ue4-general

[opal berry]

😆

[fiery gorge]

only thing eating mem is ue4

[alpine wigeon]

close that as well

[fiery gorge]

good idea

[alpine wigeon]

and you know what will free up a lot of ram?

[fiery gorge]

wjhat

[opal berry]

close ur pc

lol

[fiery gorge]

omg

[alpine wigeon]

hold the power button for 10 seconds

[fiery gorge]

i didnt even think about that

[alpine wigeon]

But seriously...how many foliage instances do you have?

[fiery gorge]

ummm

about 2800

[light vigil]

Is there any event on actors that get called when I modify a property from the level editor?

[alpine wigeon]

Depending on what you have in there...the openworld demo stuff makes my PC go crazy

[light vigil]

An actor equivalent to pre-construct on widgets

[opal berry]

I want to get into level design but i am soo bad

[alpine wigeon]

Begin play

[light vigil]

So I can see the property changes reflected visually in editor?

[alpine wigeon]

🙂

[opal berry]

@coral valley So its not a prob in my PC that UE4 is crashing right? and is this normal or should I like reinstall UE4 or smth

[alpine wigeon]

@light vigil construction script

I use that on my house generator to move all the spawned in meshes when I move the house actor....

[fiery gorge]

these are the trees im using @alpine wigeon https://store.speedtree.com/store/hero-tree-package-2-ue4/

[opal berry]

oh snap pinged the completly wrong person sorry

i mean @alpine wigeon

[fiery gorge]

I have a position offset on the leaves textures to create a wind effect

[alpine wigeon]

😄

It is not a problem with your PC...or at least as far as I know... C++ is just... tricky and you need to validate everything before you use it if you want to be safe...

[light vigil]

Construction script will get called when I change a property on an existing actor in the level (From the editor)

?

[alpine wigeon]

It gets called on some property change ...

in my case the Location 🙂

not sure if it gets called on other property change

[fiery gorge]

i think it was the offset i was using

actually no, the texture change added LODS

opos

either way we're in business but now it looks like shit 😄

[alpine wigeon]

@light vigil yeah seems to be called for every property change... tried adding tags and it got called

[light vigil]

Cool, thanks @alpine wigeon

❤

[crude vessel]

@fiery gorge get RAM doubler

[fiery gorge]

good idea

[crude vessel]

This one, get thermal paste, and attach to your video card

[normal burrow]

lol 😂

[unique kraken]

highly curios, why does this happen

my mesh doesnt have any non manifold and only quads

[river meadow]

Is there a section of this discord dedicated to particle systems?

I have a question thats very specific and that only VFX integrator could probably answer.

[pale forge]

#visual-fx?

[river meadow]

Ah alright found it

ty man

[pale forge]

np

[warped tangle]

@unique kraken flipped normals?

[unique kraken]

no

get me right, im not a 3d noob, but a game engine noob

all my normals face the right direction

bcs i hand edited them

[warped tangle]

When people suggest something, it's starting from the lowest level and working up. No need to get defensive

[unique kraken]

nono im not

just saying i have good 3d knowledge

i do explain a lot of things to ppl too, just for 3d less for games

[warped tangle]

can you export and share the model?

[unique kraken]

just wanted to let u know i have good 3d knowledge

no sry can not do that

but its only at 3 parts of the mesh

hands finger and mouth?

as u can see my normals are right

does unreal triangulate automatically everything?

bcs this looks very weird to me

[warped tangle]

It will triangulate on import, however I've have issues importing quad-based meshes in the past

[unique kraken]

ha.

[warped tangle]

that's probably your issue

[unique kraken]

can i not simply use quad meshes?

[warped tangle]

no

[unique kraken]

ha

okey

thats new information

lets see if that works

[crude vessel]

It will triangulate but I always read to manually triangulate before export for best results.

[warped tangle]

yeah

[unique kraken]

big nope

doesnt work

and its anyway weirds its only finger feet and mouth

in fact it got worse when i triangulated it

[severe ibex]

Are your exporting obj? To import to UE4?

[unique kraken]

yes

also how does triangulating make sense, it destroys my carefully edited normals

[severe ibex]

Your normals should be fine.

Triangulation is the way it goes. Polys are after all only triangles

[unique kraken]

well first of all i would like to have the full mesh inside my scene here

is it maybe something with my import settings

[severe ibex]

It’s not due to scale is it? It’d make some sense why it’s happening on the smaller detail parts

[unique kraken]

i have to scale it up when importing

wich id also like to fix

[warped tangle]

yeah that's causing your issue

[unique kraken]

well my character is 1,7m

[severe ibex]

I honestly can’t say. I have had mesh import flipped because the object was mirrored in Max, even though the normals were correct. I had to reset the xform to fix those.

[unique kraken]

i messuered it

[severe ibex]

I forget what UE4 works in. But if you are exporting FBX from your 3D software in meters but importing in cm then there could be an issue there. But I’ve never known it to be an issue

[unique kraken]

rn i tried obj bcs i thought it would be the saves easiest to try some stuff quick

[severe ibex]

Can’t go wrong with obj

Only thing I could say is to look at the mesh but that’s rather impossible for me to do. And I’m sure it’s fine, there could just be a silly cause of it.

[unique kraken]

now exported fbx, still the same

[severe ibex]

Also, exporting as obj, there might be an optimise vertex option. That might be causing your issue.

[unique kraken]

lets see

[severe ibex]

You usin Max?

[unique kraken]

blender

[severe ibex]

Then I have no idea

[unique kraken]

well i tested some stuff befor with unity and it seemed to work fine

[severe ibex]

I don’t doubt it. I think there’s just got to be some simple thing that’s easy to miss

It’s just a mesh, not rigged or anything?

[unique kraken]

ye

just wanted to play a bit with nodes

but cant even get this mesh imported

unity

[somber quail]

What DCC are you using?

[unique kraken]

out of the box

[severe ibex]

Can you export it from blender at like 10 times the scale?

[unique kraken]

lets try

yep

u got it man

[warped tangle]

yep, so scale issue

[unique kraken]

so it is the scale

weird

[somber quail]

Have you set blender to use cm?

[warped tangle]

check out the blender -> ue4 pipeline info

you'll want to use cm in blender

[severe ibex]

Fuckin’ first time I’ve got anything here

[unique kraken]

i do use cm

another thing is, in unity it gives me somewhat the right scale and rotation, but ue 4 doesnt

are the axis different?

[warped tangle]

unit scale set to.... .01 I think it is?

[warped tangle]

you need to set it to I think Y-Forward Z-Up in export settings? I usually export FBX not OBJ so not 100% sure

[unique kraken]

this u mean?

[severe ibex]

X and Y might be flipped, some are like that

[warped tangle]

yeah I believe unit scale should be .01

[unique kraken]

lets see

[severe ibex]

I think unit scale should be 1 but length should be mm

[severe ibex]

I think UE4 was just upset that the vertexes were so close. But I can’t say I am an authority on that

[unique kraken]

now u are confusing me with the scale

well y forward works

for the rotation

[warped tangle]

these settings work

[severe ibex]

Blender.... it’s all Greek to me. 3Ds Max man

[warped tangle]

Lol yeah but blender has free mode

[severe ibex]

Yeah and it can do so much more

[unique kraken]

its also simply easer..

beside the exporting ofc ~.~

[severe ibex]

Nah, that was just UE4 being pissy

[warped tangle]

yeah ue4 doesn't like massive scaling on import

[unique kraken]

well its a bit overcomplicated

[warped tangle]

I learned that the hard way

[unique kraken]

trying this now

[severe ibex]

I don’t want to have to re learn my job 10 years out of uni lol. I’ll just stay on the Max boat till it dies.

[warped tangle]

units should be cm

[unique kraken]

holy....

[warped tangle]

not 100% sure if it'll make a difference

[unique kraken]

i have to scale this up like insane

[warped tangle]

but I've been using those settings since day 1 and it's worked great

well you'll probably have to scale up x100 in blender

just a guess

[severe ibex]

I go with mm. work in mm and export in mm. If I need to scale in UE4 I do it on the import.

[warped tangle]

but UE4 is cm....SO CONFUSING lol

[unique kraken]

ok got it working

conclusion time

[severe ibex]

That makes sense why I need to scale then.

[unique kraken]

the solution is not the option u showed me

or lets say not the optimal one

[severe ibex]

What is then?

[unique kraken]

when u export it you have the option to resize the scale

[warped tangle]

You shouldn't have to scale in engine

[severe ibex]

Tbh it’s been a while. I forget if I scale before or after

[warped tangle]

I suppose that works, but if you start modeling with the proper unit settings then it's 1 to 1

[unique kraken]

yea but if you just set a preset for ue4 then you can work normally in ur blender file

without any readjustments of clipping distance or so

bcs the difference is like x 100

[warped tangle]

yeah

whatever works man

[severe ibex]

Exarctly

[unique kraken]

yea but thx, helped me a lot, originally wanted to play with shaders lel now just imported a mesh wth

[abstract relic]

Fix your start up file 😉

[unique kraken]

lol no

[warped tangle]

^ that's what I'm saying

[severe ibex]

One mesh at a time

[unique kraken]

just set a preset for export

[warped tangle]

again, whatever works lol

[unique kraken]

ye

[warped tangle]

I prefer to just model with proper scale settings, but it really is a preference thing

[unique kraken]

the thing is, id like to know how much the difference is exactly, then i just need to set the scale in the xport settings and have the exact size

[severe ibex]

Indeed. I use mm because I do mm scale things, then export with the right adjustment when I need to. Or let datasmith make a mess of everything.

[abstract relic]

It becomes a pain once you need to rig and animation. You’ll become the spawn of the devil in your office

[warped tangle]

yep

[unique kraken]

another quick thing, what i was originally doing

can i set the img interpolation to something like "nearest" "closest"

looking throu the texture options but cant seem to find it

[warped tangle]

not sure I understand the question

[unique kraken]

well pixel interpolation

watch out

i have this texture here

this one is in ue4

this is in blender

i want acurat pixel interpolation

i know it has to be possible, bcs iv seen games use that

[severe ibex]

Most likely has some blur on in the texture in use.

[unique kraken]

nah, its the interpolation

https://forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/rendering/23992-scaling-sprites-without-interpolating

found this

[grim ore]

change the compression settings to UI in the options on the top right

[unique kraken]

but dont get what helped him now?

[severe ibex]

No options in the texture window?

[unique kraken]

mind giving me a screenshot?

[severe ibex]

Trust MathewW. I believe he’s right, in the one time I’ve had to use UI in the compression settings

[unique kraken]

here ?

or where

[severe ibex]

I believe so

[unique kraken]

dont see "ui"

[severe ibex]

User interface 2d?

[unique kraken]

nope

doesnt work

tried all of them already

[abstract relic]

Try disabling srbg

[true leaf]

so why do i have to hook up 'world context' on function library method calls ?

what if i dont ?

[severe ibex]

Compression quality?

[unique kraken]

doesnt change much too

[severe ibex]

Or is it the texture group? Currently set to world

I’m in bed on my tablet so not much use

[radiant fable]

there was a component in ue4 that came with the engine content, it was a sun/skylight all built into one blueprint iirc, i forgot the name of it and am searching. any ideas?

[severe ibex]

Daylight system right?

I forget the name too haha

[radiant fable]

ya

[unique kraken]

hell, how hard can it be simply haveing accurat pixel interpolation

~.~

[abstract relic]

Also, use power of two rule to get better compression. 128px instead of 100px for example

[misty creek]

I don't have unreal up but try right clicking on the texture and click apply paper2d settings

[grim ore]

it almost looks like your import texture is too small and not power of 2 and someone said it lol

[unique kraken]

the texture is 100x 100

[grim ore]

thats not a power of 2 texture, 128x128 would be

[unique kraken]

does it matter ? all i want is accurat pixel interpolation

[abstract relic]

Yes

[grim ore]

I guess it doesnt, maybe UE4 can';t do what you want

no one here actually suggests stuff that works

[unique kraken]

it can, i know games used that befor

https://forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/rendering/23992-scaling-sprites-without-interpolating

here maybe u understand this

[grim ore]

you could paste the source image here and we could all play with it and giver you the answer I guess

[unique kraken]

something seemed to work for him but i dont get it

sure moment

[grim ore]

holy hell when did battle breakers come out

[abstract relic]

Source is just as blurry

[grim ore]

yep your source is exported with compression and as a png 😦

[unique kraken]

yessss bcs its the samer interpolation method

doesnt mean the individual pixel dont exist

[abstract relic]

The issue is your export

[unique kraken]

how do u suggest i should export it

[grim ore]

it does open up fine in paint, lets see if we can fix it

[unique kraken]

like i said interpolation

if its a cheap one it will blure out

a close one and it makes it sharp

[strong mesa]

so i have a Template actor , which has the code for multiple things like weapons and potions , and i want it so that when i switch the item type in a child Blueprint class the shown settings switches too

[abstract relic]

I’m just hearing mip maps at this point 😜

[grim ore]

so I know uh you said you tried

but did you actually try?

[unique kraken]

no need to be so cocky, yes i tried all options in the texture window

[grim ore]

did you...

I mean... did you really?

[unique kraken]

come one, just tell me what i missed

[grim ore]

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

well I just did what the forum post said to do

[unique kraken]

see

i didnt even realize there is a search bar

[grim ore]

it says search details

even ignoring that its under texture

[normal burrow]

xxerbexx what is the issue exactly

[grim ore]

it's all good atleast we figured it out 🙂

[unique kraken]

well yea...

doesnt look right on my moddel still guess its the seam now

seam / bleed/

[abstract relic]

Always an angel Mathew. Be sure to say thanks and give him a sacrificial offering of cookies.

[unique kraken]

but @grim ore thx at least one thing solved

[normal burrow]

xxerbexx, you shouldn't be working with 100x100 to begin with

[unique kraken]

i should bcs i know what i want to do

yea yea 132 later then

this is just a test

[normal burrow]

if pixel accurate stuff is what you need, work in power of two because the hardware is going to scale it up as such

[frank pike]

Hey guys I need help. Everytime I launch the engine it will load to about 73% and then close and open the epic games launcher

[unique kraken]

~.~

[frank pike]

i have already verifyed

[severe ibex]

@grim ore did you blur that screenshot you posted just to be funny? Haha.

[abstract relic]

132 p screenshot right there 😜

[grim ore]

I didnt blur it , was it blurred?

[severe ibex]

I might be testing with blueprint questions but I’ll never undermine those who are helping me. Thanks again for the info before about render targets.

Could just be my iPad.

[abstract relic]

Probably just mobile

[severe ibex]

Lol mobile is the bane of UE4

[unique kraken]

okey, is there somewhere a option to adjust the img uv bleed

[normal burrow]

example of uv bleed?

[unique kraken]

its something to hide seams most programms enable it automatically

but i dont want it

this together with img interpolation blures out seams

[normal burrow]

mip maps?

[unique kraken]

daubt thats what i want

[normal burrow]

me too, turn them off

Mip Gen Settings: NoMipMaps on the texture

[sturdy schooner]

hey guys, apologies if this isnt the best place for this question since this is my first post here, but does anybody know what the real underlying benefits are to importing an alembic cache as a geometry cache asset rather than importing it as a skeletalmesh+morphtargets asset? besides the skeletal mesh route being an obvious hack on epics part, of course.

[crude vessel]

Don't tell me not to use 77X5619 pixels

[true leaf]

wow my main map file (level) just got corrupted. luckily i have a backup from yesterday and didnt make any changes since then

i pressed play and my computer bluescreened and my map file got corrupted lol

[uncut osprey]

If you have a mesh that's morphing/animating, you can't raycast against it can you?

[short dagger]

if i want an art team to have access to the editor, does the project need to be compiled from source?

or i'm guessing alternatively they can install UE4?

[grim ore]

it all depends on what you are using for the project. Source build? they need atleast a copy of the compiled version if you don't want them compiling it themselves. Launcher build? they can install the editor the same way you did and access it the same way

[short dagger]

so if i have source built engine and check the binaries into source control they can open the editor? guess i can just test it myself haha

[plush yew]

Is this a channel I can ask for help with a visual bug?

[grim ore]

you can try this one, or any other one that might be more appropriate.

[plush yew]

ok

I am having a strange visual bug in my first test map. I am getting colored artifacts only in the built version, but not when play testing in the editor.

https://youtu.be/gvKNxaksXw0

look near the feet and the crates

google was no help trying to track this down lol

[crimson seal]

@plush yew are you talking at that quick orange looking flash

[grim ore]

ok so that is culling

and it sucks to deal with lol

[plush yew]

@crimson seal yes

[grim ore]

one of the common suggestions to fix it is to just make your backgrounds and ambient colors dark so you don't see it lol

[crimson seal]

it would help if you screenshotted the bug in the editor window too and not in PIE mode

[grim ore]

https://forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/content-creation/65109-glitch-with-static-meshes-short-see-through-cracks

[crimson seal]

could be a uv error too

[plush yew]

@crimson seal bug does not happen in edditor, only in output game

[grim ore]

cuuuuulllliiingggg

[crimson seal]

perhaps open the static mesh editor and check the uv channels

also is the floor its coming from BSP or a mesh?

[plush yew]

@grim ore I am reading that thread now

[crimson seal]

and lastly look at your lighting map in the view plane see if theres anything weird going on there

[plush yew]

to start, I will disable culling as per the thread and test that

[crimson seal]

sometimes lighting on meshes set to movable could cause it but culling is most likely

[grim ore]

AAAAAAAA games with billion dollar budgets have it, it's just a tradeoff for performance 😦

[plush yew]

@grim ore well, disabling culling seems to have resolved it lol

now to re-enable it and learn how to work around it

[grim ore]

and that is where it becomes work 😦

[plush yew]

I have been playing outer worlds that uses this engine, and have not noticed anything like it at all lol

[grim ore]

It's there, it just depends on your machine specs. you might mainly be seeing it in your project due to it running at different FPS than OW is. There are ways around it tho and smart level design helps alot

[ruby ocean]

So I exported all of my animations and they imported as skeletal meshes in the ark dev kit. Is it a problem with how I imported them or exported them?

[plush yew]

@grim ore Thanks for your help, reading that thread and creating some color/shade appropriate occluder geometry was what I needed

[ruby ocean]

^ would I export the animation data instead?

[pearl sonnet]

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/events/unreal-fest-europe-2019/100-ue4-tips-and-tricks

[neat forge]

Can anyone experienced with replication dm me? I need some help with a few big issues Im having. I cant control the server window when testing for one

[maiden swift]

I recommend asking for help in #multiplayer.

[pulsar kraken]

Can anyone assist with why the repair beam would not stay attached to source and target? thanks

[halcyon flame]

I can barely read that with the resolution you posted

[pulsar kraken]

click -> open original -> ctrl + scroll wheel

[halcyon flame]

does anyone know of a way or an option to have generic input events (like "Any Key" or "Gamepad D-Pad Down" placed in your event graph) fire when game is in UI input mode

[pulsar kraken]

set a bool?

[halcyon flame]

it's something to do with how the engine works, because the events don't fire at all when the game is in UI mode

[pulsar kraken]

oh that is interesting

[halcyon flame]

I'm not really sure to answer your question

but the first thing that comes to mind is that the reference from the hit result might not be valid any more after .2s

what is that delay there for anyway?

in any case, you should probably just make

you should probably make a beam actor that updates on tick while active with some actor references you set if there was a hit

notice you never test whether a hit occurred

[upper quartz]

hey brothers. i have a problem when i use "multi sphere trace for objects" on 4.23.1. it not working.

[warped tangle]

can you be more specific?

[upper quartz]

ahhahahahahahah, i set the start vector as same of end vector.

[warped tangle]

Lol

Don't you love that

[normal burrow]

It might not work

[upper quartz]

why ?

i just know it will not working when start same of the end in source code

[halcyon flame]

just to reiterate, it's apparent that when you're in UI Input mode, the D-Pad and arrow keys are consumed before passing any input events, key events, or the "Any Key" event. anyone know how to change this?

[midnight tree]

Is there an offtopic channel?

[halcyon flame]

lounge?

[midnight tree]

Thank you.

[inland kettle]

Hello everybody. I have a problem with "Move to Location or Actor". i break it somehow. My AI character wobbles around while trying to get to the finish. The command comes only once per click. Sporadically, he also stops after a while and does not do anything anymore.

Its a Dynamic NavMesh

I have not changed the "Move to location or actor" setting. Any Ideas?

[inland kettle]

i have got it. my SelectMarkerSphere on my AI Charcacter was set to Collision and block all

[ruby folio]

@inland kettle #blueprint

[inland kettle]

ok

[wary barn]

hellos can u display the output log into the console?

[placid yarrow]

I'm trying to call UGameplayStatics::AsyncLoadGameFromSlot from my custom Game Instance class, but that function no longer seems to exist in the GameplayStatics library (I'm using 4.22). I also don't see the Blueprint version of the asynchronous loading function either. Is there a new way to load a game asynchronously?

[honest vale]

was there any talk previously about getting an updated quixel brige <-> UEditor integration?

as in is it on quixel's roadmap? 🤔

[solar latch]

Is there anyone here wanna join up and make a game with me?

[abstract relic]

#looking-for-talent or #game-jam-chat if you’re doing the MegaJam

[slender mist]

I'm trying to add my second windows PC in the Device Manager so I can launch my game there directly, but I only get this error message: Failed to add the device!
Do I have to set up anything on my other PC so I can add it?

[idle haven]

What's mesh distance fields?

[honest vale]

it's a 3d field where each pixel(voxel?) stores the distance to the closest surface point of the mesh

or so

[cursive dirge]

@honest vale what you mean updated?

they just updated it to support ue 4.23 😄

[honest vale]

did they?

[cursive dirge]

but I'm sure they'll now make ue4 integration better now

[honest vale]

I only found the github page of the plugin and last update was like 6 months ago or so

[cursive dirge]

https://help.quixel.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360007837837-What-s-new-in-Bridge-2019-3

we are now at bridge 2019.4

I think the bridge should have download link to latest plugins or something

[honest vale]

where's the editor plugin?

[cursive dirge]

or installer

it's been a while since I've installed these but I think you get either link or executable when you try to actually export to the specific tool

it wasn't super hard to find

[honest vale]

right, I'll take a look later this evening

[worthy lichen]

Hi ))
I make Replay System for this lesson https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Replay_System_Tutorial#Overview
when recording, I get a very low FPS
who knows how to fix this?

[dim dragon]

Have you exposed too many variables to it?

Remember it's doing a lot of writes consider your tick rate and replication counts

[sly coyote]

Quick question, mtg arena handles all its card defs through xml files, is this something they homebrewed with c++ or is there a plugin or something to handle loading data from xml text files externally that i just dont know about?

[devout gulch]

@cursive dirge if only it was not written in python -;-

with 3rd party dependency

[alpine wigeon]

Well if only we could download the plugin without the Bridge 🙂

[desert jay]

Has anyone implemented a brawler with combos? I'm using the Input Buffer Plugin and a montage for each weapon. Anyone have advice on this?

[alpine wigeon]

Somebody in our community just asked how he can import material for their mesh.... it was provided by their company modeller for VR project...

That mesh has 118 material elements... we all died a little today...

[surreal meadow]

this is probably a really simple question but

why does pressing play and pressing launch give out different outputs?

[alpine wigeon]

because they are different things... different modes of play essentially

[surreal meadow]

ohhh

[alpine wigeon]

Play is for more like... while coding testing... launch is if you want to launch it on a target device....

most people would just use Play while creating the project...

[surreal meadow]

Im trying to make my button load to another level but it's loading the default level all the time

pressing play loads the correct level but pressing launch doesn't so I don't understand why

[alpine wigeon]

that would probably be based on your project settings

check the default map

Play will launch the current map you are on

[surreal meadow]

wrong channel deleting

[plush yew]

man, is this real?

Will I have to pay royalties if I use Unreal Studio features in Unreal Engine after 4.24?
If you are not shipping a game, you will be able to select a 100% royalty-free license of Unreal Engine.

if it is i hope someone will make a new VXGI branch lol

[cloud cobalt]

@plush yew I mean, Studio wasn't allowed for use in games before

So nothing changes

Except game developers now get Studio features apparently

[radiant haven]

Hello,

I need someone who is experienced IN flight Physics

sadly I cant connect these

is there a not i can replace it with?

for example one of these

[alpine wigeon]

what is "Base"?

also GetWorldLocation should work

[radiant haven]

is this the same?

Base is a prop

[sharp crest]

get world location is like get actor location just for components @radiant haven

[radiant haven]

okay thx

why cant i make a plane with the collion as simple

stucks in air and tells me this

[cloud cobalt]

Isn't that message quite clear ?

[sharp grove]

Is it possible to create a C# third party server through unreal engine that would handle all server side stuff instead of Unreal dedicated server?

[cloud cobalt]

No

If you want non-Unreal dedicated, you basically need to create your own thing from scratch

[plush yew]

@cloud cobalt well it was looking like it was going to be paid and now we are getting it for free, AND no royalties if you dont release a game (archviz probably doesnt count as a game but not sure until i ask i guess)

[harsh tiger]

https://gyazo.com/c2dc7dde8b6c0496254e28c5f4adb4e2 any idea why i cant add more points to this spline?

[sharp grove]

@cloud cobalt i know i have to create every thing from scratch but can a C# server handle stuff same as Unreal server, aka summon mobs, npcs, etc?

or do i have to just customize Unreal's dedicated server in c++?

[cloud cobalt]

You would have to re-create every single one of these things and drop the UE4 multiplayer features entirely

[plush yew]

you could have it talk with your C#

but its probably better and more performant if you do it native

[cloud cobalt]

Performance is the least of your concerns, this is not a doable effort, unless very large AAA team of network engineers

[plush yew]

whats so insanely hard about it?

[cloud cobalt]

Basically you need to write a new Unreal Engine in C# without the rendering part

[plush yew]

well yeah but if you already have that it could make sense

[shy socket]

Simple human being here. I see I kill. Can someone explain. How hard is it to make a killmove on this guy ?

I am a noob but isn't it like...."on hit" " get this position and play this animation ?

[alpine wigeon]

Well to the dedicated server in c# talk... it can be done, but you switch a lot of responsibility to the clients which invites cheating... for example landscape colision or any hit detection you either have to code in the c# server or you have to trust your clients not to cheat...

The complexity of creating your own solution is usualy not worth it.. but short answer is yes it can be done, but should it be done?

[plush yew]

Hi folks: I have a simple building -- 4 walls and a floor, that I want to export from blender 2.8 and import into unreal to be the foundation of a first person "game" where the home owner can walk around and tour his home in first person view -- because this is first try and learning and all that its quite simplistic right now, but I have the building drawn and roughly textured thusly;

Whats the next step? Export as fbx? or something else?

Can someone point me at a good reference?

[alpine wigeon]

yeah export as FBX...

you will most likely have issues with collision

[plush yew]

ok, how are those resolved?

[alpine wigeon]

you create your own simple collision in the engine or you create the collision in blender and export it with it

[plush yew]

A collision being where my character runs into something, correct?

[alpine wigeon]

yeah

like the wall..or the floor

[pulsar kraken]

anyone have a beam particle they can send me?

i made one but its awful 😢

[plush yew]

ok

[alpine wigeon]

@plush yew have a read https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Content/FBX/StaticMeshes/index.html

[plush yew]

excellent -- thanks

[alpine wigeon]

there are also youtube videos on the topic if you like that format more...

[plush yew]

actually, generally reading is better

thanks

[alpine wigeon]

Example content has some @pulsar kraken ..

[pulsar kraken]

like starter content?

hmm dont see any

[alpine wigeon]

Not a starter content... I think it is in the Learn tab...

I do not have the launcher availble here so cannot point you correctly

[pulsar kraken]

thanks bud

[alpine wigeon]

There are examples for both niagara and cascade somewhere

yeah "There are numerous Niagara simulation examples contained within the Niagara Content Examples in the Unreal Engine Learn tab on the Epic launcher. "

same for cascade 🙂

[nimble anvil]

anyone wanna be with me for the game jam?

mega jam

or is there a team that i could join

[thick herald]

try #game-jam-chat

[solar latch]

Hi , does anyone here have humanoid characters laying around that can be used for my game?

[ruby ocean]

If I want to export an animation, would I export the data?

[plush yew]

@plush yew for some stuff it can be convenient to use the decimate modifier to create LOD and collision models

[plush yew]

Hi everyone, not sure if it's the right place for that, but I have an issue regarding the Shader compilation process. It's stuck at "compiling shaders (2 800)" and, even after removing some folders from my project (to generate them again), the issue is still there. It happened since I moved to 4.23. Not sure how to fix that!

Any tips?

[hasty solar]

Yeah I'm very baffled about how shader compilation works in ue4. I have just one terrain master material and it somehow has to process 1800 shaders before its done. Is there anything that can explain me how to better contain this process? I'm a big noob with stuff like this

[vernal relic]

how to make fisheye camera?

[grim ore]

@plush yew do you have visual studio installed?

[plush yew]

@grim ore Yes, VS 2019

[grim ore]

check to see if you have incredibuild installed as well, if you do remove it

[plush yew]

Okay, thank you, I'll try it out right now.

[grim ore]

its part of the VS installer, you can check for it under the individual components section

[plush yew]

Yes, it was definitely there. Now I'm removing it and I'll open up the project again.

THANK YOU @grim ore ! The compilation issue has been solved by uninstalling incredibuild! Thanks a lot!

[grim ore]

🙂

Finally getting around to playing with the new Quixel stuff and bridge... this is.... really neato for programmers who suck at art like me

just the simple fact it has LODs and it all comes in properly with Bridge is amazing

[plush yew]

It's even more insane when you consider that they released for free 10 000 elements! Who could expect that?

[grim ore]

Epic did 😛

[green lake]

Ello guys, how to convert BSP to Mesh? I followed this tut but when i select the brush i don't get such options

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDM9ir3NZH4

[grim ore]

click the advanced drop down when you have the entire bsp brush selected

so click on the item in the world outliner, scroll down to brush settings, click the little drop down arrow, click create static mesh

if you select a face/vertex/edge you won't get that menu option

[green lake]

i think it works now, thanks

Also, the brush is used in a few places and i made just one save, is there any fast way to replace them all at same time with the static mesh or i have to play with snapping or coords copy

[grim ore]

I know you can replace one mesh with another, I dont know about geometry brushes lets find out

yep you can

select your item in the content browser, right click the item in the viewport and there is an option to replace the item in the viewport with your item from the browser

[plush yew]

Hey! I need a small help for casting. I have a BP_NPC AI character, and i try casting in Animation BP, but i don't know connect the object pin. Help please!

[cloud cobalt]

Well, what does casting does ?

If you understand what casts are for, it's obvious what to do

[lament star]

is there a release date for 4.24? Do we at least know the month?

[cloud cobalt]

There is never a release date for any version

Probably mid december to early january

[lament star]

ok

[plush yew]

@cloud cobalt I try read the BP_NPC->isDead() value in animation BP (I try replicate the dead animation)

[cloud cobalt]

So what's a cast ?

[plush yew]

@cloud cobalt i am not programmer, i don't know

[lament star]

the way I put it into words is you treat one thing as it was another, you could cast a char to an int for example

[plush yew]

i think is a type conversion?

[cloud cobalt]

Yes, that's exactly what it is

So what are you converting ?

[plush yew]

from actor to reference?

[cloud cobalt]

Casts are for when you have a object of class B, that inherits from class A, but you stored it as an object of class A

For example, a MyGamePawn object would be returned as a Pawn by a function GetPawn

You know it's actually a MyGamePawn

So you cast it

[lament star]

the most common use case for casting is when you need to call a certain function or get a variable from an object

[cloud cobalt]

Casting means "I have this Pawn object but it's a MyGamePawn, I know it, so i'm telling you to treat it as such"

[lament star]

yes

[cloud cobalt]

If the object passed to the cast really was a MyGamePawn then it succeeds and you can call MyGamePawn stuff on it

That's it

[plush yew]

@cloud cobalt but i have a AI Character, and i know what is the character type, but i can't handle in anim BP

[lament star]

although I try to avoid casting and rather use interfaces because it's more efficient

[cloud cobalt]

@plush yew Basically if you have a cast without knowing what to plug into it, why do you have a cast there ?

[plush yew]

because i know, if i have a PlayerCharacter, and i need few variables in anim BP, i can access with casting, but now not.

[cloud cobalt]

So in your anim BP - get the player, cast it to your class

[dim plover]

I try to avoid casting and rather use interfaces because it's more efficient
I wouldn't worry about that. I also don't think it's more efficient. At best, they're exactly the same in cost.

[fierce tulip]

ue4 4.19

import 50 meshes > import all
for some fricking reason need to manually set the import settings for each mesh, which resets between each mesh it imports.
wtf

[normal burrow]

Yea interfaces aren’t particularly better than casting performance wise. If you have one implementation of an interface, probably shouldn’t be using interface

[grim ore]

the worst part about casting VS interface is the hard reference

[normal burrow]

How so

[grim ore]

Player -> hits something -> Cast that something to Enemy -> do something if enemy. The player has a hard ref to the enemy and the enemy has to be loaded when the player is

with an interface there is no Enemy reference

lol...

[manic pawn]

interfaces are much slower than casts...

[cloud cobalt]

Casts are basically free

[manic pawn]

the code to invoke the interface methods is very

the references are the real problem

[normal burrow]

Yea just meant if you have an enemy interface only used by the enemy actor, your better off not using interface. Interface references are worse natively and every invoke is slower on themselves

[manic pawn]

it's very easy to end in a situation where loading your game instance requires a huge web of bps to be loaded that then pull in 10000 assets

[grim ore]

goooo hard references!

[plush yew]

okay, i don't understand... It's work (MyCharacter)

[grim ore]

main menu -> reference player -> load entire game into memory 😛

[manic pawn]

ye

[plush yew]

It's not

[normal burrow]

You can soft reference tho

[manic pawn]

messes with your editor restart time too

[light thunder]

What would be a good way to queue up a list of sound files to play one after another? Almost like a jukebox really I guess

[normal burrow]

Hard references to live things isn’t horrible

[grim ore]

@light thunder use a sound cue with multiple wave players in them in a sequence?

[manic pawn]

if this is like music, use soft references for them

otherwise you end up loading 100s of MB of sound at once

[light thunder]

The sequences will be dynamic, I'm parsing multiple wavs into a single parsed sentence, while that's playing, another file might want to play, I want to have those play once the ones playing are done

[dim plover]

I guess if you want to use a BP Cast, you should only Cast to native classes. Which is a reasonable alternative.

[normal burrow]

But if it’s a wrapper around music, use hard ref and soft ref to your wrapper

[slate mirage]

Will a reference to a data table load all assets referenced by the data table?

[normal burrow]

Yes if they are not soft

[slate mirage]

welp. time to delete my whole project

[light thunder]

Crap I didn't realize that @normal burrow

[manic pawn]

🚮

[normal burrow]

Chill

It’s easy to change

[slate mirage]

its my itemdef table

[normal burrow]

But will want to put time to make sense of async loading

[light thunder]

So this will load all of those assets into memory whenever this is referenced?

[normal burrow]

If you change the object types to soft versions hopefully you won’t need to renter it all

Yes

[dim plover]

It's also probably not catastrphic if you loaded everything anyway.

[normal burrow]

Your table will not be given to you until all those refs exist

Floss is right but it’s also easy for it to be horrible too. It matters

[slate mirage]

i mean given a few hundred items with references to meshes and stuff, i feel like it might matter

[light thunder]

This doesn't happen much, no more than once a single second, and even then that's probably rare....these might contain upwards of several hundred wav files (32 bit) when finished, most are about 500 kb in size...would there be a way to just load that in memory in the beginning?

[slate mirage]

poor design on my part but im a n00b to the engine

[normal burrow]

You fine

It’s easy to change

[slate mirage]

ill add it to my todo after i fix my MP bugs 🙂

[normal burrow]

If you have a costume definition with textures and materials and meshes etc, it’d a good example of where hard references make sense so long as you soft reference your costume file.

Then when you async load your costume it covers all it holds

[slate mirage]

Looking back i think i should have kept all the heavy stuff in the object and soft ref'd the object classes

[dim plover]

That's pretty easy to accidentally screw up.

[proud hedge]

Can someone show me how the wind system in UE4 (with MegaScans 3D plants) works? It doesn't work for me now.

[dark rune]

if i launch project from editor as standalone, and run a packaged project from the same computer, would that acheive the effect of running it from 2 computers?

[grim ore]

for multiplayer? depends on how they connect (external IP or internal) but even then not perfectly. You can run more than 1 instance from the editor if you want to simulate multiplayer as well

[pale forge]

Hey guys.. I am making an FPS that I hope to put on Steam someday, and I was hoping to get some guidance on the type of Server I should focus on, Listener or Dedicated.

[dim plover]

It really depends, but the real answer is listen.

[abstract relic]

And if you are willing to pay to host servers

[pale forge]

Hmmm... I'm guessing probably not

[normal burrow]

yea, floss is right if you want to keep both on the table

question is more if you want listen, dedicated is just a graphicsless/headless listen server really

[pale forge]

I've hosted my own multiplayer servers that I wrote myself .. but it was strictly REST/Websockets stuff.. and mostly turn based games. I have no idea what Steam looks like.

[normal burrow]

udp or tcp

the stuff websockets mimic

steam is only going to handle the matchmaking/master list

[dark rune]

@grim ore but the tutorial on following says it won't work in pie, only in standalone

[grim ore]

I don't know what tutorial you are following, if that is the case you can try launching multiple copies of the project then from multiple folders

[pale forge]

I think I went for tcp. I was using MS SignalR

[lapis vine]

Is SpeedTree the go to wrt performance/features for real-time apps? Some marketplace seems cheaper, also there are some other vendors...

[normal burrow]

licensing for speedtree always prevents me from looking much into it. idk if you've read it but its nonsense

[lapis vine]

Hm? Well, there is Indie, but there is UE one too... What you mean?

[normal burrow]

iirc its one of those "if you get successful with our product you must agree to renegotiate" type deals

[lapis vine]

Let me check, are you talking about the UE eula?

[normal burrow]

its been awhile, not sure.

substance has similar clauses too so its not uncommon but, would be more worried about a tech inside the game

[dark rune]

@grim ore thanks I'll try tgat

That

[lapis vine]

... just reading, but anyway my orig. question still stands. Being looking at different stuff, but can't try them all. The marketplace might have good stuff, but it is limited and yeah - have to check them out.

[strong mesa]

where do i participate in the game jam ?!

[normal burrow]

a lot of speed tree is about variety too, not sheer performance. but yea i'd like to find out if its really that much better speed wise too

[lapis vine]

Yeah, hope somebody to chim in and share his experience.

[grim ore]

@strong mesa https://itch.io/jam/2019-epic-megajam

[strong mesa]

Thanks ❤️

[lapis vine]

shall not be liable for any loss, damage, or penalty resulting from unavoidable delays or failures in performance resulting from acts of God 🤔

[strong mesa]

is their grouping ?!

[lapis vine]

@normal burrow that in the eula

[abstract relic]

you make your own group

If you want to meet randoms, you can use Crowdforge to find members

[jovial wraith]

did they drop the theme yet

[abstract relic]

I believe so

[jovial wraith]

what is it

[strong mesa]

yes that is true but crowd forge has like 4 groups and they are all locked

not yet

[jovial wraith]

can you ping me when it drops pls?

[normal burrow]

dang, yea i wouldn't take responsibility over acts of god either though tbf. but lol, eula.

[abstract relic]

https://www.twitch.tv/unrealengine

[strong mesa]

@jovial wraith are you participating ?!

[jovial wraith]

depends on the theme

i joined but i might not actualy participate if the theme sucks

[strong mesa]

i need a team what is your speciality !?

[jovial wraith]

level design, game design and can do basic programing

[strong mesa]

I'm a 3D artist

i don't think we are enough to form a team

[jovial wraith]

yeah not enough

[strong mesa]

i also do Blueprint coding

[jovial wraith]

ill only join if the theme is good tho

[severe zealot]

Anyone know what the theme is yet?

[jovial wraith]

nope

[severe zealot]

Aiite

[strong mesa]

TwoCeps want to form a team

[jovial wraith]

im still waiting for them to drop the theme

[abstract relic]

I have a feeling that they forgot about daylight savings 😛

[normal burrow]

has to be

[grim ore]

there is a #game-jam-chat channel if you want to try and find others

[jovial wraith]

i feel like the theme is going to be cat related

[strong mesa]

@grim ore I'm kinda Stupid i know xD
are you participating ?!

[grim ore]

not likely, I haven't made time for one in years 😦

[strong mesa]

I'm a good 3D artist and you will not regret making time for one this year

[abstract relic]

please take it to #game-jam-chat

[strong mesa]

unlike my level 10 in codingI'm level 1000 in Modeling xD

aight

[surreal viper]

is it possible to setup and listen to an axis value in UMG? 🤔

[fierce tulip]

not sure if axis value's have much to tell you

"when I was born.. "

"my childhood..."

"when I was an adult I realized I needed to do something with my life, I changed my life around 180 degrees, and BAM"

"It really made me see things from another angle"

"I started doing yoga, apparently I am really flexible"

'Suddenly I had accute angleitis"

"I am always buying rounds for everyone"

"I picked up snowboarding, the thrill I get from going down a slope... "

[surreal viper]

I think I get the point, thanks

[fierce tulip]

"My father is the center of the earth, he really thinks everything revolves around him"

ill let myself out

[proven aurora]

Alright so I'm pretty unorganized and I've got probably a 300 assets sitting in my project's root Content folder. Moving large files or folders takes forever inside UE4 (even with an SSD) and obviously moving project files externally (Windows Explorer) causes a lot of issues. Is there any quicker way to organize these or am I just doomed to waiting for hours for the files to transfer?

[fierce tulip]

i think its mostly a gotta wait it out kinda thing

if its just unreferenced content, you could move meshes in explorer. that would save a little

but 300 assets is peanuts

id wait it out

[stone oar]

Any physics gurus here? Is it possible to do something like a bathroom scale in UE4? I mean an actor that can output combined mass of all simulated actors on top of it. Is this possible, or do I just need to forget physics, get a collision box and sum the mass of all simulated actors in it?

I mean actors just idling on top of it, not moving actors.

Couldn't find anything like that, wondering if that is just not possible with game engine physics.

[kindred viper]

its definitely possible

[true leaf]

Maybe you could try to get the force value being exerted on the 'scale' 🤔 like Get Force Applied On Actor

Oh but I'm not sure it's exposed to blueprints

[stone oar]

Nice, thank you both! @true leaf I'll check that. I was checking mass and weight related stuff, but force... That could be it. C++ doesn't scare me, already using C++ and BP mix.

[fierce tulip]

https://i.gyazo.com/93078053f6e969bd38a18394fd5d06bf.jpg
not bad with the quixel textures

[frank escarp]

@fierce tulip too bad i dont have houdini license atm. Now that i have some proper trees and landscape materials i wnated to try to create a big map

[fierce tulip]

ooh

well, now you have to do it to satisfy my curiosity

[frank escarp]

are they giving licenses on the jam?

doesnt seem so, or im not finding them

SideFX is offering a FREE 2-month Houdini license to all Epic MegaJam participants. Go ahead and sign up here!

they are

lol the 2 months every 3 months

im getting it. Been a while since i was last tinkering with this stuff, and now i have a good excuse

[honest vale]

why houdini for landscaping?

[brave salmon]

guys, wanna see the definition of miserable life? Check our postmortem article.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/dwfwtp/three_years_ago_my_wife_and_i_quit_our_jobs_to/

[frank escarp]

because its god tier for it

[honest vale]

yea but what does it do?

[cloud cobalt]

@brave salmon Why would you ever expect a grant ?

0.0000001% of projects ever got one

[frank escarp]

they are using unreal for that?

wtf

[brave salmon]

@cloud cobalt facinating reading skills my friend!!! 😁

[cloud cobalt]

"an exhausted of numerous applications employee of Epic Games has built a thick crypt over the main project of our career"

Isn't that your post ?

If you feel like Epic has done something to your project here, you're... not doing this right imho

[dim plover]

I mean, grants are also not the only way to get funding.

[frank escarp]

if your game has to rely on a grant, then its a shit project

[cloud cobalt]

I mean, no it's not a shit project

Just a doomed one

[frank escarp]

you apply to grants as "bonus" extra money that would be useful, but not as funding

[honest vale]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LTtr45y7P0

relevant

[frank escarp]

because applying to grants everywhere takes a few minutes per grant

so might as well

who knows, you might get lucky

[brave salmon]

@frank escarp I believe mere $26k is not much from the $100 billion pile

[cloud cobalt]

Epic has always used grants as a blunt instrument to showcase their community, encourage tech contributors, and showcase the currently hyped engine focus feature. You don't get a grant for a game unless your game is on Polygons's homepage with writers fawning over it.

[brave salmon]

I mean we beleived back then

also applying takes a few minutes but we prepared fully playable demo...

anyways

[cloud cobalt]

Way to the Woods getting a grant is the perfect example - "THIS GAME IS MADE BY ONE SINGLE KID USING UNREAL ENGINE !!!" The headlines write themselves, it's amazing PR, project gets a grant

[brave salmon]

if you read the article... we were aiming to exact that spot with our 2D hand painted weird game

[cloud cobalt]

Epic doesn't give two shits about 2D

Not their market, and they know it

[serene birch]

2D is a hard sale as a promotion vector

[cloud cobalt]

2D games are in an amazing place outside UE4 with Dead Cells and Hollow Knight and Tetris 99 and Cuphead

And none of them is UE

[crude vessel]

2D is just 3D with one less D, change my mind.

[cloud cobalt]

2D is very, very different

[dim plover]

Why not just get funded the "normal" way?
Perhaps I misunderstood, I thought you dropped the project after not getting a grant.

[cloud cobalt]

Good-looking 2D that is

[serene birch]

the trick is that it's a UE4 is hard sale for 2D

[crude vessel]

2D has less D, of course it's very different.

[serene birch]

no matter how good your 2D game is, it won't really show up UE4 really

[cloud cobalt]

It has less D and more other stuff.

[serene birch]

though if you made a tiny packaged 2D game with UE4 it might be impressive

[crude vessel]

Why would it have more stuff necessarily?

[severe zealot]

@strong mesa sorry i have a team already :(

[kindred viper]

@brave salmon "Meanwhile, we were not relying on any other sources of getting investment. ". Error. Error. Megagrants are not something you automatically get :p

[cloud cobalt]

Where does the 26k thing comes from, even ?

Most Steam games do much less money than that

It's weird to expect this much money in funding for an indie game

[frank escarp]

thats literally no money at all

[cloud cobalt]

For professional studios, no it's nothing

[kindred viper]

I could live for 3 years on 26k

[cloud cobalt]

For a 2-person indie game on Steam today ?

It's a lot

[frank escarp]

on 3 years dev time?

[kindred viper]

yeah

[frank escarp]

if it was for a 6 month project, then sure, its ok

bit more than minimum salary

[cloud cobalt]

Who said salary ?

95% of Steam games don't make a salary

[kindred viper]

@frank escarp I have an amazing ability to require nothing but air and food/water. The rest is all a hobby. :p

[frank escarp]

so do i

the money from DWVR would support me on "living expenses" for about 5 years

[crude vessel]

Wait. Why do people actually think they'll get a megagrant?

[kindred viper]

nice

[frank escarp]

but i have more ideas for that cash

i will use a chunk of it on another project

[cloud cobalt]

We worked 5 years as a team of two and our grand total of Steam + GOG revenue - two years ago when things were better - has been along the lines of 50K net paid to us. It's much higher than average, but no, it's nowhere near a real salary.

[kindred viper]

@crude vessel because they believe in their game.

[crude vessel]

I keep seeing people act like their entire project hinges on getting a megagrant

They sound like people who think the lottery is their retirement plan.

[frank escarp]

dumbasses

megagrants are extremelly arbitrary

and thats ok

its literally free money

so of course its arbitrary

[kindred viper]

I've never even bothered to apply. Although the last major project I worked on applied and failed.

[frank escarp]

they fund stuff like that RTX dark souls clone that looks like trash

but they did it because it was showcasing the rtx features of unreal

and was already seen by nvidia

[kindred viper]

I'm gonna make RTX enabled UMG

for the laughs

[crude vessel]

I mean I don't blame people for applying

[cloud cobalt]

And come on, 11 Twitter followers ?

[crude vessel]

But I'm shocked people are like 'i didn't get a reply, how do I make my game now?!?'

If your plan a) is megagrant?

[kindred viper]

entitlement is often a side effect of being offered the chance of something for free. You kind of expect to get it because its free

[crude vessel]

'why won't a billionaire see my Twitter post and decide to send me a check for a million dollars?!?'

[kindred viper]

frankly if a 2 man team has been working on a game for 18 months with unreal, I would give them some money. They showed they are in it for the long haul already

providing it had 18 months work worth betting on of course

[cloud cobalt]

People are going to need understanding that you don't live from game development at home on your own license.

Except for the 17 guys worldwide who do

[kindred viper]

hey, there are 16 of us. One died.

[cloud cobalt]

Shit, man.

[frank escarp]

i do believe its possible ot make money, but you need to treat it as a business

stop doing artsy games that clearly have no market

and start making stuff you know you can make quick and sell asap

[cloud cobalt]

Anyway, @brave salmon if you feel like talking business, we can do that. It's a full job in itself and you can't succeed without being very good at it

Watch the players on the scene, learn from them

Do this : https://twitter.com/skatebirb

SkateBIRD (@skatebirb)

Hello I skate birb. Plz wishlist so I get seedies: http://store.steampowered.com/app/971030/ talk here plz https://discordapp.com/invite/skatebird also @glassbo

Tweets

1030

Followers

5768

Twitter

[kindred viper]

I always feel for failed indie devs. It's a choice you make that can kill your desire to continue when it fails. Luckily im used to failure so I'm still here. 😉 The system is lead by idiotic decisions and marketing blasts though. If you are not on the gravy train at the time to station leaves, you are left on the platform wondering why you are broke when you worked your soul out for 2 years or more.

[cloud cobalt]

Single dev, small MVP, successful kickstarter and marketing

[kindred viper]

I followed skatebirb when I was twitter. That is a wonderful idea and its been treated with love during development, and it shows.

[unique kraken]

where should i ask for shader stuff?

[tall pendant]

#graphics

[dim plover]

Is the indie gamedev success rate that low? I'm talking about people who could actually release something, and had a good understanding of marketing with a sizeable ~100k marketing budget.

[frank escarp]

its incredibly horrid

[kindred viper]

100k marketing budget?

[cloud cobalt]

100k marketing budget ??

[frank escarp]

95% of steam releases are a total disaster

[cloud cobalt]

The median Steam game today makes $500

So

[dim plover]

That's because those people don't market. I personally am really ... curious to know that the dollar in to dollar out is for videogame marketing.

[cloud cobalt]

$100k is more than the marketing budget for Dead Cells

if you're paying for marketing today in indie dev I think you're doing it wrong

[kindred viper]

I wouldn't go that far. Adwords is worth its weight in gold :p

[frank escarp]

you dont spend money in ads

you spend it on quality trailers

[cloud cobalt]

I would go that far

[frank escarp]

and good media

adwords is a big nope

but reddit ads? maybe

[cloud cobalt]

maybe a good Youtuber with the perfect audience

[kindred viper]

if you can get your 2-5% return on your adword campaign, you should do ok

[frank escarp]

its also mostly about being on ALL social media

[dim plover]

Perhaps I am of a different mindset. I believe that advertising can go a long way.

[frank escarp]

and doing it correctly

[cloud cobalt]

Advertising goes a long way, just not paid ads

[dim plover]

YouTuber/Twitch streamers, primarily for videogames. And then traditional ad campaigns. That's what I've been planning.

[frank escarp]

for my next project, i wont buy ads. Maybe reddit ads, but absolutely not facebook/google ads

but i will spend money on quality website, and quality trailer

[cloud cobalt]

Literally 50% of our sales have been a single Reddit post that went viral-ish.

That's free

[frank escarp]

im pretty sure, without a goddamn doubt, that ive lost 50.000 euros due to bad trailer

at minimum

[kindred viper]

we had a great trailer for ghostship during the beta, then it changed for release and imo it wasn't as good. Im sure the original trailer would have sold us more

[dim plover]

Well, yes, I would consider trailers to be apart of the marketing stuff. The content you push.

[cloud cobalt]

The amount of traction you can get from a successful Reddit post on pcgaming is amazing

[frank escarp]

yup

its your job to spam all reddits

[cloud cobalt]

And again, that's like one hour of your time

[frank escarp]

and point people to your discord or website

[kindred viper]

*starfighter not ghostship. my bad.

[frank escarp]

its very important to "capture" people into your community

specially pre release

[cloud cobalt]

^

[frank escarp]

if you manage ot build a community and get a bunch of sales day 1, this makes the algorithms on steam and others boost you more

[dim plover]

Yeah, I'm aware of the whole wishlists thing. Which is another thing I've wonder. What is the average cost of getting someone to wishlist?

[cloud cobalt]

$0

[frank escarp]

i dunno

[dim plover]

I planed to take out ad campaigns for wishlists.

[cloud cobalt]

I mean, we basically spent $0 on advertising here. We invested in time, talked to specialized Youtubers, gave out keys to the right people, etc

[strong mesa]

@severe zealot it's fine i found a team but it's weak

[cloud cobalt]

We tried some Youtube advertising (horribly bad returns)

Some Google advertising (0 return)

Twitter was decent IIRC

[dim plover]

And assuming the 10% of the wishlists convert to sales, it may be even positive at my price point.

[cloud cobalt]

Facebook is the only one that showed us return on money spent

[frank escarp]

i spent 100 euros on youtube ads and got 4 clicks

[cloud cobalt]

10% of wishlist is insane

Think 2%

[dim plover]

I read on Reddit that it's usually around 10%. But, alright, I'll consider them wrong. I hate Reddit.

[cloud cobalt]

Maybe at launch for a very desired title for a short time

[kindred viper]

@frank escarp how much per click?

[frank escarp]

25 euros

a fucking disaster

[kindred viper]

no I mean, overall

you must have bought clicks at a rate I mean, so if 100 clicks cost $100 then its $1 per click.

[dim plover]

Okay, if gamedev for indies is really so god awful with legitimate funding and work, then ... well...

[cloud cobalt]

Here's my thesis : Paid advertising is a dumb proposition because you're an indie. Your audience is ridiculously small, small enough that a significant campaign won't touch a significant number of people.

Your plan should be to build a political campaign

Get people to fight for you

[kindred viper]

the ratio is the key. Spend less than you make from a 2-5% return.

[frank escarp]

yeah thats right

[cloud cobalt]

Get people to actively go talk to their friends saying buy that game

[frank escarp]

the thing is that paid ads have a network effect

thats why adds are good if you are massive

[cloud cobalt]

^

[frank escarp]

people dont necesarely click

but they see that the game exists

now. Can you afford to get that many impressions?

[dim plover]

I'm not really sure. I heard some indie(?), some gamedev, say that you need a minimum of 250k for your marketing to be effective.

[kindred viper]

imo you cant afford to not do at least rudimentary marketing and spending.

[cloud cobalt]

Probably true Floss

But no indie on Earth has that budget for marketing

Except Bungie I guess

And if you have $250k budget, just pay pewdiepie for two days.

(joking, but also not joking)

[dim plover]

Hmm, well... alright, I think about this a lot for my project.
But perhaps my odds are just straight up not good.

[kindred viper]

easy way to market for free. Pit the left against the right on Twitter.

[cloud cobalt]

I mean, how much money do you have ?

[dim plover]

I think I have enough to make a legitimate effort. It is a year or two of my standard income.

[cloud cobalt]

If you truly have $250k, you can pay a few artists for quite some time and make your game way better

Don't go thinking you should put 20% of your budget in ads, or more

[dim plover]

Nah, I don't have that much, ha. Unless marketing goes well, but that's kind of different. And yeah, I do plan to freelance for art (out of my expertise).
I planned to split 50dev/50marketing.

[frank escarp]

20% of money in marketing is a pretty good amount

talking about effective marketing

good trailers, good website, community management, etc

[shut wagon]

Why are english language doc links forwarding to chinese language docs? https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Content/AlembicImporter/index.html

Anyone seeing this?

[dim plover]

Yeah, it's happening to me too. Globe not working either.

[plush yew]

anyone tried importing a landscape brush to unreal?

idk how that works im trying to import displacement maps to no avail

[crude vessel]

What's the TLDR on unreal studio?

@plush yew I can't answer that but it looks like 4.24 test is going to have something like that by default?

[frank escarp]

btw, the 2 month houdini license for megajam ends today

so if you want it, do it now

[plush yew]

that sounds fantastic if thats true

i was checking the documentation and it said something to the effect that i had to write my own plugin to import a landscape brush 😄

where do i get the news on that

[crude vessel]

Landscape Blueprint Brushes and Landmass Plugin (Beta). Up until now Landscape data could be imported and/or edited from the Landscape Editor Mode only. This new feature opens the Landscape data to Blueprints. It is now possible to assign Blueprint Brushes to the new Landscape Edit Layers. Those Brushes have a Render event that can be implemented in Blueprint that allows the user to inject landscape data (Height data and/or Weightmap data) into the Edit Layer.

Unless I'm misreading that?

https://forums.unrealengine.com/unreal-engine/announcements-and-releases/1683413-unreal-engine-4-24-preview

[dim plover]

Anyway, thanks guys for the marketing talk.

[cloud cobalt]

I'd love to get more data tbh

[dim plover]

Ha, if you wait a year, I'll tell you my results.

[cloud cobalt]

I usually share our numbers because well, that's helpful for everyone

[frank escarp]

my game got saved due to ps4

i got about 7-8k on pc post-cuts

ps4 a lot more

but if i release the same thing on steam today, i would sell sub 1000

as its a VR game, and PC VR is beyond dead

Dead (vr) + dead market (indies on steam) = absolute disaster

[manic pawn]

needs a revolutionary new vr game that will drive the sales of vr hardware

just like how people buy consoles to play some exclusives

[frank escarp]

hell fking no. Even the extremelly high end new oculus exclusives arent selling that well

[manic pawn]

yeah but are they good enough to be that

[frank escarp]

Asgard wrath and Stormlands are super high end

yes

they are both amazing

but PC VR is just a market that is kinda saturated and at the moment a big stagnant. The only good games that are coming on it are those big oculus games

PSVR is healthy tho

[manic pawn]

well idk, vr is expensive and no current vr game has made me go "ok I need to buy a headset now to play this"

[frank escarp]

im still getting several hundred euros a month on DWVR sales

last month was great, i almost reached the epic games cutoff level of 3k per quarter

couse sales

[cloud cobalt]

VR is a small market and will stay that way imho

[dim plover]

You could probably start a business creating full arcade VR stuff.
Not for home consumers. Just like a arcade-esque VR machines. I saw some of those in China. Might be popular enough in wealthy Asian cities.

[cedar snow]

@frank escarp on psvr?

[frank escarp]

of course

ive been selling 0 on PC for 1.5 years now

[cedar snow]

ouch

[frank escarp]

but its almost 2 years after PSVR version got released, and im still getting money

lowest its gone was about 250 euros one month

[cedar snow]

at this point that's nice passive income

[frank escarp]

holy shit it indeed is

and last month i got 2.500 euros

from some sales

[cedar snow]

christmas is saved

[frank escarp]

so yeah, its damn nice

this is why i comment of "just fking release games"

because if i can make another DWVR

or another 2 DWVRs

thats basically a lot of passive income for a few years

stuff acuumulates

[cedar snow]

would've loved see you port the game or a successor to quest

[frank escarp]

nah, quest isnt doable

i did want to make a remake/remaster on quest

but would need new levels

[cedar snow]

will current-gen psvr run with ps5?

[frank escarp]

yes

[cedar snow]

that's pretty big

[frank escarp]

i will lilely port DWVR to ps5, with native 120 fps and hilariously overkill screen resolution

[cedar snow]

because you don't lose any players

[frank escarp]

• no LODs, all geo at full res

i ran into a hardware bandwidth limit when trying to make run at 120 on PS4 pro 😦

no matter how much i simplified the shaders, it just wouldnt allow me to go past some res

[cedar snow]

which one? draw calls?

[frank escarp]

and i wanted at least 20% higher res than that

nah, its just that you need to keep your FPS perfect

so you need to leave some big headroom