Ask Epic Anything: Devices | July 27, 2023 at 11:00 AM EDT

[Curu_FN]

@VictorVonDire

Hey Epic! Are you planning on adding a Creative device that can alter player’s size? There are many opportunities that i can think of for a device like that.

Resizing players is a lot more complex than you would think because of the way it affects animation, movement speed, jump height, interaction with items and other devices etc. At this moment in time it's not something we're actively looking at but I'd never say never.

[Curu_FN]

@Flak

From Mythical on Discord: Will the save point device be able to transfer data between islands in the future?

That's something we think would be very valuable once we start expanding the capabilities of the persistence system.

[Curu_FN]

@Flak

Frrom Moltumus on Discord: When or will creative get more Melees for the Melee Device? like for a example a Spear or just in general more styles for the sword or hammer.

We probably won't be looking at any expansions to the Creative melee system until we have melee supported in UEFN.

[Curu_FN]

@DustinREDGames

There are some inconsistencies with several devices related to filtering events/actions based on teams and/or classes. For example:

• Explosive Device : Can filter explosive damage based on team, but not for class. Can’t filter for destructive damage based on team and/or class. Can filter visibility based on Team, but not for class.
• Vehicle Spawner Devices : Can control Activating team/class. But can’t control only a specific team/class is allowed to drive or ride in the spawned vehicle.
• Creature Spawner/Manager : Can’t change creatures to only attack a specific team and/or class.

Are there plans to unify these devices so that each can handle actions only for specific teams/classes?

We're planning to give the restriction/filter components a rework at some time in the future, both to bring consistency and to allow for a bit of future-proofing. No particular deadline for that but we know it's a piece of work that needs done.

[Curu_FN]

@Lynxtop

Will there ever be a reworked Perception Trigger device? Right now, it’s missing some features like customizing the area where the player should look/look away from in order to send the signal.

We're happy to take suggestions for improvements to existing devices. I think the perception trigger could certainly benefit from some added functionality but I can't say when that's going to be made a priority.

[Flak]

@GoldenNiteGaming

Do you have any plans on making any special devices towards Creative 1.0 such as the battle royale devices from the battle royale island?

Could you send me a DM with more information on what you’re looking to do? Most devices are already available for the Creative Toolset.

[TritonSailor]

Verse API for Ball Spawner can only access the legacy Ball Spawner device. Can we get it updated to the current Ball Spawner?

Currently there’s no way to get the transform of a spawned ball. Could we have a GetTransform() added to the API that returns current transform of the spawned ball? That would be extremely helpful for enabling programming of AI in sports games.

[Curu_FN]

@PEGASUS-ONE

Do you have any plan on making Creative 1.0 devices which mimics certain device or functionality of UEFN/Creative 2.0, such as a modification of the water device, allowing to create true rivers. Or even a device to edit the terrain to some extent ?

I answered a similar question earlier, but just to re-state - some elements of UEFN are just too complex to really provide an effective Creative counterpart, but it’s our intention to allow Creative users to achieve similar results to UEFN (though in a more limited scope) wherever possible.

[Kirchuvakov]

Do you have a plan for read/write Control Rig and Niagara System parameters/variables from Verse/Devices?

[DustinREDGames]

It’s difficult to have an animated mesh change animations based on user interaction, like hit reactions or attacks. And only certain devices will get you part of the way to achieving this. For example:

• Explosive Device - Can set mesh, collision shape, has events from destroyed, but not hit. But it can’t animate.
• Animated Mesh Device - Can only play a single animation and has no collision or hit/destroy events.
• Sequences - Can play animations on a mesh. But then requires many Cinematic sequence devices to play different animation states triggered from interaction.

Any plans to add some type of animated mesh device that we can change the animations from Verse, has collision and has Verse events? Something that would gives us a proper animation state system?

[Kirchuvakov]

Prop manipulator do return an agent who damaged/destroyed prop, but no info about which prop was interacted. Do you plan to change it or to give more API mthods in Verse to subscribe “OnDamaged” events?

[Kirchuvakov]

Will we have access to change animations on Skeletal Mesh/Skeletal Mesh Device? Now it is quite hard to switch idle/walk/attack for example.

[Ray-Benefield]

@EliteFNC

Is there any way to make a sort of “Level Instance” styled device that could compress music blocks placed within a zone and play back the saved audio preset in a more optimized device?

Audio is definitely an aspect that we agree is important and needs improvement. But no additional details at this time. Flak is planning to bring in some audio folks for a future AMA.

[Ray-Benefield]

@t.tutiya

Is there any plan to provide a way to access the components that make up the device from scripts in the verse?
For example, being able to update material parameters of a device from verse would expand the range of expression.

Modifying assets/actors from Verse including components of actors is a feature that we acknowledge is important and there is active development towards it, but a lot of things to consider.

[Kirchuvakov]

Is there any plans on implementing world UI device besides “Billboard Device”? Will it be possible to “face UI to camera”?

[anonymous_user_56aae6261 (anonymous_user_56aae626)]

@OffMedusa143737

Are you going to fix the bug where sometimes on Creative Sandbox, opening a devices settings page can sometimes say “Option Text” rather than the actual setting?

I've been working on this issue for quite some time now, and we've fixed multiple ways in which it is reproduced. This is what I like to refer to as an evolving bug,as there isn't any one single way it can be reproduced. The more variations that we find means the more fixes we can apply. Keep contacting us as the issue occurs so that we can hopefully one day shore up all instances of this bug.

[Ray-Benefield]

@t.tutiya

I have a question about devices that require a message type variable during configuration (e.g. billboard devices).
I think that these devices are envisioned to support localization in the future.
What exactly is the logic behind this localization process that you plan to implement?

The message type variable specific was introduced to give us control over text outside of normal strings that are going to be player facing. This includes localization. However, we don’t have details on how that will work in the future at this time.

[Ray-Benefield]

@natereese

Will we be able to Prefab multiple devices at some point? This would be super useful for our Team.

Here’s a quick example: we are creating traps for our maps that have VFX Spawners, Audio Players, Launchers and a custom Verse device that animates and orchestrates the whole thing. Right now if we want to change something, we need to carefully select all the instances in our scene and update the parameters. It would be so awesome if we could just tweak one BP and have it ripple across all the trap instances.

Prefabs and groups of assets/actors as a concept is being worked on for Verse and UEFN as a whole. We don’t have details on how that will be in the future, but we recognize it is a very important workflow feature.

[nathan.green]

@DimensionDragon

I know ya’ll have heard this a million times now and we usually get the same answer😂 but they’re so important for our games; Any updates on the Save Point and Accolades Devices for UEFN?

And unrelated to that, would it be possible to get a ‘teleport all valid players’ option in the Teleporter device? Basically it teleports everyone in the map if they align with the options, without needing instigation. This is mostly for games with player collision turned off, so we don’t have to use more memory on an Item Granter, Mutator Zone, etc.

Thanks!

There is a team working on bringing back the save point and accolades device as soon as possible, unfortunately there’s nothing specific we can update you on right now.

‘Teleport All Valid Players’ would be an interesting option, the only issue would be that when a player teleports to a point, it can block the teleport point for another player so it’s possible it would fail with larger groups. However, that just makes it non-trivial to implement rather than impossible as we’d want it to work with almost any size of player group. It’s definitely something we can consider in the future. Thank you!

[anonymous_user_56aae6261 (anonymous_user_56aae626)]

@SightedSloth

Currently it can be a little tricky to figure out why a device function has failed. Is it possible to make functions failable? I would like to be able to catch if a function fails so that I can handle the error appropriately. Also, will we eventually be able to see why a function failed and get some sort of error context back?

I’ve been working on this issue for quite some time now, and we’ve fixed multiple ways in which it is reproduced. This is what I like to refer to as an evolving bug,as there isn’t any one single way it can be reproduced. The more variations that we find means the more fixes we can apply. Keep contacting us as the issue occurs so that we can hopefully one day shore up all instances of this bug.