ue4-general

[grim ore]

you have to get the widget coordinates and do a manual check

[remote mason]

ah, figuring out a lock-on system with a HUD

[grim ore]

yep theres a few things that are difficult in UMG, that would be one and non square hit boxes are another

which honestly all are the same issue lol

[bitter iris]

dosnt work at all for me right now

[remote mason]

drawing multiple targets on a HUD, had to create an array of widgets then hide them with opacity lol

[grim ore]

what does your code look like for the material?

[bitter iris]

me or lucky

[grim ore]

your radial widget

[worn cape]

got it myself

[grim ore]

well that looks good, when you change the alpha on the if it changes the amount shown right?

[bitter iris]

yeah

[grim ore]

but that material on the UMG widget doesnt work?

[bitter iris]

nope

[grim ore]

well firstly are you sure you are using the correct material

[visual belfry]

Did you happen to snag the robo sdf pack when it was free? I recall some radial progress bars in there you could look at for insight

[bitter iris]

Correctly?

[grim ore]

well there should be no way if you are outputting a circle like that using those nodes that would would get the result you showed

so I am assuming you had another material you were using before, did you swap it out correctly

[bitter iris]

I was using a static version with progress bar

[grim ore]

are you still using the progress bar?

[bitter iris]

yeah i put that using the material as the brush

[grim ore]

or are you using an image and changing the Alpha parameter on the material?

[grim ore]

You should probably be using a normal Image since the progress bar would not be correct for this now. You also need to adjust the parameter "Alpha" on the dynamic material on that image

[bitter iris]

that sucks

[grim ore]

you would do something like Getting the Dynamic Material on the Image, then Set Scalar Parameter Value on that as the target with Alpha as the Parameter Name and the new value (0-1) that you want displayed

[waxen abyss]

Does anyone know how to make a rain drops on screen effect or know of a tutorial?

[upbeat crane]

How do I use MakeLevelVisibleAfterLoad?

I don't want Level to be visible when its loaded so I Uncheck it and its fine but how do I make it visible later?

@waxen abyss simple google search yielded this result

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM-9hqWC0kM

[torpid cape]

i unplugged my usb xbox controller and plugged it back in. it still works in the editor (4.21.x), but in play mode no longer responds. it used to just work automatically. how do i nudge it to work again?

[waxen abyss]

Does anyone know how to fade into an effect when using post process volumes? so when I walk inside the post process volume it'll transition into the effect smoothly rather than a sudden change.

[sudden agate]

You need two Volumes

A post process volume blends the material instance parameters, not the material itself

You need an outer volume with your material but with a Scalar parameter that turns it off

And the inner with your desired effect turned on with the Scalar parameter

In your material you need something like lerp(PostProcessInput0, YourPP, alpha) where alpha is 0 in the outer and 1 in the inner

Dunno if you know what I mean

@waxen abyss

[waxen abyss]

trying to wrap my head around that, sounds like it's a lot of work though

[sudden agate]

Nah, it isn't.

You just need two volumes

[thorn vector]

hi anyone can help me creating minimap
i basicly followed every yt tut but none seems to be working
anyone can help?
i followed this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6qzaT4ZOh0&t=1533s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maBsZL1IjnY&t=53s
]

the other that i found basicly rendering the world again and thats not really gonna work for my game

[gilded igloo]

I have a problem, for some reason those prints dont have the same value although im basically printing the same thing. any ideas why?

[remote mason]

@gilded igloo, rounding or casting maybe..

[gilded igloo]

what do u mean?

@remote mason what do u mean?

[remote mason]

internally maybe a bug

[gilded igloo]

so what do i do about it?

[remote mason]

also check other places where you are setting that variable

[gilded igloo]

i am printing that variable right after i am setting it, even if im resetting it later that wont be printed

[remote mason]

probably better to stick with that variable instead of the return node for consistency

[gilded igloo]

what?

there is no return node

[remote mason]

like use "L Direction" instead of using the "Return Value" node

[gilded igloo]

i tried it, its the same

[remote mason]

probably good idea to submit a bug to Epic for it

[gilded igloo]

are they reading this?

[remote mason]

I dont know if this is an official Epic discord

[wary wave]

This is not; but also there are thousands of people in here,so it's unlikely it's getting read even if it were

[placid arrow]

what part of ue4 packaged projects causes a firewall prompt on windows the first time you run it?

ive built as shipping, as someone told me its to do with debug builds, that isnt the case. i'm thinking its part of the crash reporter?

(which i still have enabled)

[cloud cobalt]

@placid arrow Check in your project settings that you have telemetry disabled for end users

[placid arrow]

i do, i turned that off because its against GDPR to have it on without asking first

or rather, is interpreted as being so 😉

[cloud cobalt]

Depends on whether personal data is recovered really

[placid arrow]

that wouldnt trigger a firewall prompt though? firewall prompt is triggered by a listening port?

[cloud cobalt]

Firewall would be triggered by a connection

[placid arrow]

yeah, i find its best not to wind people up who are data paranoid to start with 😃

[cloud cobalt]

Does your game have Steam as a subsystem ?

[placid arrow]

yes

[cloud cobalt]

So that's it

Well it probably is

[placid arrow]

hmm, so if the user blocks it, steam wont work?

or maybe its the steam multiplayer component

which i dont need

[cloud cobalt]

What do you use Steam for ?

In your game ?

Achievements ?

[placid arrow]

achievements mainly yes

i was going to use stats and steam workshop too, but i dont know if i have time for that

[glacial pecan]

anyone else having trouble updating unreal engine right now?

I get a small red triangle in the launcher and it says it can't connect

[honest vale]

it probably means you can't connect

[strange mantle]

Hello fellas I'm new here. For how much VRAM usage should you go for when making games? 4 gigs?

[glacial pecan]

The entry iMac 4K 2019 has 2mb of VRAM apparently

[honest vale]

iMac

spotted the problem

[cloud cobalt]

Hopefully closer to 2GB

[wary wave]

I wouldn't bother with a Mac when using Unreal

only the newest / top end models have a GPU worth a damn

the entire previous gen was a write-off

[cloud cobalt]

The entire previous decade

[lusty carbon]

I have a pawn with character movement for a simple vehicle in my game. it's got a movement component with Max Walk Speed param and stuff. But right now it's interpolating the speed like a curve and not linear movement

Is there a way to change that?

[placid arrow]

is it worth releasing a 32 bit version of a ue4 game?

i cant imagine there are many 32 bit machines even capable of running a ue4 game with any quality at all, as they'd be limited to 3gb total including the OS and everything else running, the only time you see 32 bit now is on ancient machines, really really cheap machines, or people that have wrongly installed the wrong version of windows?

[cloud cobalt]

Not really imho

[placid arrow]

lets be honest, ue4 isnt targetted at cheap machines

ive not bothered, im not even sure if 32 bit will run, as my game takes about a gig of ram

so on a 32 bit system with the max of 3gb accessible memory, it sounds like brown trousers time to me

[cloud cobalt]

UE4 works pretty well on cheap machines, but we shipped a few thousands Win64 only units and no one ever mentioned if we could do 32 bits, so I'm doubtful it's any more than 1% of the market

[placid arrow]

steam survey might tell me this, right?

[cloud cobalt]

Yeah

[wary wave]

I wouldn't even bother supporting 32bit machines

32bit processors haven't been manufactured for a long time

[cloud cobalt]

Steam survey is all Steam users, though, not "users who buy shitty indie games"

[wary wave]

32bit is pre-XP era, essentially

[cloud cobalt]

The problem isn't the CPU

[wary wave]

no, it's the OS

a deliberately gimped version of Windows that literally has no reason to exist

[placid arrow]

lol, 0.21% if you just include win10 users

[cloud cobalt]

Windows has been steadily distributed at 32b well into Windows 8 days

[placid arrow]

+1.14% if you also add windows 7

[wary wave]

but the people running that OS will be on absolute bottom-tier hardware

so they're not playing your game anyway

[lusty carbon]

is mipmapping handeled automatically in unreal?

[wary wave]

yes

[cloud cobalt]

Yes @lusty carbon

[placid arrow]

@cloud cobalt steam survey is "people with pcs capable of running ue4 games in a way that they dont degrade to lowest possible scalability"

[cloud cobalt]

Steam survey is 90% of people who will never buy a game in their life

[placid arrow]

i use a lot of particle effects, so having it scale down to lowest scalability is ick

[frank iron]

Hi can Anyone please help me?

[placid arrow]

although, i started on this game in ue4 in late 2015... and back then, finding a pc of similar spec to mine that could even run it was a bit of a challenge, and i didnt have a massively high spec machine, just above the average ram and gpu

now its not so hard to find a machine that runs it more than capably

most machines do, for anyone thats ever installed any AAA game in the past 5 years

[wary wave]

@frank iron - just post your question

as for me, I have a question that some people might be able to answer

I'm trying to do a placement check for a physical object placed by the player

[placid arrow]

@frank iron if "anyone" could help you, you'd be able to ask on the street instead of a specialised chatroom. i'd say not anyone could help you but if your question is about unreal engine, people here can help you.

[wary wave]

I can't seem to come up with a decent solution to find if there's enough space to place the item

[placid arrow]

😉

[frank iron]

Guys I need help. In the endless runner game, after player turns the corner, the player can no longer switch lanes and teleport back to the corner.

[wary wave]

that's a problem unique to your code, I'm afraid

take it to #blueprint or #cpp, someone may be able to help there

[placid arrow]

@wary wave placement check how? to know if it exists at all in the world?

[frank iron]

@wary wave ok ty

[wary wave]

I want to see if there is space to place the object

I've just tested using a box trace with the object bounds

but that doesn't work for me because the bounds essentially clip through the floor

[placid arrow]

ah, can't you put a larger collision mesh on it, e.g. a cube, and see if it collides using hit events?

peresonally i'd divide the world into equal sized invisible squares, and know how many squares the base area of that object is, and align all objects to the grid

[wary wave]

haha, that is completely not an option

[placid arrow]

why not? 😛

[wary wave]

because that would require rewriting large parts of the game and redoing our existing levels

this is a 200+ man project

[placid arrow]

if your grid is small enough per square, the player would never know

ah

[wary wave]

plus these things don't align to a grid anyway

[placid arrow]

so if you use line trace, it clips the environment?

have you considered using some kind of IK?

[idle sail]

Do you think or know if there will be any major changes coming to the material system anytime soon? or is epic relatively happy with where it is so its kind of low on priority

[placid arrow]

@idle sail im not epic, and im not sure many people here are, but have you checked their trello?

that serves as an official roadmap of whats coming up

[wary wave]

I'm using a box trace based on bounds

which is sound in theory but the bounds clips through the floor

[placid arrow]

hmm, can you combine the box trace with IK on each of the box corners?

[idle sail]

@placid arrow got a link?

[wary wave]

IK?

[placid arrow]

so that if youre on a slope for example it will tilt it to sit nicely?

[idle sail]

got it dw

[wary wave]

I mean, it's essentially a box

[placid arrow]

inverse kinematics, like what you use to place feet on a walking skeletal mesh

[wary wave]

slope detection is another problem

at the moment I'm doing flat surfaces

also Inverse Kinematics is for animation

and totally unrelated to what I'm doing

[placid arrow]

you can use the same tricks for placement, cant you? its just maths

[wary wave]

I want to check space

[placid arrow]

wheatley <spaaaaaaaaaaaaace>

silly question

cant you just make it physics controlled, drop it from like 'waist height' and let it settle?

turning off physics say 0.5 seconds after the first hit event to stop it e.g. rolling down hills?

that way the game engine and physics code are finding an optimal realistic space for you, to place the object in

if that makes sense

im also curious what kind of objects youre placing, like, crates? pieces of buildings?

do they have any need to interlock or interact with other placed items

[wary wave]

'deployable' objects

[placid arrow]

so turrets and stuff

[wary wave]

they do not use physics or anything like that

aye, something like that

they do not exist, until after the placement check

[placid arrow]

im just suggesting use physics to let them drop from deployment to the ground, just like the player let them go

[wary wave]

that's not an option

these are already existing, in game things

[placid arrow]

that way if they dont place, e.g. not enough space, they'd realistically flop to the ground sideways, like you fumbled it

[wary wave]

I need to update the placement check

[placid arrow]

hmm

[wary wave]

and also a lot of them do not get placed on the floor necessarily

[placid arrow]

this is what we call a complex problem 😄

[wary wave]

it shouldn't be so tricky, but I'm a little stumped

[placid arrow]

i keep thinking its got something to do with that algorithm that splits up non-rectangular regions into non-overlapping rectangles, but im not sure why

or that sausage conjecture thing

[wary wave]

the box trace is the obvious approach, but because the bounds isn't reliable, the box trace isn't either D:

[placid arrow]

it also seems to me that the game levels werent designed with this in mind, that object placement was maybe added later, and better design of levels might have helped, having predefined placement spots defined by a level designer... but no chance to go back now and do that

[dim plover]

I didn't fully read, but your problem with physics is that the turrets will flop on to their side?

You can disable that, by BodyInstance.bLockX/Y/ZRotation.

[placid arrow]

@dim plover as i understand it they want to be able to reliably place them and know that theres space before theyre placed

probably for highlighting them red/green @wary wave ?

[regal mulch]

Since the Bounds stick through the floor, the trace would say "No Space"

So I get his problem

Also not 100% sure how to solve this

The Physics solution would try to solve the "sticking in the wall" issue.
Maybe that's the thing you should try, if it overlaps somewhere, try to move it away from it, if it starts overlapping on the opposite site too, there is most likely no space?

If you know the boungs, you could also adjust the spawn location based on that

[wary wave]

spawn location isn't an issue, but just the space check

I only know the bounds, because the actor hasn't actually been spawned

[regal mulch]

But you know where you want to spawn it

Or?

Roughly at least

[wary wave]

yeah, it's based on a trace out from the camera

so I have a point in the world etc

[regal mulch]

Right, what if you offset the location where you want to spawn, upwards by half the bounds?

Then you should be sure that it's not sticking in the floor

And you can perform the space check on that new location

If it still fails, you probably have no space

[wary wave]

sadly the bounds extends quite a lot into the floor depending on the actor that's being placed

[regal mulch]

So basically they are really fucking wrong?

[wary wave]

yeah

they're pretty unreliable

[regal mulch]

And I assume there is no way to access the collision bounds?

What about grabbing the CDO

[wary wave]

I mean, isn't it the same thing?

[regal mulch]

And checking if the collision primitive is overlapping

[wary wave]

though the placed actor itself doesn't actually have collision

[regal mulch]

god damn it

You gotta need something that describes the size of what you are placing

;-;

[wary wave]

I was hoping to use the bounds 😦

but in Z it's annoyingly unreliable

[regal mulch]

I'm sadly not sure how the bounds work. As far as I'm aware, you can even adjust them by hand, so there's that?

[wary wave]

I'm not sure that you can?

[regal mulch]

You should be able to, as I remember that this was a solution to some render issues, where actors where suddenly not rendering anymore

Maybe it was just the overall scale

[wary wave]

trying to get an angle where assets aren't visible, lol

but yeah, purple outline is the bounds

so it's quite extreme

the box trace is 5% of object height traced from top to 10% of object height, which I'd hoped would have been enough

[regal mulch]

https://i.imgur.com/JBiZSkM.jpg

[wary wave]

so yeah, I guess I can look into where these bounds come from :/

[regal mulch]

So much for accurate bounds

[wary wave]

oh wow

[regal mulch]

Most likely the point light blowing it up

Are you getting the actor bounds

Or the ones of the component?

[wary wave]

that's a box component

[regal mulch]

Wait, you are getting the Component bounds of a box component and they are not the same size as the component itself?

[wary wave]

the bounds for the component / actor are one and the same

[regal mulch]

the fuck

[wary wave]

but yeah, the bounds are not reliable

the actual actor is sitting directly on the planar surface that's intersecting the screen

[regal mulch]

Well I guess your only real way is a few linetraces in all directions then

And mathing your way through that

[wary wave]

that's a lot of line traces 😦

I can do it from each of the four corners, which means I can check their validity

but it could intersect with all kinds of shit

[regal mulch]

I don't see a lot of different choices, as you don't have a proper size of the item somewhere

[wary wave]

I'm gonna look into how these bounds are being generated first, I think

[regal mulch]

If you can't add a box component to the actor and simply check overlaps

Then idk

[wary wave]

an enormous amount of traces doesn't feel like a good solution 😐

[regal mulch]

The "good" solution is the bounds trace

The second good solution is an overlap check of whatever has collision on your actor

rest turns into garbage solutions

[wary wave]

haha, well bounds are fucky and nothing has collision 😄

[regal mulch]

The boxcomponent you have

Shouldn't have sizes

Instead of getting the bounds

[wary wave]

I don't have access to it directly, might be able to grab it through CDO

[regal mulch]

Yeah that's why I mentioned the CDO

UT does that for spawning players

They create a CDO of the character and check if the capsulse size is overlapping something

[plush yew]

https://youtu.be/rfgeX-nJ0gk

[potent wing]

Any of you guys have tried Procedural Nature Pack on marketplace?

Its better than the Open World Demo provided by Unreal in marketplace

[placid arrow]

so ive just sent this out on twitter

https://twitter.com/brainboxdotcc/status/1140936834358415360

Brainbox.cc (@brainboxdotcc)

Attention all beta testers and people streaming #mrboomsfireworkfactory - last update changes location of savegame. If you want to keep progress move PlayerSaveData.sav from steamapps\common\Mr Boom's Firework Factory\fwf\Saved\SaveGames to %appdata%..\Local\fwf\Saved\Sav...

Twitter

basically because ive gone from dev builds to shipping builds the location of save file has changed

now im thinking

surely there's a way that ue4 could have moved that file for me, in a cross platform way?

[cloud cobalt]

Not really

You could implement it yourself

[placid arrow]

aww, sadface. 😦

yeah, i was hoping there was some nice cross-platform solution already there, rather than hard coding in some windows specific shell stuff

[cloud cobalt]

There's no built-in tool because you don't release dev builds generally

[placid arrow]

its not something that will ever happen again, i only plan to go from dev builds to shipping builds once

[cloud cobalt]

You don't need shell stuff either tbh

[placid arrow]

at least not in this game

[cloud cobalt]

UE4 has plenty of file manipulation tools

[placid arrow]

it does? i'd have thought that ue4 would keep you well away from file manipulation, and keep you within the abstraction provided by the pak files

[cloud cobalt]

Save data isn't in pak files

[placid arrow]

true, it isnt, and apart from ini's, its about the only thing that isnt?

[cloud cobalt]

Screenshots, crash dumps, any file you generate

We have game logs here

[placid arrow]

do release builds even save crashdumps?

[cloud cobalt]

Yes

[placid arrow]

ive noticed that by default they dont save logs

[cloud cobalt]

They don't save logs, no

[placid arrow]

some time in the further future i'd love to come up with a way for ue4 to save remote logs

e.g. log to a linux syslog server or something

that way all my debug builds can log to a central server on my lan, when its me thats testing them, and i can aggregate the logs together

[calm sphinx]

Hmm, editor menus? https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/commit/0f668849f6f5f0106e659e600a2df4fbd48433e9

Looks like it makes us able to customize Blueprint and editor interface somehow

[ember notch]

How to make a cops system like gta?

[wary wave]

dude 😐

[ember notch]

What?

[wary wave]

what kind of a question is that, ffs

[ember notch]

So if he kills 2 players/npcs he gets a wanted level how do I do that?

[plush yew]

How Can I do the backface culling?

i love how snow literally builds a game from answeres

answers*

[wary wave]

*marketplace kitbashing

which is fine

but the questions are infuriating

[cloud cobalt]

Just don't answer

[boreal topaz]

i just dropped a child static mesh on a parent skeletal mesh. how can i have them align together perfectly in the same location automatically

[honest vale]

@plush yew backfaces are culled if you use a single sided material

[plush yew]

@boreal topaz what u mean

[boreal topaz]

nm, scale is off

is there an easy way to swap materials from a skeletal mesh to a static mesh

instead of doing the whole blueprint thing

[plush yew]

@honest vale oh I'm stupid, I was working on a cube instead of on a plane xD

ty very much : )

[lusty carbon]

What's the optimal FOV for VR?

default is 90. should I keep it there?

[manic pawn]

the headset decides that, no?

fov in vr isn't an artistic setting, it needs to be physically correct or you'll instantly get sick

[lusty carbon]

hmm okay

[ember notch]

@cloud cobalt Whom do you mean?

[cloud cobalt]

About what ?

[plush yew]

yo mates

why the rate of my animation doesnt change

[wary wave]

@regal mulch - so, added a new function to resize bounds that more-or-less works as needed

new fun problem: box trace does not seem to collide with stair meshes 😂

tracing against visibility, but for some reason the box can completely intersect stairs and not register a hit

[visual belfry]

the bsp ones?

[wary wave]

no, static meshes

I'm utterly baffled by this

works literally everywhere else

[regal mulch]

Does the Stair mesh have simple collision?

Maybe it's a Complex/Simple collision issue

[wary wave]

not the foggiest, though I've just found a wall that doesn't either

I think it might actually have something to do with the origin point of the trace

maybe the point is inside the mesh

and when it is, it doesn't register the mesh when tracing

[regal mulch]

That is possible

[wary wave]

this seems to be the case, testing the theory I can see other places I can recreate it

box trace, not useful right now 😐

well, back to the drawing board entirely!

[lusty carbon]

I have a VR pawn that's blocking the movement of another Pawn vehicle moving in my scene. I want it to completely ignore you as if you were a ghost and pass through you. Set the collision to ignore but it didn't work. ideas?

[wary wave]

collision channels

however, be aware that if one can't block the other, the opposite is also going to be true

[lusty carbon]

opposite like what?

and I set one of them to ignore, should do the trick no?

that didn't work

even both pawns blocking pawns doesn't fix it.

if u stand in the way of my vehicle pawn it gets disrupted

[grim ore]

what is the object type for collision for the vehicle?

[lusty carbon]

world static

[grim ore]

ok so according to what it shows above this item will block anything with world static as the object type, not pass thru it

[lusty carbon]

yeah

i changed the cehicle to world dynamic and set the pawn to ignore it

ill test

[grim ore]

the other consideration is this is only going to stop physics movements since this is physics

[lusty carbon]

what is?

[grim ore]

collisions are physics based

this is more of an issue if you are teleporting something or setting it location rather than moving it

[potent wing]

Bois, im making a horror game, and i make 2 ways to open a door, 1 by pressing E the second one is by holding left click and move mouse (like amnesia style)

What do you guys think about this?

[lusty carbon]

idk man

@grim ore

The more I tweak collision settings the more other problems i get

I just can;t get my vehicle to pass through my pawn

[grim ore]

there is a default vehicle channel, why not try using that? put your vehicle and pawn back to normal then set the vehicle to vehicle and your pawn should be pawn then set those channels appropriately to ignore.

other wise this is what custom channels are for

[wary wave]

@regal mulch - came up with this in the end:

kept the box trace, but reasoned that if I can see the opposite edge and corners as the player, then it is likely the box trace did not start intersecting geometry

still clips a bit, but this above is the worst case scenario I've managed to find

[regal mulch]

How did you workaround the bounds being shitty?

[hidden aurora]

Where did you get that material on the boxes?

[wary wave]

they're set manually in the actor that's going to be placed

that material is just a generic whitebox that's part of the project

[hidden aurora]

I really like it

[wary wave]

basically the meshes in the parent were tweaked

so at the moment only the test case works as intended

all the others need to be manually touched up too

[plush yew]

how do i make a animation play slower?xd

i feel like a dumbass

but everything i tried doesnt work

does the play rate need to be more than 1?

but if i try it,it doesnt do anything

[wary wave]

at this point I'm probably going to ditch the box check in favour of additional traces to the other corners

[grim ore]

@hidden aurora something similar here you can work with https://www.tomlooman.com/updated-mockup-material-for-unreal-4/

[flat idol]

@wary wave have you try using sweep trace with the shape (box)? i think it is supposed to give you a hit location as soon as the object collides with something. You can maybe rotate it before tracing so it should align with floor or anything a preliminary line trace would be hitting.

[hidden aurora]

Thanks mathew

[wary wave]

yeah, sweeping makes no difference - the problem is that if the start and end point are inside geometry, it never registers a hit

I'm actually just experimenting with doing the box trace from player perspective, but I suspect this will have weird issues

gonna try it first tho

lol, yeah, registers hits from behind the player as expected

[flat idol]

start and end point are inside geometry that sounds a like an invalid circumstance anyways. But maybe i should just read the entire conversation to make it clear for me :)

[wary wave]

the problem occurs for example when one corner intersects with a wall

if the top left corner of the start, and the top left corner of the end are both inside the wall, no hit is registered

[flat idol]

id' expect the sweep to take care of that, tho i think i see what you mean and it will not be able to depenetrate. You are probably on the right track with starting the trace from a bit "earlier" location so the bound would not be overlapping.

[wary wave]

if I had a pyramidal / frustrum shaped trace this would work

[flat idol]

Also i'm not sure which bounds you are using at the moment, but the static mesh itself should have a bound that you can use (min and max extremes). I'm using that for arbitrary placed pivots to center the object in front of the camera always. It works out nicely for me.

[wary wave]

as it stands, the box isn't going to work, I don't think

I was using actor bounds, which were derived from the bounds of multiple meshes

but they were funky

but fixed by messing around with the assets

[flat idol]

Well if you have multiple meshes at once, you can perhaps calculate this by youself, by getting the static mesh bounds individually then adding up the boxes. Addition should give you the total sum of area of all mesh involved. It's implemented as such as i remember.

[wary wave]

the bounds is no longer an issue

the problem is now in the tracing

I'm beginning to think the whole placement system is going to need to be rewritten, because the edges cases on this tracing are too problematic

[atomic forge]

Should I get Ue4 4.22.2 or stick with Ue4 4.21.2?

[cloud cobalt]

You should always get the latest minor

[atomic forge]

Ok Thanks, is Ue4 4.22.2 stable?

[wary wave]

as stable as it's gonna be

[flat idol]

Well i'd just try the same and start the trace from behind the camera so it will never colllide with things in front. On that note, i have never seen an implementation that always work nicely. There is always a case when the placement looks weird - even in high quality games too :)

[wary wave]

if you start the trace from the camera position, it collides with things behind the player

[atomic forge]

Alright thanks!

[wary wave]

box tracing appears to be axis aligned

which helps even less

[little warren]

Hi Guys is there a FMath function like clamp, but instead of clamping the values it maps them within a specific range?
With normal clamp if min is 500 and max is 1000, then 0 becomes 500
but 600 is still 600
the one im looking for is you give it 2 ranges, min1 and max1 and another min2 and max2, and it maps the value from min1 and max1 to min2 and max2
sorry if my explanation is horrible lol

[wary wave]

....map

[thorn topaz]

@little warren FMath::GetMappedRangeValueClamped() FMath::GetMappedRangeValueUnclamped()

[wary wave]

it is literally called 'Map'

hehe

[little warren]

oh damn lol

thanks hehe 😄

[fringe pivot]

What could cause the sculpt tool to not subtract from the landscape?
It generates elevation just fine but when I press shift it doesn't create depressions.

[wary wave]

already being at maximum depression, for one

[fringe pivot]

how do you set that?

[visual belfry]

you just have to scale landscape Z

[fringe pivot]

it's weird, i always used flat landscapes and never had issues lowering the terrain

[visual belfry]

did you import from a heightmap "centered" at 0 rather than midway?

[fringe pivot]

mmm I don't remember, just deleted it and create a flat landscape, now I'm able to lower the terrain again

[visual belfry]

😛

[plush yew]

what annoys me is, if you minimize a folder, and you click one object i nthat folder, the whole folder maximizes

how to disable this?

[thorn topaz]

oh snap, it's @visual belfry

[visual belfry]

/o\

[thorn topaz]

I'm attempting to swap between input components but when I push the new one to the stack, I ensure it's at index 0 but the one at index 1 is still handling the input. Do you have to something other than push the input component to use it?

[visual belfry]

top of the stack gets priority

but there's also a fixed priority for some elements (pawn, player controller, and level blueprint)

[thorn topaz]

I'm creating both the components in the player controller

    if (InputComponent)
    {
        InputComponent->Priority = 0;
    }

    switch (NewInputMode)
    {
    case EInputType::Game:
        SetInputMode(Game);
        InputComponent = GameInput;
        break;
    case EInputType::UI:
        SetInputMode(UI);
        InputComponent = UIInput;
        break;
    }

    InputComponent->Priority = -10;
    PushInputComponent(InputComponent);

[visual belfry]

let me double check, but I think the InputComponent native to the player controller is automatically added and doesn't respect normal stack order even if you push

[thorn topaz]

I've overridden the native InputComponent

Which line?

[visual belfry]

whoops disregard that last link, I was looking at pawn... but https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/blob/7d9919ac7bfd80b7483012eab342cb427d60e8c9/Engine/Source/Runtime/Engine/Private/PlayerController.cpp#L2437 shows where InputComponent normally gets added

[thorn topaz]

right but I'm overriding that with my custom ones

[visual belfry]

gotcha, looking through player input I see nothing that'd cause an issue with that then 🤔 I was thinking it had protection against having the same input component on the final stack more than once but it really doesn't

[fringe pivot]

does anyone know about a heightmaps generation tool that can make realistic terrains without requiring you to spend a week trying to figure how it works?

[thorn topaz]

I think I found the issue 😄

[visual belfry]

but it is expected behavior that 1 gets processed before 0

[thorn topaz]

Are you sure? I believe it's the other way around

[frank iron]

Hi how would I implement a timer/progress bar of 10s when player picks up an item?

[thorn topaz]

    if (InInputComponent)
    {
        bool bPushed = false;
        CurrentInputStack.RemoveSingle(InInputComponent);
        for (int32 Index = CurrentInputStack.Num() - 1; Index >= 0; --Index)
        {
            UInputComponent* IC = CurrentInputStack[Index].Get();
            if (IC == nullptr)
            {
                CurrentInputStack.RemoveAt(Index);
            }
            else if (IC->Priority <= InInputComponent->Priority)
            {
                CurrentInputStack.Insert(InInputComponent, Index + 1);
                bPushed = true;
                break;
            }
        }
        if (!bPushed)
        {
            CurrentInputStack.Insert(InInputComponent, 0);
        }
    }

That's the PushInputComponent code

[visual belfry]

right but it processes from the top (end) of the stack

[thorn topaz]

ah yea

[visual belfry]

    int32 StackIndex = InputComponentStack.Num()-1;

    // Walk the stack, top to bottom
    for ( ; StackIndex >= 0; --StackIndex)
    {
``` from PlayerInput.cpp l1083

but if you take out that -10 priority setting I see no reason why it wouldn't work 🤔

[thorn topaz]

turns out, it was something else stupid lol

[quaint bone]

Is there a way to find out the date that I created my Unreal/Epic Games Account? (Sorry, if this doesn't seem relevant - didn't know where else to talk about this)

[visual belfry]

I think you're getting kind of lucky there tbh @thorn topaz , because the only thing that takes the Priority member into account is PushInputComponent, so when you reset the old component to 0 it doesn't reorder the stack

[thorn topaz]

Yea, I ended up just removing the old one

but you can't use PopInputComponent because that unbinds everything

[proven hamlet]

@ebon saffron I have followed your tutorial on how to set up a dedicated server. Thanks for that!!! huge thanks.. but i am having trouble understanding what the server default map does exactly. i can connect to the server but its just a blank map not my main menu map in my game ? im kinda stumped on what to do from here on out i have followed the guide

https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Dedicated_Server_Guide_(Windows_%26_Linux)#2._Dedicated_Server_from_a_blueprint_only_project

[grim ore]

@frank iron what part of that is the problem? the ui part, the ticking down of the ui part? the command to start a timer for keeping track of ticking? picking up the item? the entire thing?

[frank iron]

@grim ore The ticking down of UI part

[grim ore]

You can start a timer that runs every X amount of time, 0.2 or 0.5 or something like that, then on the event fire it adds that delay value to a variable, updates the progress bar percent with the percent gone between that variable and the amount of time you want (10 seconds), and then starts the timer again. If you want it to be a smoother transition you can update it more frequently.

other alternatives are to have a timeline fire off (hard in UMG itself, fine in other actors that can tell the UMG to update) and then make it go down smoothly over 10 seconds

you can also use the tick in the widget to count down instead of a timer if you need it super duper smoother (but not really needed)

if you need super duper accurate you can always track the start time of this event and the current time and then do your math based on that instead of relying on a variable tick or event timer

[frank iron]

i see

however im still lost lol

can i show you what ive done and why it isnt working?

[grim ore]

here is another way of doing it https://youtu.be/cNxXqO_hsD4

you can post what you have in here someone might be able to help

@proven hamlet when the server is running, the server default map is the map that is loaded up when the server is running. this is the map that people will be sharing when they connect to it

[proven hamlet]

@grim ore im still confused on how someone is to go from the server default map to a game map that is in session

[grim ore]

the server default map is what the server you are connecting to is showing, it should probably be the game map

your players default map can be whatever you want, it could be a login screen or a main menu not online for example

so for example server 1 might have map 1 loaded, server 2 might have map 2 loaded

if for example all of your players are connected to server 1 and its on map 1 and you want to go to map 2 you would use a server travel command and move everyone over to that new map that is connected currently

[proven hamlet]

for some reason the screen goes black if i have it setup to go from my main menu

[grim ore]

the server or the client?

[proven hamlet]

server

[grim ore]

the server should not be on the main menu unless for some reason it needs to be?

your server should be on game map, your client should be on the main menu map

then your client can connect to the server and load the game map

[proven hamlet]

okay thanks matt !!! your youtube channel is kickass btw thanks again. im sure i'll be back on here asking for questions

[sacred smelt]

While working on script, I noticed that I CAN'T spawn new objects / actors / components in constructor?

[grim ore]

this might help a bit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abmzWUWxy1U&list=PLZlv_N0_O1gYqSlbGQVKsRg6fpxWndZqZ it's about setting up a menu/host/lobby/settings system

@sacred smelt correct but you can call an event/function that is in your main Event Graph and have it do it

[visual belfry]

offhand question, but how do sessions work with dedicated servers 🤔 no player controller to host... so do you need to use C++ or are they just not used in that context

[grim ore]

7 days of not updating ue4 master branch.... this is gonna take a while lol

[frank iron]

@grim ore thanks for your help, i managed to sort out the timer. But i have one problem, The timer countdown on the UI starts from 8 even though i set the value to 10

[grim ore]

how are you updating that countdown #?

[frank iron]

event tick

[grim ore]

that's weird it would be 8 are you sure you are starting at 10? try changing your starting # to something like 30 and see if it says 8 still

[sacred smelt]

@grim ore so why this LightSwitchPushButton.cpp in constructor has create objects, etc.? 🤔

https://unrealcpp.com/light-switch-push-button/

[grim ore]

the constructor in a C++ class is not the same as the construction script in BP

[fringe pivot]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Landscape/TechnicalGuide/index.html
Does anyone know what's the equivalent size in Km2 for the 3rd on the list, the 2017x2017 one?

or how do you even calculate it?

[sacred smelt]

Where can I find info in docs about it @grim ore? Im confused

[grim ore]

about what?

[sacred smelt]

What can I put t beginPlay and constructor (in cpp)

[grim ore]

that one I dont know, #cpp might have more info since its C++ related.

the constructor should be standard C++ tho

I thought you were talking about BP earlier when asking about constructor which is why I said you can't do it

I did notice in that code you pasted tho that they are using CreateDefaultSubobject and not really creating/spawning in new items separate from this object

[lilac wedge]

is there any good solution for letting my friends play my game and being able to send them updates ??

like testflight for pc

[grim ore]

it would depend on your project. you can just package and zip up the project and share it on onedrive or google drive. You can upload it to something like gamejolt/itch.io and share it there. If you can package it to HTML you could even put it up on something like gamejolt/itch.io and they can play it in the browser. For packaging and just sharing updates there is nothing out of the box they would have to get the entire project each time.

oof no wonder it took so long, they branched off a 4.23 branch last week

[frank iron]

https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/ds3xgk1q/

My game just crashes everytime i pick up item now

says infinite loop

[grim ore]

you can't delay in a loop

[frank iron]

but then it finishes the loop so quickly that it wont show on UI?

[grim ore]

you can look into using a timeline

or a timer that updates every second

[frosty bloom]

Can you even start a timer after you destroy an actor? Seems illogical

@frank iron Set Timer by Event, Time value = 1.0 and Looping = True, create custom event and insert logic

[grim ore]

lol I didn't even notice the destroy actor there in the middle, was just looking at the infinite loop

[frosty bloom]

Yeah the loop was weird.. Was just curious how he even got the infinite loop error.. Shouldn't get that far by the looks of it

[grim ore]

it will, destroy actor is not immediate

its more like "hey destroy this when you can"

[abstract relic]

"polite programming"

[grim ore]

Compiling master branch for an hour only to realize the new stuff I wanted to play with was in another branch 😭

[orchid marsh]

@grim ore lol - I have totally done that myself 😉

[grim ore]

If this machine didn't take 2 hours to compile I wouldn't be annoyed

but hey I guess more research while I wait 😃

[frank iron]

@frosty bloom sorry to keep asking but i tried what you did and it only countdowns once, to 9 and then stops. https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/dnoq33d3/

[grim ore]

nothing really happens there

nothing is connected to your set timer to start it, and nothing is connected to the event to do anything when it fires off

put all your code that should happen when the timer ticks in the TimerCountdown event, when it fires have it do whatever you want each second

then use the set timer by function name and have it run I am assuming after you Add to Viewport

your code that does the time value check and > 0 is true or false, the true can do your subtract and print and whatever

then it should call the timer again by function name for 1 second since you want it to be called again in 1 second since it's not over yet

the false can be for when it's 0 or less, and then you are done no need to call it again

[frosty bloom]

Yeah. When the branch returns false you can simply clear the timer and destroy actor if that was something you wanted to do

[grim ore]

this is the basic idea https://i.imgur.com/CiPes9J.png its not correct 100% since you are starting at whatever and immediately subtracting 1 so you never really start at 10

but if all you are doing is updating a progress bar it seems a bit overkill when a timer could do it

[heavy ether]

sadly, my unreal project has been put on hold, so i won't be doing any work with the engine professionally for at least 4-6 weeks probably. 😐 everyone's gotta put their effort into the ugh Unity version. 😐

[grim ore]

work is work tho so nothing wrong with that 😃

[heavy ether]

i'm actually going to be spending at least several days on a backend service, so at least i don't have to touch the dirty stuff. 😄

[grim ore]

see, bright side to every rainy day

[storm snow]

is answerhub site down? i cannot get there 🤔

oh got it open now, i dont know if my internet is just slow now for some reason.

[tawdry hedge]

Hey, did anyone else encounter an issue before that caused the deferred decals to appear on NPCs

I just set some up in my example level and as they are walking over the decals, it appears on their feet ://

[loud knoll]

anyone have news on 4.23 release date?

[grim ore]

4.23 just branched off from master last week so assume another week or two before a preview. then 1-8 previews each about a week long, then a few weeks till release. so 2ish months?

[hushed delta]

Hi guys, it is just me or the launcher is extremely slow and laggy after the last update?

[dense pumice]

hey does anyone use vscode with unreal?

[lime girder]

Can I just say, Oculus Quest irs pretty fun to play with in Unreal

Just wish there was a good mirroring tool

[loud knoll]

@grim ore thanks

[grim ore]

look into https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ora7OrQHwEs scrcpy and adb @lime girder

[lime girder]

Ooooo

[grim ore]

https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy is the direct link, I also use another program in chrome to do it lol, Vysor https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vysor/gidgenkbbabolejbgbpnhbimgjbffefm?hl=en-US but I havent tested it in the Quest yet just my normal phone

[lime girder]

@onyx zinc Do youknow if I can use adb wirelessly to Launch from engine?

[grim ore]

in theory you should be able to, once you establish the connection with adb to your device over tcp/ip I think it holds it open

I havent tried directly from the editor yet I just manually push them

[lime girder]

Yeah? I'm a bit of a newbie and only know how to launch from the editor. if you've got an idea of what I can google, let me know. manually push wirelessly right?

[grim ore]

adb install basically

[lime girder]

oh durp

Ok I'll try that!

[grim ore]

I'll see about the wireless launch from editor later today probably lol

[lime girder]

Let me know! Would be fun to

[grim ore]

I think once you set up adb over tcp and connect it will just "work" but who knows 😃

[lime girder]

I could have sworn i tried this on Sunday and I couldn get device manager to see it

I'm deep in another project at the moment but i wanna retry it. may have missed a step...

I was following Oculus' recommendation of setting the port to 5555

hmm

[grim ore]

it;s all good, I need to document it for a new series anyways so its on my list

[lime girder]

cool! Send me a link, ill watch what you got if you have any other up 😃

[grim ore]

yep 5555 is correct, theres a few steps on the scrcpy repo

[plush yew]

so... about nDisplay

I'm trying to set up a portrait monitor, but if I increase the horizontal resolution to 1920 it just crashes on me

now that I think about it, anything over 1080 crashes

[grim ore]

is over 1080 valid for that monitor in that direction?

and bad engine for crashing!

[plush yew]

yeah, it's basically two FHD monitors with one being in portrait mode

[grim ore]

is that the setup then for just that one monitor or is it trying to set up the size for both?

and that's an interesting issue regarding differing modes

[plush yew]

I'm not sure what you mean

uh... okay...? I accidentaly cliked "Run" in the nDisplay launcher twice

and it's working?

[grim ore]

well if you have a 1920x1080 monitor and a 1080x1920 monitor are you trying to set the size as one number or are you trying to set that 2nd monitor to 1920x1080 even tho it's not

[plush yew]

oh, I see what you mean

[grim ore]

I havent used nDisplay sooo... just shooting out random at random

[plush yew]

afaik, it's two instances of UE with SetX/SetY/ResX/ResY

[window] id=wnd_1_up viewports=vp_1_up fullscreen=false WinX=0 WinY=0    ResX=1920 ResY=1080 
[window] id=wnd_2_up viewports=vp_2_up fullscreen=false WinX=-1080 WinY=0    ResX=1080 ResY=1920

[grim ore]

gotcha, one for each display synced up basically. so it sounds like your trying to set the 2nd monitor to the wrong size?

no that looks good, the location is weird tho for the 2nd one

[plush yew]

the 2nd one is at -1080 in the "desktop space"

[grim ore]

oh wait it's to the left of the main one isnt it?

[plush yew]

yeah

[grim ore]

ok yeah that makes sense

[plush yew]

forgot to mention 😄

yeah, 'cause 0 is 0 in the primary monitor space

however there's still viewports

`# Viewport is a rectangle area of game window where rendered frame is

mapped. Usually the viewport starts at 0:0 and has the same size as

its parent window but in some cases these settings may differ.

`

maybe the viewport stops at 1080, so that's pretty much that

[proper crane]

Alright... I've got my Physics Asset, my Animation Asset, my Skeletal Mesh, and my Pawn Blueprint with collision and all pieces with a Collision tab set to ragdoll. I'm not sure why this object has no collision, and seems to be static?

[frank iron]

@grim ore THANK YOU!!! so much! Finally it works hahaha 😃 😉

[plush yew]

@grim ore well I'm nothing if not resourceful

I fixed it by setting the second screen to landscape and just rotating the camera 😄

[ancient lotus]

any idea why im getting this when i add a widget to my viewport on beginplay for the character?
Blueprint Runtime Error: "Accessed None trying to read property CallFunc_Create_ReturnValue". Blueprint: BP_Character Function: Execute Ubergraph BP Character Graph: EventGraph Node: Add to Viewport
https://gyazo.com/308bdbea64da1d727a3ea9927a4dcf76

[plush yew]

you have to plug your player controller in the Owning Player pin @ancient lotus

[ancient lotus]

didnt change anything, (this is on the character's BP). it works just fine as im only using it to display stats for testing, but when i press ESC to stop the game in the editor that error comes up

[plush yew]

you shouldn't be adding Widgets on Pawns

you should do it on the Player Controller

if you don't have a Player Controller, just create one and add it there

[proper crane]

"For skeletal mesh component, simulating requires a physics asset setup and assigned on the SkeletalMesh asset" it's already set up

[ancient lotus]

thank you

[warm timber]

is there a global wind value I can adjust somewhere or it's just the directional wind component?

[plush yew]

AFAIK, there's just the directional wind component

@warm timber

[grim ore]

@plush yew lol good to know that fixed it

[split wedge]

Hello so when I launch my game in standalone editor me and my fellow actors fall through the map and then the map loads 7 seconds later, I'm using world composition. How would I fix this so that level is loaded before everything?

Dang lol cause I'm using blueprints haha

Sweet thanks I'll give it a go tonight

[storm venture]

how would you guys go about storing items in a game where there are plenty of different items, (weapons, consumables, equipment, etc), but some of them can be customized?

networked

my current idea is to use a generic Struct_Item that holds all the information:
• Generic Item Data (name, weight, etc.)
• Weapon Data (blank if it's not a weapon)
• Consumable Data (blank of it's not a consumable)
• etc.
• Usage_Class (reference to a blueprint with a Item_Usage interface for items with special usages)

[harsh pike]

Has anyone used their VR headset as the camera when recording into sequencer? I am having trouble getting it to record any data

[storm venture]

so would this inventory be a reference to the blueprints? i couldnt use class-references because i need customizable items, and wouldnt references to a spawned item eventually bog the game down?

and a data table uses structs i believe, so perhaps my original idea?

oh thats right, data tables are static

now what if some items have unique functionality, where should i write and store this functionality?

that will eventually be a very big struct haha

oh my

interesting, so there is some Blueprint that handles all of that info? So if you were to spawn any item, you would use the same Blueprint and load that data row into it?

[pure owl]

What does the -noclient option do fo RunUAT? Is there a RunUAT reference or documentation?

[storm venture]

ah i see, not a problem

oh wow

right, that makes sense

i need the player to customize some items though, so would the item reference the "base" version in the data table and then have maybe a small struct of customizable/dynamic data attached after?

[grim ore]

@lime girder just tested scrcpy plugged in, worked great for mirroring. got it set up wirelessly with the adb commands on the git page, worked great. got it running thru UE4 with the normal launch options wirelessly as well so 😃

[night stirrup]

hey guys,
does anybody here had problem with data tables not loading exclusively on package?
I already added the path of this data table to "Additional asset directories to cook" but nothing changed. Also tryed full rebuild flag

[storm venture]

interesting, im going to start digging into coding now and try it out, thanks!

ive been hoping unreal can handle most of it out of the box, it seems that a custom version of PlayerState can send and receive whatever i throw into it for networking

and i believe GameState holds an array of every PlayerState of all connected players, i hope, haha

same, its probably the hardest part in my opinion 😄

[grim ore]

are you sure it's loading the whole game into memory or is it an issue of using hard references for your project?

[storm venture]

what are hard references? just out of curiosity

[grim ore]

https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Programming/Assets/ReferencingAssets/index.html and theres a good video on it if I can find it

basically object A (player) references object b which reference C which blah blah now your entire game is loaded

because when it loads one thing it has to load the rest if its reference hard, if its soft it loads it when it needs it

[storm venture]

this might be a dumb question, but if you try casting Object A as Object B but it's not, is Object B stuff still loaded?

[azure shore]

you know what I just realised

why have I been building maps

with box meshes

[nimble anvil]

lol

[azure shore]

geometry literally right there - never touched it

whats wrong with me

oh god Im an idiot

[grim ore]

that's one of the issue, casting does this

theres a stupid video I just watched on it and of course I cant find it

grrr

https://youtu.be/0SwlwgV-cz8?list=PLZlv_N0_O1gbmtS-hQFAVEF_zBOJPCaaX&t=236

at the correct time stamp

also... if you disable steam VR for the default VR template you lose functionality for an oculus rift.... lol

you have to have steam vr plugin enabled or it breaks rift support

[azure shore]

wait how do I edit collision on geometry

[grim ore]

you can't until it's a mesh as far as I remember

[azure shore]

oh ok

it seems to be block all by default

[bitter iris]

If I use vertex paint on a landscape instead of doing layers would that be cheaper? just a random thought but probs stupid

[frank iron]

How hard is it to publish a game to android play store?

[bitter iris]

ahh

its super laggy tryna vertex a splined road

lol

[proper crane]

"Malixulo "TopHat Cat"Today at 8:01 PM
So, I clicked the x on my components tab in my pawn blueprint, and now I can't change the hierarchy
How do I open the components overlay? Or any of them for that matter"

[grim ore]

@frank iron it's a one time cost then you publish it, no real review process just lots of questions and packaging it correctly

[frank iron]

@grim ore oh cool that's alright

[bitter iris]

@plush yew how would i add more than 1 vertex texture?

[grim ore]

all of the windows in the editors are under Window at the top @proper crane

[normal burrow]

@proper crane

[proper crane]

And uh, is it possible to get more than one collision object to be used by a Skeletal Mesh?

I've been trying to set it up for a while, can only get the root object to be collision

[normal burrow]

physics assets allen?

[proper crane]

I have a physics asset, it doesn't do much for collision

I'm not sure if there's an extra step after connecting it to Your skeletal mesh, but I'd assume they'd mention if there was

[bitter iris]

np

[proper crane]

Essentially, while the collisions are parented to these objects, they get sent flying as soon as the object is tested

One can only imagine what essay Highlander is typing

[sharp badger]

Haha I keep rewording my question trying to make it clear

[normal burrow]

you may want to look into collision in general allen. learn of collision profiles and stuff to control collisions

you can make primitives child of bones though if that is what your asking?

[proper crane]

I am essentially trying to connect collisions to bones, yes

[normal burrow]

physics assets are generally used for that

[proper crane]

Yes

I'm just not sure how it would help since my collision objects get sent flying

And pop out of the mesh

[normal burrow]

find a good tutorial on physics assets, you can tell them not to collide with eachother

and then learn of collision profiles

to further control the hull of the character collisions with its physics asset

[proper crane]

I spent an hour trying to figure out why my blueprint object was coming out rotated, and realised it was rotated in the level and not the blueprint

But that still didn't explain how when there was no collision object connected, it would show up normal, even though it should've been tilted

I did just connect the collision to the bone, but did not work

Worse, I'm gonna have to redo all the collision

Alright... I think I see the issue here

[proper crane]

Am I able to connect my Construction script to multiple things? I tried to snap collision pieces to bones, and it only lets me connect the Construction script to one thing, and I need it to connect to more bones

Plus I'm doing what the guy said in the tutorial, and the collision still isn't affecting the mesh

[grim ore]

you should be able to run pretty much anything off a construction script, what does yours look like that is causing the issue?

[proper crane]

Connect one, disconnects the other

And I won't even get into that the collision object goes straight through the floor, so it doesn't even work anyway

[lime gull]

What does
"Logslate: Window 'output log' being destroyed" mean? Im getting that when packaging

[proper crane]

@grim ore I'm assuming this is what You meant by "Look Like"?

[sturdy prairie]

Hey guys. Anyone know how to get my C++ files to appear in the content window? I've close/restarted, Cleaned/Rebuilt the solution in Visual Studio, and made sure UClass() is in place, but I can't see my files in the editor.

[grim ore]

@proper crane yes... so uh... do you know how blueprints and the flow works?

@sturdy prairie do you have show C++ enabled in the content browser?

[proper crane]

Quite... Little

It's comprehensive enough that I retain what I learn

[sturdy prairie]

I did, @grim ore. Creating a NEW C++ class apparently made them both hot reload, but I'm unsure why it resisted everything else I tried. O_o

[grim ore]

you should probably watch / read some documentation about blueprints before trying anything complicated. Blueprints Execution Wires flow left to right thru the white arrows. you connect them one to the other in order and they execute in order.

[sturdy prairie]

I would have thought rebuilding the VS solution would have synced them up.

[grim ore]

@sturdy prairie super weird, it should have yep

[sturdy prairie]

Ah well. Hopefully it's a one-time issue. 😄

[proper crane]

I actually did try doing that, but it still only made one do the thing

[grim ore]

we can't really guess what went wrong since we don't know how your project is set up but calling that node twice should be no issue

[proper crane]

This is what I tried

And, I have not really edited the project

[grim ore]

so you want 2 different items to attach to the same bone?

[proper crane]

Uh... Let me check

Goddamn it, settings keep changing on me before I save, that 8 was meant to be a 9

It's really easy to miss

I still have the issue where even though the collision sticks to it fine, it still doesn't keep the mesh from falling through the floor

[grim ore]

is this on a character or another type of Actor?

[proper crane]

Pawn

I was told to use pawn

[violet obsidian]

Any of you have experience with Niagara and ray tracing, I'm having a issue where my texture spite billboards show instead of my actual particle effect .

[grim ore]

that's why I was asking, you can't really use extra collision on a character so was trying to eliminate that

[proper crane]

The guy in the tutorial got it to work

And that confuses me on how to get that much collision to work if I can't use custom shapes

I'm assuming that even if I were to make a collider out of a static mesh, it would be unable to animate if it were even possible to apply to a skeletal mesh

It just brings things into question like how a massive creature with multiple limbs can be captured in one of four available shapes

[grim ore]

that's a good question. I was watching the sea of thieves performance video from UnrealFest and their kraken monster uses multiple cylinders for the arms

[proper crane]

Not to mention a game like Shadow of The Colosses (whatever, I don't know how to spell Colosess but I can spell Anthropomorphize)

I just mean, if an engine that old could do it, but Unreal can't, that seems like a pretty big limitation...

Like, I've seen people give out tutorials for making custom collisions, but every one of those tutorials is for Static Meshes, so I'm assuming they can't be animated or used in a Skeletal Mesh

I think even Blender and Unity can be rigged to allow custom collision in their game engine

Too bad Unity is the most frustrating program of 2018

Make a script, test it, it works. do literally anything; script broken

[grim ore]

have you seen this video? https://youtu.be/SEH4f0HrCDM

[proper crane]

It is the most agonizingly long video, I just couldn't finish

And it still draws the question of whether I can animate the mesh

[grim ore]

well if you look at the default third person character in the template and it's physics asset it's animatable and it has custom collision. You can drop the character in the world and it ragdolls based on collision

[proper crane]

That's a quest I have to try later

Make things that were never meant to be ragdolled do the flop

Plus, to be fair, I wasn't exactly bound to watch a video that already had the collision premade

Because than I'll assume there's some extra step I'm missing

[grim ore]

well i copied the default mannequin and replaced it's unique physics asset with some generic capsule for the entire thing and it worked as expected

[proper crane]

Please tell me there's a written version of this. This mans voice is barely understandable with the reverb

[grim ore]

well no reason for it I dont think since you can do it all in the engine. Have you look at the physics assets?

[proper crane]

I have it attached, and the bones are there, all I really cared to look for

I kind of avoided that for when I do animation with it

There was a collision piece that I'm not sure what it does

Tried the physics with and without it, didn't really change anything

I could've missed a few things, I've been on PC for 12 hours trying to get one objects collision to work right

And that's only today

[grim ore]

so what is the goal here, something must be missing in figuring this out

[proper crane]

Goal? I wanted to try physics animation, so I've been trying to rig the blueprint

[grim ore]

so all animation in the engine, nothing pre baked?

[proper crane]

I'm not exactly one for keyframes

And I didn't really see a point in importing pre baked animation since the object will need to be able to stand up in order to actually see it

[grim ore]

so what does the physics asset look like on this object?

[proper crane]

When I open the window, it's the object, with adjustable bones

Pretty much Skeleton window but with a different skybox and overlay

[grim ore]

ok so it has no collision set up on the skeletal mesh then?

[proper crane]

Only collision I have is what I have on the blueprint version

I did manage to break a capsule to shape it to fit the object in some weird way, but that had to be reset when the mesh had to be changed around

[grim ore]

I think the first issue here is you are trying to add blueprint collision instead of having your actual mesh collision set up properly

[proper crane]

Tutorials I was told to use said blueprint

[grim ore]

I have no idea what tutorials you watched or what you were told, I am just going based off what is in the engine right now in the template.

[proper crane]

I just assumed the tutorials wouldn't matter

https://you tu.be/0rFn_7oHRBk

I broke it so that there wouldn't be a big thing gapping chat, I'm polite enough to do that

[grim ore]

you can use the <LINK HERE> to not use the auto preview

[proper crane]

Discord truly is evolving

[grim ore]

so the issue with that tutorial is the default mannequin has proper collision already set up on it using a physics asset

you are just adding more collision to do stuff with

plus this is a character so it's not using the skeletal mesh collision to move around/stay upright

[proper crane]

What was I supposed to use?

The character I'm trying to use is AI, btw, not a player

[grim ore]

I don't know what you are trying to do

[spare sun]

h

m

[proper crane]

I've already stated

[spare sun]

report

doesnt work

[proper crane]

You probably just don't understand how anything I did here was supposed to do it, in which case, I don't either

[spare sun]

or did you mean the actual link between <>

[grim ore]

yes the actual link is between <>

[spare sun]

ah ok

[proper crane]

I guess I wanted to do a sort of Landfall esque animated character, so I can't really work with locked axis or a cylinder for collision

I'll try to look for a version of "Custom Skeletal Mesh Collision" where the guy speaking can actually speak English at a volume that doesn't make me have to put the speakers on full blast

And I'm sure we can both agree that 11 minutes is unnecessary, there is probably about 5 minutes that can be cut out of this video

[grim ore]

it sounds like you might want to look into IKinema

[proper crane]

If it's a program, I can't really afford to try things that I don't know if they'll help

It's like, I know that Adobe is much easier, but I'm not paying $1000 for something I can still do without

[grim ore]

man I never played with the PHAT editor before this is fun

[proper crane]

I mean, it makes my life more hellish, but it isn't 100% necessary

It might be worth making a written version of this Custom Collision tutorial

This mans English is... His voice is just horrible

And he's really going at it with the filler video

[sonic pagoda]

whats cheaper/better performance : setting a reference to an actor and accessing that reference everytime you need a variable from it, impure casting, or pure casting... and a 2nd question, if setting a reference is cheaper, why then do anim blueprints complain when I update their variables from outside of their instance (like from a character - telling the anim instance to update a bool, instead of having the anim instance check if that bool has changed via event update [anim bp's event tick function])

[proper crane]

Pretty sure BPs are just generally slower

[grim ore]

lol his poor head https://media.giphy.com/media/f5Rtv9FqqURi4kJ8ay/giphy.gif

[sonic pagoda]

@proper crane

nativized is not that much slower

[proper crane]

Is there any simple explanation for that custom collision on skeletal mesh thing?

And by simple, I mean something that doesn't have 5 minutes or more of video that doesn't matter

[grim ore]

probably not

the docs for the Physics Asset editor are here https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Physics/PhysicsAssetEditor/index.html but it's more than a 5 minute read

[proper crane]

I will read it if I'm told that it will actually help with with this collision thing

More than 5 minutes is fine, as long as everything in there is important

[grim ore]

I have no idea if it will or not, I am still not clear on your goal

I mean if you want custom collision on a skeletal mesh you can use the Physics Asset Editor to create that collision, it's what it does

you can either make it using default collision shapes or import a shape from another existing mesh

after that it's setting up any constraints to make it behave correctly

[proper crane]

I'm guessing that You need multiple shapes to animate the collision

[grim ore]

the shapes attach to the bones and sockets so they move with the bones and sockets

[proper crane]

Yeah, this here is accurate enough to work with

[grim ore]

you can open up the default third person character template and look at it, it's all there

[proper crane]

You could tell me that that video You linked gives 100% accuracy if done correctly, and I would not watch it. I can't understand a man who barely pronounces his words right with half the audio being reverb

[grim ore]

I dunno I figured it out and learned something. Never knew you could use an existing mesh for a collision type in the phat

[proper crane]

I don't know how You understood him, honestly

Someone should probably make an article or something on how to do it, because that video is agony to decipher

[grim ore]

well it's on my list at this point but something as complicated as this editor is going to be quite long

ooh you can auto generate collisions based on the bones using convex collision

[proper crane]

Alright, so Physics assets are definitely a valid option, but this doesn't seem to explain how to use it

[grim ore]

i bet the performance is hoooorible lol

[proper crane]

Like, it doesn't really go into the collisions

[grim ore]

every part of the body has a collision primitive that controls collision. the easiest way to learn it is open up the default third person mannequin physics asset and hit simulate at the top right

it should fall down

then you can stop simulation and look at how it is set up. You have collision primitives then constraints controlling a parent/child relationship and how they are constrained

you can for example lock a constraint so that joint never moves or limit its movement

[proper crane]

My main concern right now is making a collision item and getting it to keep this thing from falling into the abyss, cause that seems like the one thing not covered here

Cause in my extremely limited experience, there's always a starting step that isn't covered

[grim ore]

you could right click the root in the skeleton tree, tell it tto add shape -> capsule or box -> resize it around the item, and then you now have collision around the item

[proper crane]

And will it work if I were to simulate?

Like. I get that there's more important things to do, but I don't want to have to worry about making the collision shapes actually react to the floor at the end

[grim ore]

I think there is alot of stuff that might be missing in figuring out what you are trying to do in the end and you are trying multiple things to get it all to work

[main pebble]

lol @ "Make it 5 minutes or I'm not reading it". I got some bad news for you bub

[proper crane]

One, that was a video
Two, You try watching it, there was a lot of content in that video that did not need to be covered to know how to import the custom collider

Trimming is a standard these days

[main pebble]

Quite frankly if you aren't willing to dig through tutorials for information, you're not going to get very far.

[proper crane]

That was the one tutorial I wouldn't watch

Because 1: Reverb, You can barely understand him
2: Other tutorials actually understood how to trim videos
3: The guy just really sucked at explaining

[main pebble]

Then find another video rather asking the discord to do it for you.

[proper crane]

I've already looked through help pages and videos for a total of 12 hours within the past 36, I think it was about time today to start asking for personal help

[main pebble]

Well if you've spent 12 hours looking another 30 min tutorial from someone with an accent won't hurt yah. All I'm saying is you come asking for help you shouldn't be choosy.

[proper crane]

It wasn't the accent, it was that I literally could not understand him

It took me 10 minutes to catch one word

[violet obsidian]

How do you disable shadows on particles in ray tracing. I've been googling for hours.

[flat idol]

Allen, turn on subtitles next time

[proper crane]

Auto generated

You've seen how it reacts to someone speaking perfect English, so You can guess what it's like when a guy puts the contraction of one word onto another

[violet obsidian]

So you are telling me it is impossible to turn them off?

[flat idol]

Mag7spy he actually is talking to me, and not answering your question :)

[proper crane]

I'm not sure what in that sentence he connected to an answer

[violet obsidian]

"Auto generated"

Is there any way to have get more experienced advice on this here , I guess I'll have to turn off raytraced shadows in the meantime .

[main pebble]

@violet obsidian I would post in visual-fx or niagara

[flat idol]

You can try turning your particles to be gpu particles, maybe they wont generate shadow.

[main pebble]

People from epic browse these channels fairly frequently. It may take a day or two to get an answer though.

[proper crane]

God, why is there a limit to how far You can shrink a capsule?

Scratch that, why am I not able to shrink my collision pieces enough in Physics Asset?

[grim ore]

there might be a logical limit for collision size, if it's that small do you need individual collision rather than one item over them all?

[proper crane]

I'm not sure what that means, but I'm trying the Physics Asset method

Jesus, this cold is getting the best of me

Throat feels like it's bleeding and something feels torn in my right arm, can't lift it without some kind of wall of pain

At a certain angle, at least

[grim ore]

well what I mean is if something is 0.1 centimers radius then having collisions matter on that small of a scale makes little sense. like tracking collision on each knuckle on a hand rather than just the hand.

[proper crane]

This is as small as I can get it

[flat idol]

MathewW yes its better to collapse tiny things into one. Also there are things like depenetration i can imagine that may actually expect the object to be at a minimum in size .

[grim ore]

how small is this item?

[proper crane]

The mesh is about 300 times the volume of a player capsule

[grim ore]

so in unreal units or meters?

[proper crane]

on average, a typical human is the 2 metre mark, so... It's big

[grim ore]

something might be wrong then, I can make a capsule down to 1cm

[proper crane]

The volume increases by 50X that of the surface areas increase

[grim ore]

select the collision object, in the right in the details panel under body setup you can open up the primitives and see the actual sizes of them and set them by hand

[proper crane]

Could I get a screenshot if possible

[grim ore]

https://i.imgur.com/SIqUEjJ.png

you can see a 1x60cm capsule next to the leg of the player

[visual belfry]

is there a way to have a trace ignore masked sections of a material? like I have a cutaway view of a cube and I want the trace to hit the opposite side that's visible rather than the closer one that's masked out

[potent wing]

Guys, what do you think is the perfect intensity for a flashlight in horror game?

I kindda dont want it to be too bright or too dim

[proper crane]

I would focus on finding what fits the aesthetic

And yeah, MethewW, my mesh is GIANT compared to that, so I'm not sure what's wrong

[flat idol]

PartlyAtomic you may have to generate the mesh shape to actually look like the masked one. physx using shapes to test these traces, and doesnt look into materials. It wold be tragically slow anyways.

[proper crane]

I have now spent 22 hours in the past 2 days trying to solve a collision problem... Jesus...

[potent wing]

Dw bro you get it fixed soon

[proper crane]

Well, day 3 starts tomorrow, I gotta sleep for exams

[flat idol]

Jack Moon, the flashlight must be flickering, then go dim a little. Then back to full torch at the scare jump scene!

[grim ore]

@visual belfry want to see a stupid way to do it? well here is a stupid way to do it lol https://imgur.com/a/q0eKKn5

[visual belfry]

I mean it happens on click so stupid can be as stupid does

[grim ore]

basically you create a render target from your material and use that as the texture in the material actually on your object. Then you grab the collision UV and feed that into the read render target UV node which gives you an RGBA value then read the A and profit

the main issue is making sure you actually do that code on the correct item since reading the value on another item would not work correctly

but I mean hey this code works it just shouldnt be used probably lol

[visual belfry]

Hehe I got halfway there before deciding to use a different way to place a waypoint on a 3d map

[grim ore]

😃

I wanted to see if it could be done since I couldnt find an actual answer out there

I am learning render targets right now so win win 😃

[potent wing]

@flat idol, i make my flashlight just go dimmer as the batteries goes down, maybe i should add random flickering? Anyone know how to do that?

What i asked earlier is that what is the best intensity for flashlight in horror game? I think i put it on 50k which is real high

Idk the perfect one, because my current flashlight is just too bright, idk how much i should drop it

I currently have 3 spotlight on the flashlight, the outer, the main, and the inner. Something like a real flashlight

[grim ore]

One thing you might want to look into is using an IES profile for your light

[abstract relic]

Use ies profile so you can get the same effect of three spotlights in one. For flickering https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Rendering/LightingAndShadows/LightFunctions/index.html

[gusty dune]

Morning all

[thorn vector]

hi anyone here have use truesky before
im thinking of getting a license

[plush yew]

Good day everyone! Looking for somebody who can help me with online connection(multiplayer). From my side I can help with: rig, animations, code, maybe with intro and others aspects.

[cloud cobalt]

Please don't post in multiple channels.

[lusty carbon]

So I want to make a cinematic sequence showing my level. However some elements in my level are triggered by a collision with my pawn. How can I trigger and time them with my camera? thanks!

[errant dagger]

Hi, sorry for probably wrong category, but the question is : why part of shaders are always recompiling at project start? If I clean DDC completely its about 30 000 shaders will be recompiled. But every time I start the project approximately 3000 shaders start to recompile. Thanks!

[cloud cobalt]

Make sure you save all your content after the shaders have been built

[plush yew]

Hi everybody

I am looking for animators

Or place i can get some one to make animations

[potent wing]

Guys, are you putting unreal engine intro into your game? Like when you start the game a video of unreal engine will play?

If so where do you get those video?

I wanted to put it in my main menu

[cloud cobalt]

You have to ask Epic for permission, and presumably the video file too

[potent wing]

Ahh i see thanks

[plush yew]

why do you even want to?

[potent wing]

Guys, when you trying to get a reference from a blueprint into your character blueprint, what do you guys usually do?

• simply create a variable and choose that blueprint
• or doing cast to that blueprint and promote to variable
• or doing get actor from class, for each loop, then cast to the blueprint, then promote to variable
• or the other way?

Im asking this because i usually do the third one because by doing 1 and 2 usually gave me none error, also i want to ask is it safe to do it that way (3)?

@plush yew idk I just wanted to put it, but when I know I need a permission, i think i wont do it

[plush yew]

any idea why vscode wont open when i try to open a c++ class?

[spare sun]

ehh well I don't see how it could go wrong if you put the 6 second ue4 logo intro into the game

ur forced to put the logo there anyways

[cloud cobalt]

You're not

You're forced to ask Epic for permission if you want to include it

[spare sun]

hm

[cloud cobalt]

By the way the files are here : https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/branding

[spare sun]

ah I misread, it's actually

[cloud cobalt]

@potent wing

[spare sun]

just adding them into credits

nvm

[cloud cobalt]

It's a common misconception

[wary wave]

unlike Unity, where it's the other way around

"pay to pretend you didn't use Unity!"

[spare sun]

yea, funny tbh

I really expected to have to put it somewhere on the preview

[cloud cobalt]

Unreal is a bit more serious on this, you have to notify them on launch and obviously report sales, but the end-user stuff is lighter - credits, and proper mentions in the game EULA

[potent wing]

Im really confused on the marketing stuff, like you said i have to notify them and report sales, and things and such. I might need to understand ALL of them before i publish my game in the future

[cloud cobalt]

Well yes

That's not marketing though, just legal

[spare sun]

sounds like they respect their image a lot

[potent wing]

Is there any video out there that explain what need to be done and whatever Before we publish our game? So it's easier for me to understand

[cloud cobalt]

Read the agreement you signed.

Look for the UE4 EULA page that explains it in depth

[spare sun]

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/release could probably help

[cloud cobalt]

This one is important to read, yeah.

Overall, doing business (selling a game) is not trivial stuff

I distributed my first game for free because I didn't want to go through that stuff

[potent wing]

Well thanks Red Stranger, for the links and stuff

I will look at it when i actually finished my game or when i have time

[cloud cobalt]

As to marketing, do that very early on

As soon as you have anything to show

[thorn vector]

hi anyone here have use truesky before
im thinking of getting a license

[wary wave]

got a weird one today - going to ask in here since it's not strictly a cpp problem - I'm doing an encroachment check for the actor I wish to place (now doing it natively after blueprint options failed me)

as far as I can tell, it should work, but it's failing because it's not finding the RootComponent of the actor it's trying to test

GetRootComponent is returning null

what could cause RootComponent to be null?

it obviously does have a root

[cloud cobalt]

Well, it's not that obvious tbh

Is this on a client in MP ?

[wary wave]

not multiplayer

if you did want to look at source, it's failing in UWorld::EncroachingBlockingGeometry, right at the beginning

the TestActor is the default object of the class I am trying to place

[cloud cobalt]

And you're sure RootComponent is set to something in the base class ?

[wary wave]

I'll check if the native base class has something

but this is a BP class with a scene component as root, which it's getting through inheritance

hmm, native base class is Actor, the default scene root comes from the first BP class in the hierarchy

[cloud cobalt]

Got to go, but... I mean, RootComponent is nullptr on the actor instance, right ?

[wary wave]

I guess

[cloud cobalt]

I'm pretty sure you can have no root component on an actor

[wary wave]

I would have hoped the BP root would have been sufficient

'cos it does exist

bit weird that it would be ignored