The mesh component in the actor has

[thin reef]

My trace channel is set to visibility, and these are my collision settings for the mesh component of the object I am interested in:

[timber pond]

What type of collision is this, simple or complex?

Does the parent component have collision enabled?

[thin reef]

Could you clarify what you mean on both fronts? I apologize, I'm a novice when it comes to Unreal Engine. The parent blueprint that static mesh is a part of has these collision settings:
None of the tutorials with which I was interacting mentioned needing to set up collision channels or defining simple or complex collision.

[timber pond]

set that and see where your trace line is going, tell me if its correct

[thin reef]

looks like it's going in the spot I'm looking but is rather weird; i looked to the right and then down

[timber pond]

That doesnt look right at all lol

[thin reef]

This is how I'm determining the line trace position; this should just be a very long vector coming out in front of the first person camera right?

[timber pond]

Is something wrong with the first person camera?

[timber pond]

yes

The code looks good. But something is wrong with that camera

[thin reef]

I didn't mess with the camera at all; it should just be the default camera from the first person blueprint

[timber pond]

Do you have any other camera components?

Or any code that manipulates the camera?

[thin reef]

Not that I'm aware of! I attached the gun to the arms but that's the only change I made

[timber pond]

take a picture of your components list

[thin reef]

1. first person blueprint
2. thing I am trying to have people look at to trigger something

[timber pond]

Im a little at a loss. Maybe your arms or capsule is hitting the trace instead. Its hard to pick it apart without being able to investigate deeper. Did you print to screen the object the trace channel returned like I suggested earlier?

[thin reef]

Yes I did, it doesn't return anything if I do that. Nothing is being returned. It actually looks like the line trace is working properly - it's shooting out long lines in front of the character. It's just that for whatever reason, those lines aren't interacting with anything

[timber pond]

Can you send me the link to the tutorial?

[thin reef]

Like the tutorial I was following? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXcGAvik2cc trying to adapt this to suit my purposes.

I don't need to display a name or anything, all I need is for the player looking at this object for 500ms to trigger a custom event that destroys the object and starts the next part of the code. I was just using this tutorial to understand how to get where the player was looking.

[timber pond]

Gotcha

[thin reef]

If you have any other thoughts on how I could do it I would be extremely grateful.

[timber pond]

Im sure its a silly checkbox somewhere that got unchecked. Without access im not sure I can find it. Maybe if u post a video with all your setup, settings, code and showing the line traces. Otherwise im not sure where to go from here. Unless someone else has an idea.

[glass girder]

shoot a trace and then f8 out and look where it's going

those lines are weird and it doesn't look like they hit anything

but the trace looks legit

from the center out forward

[thin reef]

What do you want me to do once I F8 out?

[glass girder]

look at the trace and take a picture of it

to see if it goes through anything

[thin reef]

It turns green when it's touching my object of interest, and green is the trace hit color

[timber pond]

from camera perspective it should look like this

[glass girder]

so the trace is working and hitting, so what are you doing on hit ?

[timber pond]

lol wait

Is this in the level?

[thin reef]

Yes that's the object I'm looking at, it's in the level. For now, I just want to print hello when the trace hits that object.

[glass girder]

so print something on false

see if that shows up

i would also check if it's blocking first

[thin reef]

It prints every tick, yes

[glass girder]

so the comparison isn't working

[glass girder]

it prints if your looking at the object ?

[thin reef]

No, if you print on false, it prints every tick.

[glass girder]

right but does it print when your looking at the thing ?

[thin reef]

No it doesn't, that's the problem we are trying to solve. If I can get it to do that I can set up the rest of my code to call an event and do what I need to do from there, I think.

[glass girder]

well the line trace is working

your comparison isn't working

[timber pond]

I just recreated this in my project and its working as intended

[thin reef]

What could I have done wrong? The trace turns to a square when it hits the object I am interested in and it changes to a green line on the other side of it.

[timber pond]

Just do this and see what its printing out

[timber pond]

Back to this, you cannot just do this. Its not a valid reference. What you want to do is instead compare based on class type.

[thin reef]

damn, this worked

[thin reef]

I have run into this problem before, thank you for your help and you as well @engage. Can you explain to me why what I did before didn't work?

[timber pond]

Nice!

[glass girder]

you could also just get actor of class, single and use that instead of get all and get 0

[timber pond]

You cannot compare the HitActor to this object reference. Its not a valid reference. You have to find a valid reference or compare by class type.

[thin reef]

becayse that object reference is not a specific instance of that object?

[glass girder]

you can also get the actor on beginplay and use that reference

[timber pond]

Do what engage said because its way better for performance too

[timber pond]

Right its an invalid object and not a matching object instance.

[glass girder]

you could also cast

[thin reef]

Nevermind, thank you! The problem is that the way it's set up, you have to look off of the object before the timer to destroy it starts.

I have it like this for my other object to do what I want which is basically the same thing except shooting it with a laser beam. Final question - why is this one behaving like that whereas begin overlap works the way I want? I would like the timer to start when the trace hits this object and continue as long as the trace is hitting the object, otherwise it should be reset

[glass girder]

you destroy self on that event, how do you want it to keep working ?

[thin reef]

Sorry; what I would like is if the trace hits that object for more than 0.5 seconds, the object is destroyed. If the trace moves off of the object in that time, the timer is reset. That's the logic I built for this other blueprint I'm using that I showed you above, but it looks like the line trace doesn't work the same way as BeginOverlap.

The way it is currently working, the object is destroyed after 0.5 seconds only after the trace has hit the object and then moved off of it.

[glass girder]

well i don't see a trace here, your using overlap

[thin reef]

Sorry. That image is a different blueprint doing a different thing.

This image here is what we have been working on. I was just showing that other blueprint to show you how I am trying to set this one up

[glass girder]

so if you wanted it similar, then probably on false clear and invalidate the timer, promote it to variable and use the reference

[thin reef]

That's what I figured. The problem is that for some reason this one only starts the timer after you have hit the object and then moved off of it. SO if you then do the false and invalidate, it never destroys it.

I am trying to understand why this one only destroys the object if you hit it and then move away from it as it is currently structured.

[glass girder]

well your just starting a bunch of timers, because this runs on tick right ?

[thin reef]

I would rather it didn't but I can't think of another way to be checking for when the player focuses on this object.

[glass girder]

maybe a do once with a reset after the timer goes off

and also on false you can reset it

i like a boolean for things like this but do once might work

also check for a blocking hit before you start using the hit actor

if you don't hit anything it will probably throw

[thin reef]

It's the same problem if you do it with a do once with a reset - the problem is that the timer starts once you hit the object, then move the cursor off of the object, and I don't understand why.

[glass girder]

i was saying do once on the timer, and you should clear and invalidate on false

and non blocking

so that it starts when you first hit the object and doesn't keep creating timers

and your clear and invalidate isn't hooked up to anything, it should be run when you don't hit the actor you want

so the way you have it once you "see" this object, it will be destroyed in 0.5

but the do once you have is in the wrong spot

[thin reef]

yep this works, thank you so much! I don't understand how the do once is helping differently than how I had it though. the clear and invalidate of course needed to be hooked up.

[glass girder]

i would make the reference and just use that instead of that weird wire going across nodes

and also check for blocking so it doesn't crap out if you hit "nothing" but if it works then thats good

[thin reef]

Thank you as always!

[glass girder]

think about how often tick goes off, and everytime that code runs it creates a new timer

[thin reef]

ohhhhhhh sure! Thank you for explaining!!!! Do once makes sure that a new timer isn't being made every tick until you have looked away again. Got it.

[glass girder]

right and i'm pretty sure the variable that your clearing would just be newest one