NVIDIA GameWorks Integration

[DizcoDev]

Hey Mike,

Are there any plans for a FlameWorks integration to UE4?

regards

[Mike.Skolones]

Hey Mike,

Are there any plans for a FlameWorks integration to UE4?

regards

Yes, but the name FlameWorks won't really appear. We have merged the functionality of FlameWorks into the latest Turbulence module...namely, temperature, fuel and a combustion divergence rate...and we are working on a UE4-Turbulence integration. Right now we're trying to get over the rendering hurdles, because it requires a volumetric render technique, which of course will have to play nicely with shadows, other particles, transparency, etc., and this is not trivial.

[Tryedz]

Move it to a more shallow directory. Seems its too deep. Other than that, I haven't had that issue before, but I tend to store my files in directories like G:\UnrealEngine

Okay that solved it, but now I'm getting this right after I start compiling

[Mike.Skolones]

Okay that solved it, but now I'm getting this right after I start compiling

[ATTACH=CONFIG]41201[/ATTACH]

Somehow that lib was blown away. Did you look for it in Source/ThirdParty/GameWorks/VXGI/lib/x64?

[GalaxyMan2015]

I don't know of any technical reason why this couldn't work, or why technically it shouldn't be done, but as I recall, whenever I bring up the subject here of a complete in-engine toolchain, some of our lead technical artists on the HairWorks project push back vigorously. Toochain and workflow are largely a matter of preference, but our artists believe that much of the work should be done in the DCC plugins together with a dedicated tool like the HairWorks viewer. Not being a production artist myself (or any kind of artist really), I like the idea of having a complete toolchain in-engine, at least one that would let you do, say, 90% of the operations that the full toolchain provides. This makes it much easier to introduce the feature to new people, demonstrate it, roll out new versions, etc.

I tend to be on both sides of the fence really, I can see the benefits of a in-engine toolchain, but also can also see the side of the technical artists, same argument applies to in-engine modelling tools. I think this would be a great project for the community to work on, while the HairWorks team can continue on making HairWorks awesome for UE4, and continue to maintain the plugins and standalone viewer. The in-engine hair modeller could be released as an optional plugin that users could choose to install if they would like the features.

[Nudlegaru]

I tend to be on both sides of the fence really, I can see the benefits of a in-engine toolchain, but also can also see the side of the technical artists, same argument applies to in-engine modelling tools. I think this would be a great project for the community to work on, while the HairWorks team can continue on making HairWorks awesome for UE4, and continue to maintain the plugins and standalone viewer. The in-engine hair modeller could be released as an optional plugin that users could choose to install if they would like the features.

I totally approve that. It would be good to have both: one in-engien and one for DCC that can be used in anything even in movies. Epic should also add an in-engine modeler: this may be very helpful too.

Edit : 4.8 Preview 4 is up.

[Tryedz]

Somehow that lib was blown away. Did you look for it in Source/ThirdParty/GameWorks/VXGI/lib/x64?

For some reason the x64 folder doesnt exist
I did it exactly the same way I always set up new builds...

Edit: Okay so it wasn't in the zip file I downloaded from github either... that's weird :S I'm dling it again right now

[Nudlegaru]

Will NVidia WaveWorks branch get updated and get better sample? I compiled and opened the sample, the water is still there and doesn't move. Nothing like Boat sample shown at the NVidia's site where waves change according to weather.

[n00854180t]

I don't know of any technical reason why this couldn't work, or why technically it shouldn't be done, but as I recall, whenever I bring up the subject here of a complete in-engine toolchain, some of our lead technical artists on the HairWorks project push back vigorously. Toochain and workflow are largely a matter of preference, but our artists believe that much of the work should be done in the DCC plugins together with a dedicated tool like the HairWorks viewer.

I understand their position and think it makes sense in terms of what NVIDIA should support for the general industry - it's likely most developers using HairWorks will be larger teams, and that makes sense you'd want your artists to stay in the art package as much as possible, since they aren't usually going into the engine like on a small team or sole dev.

Not being a production artist myself (or any kind of artist really), I like the idea of having a complete toolchain in-engine, at least one that would let you do, say, 90% of the operations that the full toolchain provides. This makes it much easier to introduce the feature to new people, demonstrate it, roll out new versions, etc.

I'm not an artist either, so that's exactly my thinking as well. Trying to use art packages is a nightmare for me, and the first thing the HairWorks pipeline tells you to do is use an art package + third party plugin.

Staying in engine is always faster for me generally, and Epic already took this approach somewhat with the destructible mesh tools etc. I think it makes a lot of sense to have this part of the pipeline inside UE4.

I am planning on working on one myself if NVIDIA choose not to, doing exactly as you stated, and having options to brush, scale, cut, etc. It doesn't even need to be saved in APX format, as the library allow you to create hair from just data, of course it should allow for exporting to APX format, but I believe this is also supported by the library

Even better, to start with. Though I mentioned exporting to .apx because of all the parameters and stuff the viewer tool has (setting the textures and all that), which would take longer to recreate in UE4 than just the Maya/Max part of it.

I'm going to begin toying with it in the next couple of days here, I'll fork your repo for it.

[Mike.Skolones]

Will NVidia WaveWorks branch get updated and get better sample? I compiled and opened the sample, the water is still there and doesn't move. Nothing like Boat sample shown at the NVidia's site where waves chnage according to weather.

I know. It makes me sad to think of how WaveWorks hasn't made any progress. Believe me, it's on the TODO list.

Edit...wait...are you saying the waves don't move when you run the level in PIE? That should work just fine. If not, you're missing a DLL, or a shader or something.

[Nudlegaru]

I know. It makes me sad to think of how WaveWorks hasn't made any progress. Believe me, it's on the TODO list.

Edit...wait...are you saying the waves don't move when you run the level in PIE? That should work just fine. If not, you're missing a DLL, or a shader or something.

Yes, I wisehd the sample to be like your spectacular and awesome boat demo which changes according to weather conditions that I really appreciated from you and I thank you for it. I can wait for such results one day for UE4. Don't rush yourself for it. Take your time.

Well I got this:

http://i.imgur.com/mlGKvzS.png?1

And nothing moves when I hit Play. Is that normal? Is it missing anything?

[GalaxyMan2015]

I'm going to begin toying with it in the next couple of days here, I'll fork your repo for it.

Keep us updated, maybe we can combine efforts at some point. Right now I am just toying with the idea myself, I've done plenty of editor integration, but nothing of this caliber.

[n00854180t]

So I've looked through some of the editor customization stuff and I have an idea of what to do, but there are some options for how we want to go about it, and I could use everyone's feedback:

* Static Mesh Editor, basically a panel/tab like the collision generation tab, with a button for making a new set of splines, and brushes.

* A totally separate editor like the static mesh editor but specific to doing hairworks splines.

My thought right now is that we don't really need its own viewport editor, as there's just not that much going on in this part of the process - select a mesh, gen splines, brush 'em around a bit, send it over to the HairWorks component or a .apx for finishing in the standalone HairWorks tool.

That said for a tighter integration that would do the rest of the stuff you might want like the HairWorks viewer thingy does, selecting all the textures, setting all the various LOD distances and whatnot, it might be better to have in its own viewport editor. That said, a panel is about my speed right now - I could do a viewport editor, but it seems like a lot of boilerplate setup, and I'd rather have a panel that works now than a viewport editor standalone that works later. Longer term I will definitely see about getting its own viewport editor and trying to get some sort of feature parity with the HairWorks tool.

Let me know what you guys think.

Keep us updated, maybe we can combine efforts at some point. Right now I am just toying with the idea myself, I've done plenty of editor integration, but nothing of this caliber.

Add me on Steam and UE4 launcher chat (I'm not on the latter much, but I'm always on Steam) and we can discuss it more in depth. My nickname is the same as here. Same for anyone else interested in the integration. I also don't mind helping people out with UE4 questions.

[Mike.Skolones]

Yes, I wisehd the sample to be like your spectacular and awesome boat demo which changes according to weather conditions that I really appreciated from you and I thank you for it. I can wait for such results one day for UE4. Don't rush yourself for it. Take your time.

Well I got this:

http://i.imgur.com/mlGKvzS.png?1




And nothing moves when I hit Play. Is that normal? Is it missing anything?

Nothing moves? That shouldn't be the case. The waves do move, last time I looked at it. I'll download a fresh clone and see if it is still working, although I don't know any reason why it should have broken.

[Nudlegaru]

Nothing moves? That shouldn't be the case. The waves do move, last time I looked at it. I'll download a fresh clone and see if it is still working, although I don't know any reason why it should have broken.

Yes, last time I downloaded few months ago, everything worked fine. I really don't know why it doesn't work now. BTW, whenever I clone using github, ayn sample folder of any repository doesn't get downloaded, so I always use the zip now. Would you please check usethe zip file to check if it was missing sth? Thank you very much.