Birds

soulbank · August 31, 2021, 7:43am

so i realized to use assets with particles i need to bake in vertex animations - is there any easy way to do this with you assets ? any help would be much appreciated !

Living_Systems · August 31, 2021, 7:12pm

NOScope2556 You need to add a key and apply per bone that you change, and do it all on the same frame to avoid confusion, I always use the first frame. Also you said that you duplicated an Animation Blueprint but “Seagull_Fly_4Fast” is an animation. Are you trying to use the NPC_Blueprints in Sequencer? or just the animations? I am not very familiar with working in sequencer but I don’t think you should be using the NPC_Bird_Blueprints in sequencer. Instead you should be using the Birds skeletal mesh and animations. Like in this video from SIGGRAPH

SputnikSeven no there isn’t currently an easy way to convert skeletal animations to vertex animations in engine. you will need to export from the engine and convert in your 3D package.

envfx · September 20, 2021, 9:56am

Hi there

Quick question:
When approaching a perching spot and landing, the bird (e.g. crow) a lot of times approaches, then stops mid-air (like 3m above ground or so) and then starts the faster flapping landing animation and slowly sinks down exactly vertically until landed.
Is it possible to make that smoother, so that it doesn’t instantly stop mid-air before doing the landing animation? Or maybe there’s a way to reduce the distance that it’s above the ground before starting the landing animation? Didn’t find a setting for that yet.

Thanks!

Living_Systems · September 20, 2021, 6:59pm

Yes there are many things you can tweak to suit your needs. First of all the way perching works is the Bird flies toward the perch target and when the Bird hits the Perching sphere it plays the landing animation while it basically tractor beams to the perching location. So the first thing you can adjust is the Perching Blueprint- open the “Bird_Perch_TargetPoint” blueprint. In the viewport -you can see the perching sphere, you can increase the size of the sphere if you would like Birds to start landing sooner, or the opposite. Also in the default settings for the perch you can adjust the “FlyToPerch_Speed” (default is 1) try setting it to 2 or 3. When the Bird hits the sphere this setting controls the speed that the landing bird reaches the perch point. Next in the crows animation blueprint you can adjust the speed of the landing animation and also the blend time to blend into the landing animation.
I hope that was helpful

envfx · September 21, 2021, 8:24am

Thank you. Changing the perching sphere was something I didn’t have on my radar yet. Will try that!

mairsil · September 29, 2021, 5:12am

Been waiting for a sale, but noticed a sudden price increase instead. Was new content added that isn’t apparent from the store writeup?

Living_Systems · October 18, 2021, 6:04pm

This sounds like an incomplete setup. check out the instructions in the demo level, or read through this thread.

RGapper · November 7, 2021, 4:46pm

Hi, I’ve just bought your Birds and I’ve set everything up as instructed but I have an issue.

This is probably due to the fact I’m just animating a camera flythrough and I need the birds on the ground to fly away from my CineCamera as it moves towards them.

I’ve added the Cine Camera to a Camera Rig Rail and I’ve placed the BirdEnemy tag into the Actor tag on the Camera. Sadly this doesn’t seem to work.

How would you turn your animated cine camera into a “BridEnemy”…?

I also tried the following:

I’ve also added a blank Actor BP which only has a sphere collision added. This Actor BP is also attached to the Camera Rig and I also added into the Actor - Tag the “BirdEnemy”

I’m using 4.27

Any help, much appreciated. .

Living_Systems · November 8, 2021, 7:27pm

I’m using sequencer to create a flythrough of my landscape. I don’t have any active characters other than various AI animals that populate the scene. I placed the BirdEnemy in the “Actor” Tag" on the cine camera but it doesn’t work.

Are the Birds simulating correctly other than ignoring your camera? Is the game simulating at the time you want the birds to fly away? I don’t think your problem is the camera. the Birds will flea from any actor with an enemy tag, that includes camera actors.

RGapper · November 8, 2021, 11:47pm

Thanks for the reply. I’ve only just bought this from the market place and it’ll take me quite a while to dig through your BPs… I was wondering if you could kindly do a quick test from your end? Could you see if you can get the camera to act as an enemy while in sequencer? I’m not sure where to begin when trying to debug this…

I can’t see anything in the docs that says it can’t work in sequencer… AI Perception | Unreal Engine Documentation

Recap of what I’ve done.

Create a new Birds project.
In the content folder of the newly created birds project, I’ve copied the birds folder and pasted it into the content folder of my main project.
Opened my main project and seen the new birds folder inside, chosen seagull and dropped the NPC BP into my level.
Added about 4 ground, 4 sky and 8 perch target and placed a Nav mesh volume and built the navigation. Can see this when I press P.
With the Cine Camera, I searched for the Actor dropdown and added the tag BirdEnemy.
Have loads of seagulls around the map.
Along the beach there is a group of birds on the floor. Camera moves towards them in sequencer and they stay there. Other birds are randomly flying or walking around. I’ve not changed any settings after I’ve dragged the seagull BP into the level. Their current generic settings allow them to fly and perch and flee from an Enemy. The effect I was looking for was for the birds to fly away as the camera approaches. It doesn’t work… am I missing something? Could you please do a quick test and debug from your end? Much appreciated.

Living_Systems · November 9, 2021, 7:41pm

I think I got the issue, and you were right it was the camera. By default the Camera Actors are not registering as stimuli in Perception- so they are not seen. Follow these steps to make a CineCamera that will be seen.

Now save and use this camera for your shot, I tested it in the demo level and the birds didn’t like that camera.
Hope that is useful to you or anyone else looking to get interactions with cameras.

RGapper · November 9, 2021, 8:34pm

This is brilliant! Thank you so much for your support!

savitapio · December 3, 2021, 11:04pm

OK I am trying to integrate this to my level. I have done prerequirities. NavMeshBounds, some seagulls and couple of all target types. Problem is that those birds when reaching a target never change mode, but just get stuck floaring over the target point.

this is from logs:

LogScript: Warning: Accessed None trying to read property CallFunc_GetBlackboard_ReturnValue
    BP_NPC_Seagull_C /Game/VyveMain/Maps/UEDPIE_1_InitialVyreIsland.InitialVyreIsland:PersistentLevel.BP_NPC_Seagull8
    Function /Game/Birds/ParentClassBlueprints/BP_NPC_Bird_Base.BP_NPC_Bird_Base_C:ExecuteUbergraph_BP_NPC_Bird_Base:02C1
PIE: Error: Blueprint Runtime Error: "Accessed None trying to read property CallFunc_GetBlackboard_ReturnValue". Blueprint:  BP_NPC_Bird_Base Function:  Execute Ubergraph BP NPC Bird Base Graph:  EventGraph Node:  Set Value as Bool
LogScript: Warning: Accessed None trying to read property CallFunc_GetBlackboard_ReturnValue
    BP_NPC_Seagull_C /Game/VyveMain/Maps/UEDPIE_1_InitialVyreIsland.InitialVyreIsland:PersistentLevel.BP_NPC_Seagull8
    Function /Game/Birds/ParentClassBlueprints/BP_NPC_Bird_Base.BP_NPC_Bird_Base_C:ExecuteUbergraph_BP_NPC_Bird_Base:031F
PIE: Error: Blueprint Runtime Error: "Accessed None trying to read property CallFunc_GetBlackboard_ReturnValue". Blueprint:  BP_NPC_Bird_Base Function:  Execute Ubergraph BP NPC Bird Base Graph:  EventGraph Node:  Set Value as Bool
LogScript: Warning: Accessed None trying to read property CallFunc_GetBlackboard_ReturnValue
    BP_NPC_Seagull_C /Game/VyveMain/Maps/UEDPIE_1_InitialVyreIsland.InitialVyreIsland:PersistentLevel.BP_NPC_Seagull8
    Function /Game/Birds/ParentClassBlueprints/BP_NPC_Bird_Base.BP_NPC_Bird_Base_C:ExecuteUbergraph_BP_NPC_Bird_Base:037D

Living_Systems · December 6, 2021, 6:22pm

It could be that all the Sky target points are too close together. When a Bird gets within 2000 unreal units of a sky target they switch to a new one, but if all the sky targets are within that range they will never have a new target to switch to. so try spreading things out some more and see if that helps.

savitapio · December 7, 2021, 2:55pm

No they reach targets OK but animation mode is not changed. They are stupidly floating over ground point for example.

Living_Systems · December 7, 2021, 7:02pm

Be sure if a Bird is set to begin the level flying that they are up in the air, not on the ground. that has caused similar issues. Also you did migrate the whole Bird folder to your games content folder right?

savitapio · December 7, 2021, 7:06pm

Yes (example level seems to work OK migrated)

Living_Systems · December 7, 2021, 7:16pm

And you have a NavMesh in place?, and you have built navigation?

savitapio · December 7, 2021, 7:56pm

OK for birds that hovering behaviour happens also on migrated example map

savitapio · December 8, 2021, 5:58am

OK it was unreal bug! my NavMesh got offsetted on play.
Now rats do move and bird animation change works. Node to delete is RecastNavmeshDefault and then reabuild navigation.