Able Ability System Info and Support Thread

[ExtraLifeMatt]

@hexadecimalentertainment

1- You should create a discord for this awesome product

2-In your downloadable project, when I press play, it said machinegun has compile error. skipping it fix it.

3-Each time I open one of your 2 ability, it ask for a preview asset (I put firstcharacter bp) and a second empty screen (with no indication what it used for) is displayed after selecting the preview asset.
Regardless of the asset I select, the ability editor preview is empty.

4- machine gun has no sfx played.

Im trying to get familiar with your product using your demo project.

Yea, those projects are fairly out of date(4.16?). I need to just re-compile them against the latest.

The Ability Editor Preview Asset flow changed in 3.0, you need to add the classes you want to use for your Preview Asset to the Able Editor Settings under “Preview Asset Allowed Classes”. Then you can just use the drop down next to the Preview Asset on the Toolbar and select the asset you want to use.

There should be no sound effects in the Machine Gun asset (or at least I don’t recall hooking it up). Again, I just need to do a pass on the examples real quick and update them. I’ll try and knock that out sometime this week.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

@Woody_PL

Hi guys, I have such an error when I try to compile able blueprint ability. I added to Inputs Abl Ability Context variable (but I can not set visibility as with other variables if it is the case). Should I give references to “self” somewhere else, eg. in Player Character? Anyone can help?

The Context is const (read-only) in most callbacks, so yea, you need to make sure any methods you are calling are also const, or store the information on another object (like the Player Character as you suggested).

[hexadecimalentertainment]

Thanks for your fast reply

Yes, ive figure out that after all your update your UI may have changed.

Maybe some new tutorial is a good idea too.

You should let us download your TPersoncharacter template too

Thanks for your time updating all this… ive bough your product last weekend… and to be honest its a nightmare to follow tutorial that shows a different UI… hard to figure out what we do wrong when we dont get what you get on your video lol

For instance, your “creating a simple ability tutorial”… you dont have the same prompt on the screen.

I remember switching the version of the engine to your template…(right click on project file). maybe i should have open it normally and let UE4 recompile as im usually doing when dealing with outdated/new engine version plugins.

Just a reminder that i do think your optimization alone worth every penny of your product… but its really hard to find tutorial or other people making video using your product and searching for able ability give a lot of tutorial regarding the builtin ability system of UE4 …not yours…

having your own discord will help having a community helping each other and saving you time. (if you are not familiar with discord, i can help you administrating it).

[hexadecimalentertainment]

Regarding your machine gun, i mistyped… i mean in your video we see VFX… decal… at the moment, you only have the gun animation working…i dont see any other visual effect.

[hexadecimalentertainment]

Note: in the marketplace page, you give a link to a tutorial (creating a simple ability i think)… this link is not public… so when people get on your youtube page from the other link…we dont see this kinda important tutorial on your youtube page. It tooks me a day to notice that lol

[hexadecimalentertainment]

And people are talking about showroom… i dont think ive seen the download link (except recently, from a comment…i think) you should put all your video on the store page and on the first post of this forum.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

@hexadecimalentertainment

Note: in the marketplace page, you give a link to a tutorial (creating a simple ability i think)… this link is not public… so when people get on your youtube page from the other link…we dont see this kinda important tutorial on your youtube page. It tooks me a day to notice that lol

Hmmm, I hadn’t seen that. I’ll investigate.

@hexadecimalentertainment

And people are talking about showroom… i dont think ive seen the download link (except recently, from a comment…i think) you should put all your video on the store page and on the first post of this forum.

So the Store page actually has a very small text limit and I’m pushing against it hard. That said, I’ll try and clean things up and link all the projects in one place (likely on able.extralifestudios.com and have the store page link to that).

[hexadecimalentertainment]

Maybe this can help with the characters limit:

https://tinyurl.com/

[ExtraLifeMatt]

@hexadecimalentertainment

Maybe this can help with the characters limit:

https://tinyurl.com/

Most things are already using URL shorteners. The problem is the count is the RAW character count, not the formatted character count. So even all those hidden links still go against the limit. That said, I want to do a store page refresh and just use a large image for the main body followed by a series of links for tutorials, samples, etc. Just gotta bully my artist buddy for some time.

[TVwj]

Kinda stupid question, but how do I reference the user of the ability? I’m trying to cast to my character in the ability, but I am not sure how to get the character for the “object” input of the cast.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

@TVwj

Kinda stupid question, but how do I reference the user of the ability? I’m trying to cast to my character in the ability, but I am not sure how to get the character for the “object” input of the cast.

Assuming you pass in your character when you create the Ability Context:

Ability Context -> GetSelfActor -> Cast to Your Character.

[TVwj]

@ExtraLifeMatt

Assuming you pass in your character when you create the Ability Context:

Ability Context -> GetSelfActor -> Cast to Your Character.

Thank you. I forgot all about the context pin.

[intoxicat3]

@ExtraLifeMatt where goes DynamicBranchAbility and OnGetBranchAbility function? I’m using combo system which need to pick which ability to branch to and I see that in new version there is no dynamic branch…

I see there is FGetAblAbility - but how to use it in C++ not in BPs?
I have my own Ability class (in c++) extending from UAblAbility and earlier I could just override OnGetBranchAbility function and point to my combo system.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

@intoxicat3

@ExtraLifeMatt where goes DynamicBranchAbility and OnGetBranchAbility function? I’m using combo system which need to pick which ability to branch to and I see that in new version there is no dynamic branch…

I see there is FGetAblAbility - but how to use it in C++ not in BPs?
I have my own Ability class (in c++) extending from UAblAbility and earlier I could just override OnGetBranchAbility function and point to my combo system.

OnGetBranchAbility is deprecated (or should be). Just add the Function Binding by clicking on the + next to the Ability on the branch task.If you want to do it in C++ just basically copy the name of the method you would get in blueprints, add it to your Ability class, and make sure it’s a UFUNCTION.

You can step through the BindDynamicProperties method on the Branch task to watch it try and find the method.

[intoxicat3]

I found an issue with tasks when interrupting abilities.

Repo:

• Create active ability with collision check and damage check in the middle of the ability. Add some animation to ability and disable “stop on interrupt”,
• Run this ability, then after a small delay cancel active ability,

You will see that collision check and damage will execute even when ability is canceled. As far I can see (ablAbilityInstance) you are cancelling only active tasks, so other tasks in ability can still go even when ability is interrupted.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

@intoxicat3

I found an issue with tasks when interrupting abilities.

Repo:

• Create active ability with collision check and damage check in the middle of the ability. Add some animation to ability and disable “stop on interrupt”,
• Run this ability, then after a small delay cancel active ability,

You will see that collision check and damage will execute even when ability is canceled. As far I can see (ablAbilityInstance) you are cancelling only active tasks, so other tasks in ability can still go even when ability is interrupted.

The Ability Instance should be cancelled as well (and set to nullptr), so there should be no further execution of those tasks. But I can investigate.

[intoxicat3]

Then that’s weird Maybe “Add some animation to ability and disable “stop on interrupt”” is doing something. Another thing that I have is branch to another ability in the end of this ability to create combo. Maybe branch. Don’t know but for sure it’s executing as I can see damage and sweeps in debug.

[jhirsh]

Hey there I have a couple of bugs you might want to look at.

Bug1:
When playing two animations within one ability if the animations start/end times are too close (not overlapping), the second animation wont play. (This may be an issue with how I’m interfacing with my AnimGraph).

Bug2:
If i have created an animation task, and assign an animation montage i am unable to re-assign that animation to a sequence. It acts as if it will, but it doesn’t change.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

@jhirsh

Hey there I have a couple of bugs you might want to look at.

Bug1:
When playing two animations within one ability if the animations start/end times are too close (not overlapping), the second animation wont play. (This may be an issue with how I’m interfacing with my AnimGraph).

Bug2:
If i have created an animation task, and assign an animation montage i am unable to re-assign that animation to a sequence. It acts as if it will, but it doesn’t change.

Thanks for the report.

Bug#1 sounds very much like an AnimGraph bug. I’d double check your anim blueprint setup. Also Montages don’t tend to blend on top of each other well (for whatever reason), so if you’re using that you may want to try the Ability Animation Node instead.

Bug#2 I’ve seen this off and on. Never been able to track down why it’s occurring. That field is marked as Edit Anywhere, so you should always be able to rebind it to whatever. I’ll look at it again.

[Woody_PL]

Hello friends,

I have a question about the new version of AbleAbility plugin.
At “UAblAbility* OnGetBranchAbilityBP” I have this information: “Ability overrides for specific task fields are deprecated and will be removed in a future update. Please move any logic to the dynamic field functions.”

Can anyone tell me what exactly “dynamic field functions” are and how to replace those mentioned earlier “UAblAbility* OnGetBranchAbilityBP”.
Earier we used it very often, but now we can not use it in connection with information that in the future update it will be removed. Is it known whether it will be replaced or just removed?

I would be grateful for any response and help
Woody