Able Ability System Info and Support Thread

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Able v3.62 submitted, notes below.

Able v3.62

• Fix to “Replication not supported for TMaps” errors.

• Calling ActivateAbility / CanActivateAbility with a Passive Ability while currently running an Active Ability will no longer falsely tell you that you cannot interrupt the active.

• Able Targeting Locations (where you specify socket names, rotation, offsett etc) now will call the Ability’s GetSkeletalMeshComponentForActor to allow the user to select which mesh to pull the socket transform from (rather than the first found - which is the default behavior if the user doesn’t provide one). The EventName for that function will be the Socket being requested.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Able v3.63 submitted, notes below.

Able v3.63

• Added additional Dynamic Montage fields to Play Animation Task.

• Tasks can now access Blueprint Libraries rather than just the Ability.

[GrandAlchemist]

Hi, I’m new to able and I’m just following the Let’s Party tutorial and I’m getting this error:

PIE: Error: Blueprint Runtime Error: “Accessed None trying to read property AbilityComponent”. Blueprint: BP_XHoverCarPawn Function: Execute Ubergraph BP XHover Car Pawn Graph: EventGraph Node: Activate Ability

[ExtraLifeMatt]

You need to pass in the GetAbilityObjectFromClass into the Ability Node on your CreateAbilityContext node. Right now you are passing in a null Ability.

[GrandAlchemist]

Sorry I think the screenshot was out of date, the GetAbilityObjectFromClass node is connected to the Ability Node connected. Made a new project using UE4.26.1 to demonstrate.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

I don’t see an Able Ability Component on your character. Make sure you add that.

[GrandAlchemist]

Thanks, that was it – I mistakenly added the ability component as a variable instead of a component. Thanks for the assistance!

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Able v3.64 submitted, notes below:

Able v3.64

• Removed data validation error on Damage Task when using Target Actor. It wasn’t always perfect and caused more issues than it solved. The goal was to make sure the user had SOMETHING populating the Target Actor if it wanted to damage that, but logging will tell you if you had no actors.

• Fix to Montage Section not being editable on Play Animation Task unless you had the mode set to Ability Animation Mode (other modes can use it as well).

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Able v3.65 submitted, notes below:

Able v3.65

• Branch Conditions now return the same Enum type as Channeling Conditions (API Change).
• Client will now ask the Server to cancel certain channeling conditions the server is interested in (fixes some channels never ending when using a dedicated server).
• Null Tasks are now removed on Save for an Ability.
• You can now get the current Ability from the Ability Context in BP (this always existed in C++ but is now exposed to BP).
• Fixed a bug with Niagara Effects in the Play Particle Effect not respecting scale if they weren’t attached to a socket.
• Async Box Queries now properly use rotation if provided.
• Fixed an issue with Targeting - Sphere where various runtime bindings weren’t being respected.
• Added Stack Increment / Decrement fields + overrides. These can be used to change how much a stack is changed when the normal stack increment / decrement rules are applied.

[Maelgrim]

Hello, was wondering if/when you expect to have a 5.0 version available? Thanks

[TVwj]

Hi, what’s the best way to use make an ability that picks a random branch ability to go to? Let’s say for example I make a ability with 2 branch tasks in it that go to different abilities. What’s the best way to randomly pick which one it branches to? I’m sorry that this sounds so simple. I wanted to do this logic in the ability instead of in my character

[ExtraLifeMatt]

No plans just yet. There’s no way for me to distribute a 5.0 version (Epic doesn’t officially support it yet for plugins). So, it’ll likely be a bit.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

You can use a Dynamic Override on the Branch Ability to randomly pick one. Just setup a list of Abilities somewhere (could be in a subsystem, on the Ability itself, etc) and then use a random stream to pick one. The problem you’ll have there is to sync the random across the wire if your game is multiplayer. That is FAR more complex and would likely require a hash or something that you can reliably create on the client / server.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Able v3.66 submitted, notes below.

Able v3.66

• Fix to crash when deleting a Task and not clicking another Task before GC came around.

• Fix to a crash that could happen when using the “New Instance” option and changing Task array sizes.

• Fix to various crashs that could occur due to null Tasks when using “New Instance”.

• Able will fix up bad Task data when using the Editor and New Instance mode. This isn’t a problem in cooked builds.

• Removed a spurious assert when using Raycast Task but not having proper Transform data yet.

• Added “End Location” to Raycast Task that can be used instead of Length (length is derived from the End Location). End Location is overridable at runtime. Make sure you set your Dynamic Property Identifier, otherwise you could call the Query Location parameter runtime binding instead (or vice-versa). There is a bug with the Ability Editor currently where it can’t tell which dynamic binding you are clicking on if the fields are two of the same type, so you may need to manually copy/paste the function and rename it to use your new Identifier.

• All Tasks are marked as Public objects now (this would get fixed during Load, but we should be doing it at creation/duplication of Tasks as well).

[TVwj]

For abilities with branch in ai behavior trees, is it possible to make the ai wait until the last branched ability is done finishing before moving on the next task?

[ExtraLifeMatt]

There is an “Is Playing Ability” Decorator you can use to block logic until all Abilities are played.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Able v3.67 submitted, notes below:

Able v3.67

• Targeting Shapes will now show debug drawing like Queries / Sweeps / Raycasts. To enable (or disable) the drawing, click the “Draw Targeting Shapes” option on the Ability under the Targeting Section.
• Refactored Raycast debug drawing to just use a Start / End point to match the Raycast call itself. This should clear up any inconsistencies between the two.
• Added “World” Target Type to all the Ability Targeting Location structs. This value simple returns the Offset + Rotation without any additional math. As the name implies, this expects that values to be in World Space.
• Added “Recopy Parent Tasks” to the Timeline drop down in the Ability Editor. This will re-copy any Parent tasks into the Child. Note: This is a very “dumb” copy so if the Parent tasks are already in your Ability, you’ll likely end up with dupes.
• Added “Reset for Instance” options to Tasks. This option causes Tasks to stop and re-start (including calling all relevant script calls) when an Ability iteration (e.g., loop) occurs. By default, this is set to True. If you don’t want your Task to stop each time an iteration occurs, you can set this option to false and it’ll carry over as is.
• Added “Use End Location” for Raycast Tasks to be explicit when they want to use the End Location value rather than the length value. You now have to enable this field to edit the End Location field.
• Renamed “Section” to “Montage Section” on Play Animation Task. This is just a display change.
• Added “Montage Section On End” to Play Animation Task. This will cause your animation to jump to the named section when the Task ends. Note this happens INSTEAD OF blending out. Setting it to “None” will disable this feature (default).
• Fixed a bug where On Ability Interrupt wasn’t called properly when interrupting a currently running Ability.
• Fixed a bug where Listen Servers were failing Input conditionals, regardless of if they had window focus. This is a pretty scary change given that it’s in a core method, so let me know if you see anything weird.
• Updated Discord Icon to use the new branding guidelines to prevent Lawyer aggro.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Able v3.70 submitted, notes below:

Able v3.70

• Support for 4.27
• Bugfix for potentially bad socket transforms.
• Bugfix for potentially erroneous input conditions when multiple conditions are setup.
• Enhanced Input support for Channel/Branch conditions (requires 4.27+).
• Added FVector Context Parameters.

[Pteronix]

Hello! Awesome plugin. I’m having trouble with running a Trace By Channel in the Ability Blueprint Graph. I’m not getting debug output showing, and when I do the step debugger I’m always getting false on the Hit, even if I was facing a wall, but the same nodes work in the Character blueprint with debug visuals and the hit information. I thought it might be something about the networking settings, but it is the same on server and client; only thing I can think is if I have some context settings set wrong?

[Pteronix]

I think I might be going about it wrong. I tried doing a RaycastQuery w/ target type Location and then am making an Able Custom Task “TeleportTask”, but I don’t think I can get the Location Target in the custom task (only the Target Actors from the Context). Is that Location exposed to Custom Tasks?

I noticed that your FPS example runs the animations at the raycast query target’s location, but it doesn’t show the exact process of getting that going. It would be neat if the wiki had a bit more information on the Location Target type too