99.99% done! But my built game doesn't have decals and particles that spawn from script.

Nathaniel3W · April 5, 2016, 2:08am

The alpha demo of Himeko Sutori is ALMOST done. I mean -->this<-- close to done. But I’ve got one nagging little bug:

The assets that get spawned in code (decals and particles, specifically), and that I have not placed in a level, are not appearing after I package my game with UDK UnrealFrontend.

I suppose I could go and find every single particle and decal and place them somewhere in a level just to make sure they get included, and see if they then will get spawned correctly from code, but I would rather see if there’s a way to force UnrealFrontend to include those assets.

Have any of you run into this issue before? Do you know how to solve it? Thanks for taking a look.

Yummy-Vegetables · April 5, 2016, 2:27am

Generally I find a clean and full recook helps for missing stuff but if you are creating a package for distribution you might have already done this.

Maybe copy the emitters and content to a new package and try a full recook

KTML · April 5, 2016, 6:15am

I know this is a bit irrelevant, but I just wanted to say that for one man, this game is awesome. Good job, I know you’ll be successful with game designing.

Chosker · April 5, 2016, 8:44am

but they work fine without packaging the game, right?
did you try putting logs? check the spawned decal actor to see if it’s correct, and then the material that it uses.
here’s my guess: perhaps the decals are there but the materials/textures are not. if those materials/textures were never referenced from code or from an actor in a map they don’t get cooked

Nathaniel3W · April 5, 2016, 11:14am

Thanks very much KTML for the encouragement. It’s been a long two years.

And Chosker, yeah, they work fine when I launch from the editor or from Visual Studio. I just took a look in my logs after playing the packaged game…



[0099.07] Warning: Warning, Failed to load 'RPGTacBattleMapDecal RPGTacContent.Decals.GridDecalSquadMenu': Failed to find object 'RPGTacBattleMapDecal RPGTacContent.Decals.GridDecalSquadMenu'
[0099.07] Log: Decal (DecalComponent hs_squad_01.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.RPGTacBattleMapDecal_0.DecalComponent_4) was missing a material and DefaultDecalMaterial was used!

I’ll see what I can do about that, make sure everything is referenced explicitly somewhere.

Thanks everyone for taking a look.

Chosker · April 5, 2016, 5:24pm

yeah it seems your material wasn’t cooked

Nathaniel3W · April 6, 2016, 3:37pm

I ended up putting all of my decals and particles in a map that I load on startup but never see just because that was the easiest way to do it for me. I just found out though that the right way to go about it is this:

Loaded dynamically from any level: If no seekfree package (native script, map) references the object, and the object is loaded at runtime, we expect LoadPackage to be the way to load the object, since DynamicLoadObject will return NULL on a console unless the object is already loaded via LoadPackage.

Solution: In [Engine.PackagesToAlwaysCook] section of your game’s DefaultEngine.ini, mark it as a standalone seekfree package:

[Engine.PackagesToAlwaysCook]
+SeekFreePackage=MyGamePackage
This will create MyGamePackage_SF.xxx (and MyGamePackage.xxx for any streaming textures if there are textures and you aren’t using a TextureFileCache). This package will be in a more appropriate format for console loading than previously where it would not behave well with external references and streaming textures.

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ContentCooking.html

Chosker · April 6, 2016, 5:02pm

so you’re at 100.00% now?

Nathaniel3W · April 7, 2016, 11:31am

Yes! Done enough to make a functioning alpha build anyway. Thanks for the help, here, and in all of my many previous questions too. I put the link to the alpha downloads in the UDK Projects forum if you’re interested in taking a look.