[Community Project] WIP Weather & Ocean Water Shader

[tozan]

I expected the project files to be in zip format not in a directory structure. So I don't know which files I need to download
to install or migrate this plugin into my project.

But it looks like people have been having problems running it on 4.12. As that's the version of the engine I have.

[tozan]

If people are modifying the engine code and releasing their projects or tutorials based off their modified engine code, it is likely to cause file dependency problems when they are migrated or loaded into normal unmodified engines and this is WHAT I DON"T LIKE about the Unreal Engine is all the problems with other file dependencies that it causing, all because the engine is not backwards compatible.

That's why I can't get tutorials or projects to run very well on 4.12 when they have been made in 4.8 ect. when i try to do them because of file dependency problems that keep cropping up, it causes problems for the blueprints and breaks the blueprints nodes and causes compiler errrors. I couldn't get the Ledge Grabber project to migrate from 4.8 to 4.12. just crashed the engine.

[Nsomnia]

I expected the project files to be in zip format not in a directory structure. So I don't know which files I need to download
to install or migrate this plugin into my project.

But it looks like people have been having problems running it on 4.12. As that's the version of the engine I have.

Its ran fine on every engine verison since it was an old blueprint setup. Never an issue i've been with this project dayin and out since about 4.6.

It will ask you to build because theres source code!

The folders are in a directory structure (which are in a zip if you download from the repository so im confused how your saying its not one or the other when both are true) because its a demo project, hence OCEANDEMO. Simply migrate the entire content folder from the RUNNING OceanDemo projcet into your CLOSED project and then copy the /source/ and /plugins/ folder from OceanDemo to YourProject root folders and then rename the source code module names and such (see below).


You also need to edit your build.cs and your gamemodule and gamemodule editor code to be renamed for YOUR projects name, replacing OceanDemo strings, did you do that? That would cause these errors your having.

Can you post your /source/ YOURPROJECT.Target.cs and YOURPROJECTEditor.Target.cs as well as /Source/YOURPROJECT/YOURPROJECT.Build.cs as well as /Source/YOURPROJECT/YOURPROJECT.cpp and /Source/YOURPROJECT/YOURPROJECT.h as well as ensuring they are named the same as YOURPROJECT.uproject?

If people are modifying the engine code and releasing their projects or tutorials based off their modified engine code, it is likely to cause file dependency problems when they are migrated or loaded into normal unmodified engines and this is WHAT I DON"T LIKE about the Unreal Engine is all the problems with other file dependencies that it causing, all because the engine is not backwards compatible.

That's why I can't get tutorials or projects to run very well on 4.12 when they have been made in 4.8 ect. when i try to do them because of file dependency problems that keep cropping up, it causes problems for the blueprints and breaks the blueprints nodes and causes compiler errrors. I couldn't get the Ledge Grabber project to migrate from 4.8 to 4.12. just crashed the engine.

The ocean project in no way modifies any engine source. If it did it wouldnt even run most likely. LedgeGrabber may very well have a module/source/etc. that needs setting up as well. You cant expect plug and play for everything. Downlaod 4.8.3 and run ledgeGrabber so you have a reference then migrate to your 4.12.x project and see what got deprecated (depreacted means something got old and replaced with a newer "version" in the upcoming version after it was deprecated), by simply seeing what blueprint errors (or code if its code based) you have and fixing the (most likely small amount of) errors it spits out.

Its very rare I find a project from 4.4 forwards that wont run on 4.12.x as long as theres no code, and any deprecated blueprint member function nodes etc. are usually a small amount, they strive for backwards compatibility.

Another thing. When your game is ready to be developed to the public stick with an engine vesrion and leave it. pull in changes from github that you NEED and run a custom build among your team.


If you just want the plugin just download the /plugin/ and /source/ folders.

If you want the content that uses the plugin, copy the content.

If you want the whole project, do both or just rename OceanDemo to MyLittleProject in the source files and uproject and recompile and go happily developing.

Also, try delteing /intermediate/ and /saved/ and if all else fails /binaries/ and .sln: nice and clean.

[Alllesss]

The issue is the sky HUD doesnt compile in a level BP so you cook that level or a memory reference to that level and it fails. I think its Island_Map or either wya one of the ocean maps, check the level BP and delete the OLD_HUD sky bit. It doesnt compile and definitly doesnt cook.

Thank you! I removed all the unnecessary files including HUD and now its packaging without any errors!

[Nsomnia]

Thank you! I removed all the unnecessary files including HUD and now its packaging without any errors!

IT caught me up for a day or two also ebcause I hadnt cooked n packaged (bad habit, cook and pckage every day!) since hte new sky setup.

[AP_Studios]

wo0t - thanks for the help.
I just copy/paste all the stuff from the ocean project back into my own project and it started working. Apparently i must have forgot to move something over, thats why it wasnt working ha!


EDIT:


It was the config files - but then it messed some other stuff up ...

Anyone know what it is in the config INI files that allows for the underwater changes? I get everything working except the blue tint.
Using the "Custom Third Person" for the game mode doesnt resolve the issue either.

[Nsomnia]

wo0t - thanks for the help.
I just copy/paste all the stuff from the ocean project back into my own project and it started working. Apparently i must have forgot to move something over, thats why it wasnt working ha!


EDIT:


It was the config files - but then it messed some other stuff up ...

Anyone know what it is in the config INI files that allows for the underwater changes? I get everything working except the blue tint.
Using the "Custom Third Person" for the game mode doesnt resolve the issue either.

Look in the level BP of the stock project you need to figureout a way to findout when the camera is underwater and thus apply the PP effects in the underwater volume. You need underwater BP, PP underwater set to PP_Underwater_inst_2 and the logic that when camera goes underwtaer is calls bool isUnderwater() == true on a do once and then resets the inverse which sets it to false when its above. These functions take the player camera location and compare it to the oceans GetWaveHeightValue(bool twoIterations, FVector locIn, &FVector OutDifference, bool& OutBIsUnderwater) (or something like that) and then they subtract 10 cm for extra sureness.



PP_Global does not display underwater effects. PP_Underwater_inst_2 and BP_Underwater with a PP_Underwatervolume AND a way to enable it when underwater do. The shaders go in your 4.12/engine/shaders/* where all the unreal shader files are (.usf)
Close editor first, restart and hit ctrl + shift + comma to recompile editor shaders. Same way its been since... 4.8 or so?

Boom bang bing.

as i posted previously. ITs a post process volume with a blendables isntanced material set to it which is turned on/off based on camera below/above water meshes Z value.

[Seehr]

Its ran fine on every engine verison since it was an old blueprint setup. Never an issue i've been with this project dayin and out since about 4.6.

It will ask you to build because theres source code!

The folders are in a directory structure (which are in a zip if you download from the repository so im confused how your saying its not one or the other when both are true) because its a demo project, hence OCEANDEMO. Simply migrate the entire content folder from the RUNNING OceanDemo projcet into your CLOSED project and then copy the /source/ and /plugins/ folder from OceanDemo to YourProject root folders and then rename the source code module names and such (see below).


You also need to edit your build.cs and your gamemodule and gamemodule editor code to be renamed for YOUR projects name, replacing OceanDemo strings, did you do that? That would cause these errors your having.

Can you post your /source/ YOURPROJECT.Target.cs and YOURPROJECTEditor.Target.cs as well as /Source/YOURPROJECT/YOURPROJECT.Build.cs as well as /Source/YOURPROJECT/YOURPROJECT.cpp and /Source/YOURPROJECT/YOURPROJECT.h as well as ensuring they are named the same as YOURPROJECT.uproject?



The ocean project in no way modifies any engine source. If it did it wouldnt even run most likely. LedgeGrabber may very well have a module/source/etc. that needs setting up as well. You cant expect plug and play for everything. Downlaod 4.8.3 and run ledgeGrabber so you have a reference then migrate to your 4.12.x project and see what got deprecated (depreacted means something got old and replaced with a newer "version" in the upcoming version after it was deprecated), by simply seeing what blueprint errors (or code if its code based) you have and fixing the (most likely small amount of) errors it spits out.

Its very rare I find a project from 4.4 forwards that wont run on 4.12.x as long as theres no code, and any deprecated blueprint member function nodes etc. are usually a small amount, they strive for backwards compatibility.

Another thing. When your game is ready to be developed to the public stick with an engine vesrion and leave it. pull in changes from github that you NEED and run a custom build among your team.


If you just want the plugin just download the /plugin/ and /source/ folders.

If you want the content that uses the plugin, copy the content.

If you want the whole project, do both or just rename OceanDemo to MyLittleProject in the source files and uproject and recompile and go happily developing.

Also, try delteing /intermediate/ and /saved/ and if all else fails /binaries/ and .sln: nice and clean.

Hello Nsomnia. First of all, thanks for the help in the forum. I'm glad there is someone i can ask my doubts about it active regularly.
Okay so my question is the following: my project is advanced and i don't want to recompile from scratch to get this plugin and i can't change the folders because i also have other plugis installed and i need them.

So what can i do to have the content properly working? i tried migrating but i still had to modify everything. The worst part is: i did. I recopied and remade all the nodes based on the ones in the working project. But i still got diferent results and not working Ocean_ultra shader....
So im not really sure what i can do now that won't affect the whole project and could allow me integrating this

Thanks a lot for your patience, seriously.
Seehr

[Nsomnia]

Hello Nsomnia. First of all, thanks for the help in the forum. I'm glad there is someone i can ask my doubts about it active regularly.
Okay so my question is the following: my project is advanced and i don't want to recompile from scratch to get this plugin and i can't change the folders because i also have other plugis installed and i need them.

So what can i do to have the content properly working? i tried migrating but i still had to modify everything. The worst part is: i did. I recopied and remade all the nodes based on the ones in the working project. But i still got diferent results and not working Ocean_ultra shader....
So im not really sure what i can do now that won't affect the whole project and could allow me integrating this

Thanks a lot for your patience, seriously.
Seehr

At that point if youve kept the orignial folders (sky, fish, experimental, ocean etc) than just delete them and copy paste a new set in and reset any references to those files in YOUR files, the ocean will work fine, just not any references to it.

Otherwise go file by file replacing it one by one with OceanDemo on one screen and YOURPROJECT on the other.

About all I can think of without knowing your project.

[SirPixell]

Can anyone explain to me why this weird reflection is happening? I can't figure out why it happens or how to change it.

[tozan]

Did you set a reflection Sphere in there by any chance?

[tozan]

This is the type of water shader I'm looking for to add into my game project, Does this ocean shader come in blueprints and material nodes only so we can just install it
into our projects? I would prefer that, so I don't have to mess around with C++ code to try to install it because I don't know C++ code and half of these plugins I'm told require messing around with C++ code. and how much is this shader going to cost when its finished?

[tozan]

Hmm I don't know how to use the community version of Visual Studio for compiling source code for the ocean project. All I know how to do is just migrate (if the engine version version supports the migration).

Yes on the ledge climbing project which I think was made with ver 4.8. I came up with Duplicate Function Errors on three blueprint nodes, that had no references to link to to show me where the error node is and it was checked on goto error node but I couldn't fix this error.

The second project called GRABBLING HOOK Here's the RESULTS I got after migration:

Only his Climb Wall function works. The Grabbling with the hook function won't work because there are two blueprint node
errors in the action key area that controls the events for Grabbling with the hook and dropping off with Ctrl key.

I DO NOT KNOW how to fix these type of errors. These are the errors....

! Input action Event References unknown action 'Fire' for Inputaction Fire.
! Input action Event References unknown action 'drop' for Inputaction Drop.

I tired to fix it by deleting those two event nodes with the errors and adding custom event fire, custom event drop
that got rid of the error, and it then compiled ok but it didn't get the guy grappling with the
hook so I have no idea how to get the grappling to work.

And what key are we supposed to use to get the hook to grab onto the building?


However, the procedural Sun Sky Project (moving the sun and moon across the sky from sunset to sunrise) that
migrated into my project with no blueprint problems at all.

[Jägermanjensen]

The shader is ~718 instructions with static, 698 with only dynamic, 734 with shadowed translucency, and 68 vertex shader, all in all not that expensive a large amount purely in the gerstner equations

As for the C++, there really is no reason to go into the plugin unless you want to implement the gerstner equation differently. In fact I've modified all included plugins BESIDES the Ocean Manager simply because it does exactly what i need more efficiently than i can make it or try to improve on. The one thing i can say is if you plan on changing the gerstner equations in the shader you have to change them in the plugin, they work separately, the plugin uses the equations to calculate the height and the shader has the very same equations for displacement, so if you change the equations in the shader but not the plugin you'll still be floating around in non existent waves.

As for the blueprint implementation, from what I've seen the Ocean Manager might be able to be recreated in BP, the only thing i would question is the LoadLandscapeHeightmap function
The rest of the plugins are quite a bit more simple to recreate in BP

Time Manager I'm also not sure about. Longs and Doubles aren't accessible through BP, and i don't think epic will make them accessible

[Nsomnia]

Post1

This is the type of water shader I'm looking for to add into my game project, Does this ocean shader come in blueprints and material nodes only so we can just install it
into our projects? I would prefer that, so I don't have to mess around with C++ code to try to install it because I don't know C++ code and half of these plugins I'm told require messing around with C++ code. and how much is this shader going to cost when its finished?

Yes, go to github and find the old commits, some of the original ones. Be prepared for massive FPS drop and much lower quality and you'll low things like the skydome, buoyancyforcecomponent, landscape modulation etc etc. Back then it was an ocean shader and a struct(FVector Loc, ...) based buoyancy component.

You dont have to touch C++ for any plugins thats why they are called PLUG-INs. Only time is if a function gets notonly deprecated but removed from the API, but you'll have 2+ engine versions giving you warnings to change something like the recent FMath::Floor() to FMath::FloorToInt() it evne says SOMEEFUNCTION() in file SOMEFILE.CPP Line 123 is depreacated. Please Replace with SOMENEWFUNCTION() or your code may not wokr in the future.


Post 2

Hmm I don't know how to use the community version of Visual Studio for compiling source code for the ocean project. All I know how to do is just migrate (if the engine version version supports the migration).

Yes on the ledge climbing project which I think was made with ver 4.8. I came up with Duplicate Function Errors on three blueprint nodes, that had no references to link to to show me where the error node is and it was checked on goto error node but I couldn't fix this error.

The second project called GRABBLING HOOK Here's the RESULTS I got after migration:

Only his Climb Wall function works. The Grabbling with the hook function won't work because there are two blueprint node
errors in the action key area that controls the events for Grabbling with the hook and dropping off with Ctrl key.

I DO NOT KNOW how to fix these type of errors. These are the errors....

! Input action Event References unknown action 'Fire' for Inputaction Fire.
! Input action Event References unknown action 'drop' for Inputaction Drop.

I tired to fix it by deleting those two event nodes with the errors and adding custom event fire, custom event drop
that got rid of the error, and it then compiled ok but it didn't get the guy grappling with the
hook so I have no idea how to get the grappling to work.

And what key are we supposed to use to get the hook to grab onto the building?


However, the procedural Sun Sky Project (moving the sun and moon across the sky from sunset to sunrise) that
migrated into my project with no blueprint problems at all.

The ledge climbing project I think your talking about (the one available on pirate sites) is from 4.8, the one on the marketpalce is updated constantly and works with verisons 4.5.x through 4.13.x-preview. I suggest you buy it if this is the case, pirated assets sometimes have bad references etc. did you drop it into your launcher vault cache (I cant say anymore).

To use Visual Studio Community 2015 Update 3 follow these steps
- Download
- Install (Check VisualC++ under languages and Windows8.1 SDK just to be safe)
- Run project



That error tells you exactly whats wrong, and its a warning not an error.

Verborisity warning != error

INPUT ACTION EVENT 'Fire' and 'Drop' were not found.

Project Settings -> Input -> Add new input action x 2
Call one Fire and set it to the left mouse button
Call one Drop and set it to the CTRL key

Bing bang boom. They are not a custom event they are an input action event (theres also an input axis event)



The code equivlent is

AGrappleCharacter::SetupInput()
{
    GetPawn()->GetInputComoonent->BindAction("Fire", IE_Pressed, this, &AGrappleCharacter::FireGrapple); 
    GetPawn()->GetInputComoonent->BindAction("Drop", IE_Pressed, this, &AGrappleCharacter::DropGrapple); 
}

AGrapphCharacter::FireGrapple()
{
    DoSomething();
}

AGrapphCharacter::DropGrapple()
{
    DoSomething();
}

but: you'd stil have to set the input action in your settings.

What key do you use? You tell us, find the action "GrappleBuilding" or whatever input event your talking about and create a binding for it to ANY key.

I have no idea what the Procedural Sun Sky project is.

You have a bit to learn young grasshopper.