ah, and how do i tie them together if

[tight tapir]

within the same blueprint you'd refer to both and have them do their stuff

that blueprint would be the one you use to spawn the new item I guess. So when the item is spawned, there are some rules that would pick what kind of item, what size, what color, etc..

if you need to keep track of which items where created, you can store the result elsewhere as the player picks it up or something

[balmy lily]

this is so confusing because there are many ways to do it.
i was just now creating a data table with the materials.
so that then when i create an actor, i get the clothes, and each cloth entry in the data table will have a Name that is an entry for a data table that has the materials properties

but then i realized at that point why not just create an actual material instance right...

thats what most ue devs do

[tight tapir]

yeah I agree.. infinite ways of doing it.. but the one you pick.. you'll mostly likely use for many things so it's hard to pick one

[tight tapir]

yeah! you can store those in the table

a struct could include eveything you need to define how an item looks

[balmy lily]

the thing is that some materials change only the color

for example this dress

changes only the color

so i have pink dress, black dress,

thats why i didnt want to just create a material instance just for that

but others change texture too

[tight tapir]

oh you don't have to create an instance for that

you can change the value in the blueprint

[balmy lily]

but it needs a data table entry

so for example, lets say i change dress from black dress to pink dress

i need to know the property for the pink dress to create a material instance

so i get it from a data table
But at that point if we are getting these properties from a data table, like color, roughness,
It might be better to just create a material instance for the material?

idk... this is what i think

[tight tapir]

both ways work

i like to change parameters on the fly so I'd have one instance only and chance its parameters dynamically

this way, if later you add, let's say, a decoration on the dress or a new attribute such as the dress size, you don't need to duplicate both the black and pink dress

you just set them independently

you can edit the whole instance (affecting all the objects that use it all at once) or edit the dynamic instance applied to a specific dress

this is how you create a assign a MID (material instance dynamic)

this "virtual" instance will be unique to the dress you apply it on

you can do this in the construction script or at event begin play.. or on creation of the dress

then you can change the color like this

[balmy lily]

amazing

in my case the clothes are not blueprints, they are just skeletal meshes

so when i change the dress of my character, i just change the cloth

but need a datatable because there is not individual blueprint for the dress

[tight tapir]

they could be blueprints with this code to control them

each dress would essential get a parameter to change its color

[balmy lily]

and how do i attach them

ah they can be actor component?

[tight tapir]

you need to create a blueprint that lets you add more features to your dress and then set it to use the dress skeletal mesh

you could have a parent blueprint that can be any cloth too

this is kind of like building your data table but instead you create a dynamic, modular dress that you can adjust

[balmy lily]

and then attach to actor ?

[tight tapir]

the dress would be within that system

[balmy lily]

the thing with actors is that i remember someone tell me its bad to use attach actor to actor

but i think this would work with component

[tight tapir]

no need to attach

the bp IS the dress

[balmy lily]

but the character has more dresses

and removes and adds

[tight tapir]

hm so all of those dresses are worn?

or like you'd have a display with a bunch of them?

because then you could just build all of this within the character

like in your character BP.. you can change the color (or shape) of their dress

[balmy lily]

they are worn sometimes, not all at once

[tight tapir]

yeah i see

i'm sure there are tutorials for character customization.. i'd start there

and then probably re use the same logic for your other needs

[balmy lily]

i was checking here using data driven with data tables vs creating material instances

material instance is 70 kb

a data table is way less

[tight tapir]

That doesn’t matter

Unless you’re doing some kind of challenge

[balmy lily]

yeah im overthinking i think

i think will be fine if i create a material instance (not dynamic)

and set it on the data table

instead of using variables