or so of the on-rails camera, they stored what the camera could see
at the individual triangle level
languid shard
yeah when you look back at how they did 3d with the ps1 era consoles its mindblowing
languid shard
the tomb raider video where they show you how they rendered the scene is amazing
I think it used a similar process than crash did
floral heart
How did they find the storage space for that on a ps1? (Wait, I forget if ps1 used cds.)
languid shard
it did
frank escarp
actually disks had space for days
languid shard
mindblowing 2mb of ram, 1mb of video memory 😂
frank escarp
and a 700 mb disc
floral heart
Yes, discs did. I was thining of cartridges.
frank escarp
Crash streamed data
as the camera could only go at certain speed and it was clear, they just streamed the current + 2 chunks of vertices
cartridged..
badly
ps1 was a huge success becouse the disks allowed it to have fucktons of memory
even if very slow
ive written a gameboy emulator
the ROMS are 4 kb
super small
those were the days, the gameboy was incredibly simple
it did basically nothing
just a background that could scroll, plus sprites
the cpu didnt even have floats
just 8 bit integers, and a few 16 bit integer instructions
languid shard
on the subject of that AEC content profiling, I'm getting 12ms avg on the RenderViewFamily pass
frank escarp
the fact that they were able to build Pokemon
impresses me
a lot
like, they really got their shit together with memory
to fit all the world and all the pokemon sprites
btw, pokemons were completely background XD
you couldnt use sprites that big
sprites were used for overworld characters, and things like the menu cursor
languid shard
be back later, I'm gonna import that building from earlier and see how it handles in engine
frank escarp
for pokemon gold, satoru iwata was able to design a new compression system, and that system allowed them to plop a whole new region into the cartridge XD
fierce tulip
someone posted a weird bug on one of the fb groups
https://i.gyazo.com/0e543675fe4ac86d68da953c0aaff7b0.png
wut
floral heart
All the numbers became a symbol. But what IS it?
fierce tulip
(ended up being a plugin error)
latent moth
does someone have a good pointer to an unreal engine IK for prone?
The only good looking one I found is the iKinema one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dncpkFxS74
frank escarp
@latent moth ikinema is an expensive CLOSED SOURCE plugin
PC only
and drm-d
really something you dont want for something as "basic" as IK
latent moth
that's exactly why I am asking if someone has a good pointer for a IK on prone... 😃
I found this which is pretty awesome for foot placement: https://crystalgamedev.itch.io/advanced-unreal-foot-ik
floral heart
Maybe it's the animation, but that left leg in ikinema looks limp.
floral heart
Poor guy has a bum leg.
latent moth
eheh
it's the default animations from EPIC that unfortunately are no good unless you use 1D blendspaces, well at least in certain situations (for instance, forward jogging while strafing left)
noble flare
hi everyone
I have an issue with 3d widgets and widget interaction
mouse click does not work on buttons
press event firest on left mouse button click
but the on click event does not
i connected the mouse input press and release to the widget interaction pointer press and release nodes
even tried other possibilites the interaction provides but nothing seems to work
do you have any idea what is the problem?
(hovering and clicking action on button still works, but the binded event does not fire)
fierce tulip
<_< when someone asks you for the texture you used in the video and had a download link to in the description.
latent moth
if you're referring to me, sorry if it sounds that way. I simply don't know if a good foot placement IK can also be used for prone
mighty timber
Why are there no voice channels?
wary wave
there used to be, but nobody ever used them
mighty timber
v.v
cloud cobalt
Yeah, most people here are at work, that makes it complicated to communicate with voice
languid shard
Goddamn ue4 taking ages to save stuff
😂
so this building has 16k more objects than the other one where you had trees and cranes
@frank escarp @wary wave since the base pass was taking quite a big frametime, do you think I'm CPU bound in this kind of case ? But then if a 6core/12thread xeon isn't enough, what could be ? 🤔
frank escarp
turns out directx11 is singlethreaded
so render thread is singlethread
its the reason why DWVR runs drawcalls faster on a ps4
languid shard
isn't UE dx12 based now ?
languid shard
it was an experimental feature right ?
I remember doing some testing with DX12 but it crashed executables a lot
damn some stuff I don't really understand with UE4
swarm is heavily multithreaded
but the main engine is Ghz dependent then
frank escarp
ue4 is mostly designed around 4 cores
teal tulip
Some reason you need DX12 ?
frank escarp
any more of them do not scale that well
languid shard
lots of drawcalls @teal tulip
languid shard
HLOD passes crash or freeze the workstation so far
cloud cobalt
Yeah, DX12 can be enabled but if it's like in older releases, DX11 is actually faster
languid shard
and I can't merge the models unless its for lodding
teal tulip
Well if you're using the engine for archviz DX12 will no magic solve the problem
languid shard
same with instances, unless I can get a way of, say, know what can be instanced when migrating content from REVIT to MAX, I can't do much
teal tulip
Still you can do instances if are the same mesh
You can'¡t use the engine as a offline render
mighty timber
Hey guys, I make sounds, anyone want a sound?
languid shard
@teal tulip I well know that 😦
Maybe we are ahead of our time in terms of what we want
cloud cobalt
Your problem is that the source data isn't meant for gaming
So work on that, find ways to make it closer to what 3D artists create
You can merge objects to lower draw calls, use Simplygon
etc
VR is very hard to even run correctly on powerful machines, with assets that were cautiously optimized for the media
It's so hard UE4 has had huge changes to make it possible
You can't really expect to get VR performance and UE4 quality without spending time on the assets
languid shard
:/
cursive dirge
unless the assets were already optimized / low poly
languid shard
assets aren't really high poly (unless its some garbage stuff we got from a contractor)
we just have a very high count of them
cloud cobalt
How many assets do you have in the scene exactly ?
cloud cobalt
Guessing most aren't unique ? Instanciation it is
languid shard
but how ?
I don't have anything to know what model can be instanciated
going through every one of em is going to take hours and hours
cloud cobalt
How did you create the scene in the first place ? Is all of it imported from something ?
languid shard
yeah using Datasmith, the CAD plugin from epic
Workflow is
Revit model > import to max > datasmith to ue4
mileage will change depending on how the model was initially made in Revit
some models we get are from IFC files, which are a mess to go through
the best thing imo would be to have some kind of shape detection script within the datasmith plugin. This would allow to go through every model and set instanciation on the ones that have matching shapes
vale osprey
@languid shard mmm, people do that for last 15 years 😄
languid shard
😂
vale osprey
And there was always someone who tried to just import cad models without re-working them first
the Autodesk was trying to do the same as well
languid shard
I had a script months ago for max to replace meshes by instances
but that's half the solution, you still need to know what entity is an instance of what other entity
we can guesstimate with the name of these objects but...
vale osprey
yeah exactly, eventually you will get a big juicy project where most of automation fails
languid shard
yup
vale osprey
you know the old solution? - train a small team of modellers to deal with cad mess
Design your own pipeline to how approach most common cases and augment it as you go from project to project.
but in this specific case, if you have too made drawcalls and can't use instances then why not just join your geometry?
languid shard
because we need the BIM data of each model 😦
each has a different set of variables
vale osprey
yeah but BIM has nothing to do with rendering part
languid shard
how am I gonna differentiate an asset from another if its merged then ?
with say a raycast
vale osprey
only visual part, you still can have your primitives for interaction separately
languid shard
like, hide the model ingame, but only use its collider ?
vale osprey
yeap
languid shard
isn't it still gonna take a lot of CPU ressource ?
vale osprey
if you want to make it play nicely for you, without doing manual merging, you could build coupe of components that use runtime mesh component or procedural mesh component to collapse your visual meshes into groups on project start
it will take less than what you have now as it will fix your drawcall issue
performance issue with interractibles will be there regardless of how you render them, if you will have such issue at all
languid shard
that's why I though of HLOD as a good solution in theory
if we could do some very, very aggressive level lodding in an automated fashion
and only display separate entities in a 10m radius around the user for example
and use merged level lods beyond these 10m
wouldn't it be kinda the same ?
vale osprey
well, I'm not sure why would you need that
if you take something like a basic static mesh component, it looks like a one solid thing on surfaca
but in practice it has a separate component inside which deals with physics side of things, including ray checks, collision and etc
the fact that UE4 treats them this way - one visual mesh / one physics body, doesn't mean that you have to
you can have completely different actors dealing with interaction part and with rendering of them, especially in case of CAD models where 99% of content will be static
languid shard
hmm
yeah absolutely
I'm gonna try doing a double datasmith import
one with every entity unmerged, but with visibility unchecked
and a second one with all assets with the same name merged together (to avoid losing materials). This one will stay visible, but will have its collisions for raycasts disabled
the problem with this is that we're gonna loose the ability to lightmap the scene
but tbh with a good dynamic lighting it should be enough
vale osprey
you can still light maps your collapsed geometry
wary wave
two streaming levels, one with collision geo, one without
vale osprey
imho without manual work it won't look the best either way. But you can get decent result with dynamic lights, some ssao and not pushing for realisme
wary wave
without level has the lighting, stream in collision at begin play
languid shard
I could bake an approximate skylight and leave the shadowing to the directional light
we aren't really looking for realism, just a nice looking shadowing
enough to differenciate a wall from a floor when they have the same material
vale osprey
hemispherical lighting can help with that, but UE4 already does it I think if you have skylight in the level.
I would try @wary wave suggestion^
languid shard
yeah level streaming sounds like a good idea
maybe have multiple levels for collision ?
wary wave
that's an option if you need it
though you may find it doesn't really save you anything
languid shard
yeah testing will be crucial to see if it gets us more perf or not
@wary wave @frank escarp do you know if there's a Datasmith licencee only slack or discord in addition of the forums ?
wary wave
I don't believe there is
languid shard
hmm that would be a nice addition 😃
frank escarp
there is a forum
i can read the title of the question becouse shitty new forums lol
but not go inside
languid shard
haha
yeah I'm using it a lot
but I feel like a direct discussion channel like slack or discord is nice to share ideas or workflows
is it wise to merge 6506 assets into one ? 🤔
beh, that's 6505 drawcalls less
right so down to 254 entities
this should take care of the mesh drawcall problem
vale osprey
"is it wise to merge 6506 assets into one ? 🤔" - what are you thinking? 😄
languid shard
😂
vale osprey
I bet most of those windows are pretty much the same
vale osprey
is it coming from a specific software, like Archicad?
languid shard
all are the same
model is from Revit
so yeah similar to archicad
but cleaner 😂
vale osprey
I just wonder if they still have instancing meta data there. With archicad you could make your own meta-data exporter
dunno if this is lost when they bring it to Revit
or if you can get it out
languid shard
there is some sort of instancing in revit
and I'm opening the .rvt project directly in max, without going through the .fbx workflow
but somehow there's no trace of instances in max
maybe because max is translating to surface meshes instead of paramtetric
vale osprey
most likely
languid shard
urgh workstation is taking a hit with the UV generation in UE4
vale osprey
what I'm saying is that if you have some time and desire to invest into this, you could build a custom tool that helps with import and placing everything nicely in UE4
languid shard
I would love to have someone or a team developp a tool like this (and would definetly try to get a budget from the company to finance it)
I don't have the programming skill to tackle it alone
vale osprey
like if this is a typical case for your project it makes sense. I our case we had like just 1 out of 30 projects where some meta data was still there, the rest where mix of various stuff, including paper drawings 😐
languid shard
I'm pretty sure there would be a lot of people interested by this kind of tool too
VR and Building Information Modelling are skyrocketing nowadays
oh we get these aswell 😄
DWGs hanging around
engineer colleagues have a lot of paper plans all around the floor
I mean building engineering here in France still works like 10 years ago in terms of technology
only a few companies push BIM forward
right the "proxy" model has been imported alongside the collision model
vale osprey
back when I was a student, one of my first jobs was to digitize paper drawings, fun times 😄
languid shard
haha 😄
well performance is a lot better
gotta setup a quick raycasting bp now
I have an overlay material somewhere I could use aswell to highlight the raycasted entity
mullion UVs
nightmarish 😄
vale osprey
looks like an artsy ceramic tile pattern 😄
sudden agate
do you even have enough precision with all these tiles ? LUL
languid shard
well we won't use UV coordinates for the material textures that's for sure 😄
World aligned UVs is a lifesaver
@frank escarp 1k drawcalls was the target right ?
frank escarp
yes
languid shard
got 1050 here
frank escarp
good enough
languid shard
that's an improvement for sure
frank escarp
polys?
north fox
Anyone else had experience with Support recently? What were your response times like?
languid shard
as in HLODs ?
frank escarp
becouse 4.8 million is 10 million polys in vr
languid shard
yeah
frank escarp
wich is 5 times over the recomended amount
languid shard
😂
gonna fire up the tpcast and vive and give it a try
ah forgot to check instanced stereo
kindred viper
wish I had a tpcast. I hate this goddamn wire
kindred viper
I will be getting the vive pro thingy im sure but for now im working with that goddamn wire and it just gets in the way and makes me feel like if I turn around, im gonna break something
languid shard
do you have turnsignal installed ?
kindred viper
no
languid shard
pretty good steamvr plugin that shows you how much you turned in place
get it on steam, its free 😃
kindred viper
I dont really want it to tell me anything. Sounds like an immersion breaker
even tho the wire is an immersion breaker
languid shard
you can set it up to be almost invisible
and its still better than getting tangled up and crashing into something fragile :p
kindred viper
or I can stop being cheap and get a TPCast :p
languid shard
that's one solution 😃
but be ready for an eventual headache regarding its setup
I heard that the V2 is much easier to setup, but damn the V1 has a shitty UX
kindred viper
im nore concerned about the 60ghz worth of RF radiation flying around my skull but you know.... it's a wireless world now anyway
languid shard
well you can always get yourself a scare and download one of these wifi detection app 😂
kindred viper
i'll just wait and see what happens then suit someone :p
safe rose
Do it or you'll get lots of crying
fiery hemlock
Mouse controls and raw_input is this possible?
kindred viper
hows the dev coming along Victor?
safe rose
I just setup 3Drudder for my game
Interesting thing for locomotion
But better if a game is built around it.
languid shard
fancy how these were available like 4 years ago already, and its only getting some visibility right now
safe rose
I just want Vive Pro HMD upgrade to be at a reasonable price
$400 range. Instabuy for me.
kindred viper
I want HTC to give it me for free because im poor. Just got to pay for that Limited Company title :p
languid shard
We'll get one at work for sure, whatever the price is
But I'd love to get one for personal use too, cheap as possible 😄
we want to get some multiuser stuff this year aswell, so maybe we'll get 2 or 3 vive pros at least
kindred viper
it does kind of piss me off that they released the vive without those two cameras. It was obvious that it's needed when people were strapping Leap Motion onto their DK1 headsets
languid shard
the vive got rushed imo
they had the pressure of oculus
vive pro is what the vive CV1 should have been (maybe minus the new screen) in terms of ergonomics
languid shard
step up ! 😄 nah the psvr is good for what its being sold as : an "accessible" VR headset
kindred viper
PSVR is my wife's favourite but it reminds me of the DK2 it's so bad.
languid shard
you don't have VRChat 😂
fiery hemlock
Hahaha
cloud cobalt
Waiting for those VR games to be released as non-VR games myself
fiery hemlock
I Always remember myself that Graphics cant fix a shitty Game. People will remember the Bad Game Not the good graphics. Thats why the psvr is still great.
I will never buy the PC VRs.
frank escarp
except the best vr games are for Pc
Robo recall, onward, everything oculus, etc
psvr uses 6 year old moves as tracking, wich are kind of terrible
frank escarp
its good as a vr replacement if you dont have a vr ready pc, but its worse in literally every way to pc vr
its a generational difference
not about graphics, but about the quality of the headset itself
PSVR hand controllers are absolute garbage... need to keep them in mind when designing a game
kindred viper
I have to say that Resident Evil 7 is a masterpeice of VR gaming already, but I still can't play it because of the headset
languid shard
You haven't really tested VR until you felt the virtual heat of a star, standing in your cockpit in Elite : Dangerous 😄
frank escarp
but RE7 vr is the same exact thing as non-vr
they just added the vr camera tracking
and thats pretty much it
Elite Dangerous vr is AMAZING
fiery hemlock
Its the best Game ive played in VR
frank escarp
such a incredible improvement over non-vr
fiery hemlock
Res7
frank escarp
but it has the downside of barely readable text
languid shard
its beyond awesome, the scale is mindblowing
kindred viper
I wanted to play Elite Dangerous in VR but Im too busy to give up a year of my life
languid shard
yeah you need to use a green UI mod or boost the resolution a lot to read small texts. Or just lean forward
frank escarp
elite dangerous is a game you no-life for a while then get bored XD
languid shard
@kindred viper said every EVE Online player 😄
frank escarp
@languid shard and now, you can literally put netflix on the cockpit screen
fiery hemlock
Its Not about the money my rig is more than ready for it. I wait Till one Headset dies than i maybe buy one.
frank escarp
to do proper space trukin
languid shard
yeah !
fiery hemlock
But i still Hope for the ps5 with new VR hs
languid shard
I'm dreaming of an battlestation upgrade with motion actuators for elite and other race/spacesims
fiery hemlock
I Just want a controlstick on the Movecontrollers. XD
sturdy walrus
is this normal it is just saying queued when i try to add it to my project
languid shard
current one is already awesome compared to a couch or standard desk, but it feels a bit too static even with the Buttkicker to make the structure vibrate
@sturdy walrus do you have an engine upgrade pending ?
sturdy walrus
i have an fornite update pending
languid shard
😃
the launcher can't do multiple downloads at once afaik
@fiery hemlock @frank escarp gimme some hydraulic actuators for this and I will be the happiest simmer ever 😄 https://i.imgur.com/rMDxLLS.png
sturdy walrus
got another question what is the differeance when installing or adding to project
fiery hemlock
First Clean that place Dude! 😂
languid shard
its been cleaned, that's an old photo 😄
fiery hemlock
Yayayaya
languid shard
installing is for plugins, create is to create a new project that includes the package, adding will add to an existing project of your choice @sturdy walrus
languid shard
need dat triple screen setup too, but these 165hz screens are too expensive right now 😦
sturdy walrus
ok when i added it to a project its downloading it do i have to download everytime i want to add it to a different project ?
languid shard
nah its just gonna download it once
once its downloaded you can add it to any project using a compatible engine version
but you won't have to redownload it
languid shard
pleasure 😃
frosty bloom
@pallid compass In Additive Settings make sure all the animations you are trying to add have the same Base Pose Animation
You could mark all animations you are going to use, Right Click -> Asset Action -> Bulk Edit via Matrix -> Additive Settings -> Base Pose Anim set it for all at the same time
pallid compass
ahh yeah my bad, thank u ver much
languid shard
welp, I've been trying to reopen the scene for the past 30mn or so, I think the engine is getting troubles to "Finalize load of StaticMeshcomponent0" 😂
pallid compass
wth
its not working again
everything has same base bpose
pose
nvm omg im blind af
whats the name for the sort of aiming system fortnite uses?
its movement on keys and aiming on mouse right?
and char rotation is locked to mouse
grim ore
third person shooter or action combat
languid shard
@frank escarp @wary wave @vale osprey https://i.imgur.com/2zcehiO.jpg
well that's kinda better
not sure why I have all these inactive frames
frank escarp
rip frames lmao
languid shard
haha
pallid compass
jesus
frank escarp
at lleast oculus can almost run at 45 fps, but their better software also makes 90 fps easier to do
languid shard
wait I'll disable reprojection stuff
pallid compass
oh no theres no leg turning animation in the starter pack ;o
languid shard
there's a lot of delayed start on the GPU side
not sure if that's impacting much the framerate
pallid compass
why is that struct killing ur fps?
languid shard
VR + lots of entities
other than that, I dunno, that's what I'm trying to find out 😃
pallid compass
i dont really see anything tho
that whole building can be 1 mesh and 1 material pretty much
languid shard
nah
pallid compass
why not
languid shard
this is a CAD model
I can't just merge everything and call it a day
it would require too much work
languid shard
I'm trying to get a very efficient workflow
languid shard
yeah retopologise a 18k entity model 😂
pallid compass
theres ur issue then CAD
wary wave
when doing RT visualisation in the past, we've had dedicated people to generate RT assets from CAD assets
languid shard
I need to get a team to do RT asset then
pallid compass
obviously i cant see in there and see the details, but it looks while the whole outisde could be 1 trim sheet
languid shard
not sure how to convince my boss about that
wary wave
well, how much does he want it to run? xD
and yeah, geometry seems pretty simple for the most part
pallid compass
is that transprancy i see t oo?
wary wave
someone who knows what they're doing probably wouldn't lose a huge amount of time, especially as your materials are already world aligned, so minimal UV work etc
languid shard
it is pretty simple, just a mess to work with since its coming from CAD softwares (and models have been through multiple other softwares most of the time)
I've had max crash on a lot of projects because of how much entities there is
I need an intern at least
been pushing for this recently, my job covers a lot more than just this kind of stuff
pallid compass
honestly it looks like the whole building can be modelled from scratch in an hour, i aasume the inside is bare?
languid shard
mostly
the problem is we want to be able to check CAD data on every bit of the model
pallid compass
then its prob not gonna go in to VR and place nice
languid shard
I've explained why a few hours ago on this channel
pallid compass
u need to make a helper bp
sockets or something
to store data on the model
or w/e u need
languid shard
that's what Datasmith will be useful for 😃
pallid compass
problem is u cant cheese VR for peformance
languid shard
Can't really talk about it since we are under NDA though
"find a way, you're the pro" is what I'm being told
that's why I'm gonna try a mix of bruteforcing through sheer computing power and a tiny bit of optimization
I'm supposed to handle projects like this in a timeframe of a week on some occasions
pallid compass
retop model
trim sheet
create helpers to store data on model
done in 5 hours ez
languid shard
Well I'd be happy to see your full workflow
but I can't do it because :
Don't have the time
Don't have the modelling nor toolskills
languid shard
my life :D
pallid compass
u better outsource someone to retop it
pallid compass
assuming that is ur issue, check it first
pallid compass
by the sounds of this u dont have the skills to deal with this then(no offence ofc)
that could be like a million things
languid shard
@pallid compass I do have a lot of other skills though 😉
I've been employed to developp the VR pole of our company, not to retopologise CAD models
pallid compass
then u should know off the bat u cant just bring CAD in to VR
languid shard
So yeah, maybe getting someone dedicated to do this or outsourcing could do it
Oh I know
That's why I'm working on solutions to do it
that's why Epic also makes a toolset to do it
pallid compass
if ur employing CAD people to model for vr, thats the bad way, they dont understand VR tech id say
languid shard
If they do it then it should be possible
I'm not employing CAD people to model for VR
I'm doing VR with CAD models engineers make
pallid compass
as far as i know, this big company iv spoke with alot
they go
CAD > maya > ue4
for vr
they use it for engineering and stuff
or some times
languid shard
And I do CAD > Max > ue4, so not so far
pallid compass
Solid edge > maya > ue4
languid shard
But without doubt there's a skillset I'm missing somewhere
pallid compass
is that scene been lit and PP yet?
languid shard
for now its just the default directional and skylight set to movable
no PP or light bake yet
pallid compass
oh dam rip u
languid shard
I've literally done this in an afternoon
pallid compass
better pick some titan v's up
languid shard
haven't looked into materials yet, and there should be a lot to do
I just asked for a quote to our supplier for a titan V actually 😉
and a fuckload of memory
pallid compass
be better to opto than titan v
otherwise it will only run on titan v rigs, and that can be bad
if its got to go anywhere else in future for x reason
languid shard
we want to be one of the driver companies for VR building engineering stuff in France
nah we're only doing these as internal demonstration
controlled hardware only
that's why I'm not really worried about distribution and other hardware configurations
pallid compass
fair enough then
languid shard
we use it as a model review and commercial tool
projects that go outside are restrained to 360 stereo spheres hosted on the web
or videos
the VR stuff is for big projects which engineering spans from one to multiple years 😃
anyways, gotta go, talk to yall later 😃
frank escarp
they should separate the logins...
sturdy walrus
well fornite making a success nothing we can do for now
cloud cobalt
I really could not care about online features, I just need to work
The "sign in later" takes just as much time to not login
And I loose all vault content as a result
shell jetty
@cloud cobalt using AWS to go scaling those login servers
cloud cobalt
I mean this shouldn't need scaling
For the money I spend on UE4, I shouldn't be hostage to Fortnite's success
The "one launcher" approach is pretty bad for engine users - no Linux launcher, login issues, etc
shell jetty
@cloud cobalt i think whole this login thing can be done serverless fashion
cloud cobalt
I have no idea how it could be done. I just feel like Epic isn't being serious about this
vale osprey
@languid shard the other thing I would suggest is to perhaps build your own solution. You can get much better performance from a dedicated engine than from a game engine tailored to other things
shell jetty
like in fortnite i got in xbox that "login failed you cannot play on this platform"
vale osprey
But as you are not a programmer it could be tough
ivory gorge
can't you bypass the launcher entirely by just opening the project file
cloud cobalt
Sure, but you can't update / install engine or access marketplace content
ivory gorge
yeah but how often do you really need to do that
shell jetty
i open launcher and keep it in task tray so i can use it hwen i need
the workaround when those waitning time happens
cloud cobalt
It's not that I can't live without the launcher, it's more like an annoyance
The engine is far from being free, and I don't feel like I should be secondary to free-to-play Fortnite users
ivory gorge
i see what you mean
cloud cobalt
I'd be fine with a server maintainance or stuff like that really
real bolt
Just wondering, why it takes so long for the editor to delete stuff like materials and texture
? Sometimes deleting stuff could even cause the engine to crash
vale osprey
because it needs to check dependecies
to make sure that you don't have object that are still refering to those assets
shell jetty
the depencies can be hell to fix
vale osprey
@ivory gorge I have 30+ projects, not all of them are made with the latest version of the engine and to open them correctly, you need to know version
if you take MP creators for example, they might have a magnitude more than that
shell jetty
@real bolt well if you want to delete things you have to know what depencies it installed also
vale osprey
to be fair I never had this problem with logging in, perhaps because of timezone difference but I see how it can be a problem for other people
pallid compass
if get velocity > vector length gives u speed
what if u want X and Y speed
for blend space
plush yew
Use absolute X and Y of velocity
languid shard
@vale osprey this is a bit overkill to build your own engine 😂
I'm a one man team
I have to make Archviz videos too
maintain a set of VR machines and stuff
vale osprey
@languid shard yeap, that's what I was expecting
languid shard
😬
vale osprey
but if you need to convince your boss or if it makes sense to consult with someone in the industry, I'll send you a contact of one guy
languid shard
That'd be great
This is my first job, and I've quite green related workflows as I've studied mostly game making stuff
pallid compass
how do u get absolute x and y velocity?
plush yew
@pallid compass If you split the struct pin, it'll give you the three floats
Plug X and Y into an Abs node
pallid compass
head explodes
i was just trying to blend space forwards, back, left right
i cant get anything to work
i think im doing something obvious af wrong
sturdy walrus
man they need to update the introductions to unreal engine 4 videos
pallid compass
right vector + velocity dot product does it
random holly
Does anybody know how to stop an AI enemy chasing you after you get so far away from it? Once it spots me it doesn’t stop chasing me no matter how far away I get
grim ore
The first question would be how are you telling the ai to start chasing.
grim ore
Since your using sense this might help. https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/442884/how-to-tell-when-a-pawn-is-no-longer-sensed-pawnse.html
Or you can just check every so often to see if it’s in range or sight and if not tell it to stop
gleaming shore
Is the best way to random exe is get a random integer in range then do switch on int?
lyric owl
idk what channel to use.
Is there a way to quickly collapse all the folders in World Outliner?
plush yew
@lyric owl no
and i think the world outliner needs some more features
lol
its a bit... annoying to work with
in some instances
lyric owl
apparently there is a lot of people that need to do that but can't
plush yew
the world outliner is functional
but not optimal
in my opinion
scrolling through one folder at a time is a huge waste of time
lyric owl
well got to name your assets with searching in mind then
and sorting things in folders doesn't feel like good idea now...
lethal star
hey does a linetrace check for double faces?
lethal star
the answer is yes
north nova
so apperently compiling c++ runs my cpu at 100% constant
no compiling im sitting at 95% constant
what the crap is happing
lethal star
check your proccesses?
whole sonnet
