Engine Features Preview 3/30/2015

We’re excited to share a few of the new features now available on the Master branch on GitHub. To be able to try out these new features, you will need to download the source code for the Master branch and build the Engine yourself. For more information about how to build the Engine from source code, please see this page. The Master branch on GitHub is constantly being updated and is not quality tested so it may be potentially unstable. We do not recommend using the Master branch for project development. If you wish to wait, these features will be made available to all in an upcoming official release.

Engine News

New Features

New: “Sci-fi Bunk” Sample Project!

Liam Tart (PogoP) built this showcase scene to learn more about Unreal Engine 4’s rendering techniques.



There are a number of Material Instances based on a master Material - check out the documentation to see how and why these are used! The scene is laid out in a modular way, and includes Blueprints to drive lights and other elements of the environment. A Matinee flythrough of the project both conveys the station’s backstory and can be used to learn how to set up your own movie to show off a scene.

To download this project please check out our new Community Contributions section within the Learn tab of the UE4 launcher!

New: Split-Screen UI (Unreal Motion Graphics)

We now support for split-screen UIs in UMG. Here is an example of a four-way split with a different menu for each player.

You can add Widgets directly to a specific player’s screen instead of the viewport directly. This will automatically position and size the UI for each player. Player-specific screen UI will appear underneath anything that was added directly to the viewport.

New: Interact with Graph Wires

You can now interact with wires in any graph editor!

  • Alt+LMB Click to break the connection.
  • Ctrl+LMB Drag to move the connection to a different pin.
  • Hover over the wire to highlight it or see the tool tip for the associated pin.
  • Double-click to insert a reroute node (Blueprint graphs only).

Note: This feature will be enabled by default in an upcoming release, but for now you will need to turn it on manually in your Preferences:

  • Editor Preferences -> Graph Editors ->Treat Splines Like Pins (enabled)

New: Ctrl+Tab Menu (Quickly switch between tabs)

You can now summon a pop-up menu to quickly switch between different asset editors and tool tabs by pressing Ctrl+Tab.

It stays open as long as you hold down Ctrl, and pressing Tab or Shift+Tab cycles forwards and backwards through the open asset editors (and the level editor). Letting go of Ctrl will open the currently highlighted editor.

You can also use the mouse to activate one of the editors or any of the associated tool tabs for the highlighted editor. The path display in the bottom left corner is also a hyperlink that will show the asset in the content browser.

As a reminder, there is also a Ctrl+P shortcut to open an asset picker dialog that you can use to open new asset editors.

I like it:

http://www.ioflowstudios.com/posts/150331_115700_iLikeIt.jpg

I like it a lot.

+1 Treat Splines Like Pins , Yay! :slight_smile: Ctrl + Tabbing is something I like to use.
Thanks for the effort on improving workflow tasks!

Looking good. Being able to move the spline is a great feature.

Awesome!!

I like the shortcut features very much, and Alt + click i have used for a long time ^ ^

BTW, can you add a force collapse node feature?
some nodes are too fat but they are not important in graph.
for example:
SpawnActor need a transform input, but some times i just want to give a empty transform.
BreakHitResult i just use a location output.
Then the empty transform and BreakHitResult node are too fat ~~~

If every nodes can collapse to minimal size will be wonderful, IMHO.

Oh, one more thing:
If there is a += node or ++ node will be good, too.

target += addValue;
------Increment---------------
-|target pin target out pin |-
-|add value pin |

target++;
------Increment One----------
-|target pin target out pin |-

Cheers
Omega

Great, looking forward to more like these graph tweaks! Houdini is always a good software for inspiration when it comes to node based workflows :wink:

Interacting with graph wires, yay! :slight_smile: Great job!

BTW:

I second that, would be great ^^

I downloaded the Master Branch from Github today and found that Setup.bat gets stuck at 99% of “updating dependencies”.

That’s some epic usability improvements with graph wire interaction, reroute nodes were a pain to set up!

Any chance there could also be some kind of shift+double click on reroute to delete the reroute node, but have the connection snap back to a straight line instead of poofing?

Looking forward to these changes! New BP interaction is great!

Awesome improvements :smiley:

These old suggestions I made on a different thread might be of interest to Epic’s development staff:

**Source post: **[Feature request]Knots in blueprint linking and possibly other graphs too - Feedback & Requests - Epic Developer Community Forums

Looks good! I’ve found reroute nodes inflexible in the past though, once in place I can’t drag new wires from them or move them. Hopefully this is a bit different now! Great though, thanks :slight_smile:

Ah yeah! This looks great.

Are you able to drag off an execution wire from an existing input and pin it to the blueprint grid itself.

For instance, I want to remove a node but first I click on the input, detach it, and pin it nearby. Next, once I get my new nodes setup, I can pick up that old input and put it to the new node.

Keep up the great work!

Hi Benjamin,

Thank you for the suggestions. I have entered a Feature Request in our tracking software and our developers will be taking them under consideration.

Cheers,

TJ

Is it just me, or does the sci-fi bunker remind anyone else of “The Fifth Element”?

The ctrl+tab menu is godsent.

“Double-click to add reroute nodes” best feature ever, thank Epic :cool:

It’s looks great.

and Will the Roadmap’s March features come out? e.g. Design sequencer for cinematics, Camera Refactor, Cascade 2.0 etc…

I submitted a pull request (that was added to the engine) a while back that makes the default + and - values 1 across the board so it’s kind of like increment (though not the exact same thing, I admit). A += node would be pretty easy to do and if it has a default value of 1 then it takes care of the need for a dedicated increment node. I’ll get on that soon and submit!

Yes for Rerouting, thanks Michael Noland! :smiley:

Does it also come with a shortcut to drop a Reroute node, such as R+Click?
And does the Double-Click support a Double-Click-Drag Scenario where I can immediately start dragging the new Reroute Node without having to click again?