Hi everyone, we’re ready to take questions for this Thursday’s stream. Details and the agenda are below.
WHAT UE4 Twitch Stream – Vehicles in 4.2
Join Epic’s developers for a chat about the upcoming 4.2 release, which includes vehicle support and ships with a vehicle template (both C++ and Blueprint) as well as our vehicle sample game. Get your fix of news, development discussions, live demos, community spotlights and Q&A right here!
Will the collision fixes and lightmap fixes be included for instanced static meshes in 4.2?
Collision for instanced static meshes is currently broken if the mesh is rotated.
The Instanced static meshes do not receive any indirect lighting/ lightmap information when lighting is baked.
Asked this question in the twitch chat last time, hopefully you guys are able to catch this time along with the billion other questions people ask.
How modular will the vehicle template bits be? How easy will it be to, for example, adapt it to make an 8-wheeled all-terrain vehicle, or a truck and trailer combo? Or… a tank?
And also, how well do such physically simulated entities work in a networked setup?
Will be possible to create or record a vehicle animation to be used in a cinematic sequence (Matinee or future Sequencer) later? If possible could you briefly explain how to do that in this next release?
I’m really interested in this since I recently made a Vehicle Pack.
I’m just wondering if there will be if there is a skid tire implementation of how will we handle this?
Vehicle wheels are a separate type of collider in the PhysX engine. It’s not joint based and is more evolved than a raycast wheel. It should run fine on handheld as long as you don’t have a lot of vehicles.
Everything is possible if you put enough work into it but unfortunately not out of the box. However PhysX has implemented a whole drivetrain system with clutch, differential etc so it is a good start. Keep in mind that Gran Turismo cheats with physics a lot and is constrained on a 2D plane (the track).
With vehicle templates arriving, what is the likelihood that other vehicle templates will be added in the near future? Specifically early samples shown such as the blueprint bi-plane and pirate ship samples.
Since many keep asking for a “road editor” and I feel like we are going to see some roads, that have been created for the sample game, maybe it would be a good time for a spotlight tutorial on how to use the spline editor for roads and rivers and such. Thoughts?
Is there any chance in the near future for a tutorial regarding possession of a vehicle in a FPS or 3PS format?
Come on! Be real! Landscape splines are so easy to use for making roads, that both vehicles samples that are coming are using it, right??? NO!!! rssssss
With the most simple road editor, we can make roads in seconds. I know, because I’ve been using road editor for several game engines in the past years. But when I try the landscape splines to make a simple road, just trying to adjust the road to sit nicelly over the terrain, it will take hours, probably days. And it is impossible to make intersections. Then for vehicles AI, we have to add waypoints nodes manually. If you have a big road, a few days more of work just to make it more or less working right. But most road editors out there, already do that for us. In minutes, we have nice roads with interesections, waypoints, roads details ( like trafic lights, other lighs, signs, etc )
^ I personally don’t need this. It is just a question that is repeated over and over again. I feel like something needs to be offered so it will stop being asked.
For what it’s worth, any time I needed to overlay, say a dirt road, I would often use decals. If it was a track layout, something I did like a Mario Kart clone, I just modeled 7 track segments that pretty much covered every need and then just re-skinned them per level.
I have used spline systems for roads and rivers in Hero Engine and Cry Engine so I know that it works well for what most need it for. But in staying with the “Everything needs to be super easy for everyone”, I think I would be interested in how Epic approaches this.
Welcome to the big leagues. Not everything can be done for you and if it was, what would you learn? Stuff like this takes longer than days in the real world.
i noticed the phrase “Wheeled” vehicles was missing, are there any plans for other vehicle types eg:-
Tanks / multi wheeled with no visible steering / yes i do know how real tanks steer and i won’t go into neutral turns
Skimmers / not sure about the best options as invisible wheels won’t make it due to side wards movement
Flyers-Copters / no idea where to start on the movement for these
Basically you can make roads and crossroads with two planes - one for the road, the other for crossroad part. You can extend from any point of a spline and make intersections. And you shouldnt even be mentioning lights and signs. Once you have the models you can use splines again or blueprints for laying signs, lights, sidewalks, etc.
Anyway, lets not derail this thread and lets see what Epic has to say in the stream. Later on we can continue in another thread if you like.
I don’t want everything done for me. You didn’t understand what I was saying. I was responding what said about everyone ignoring landscape splines, because that is not true. Everyone keeps praising landscape slines for making roads, but no one shows a decent road made with it. Even the vehicle template and sample that the developers are going to release, don’t use it. Why is that, if is so easy to use and make the job done?
Also “Stuff like this takes longer than days in the real world.” Really?
Which “big leagues” are you talking about? Learn? Learn what? Learn how to place waypoints and light objects for roads, and also to model roads and place it on a engine? Are you serious? If you are on a “big league” the most important thing for you is time, and this is why you choose to use a game engine. On a big league, tools are made to reduce time.
Also, I made my own game engine in the past ( well, I already made two game engines, I was forgetting the most recent one with XNA, 6 years ago ), but I switch from it to other games engines, because I want to be making games, not tools or game engines.
Going back to the landscape spline… I could use a shovel to eat my food, but I prefer to use the right tool for it, like a spoon of a fork. Right now, the “Landscape Spline” for making roads, is a big shovel. But it is a nice tool for other stuff.
