Best practice or preferred method for Gun Reticle assets?

[anonymous_user_9545eedc]

I’m working on a third person action game and have been slowly building functionality over the past few months. I am currently working on updating and customizing the gun reticles in my project. I am wanting to know what is the preferred method for creating reticle assets for the engine? I’ve seen this done several ways and have noticed several different types of content in the marketplace. My question is what is the preferred method? If I opened up Gears of War in Unreal how do they handle the gun reticles for each gun? I’ve seen reticles made using the RGB channels and animated in materials, and i’ve seen others done as a layered widget. Any tips in this regard would be amazing.

[TechLord]

[TABLE]

Hi there @xpgained,

		Not certain there is a best practice or preferred method... or even if you want one. I think its a detail that one can innovate and add their own twist doing more in 3D. You could literally just put a static dot on the screen and call it a Reticle. It comes down to what you want the Reticle to provide the player and how you want it to look. Most implementations I've seen are 2D Crosshair/Reticle Textires using UMG overlays. Which I suspect are the simplest to implement and get the job done.

		You did mention 'customizing' and that gave me an idea. Ill include a Reticle Editor in my game where Players can customize their own Reticles. The default will be just a Static Dot. LOL.

		Good Luck.

EXORION: The Variable Velocity Projectile Weapon System (V2PW)

[MostHost_LA]

If you want different reticles per weapon you should create the struct option within the gun and change it alongside the gun.

That said, there is no standard for a rather specific reason. Your screen size can terribly affect a reticle, including dots.

When it comes to OTS approaches take example from the best AAA games out there, TLOU, GTA5, or reddead2.

I would caution against widget usage for personal dislike of the whole widget setup.

In a pinch you could throw an engine scaled sphere in front of the camera and create a custom emissive material for it. Just be weary of the fact your raytrace will hit your sphere before a target

[anonymous_user_9545eedc]

@MostHost_LA

If you want different reticles per weapon you should create the struct option within the gun and change it alongside the gun.

That said, there is no standard for a rather specific reason. Your screen size can terribly affect a reticle, including dots.

When it comes to OTS approaches take example from the best AAA games out there, TLOU, GTA5, or reddead2.

I would caution against widget usage for personal dislike of the whole widget setup.

In a pinch you could throw an engine scaled sphere in front of the camera and create a custom emissive material for it. Just be weary of the fact your raytrace will hit your sphere before a target

Why do you dislike the widget setup? I find them terribly easy to use and implement and manipulate. They are even easily customizable.