Static Mesh Boolean Operations at Runtime / During Gameplay

Development Asset Creation
1

Hi There Fellow Unreal Peoples!!!

I have a quick question in regards to the following.

I am working on an open world multiplayer game which features a player-driven building system. So this means a player can build stuff during gameplay like a house or a shed or whatever. This is driven by some static meshes that forms the parts of the building so for example the player can place a foundation and then add some walls and a roof etc.

What I would like to know is, if there is a way in Blueprints or C++ that a player will be able to say make a hole inside a static mesh during gameplay. So instead of having a wall that has a premade window hole the player can make a hole after he has placed the wall?

This question then extends to the landscape and terain as well? If the player want’s to add a basement to the building? What parts of the API do I need to look at in order to say make a square hole in the landscape during runtime/gameplay?

Is this even possible in the engine as of 4.14?

2

Thats not really possible. Static meshes are, as the name implies, static.
What you could dois constructing your geometry as procedural meshes. Those can be modified at runtime.

Landscape holes could be generated by painting into the landscape hole material.

3

Thanks for the reply, I was just checking in regards to the Static Meshes as naming conventions can sometimes be misleading so there could have been a solution to it in that regards. That said, I will investigate the Procedural Meshes for my building system. It would be much nicer to have the window cut it’s own hole on placement insttead of having solid walls and walls with preset window holes. If a player can cut his own window hole during gameplay then that would be ideal.