Blueprint: Helpful BP Functions

Nsomnia · March 23, 2015, 5:26am

Got it working thanks! I have to figure out the technicalities of it (for example when I change the isActorInRange variable you called “MonsterDectionRange” or something to the 14000 i had it makes the radar very very tiny and pick up all enemy pawns. If I make it 500 it only picks up very very close ones, but they are drawn way out on the edges of the screen. Then I gotta figure out how to draw shapes other than just a small square and I will have a perfect starter system for my world map that shows the ships and what direction htey are heading in.

Tdafssr · March 23, 2015, 7:43pm

Hey , on the (Multiline Message Box) when you (Cast to RPG_StateSystem), to whom are you cast to? Is it a BP actor,character? And is there something on that BP?
And thank you for share, much apreciated!

Shoiko · May 1, 2015, 2:25am

Just started Maya LT and needed an exporter similar kinda to the Batch Exporter for MAX that will export the meshes and associated UCX collision to separated FBX files Using the naming convention of the object itself. Finally, I reposition the objects back to a programmed spacing. (You can remove that if you want I just used that to reorganize my scene). Also I am assuming that the Pivot of the UCX shares the same offset as the pivot from the base mesh to keep everything aligned properly:

Please note you only have to select the base mesh and none of the UCX meshes associated with the mesh.

Hope it helps some ppl.

Download Mel Script: KM_ExportEachToFBX.mel

// This procedure is called when the ‘Open’ button of the dialog is clicked.
// The procedure recieves the name of the file and it’s extension
proc startSaveProc(string $dirpath,string $type) {
//Get Selection Meshes List
string $sel] = ls -sl;

string $obj;
int $pos=0;

int $size = size($sel);//Verify Valid Selection Size none 0 
if($size&gt;0){
	select -d; //Desel All
	for ($obj in $sel)
	{
		print("

Process Object: “+$obj+”
");

		//Increment the reposition Index
		$pos++;
		
		//Select Current Desired Export Mesh
		select -r $obj;
		
		//Check for a UCX collision object(s) for the current mesh
		string $usxobj = "UCX_"+$obj+"*";
		string $selUCX] = `ls -r 1 $usxobj`;
		
		//Check size of UCX selection for count none 0 
		int $sizeUCX = size($selUCX);
		if($sizeUCX)
		{
		    //Add the UCS to the current Active Selection and move the UCX to 0 0 0 for export 
		    select -add $selUCX;
		    move -a 0 0 0 $selUCX;
		}else{
			print("

No UCX found for “+$usxobj+”
");
}

		//Move Base Mesh to 0 0 0 for export
		move -a 0 0 0 $obj;
		
		//Build Save path from the previous dialog
		// dir + objectname + FBX
		string $fullPath=$dirpath+"/"+$obj+".fbx";
		file -force -options "v=0;" -typ "FBX export" -es $fullPath;

		//If we had UCX Object re will organize them in the same position as the base mesh
		if($sizeUCX)
		{
			move -a 0 0 ($pos*-500) $selUCX;
		}
		
		//Position the base mesh in sexions smaced appart from each other. 
		move -a 0 0 ($pos*-500) $obj;
		
		//Delect all
		select -d;
	}
}else{
	print("ExportEachToFBX - Invalid Selection");
}

}

// The final parameter indicates the type of file dialog. 4=Folder Dialog
// The 1st parameter is a function to call when OK is pressed.
// The 2nd parameter is the text to appear on the OK button.
// The 3rd parameter is the type of file, somewhat meaningless here
fileBrowser( "startSaveProc", "SavePath", "", 4 );

Shoiko · May 3, 2015, 3:30am

Modified the ucx_box_collision_tool_00 for 3DS Max to get the name of the mesh that you are making UCX’s from:

Line 94 change it to look like this. Now your Col boxes wont be UCX_Collision Hul every tiem you generate one.

UCX BOX Collision Tool for 3DS Max

Shoiko · May 3, 2015, 11:27am

Also to adapt the pivot location.

convertToPoly(the_box)
the_box.pivot = selection[1].pos --< Used to adapt the pivot to the source object
the_box.wireColor = (color 255 0 255 )

Shoiko · May 5, 2015, 11:12am

Unreal Engine 4 : Follow Spline Path and Detect Point Interaction :

Project here:
Download

Shoiko · May 7, 2015, 4:18pm

4.8 Terrain To Spline Alignment

Yggdrasil · September 21, 2015, 12:22pm

I’ll have to take a look at that.

Shoiko · October 1, 2015, 10:09pm

[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]Converting Personal C++ Classes and Third Party libs tools into a Portable Custom Plugin. Simply explained. (Hopefully)
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[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]UE4 4.9
[/COLOR]

[FONT=Segoe UI]From the editor open Edit and Select Plugin.
[FONT=Segoe UI]Select new Plugin.
[FONT=Segoe UI]Since this will be just a collection of classes and libs select blank and give it a name.
[FONT=Segoe UI]Under project in the plugins window you can find your plugin. Edit it and give it all the desired info.
[FONT=Segoe UI]In your project you can find a plugins folder, open this and go to the desired plugin folder and locate the [Plugin name]PrivatePCH.h file.
[FONT=Segoe UI]If like me your objects are blueprintable classes and objects that operate in the editor if you simply add your class to the private folder you will get errors on compile to avoid this I needed to add the following (Credit to Eduard Gelbling for helping through that brick wall):

[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]

[FONT=Segoe UI]You might not need all of these but in my case I have extended so much of the other objects that I needed all of these.
[FONT=Segoe UI]Now you can place your files into the private folder, prefable in grouped folders ordered by functionality vs a massive file dump of classes.
[FONT=Segoe UI]Changes needed to get a good compile:
[FONT=Segoe UI]In the Cpp file where before you had a include to your [main project name].h you want to replace this with: include “RPGEngineToolKitPrivatePCH.h”
[FONT=Segoe UI]In the header file for your class where you had the API macro on the front of your class IE: class RPGSYSTEM_DEMO_API ABuildingModGen : public AActor
[FONT=Segoe UI]Change this to class ABuildingModGen : public AActor
[FONT=Segoe UI]To add a third party lib to your project in my case SQLite3 (I know its built in now but I’ve seen some horror stories so I’ll use my own integration for now)
[FONT=Segoe UI]In the main folder you want to modify your Build.cs Add this to the top of your Moduar rules class before the constructor:

[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]
[/COLOR]

[FONT=Segoe UI]

[FONT=Segoe UI]This will help us get the path for our third party folder.
[FONT=Segoe UI]At the end of the constructor we can add a call to our function that will load our third party libs and header files.

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[FONT=Segoe UI]Next we add the function to load the correct directories:

[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]

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[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]public bool LoadSqlite3(TargetInfo Target)
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[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]{
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext] //We build the path based on the starting location of the Thirdparty that was created above.
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext] //this is where we just append path names based on rules.
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext] bool isApplied = false;
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext] if ((Target.Platform == UnrealTargetPlatform.Win64))
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext] {
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]isApplied = true;
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]string LibraryPath = Path.Combine(ThirdPartyPath, “sqlite3”, “lib”);
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]//Only needed if you have libs for 32 bit(x86) or 64(x64) if not then you might
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext] //not need this path to be apended.
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]if (Target.Platform == UnrealTargetPlatform.Win64)
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]{
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]LibraryPath = Path.Combine(LibraryPath, “x64”);
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]}
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]PublicLibraryPaths.Add(LibraryPath);
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]PublicAdditionalLibraries.Add(Path.Combine(LibraryPath, “sqlite3.lib”));
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]PublicIncludePaths.Add(Path.Combine(ThirdPartyPath, “sqlite3”, “include”));
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext] }
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext] return isApplied;
[/COLOR]
[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]}
[/COLOR]

[FONT=Segoe UI]

[FONT=Segoe UI]From here we can add a ThirdParty folder in the main plugin directory:
[FONT=Segoe UI]Unreal Projects[ProjectName]\Plugins[PluginName]
[FONT=Segoe UI]In this third party folder you can add any desired thirdparty libs.
[FONT=Segoe UI]Just make sure that you add the new paths to the build.cs file so it can include all headers and libs needed for your tools.
[FONT=Segoe UI]This last step might not be needed but it helps build all the folder paths into the solution for you. Go to you main project path and right click the .uproject and select Generate Visual Studio project files.
[FONT=Segoe UI]Open the editor and compile. There should be no errors as long as these classes worked before you added them to your plugin folder.

[FONT=Segoe UI]

[FONT=Segoe UI][COLOR=windowtext]Hope this was simple enough for everyone.
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[FONT=Segoe UI]

intoxicat3 · November 9, 2015, 12:38am

Nice BP collection!

For me your radar BP isn’t working correctly. Try to be near object that is visible on the radar and rotate. I recreated your blueprint step by step. You have the same issue?
Video: (left top corner) https://vid.me/s45w

Shoiko · November 9, 2015, 3:36am

I’m about to recreate that in UMG but it looks like the offsets are being calculated incorrectly. check the results of the X and Y offsets that you get from the calculation of the rotation and the distance from the player. looks like its missing the Y offset in the calculations or vice versa - PS love the tutorials. I need to sit down and look through them one day esp the wall crawling spiders part.

intoxicat3 · November 10, 2015, 6:29pm

Thanks! You are doing great job as well! You can check my radar here : UE4 Tips: Plug and Play Radar | Shooter Tutorial maybe it will be helpful!

Shoiko · November 18, 2015, 4:14am

&stc=1

Special thanks to Omnicypher for pointing me in this direction. Took me a good minute to piece this all together but I’m glad I have it working now. Hopefully this can speed up some peoples research.

Using dynamically generated SQL query to create a drop down settings for your blueprint object using FDataTableRowHandle and UDataTable.

This basically uses the FDatatableRowHandle to drive blueprint customization options vs typing in event ids and item ids for NPC logic loading or items awarded you can just query your database and select the desired data you want for this setting.

//Header

USTRUCT(Blueprintable)
struct FEventListDataTable : public FTableRowBase
{
GENERATED_USTRUCT_BODY()

UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadOnly, Category = "EVT")
    int32 EventFlowID;
UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadOnly, Category = "EVT")
    int32 EventCatID;
UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadOnly, Category = "EVT")
    int32 EventID;

};

UPROPERTY()
    int32 EventFlowID;
UPROPERTY()
    int32 EventCatID;
UPROPERTY()
    int32 EventID;


UPROPERTY()
    UDataTable * eventDatatable;


UPROPERTY(EditAnywhere, BlueprintReadWrite, Category = "Default_Events")
    TArray&lt;FDataTableRowHandle&gt; EventListSelection;


UPROPERTY(EditAnywhere, Category = "Default_Events")
    FString NPC_NAME;


UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, Category = "EVENT_SETUP")
    int32 LoadEventActiveEvent();


//void SYSTEM_LOAD_EVENTS(FString MAP_PATH, FString NPC_NAME, FString EventID);


UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, Category = "EVENT_SETUP")
void loadEventListStrutData();

//CPP
//Called from Constructor to load the event data
void AAI_NPC_Character::loadEventListStrutData(){
int32 result = 0;
FString SQLQuery = “”;
FString TableString;
TArray<FString> err;
TableString = FString(",EventFlowID,EventCatID,EventID
");

RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER = NewObject&lt;URPG_Database&gt;(this, URPG_Database::StaticClass());
if (!OpenDatabase(SourceDataBase))return;
SQLQuery = "Select EventName, EventID, EventCategoryID, EventFlowGroupID from events;";


result = RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_Query(SQLQuery);


if (result == 0 || RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_EndOResult(result))
{
    if (result)RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_ClearResult(result);
    RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_CloseDatabase();
    return;
}
else{


    while (!RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_EndOResult(result))
    {
        FString _EventName = (*RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_GetColumn(result, "EventName"));
        FString _EventID = (*RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_GetColumn(result, "EventID"));
        FString _EventCatID = (*RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_GetColumn(result, "EventCategoryID"));
        FString _EventFlowID = (*RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_GetColumn(result, "EventFlowGroupID"));


        TableString += FString(_EventName + "," + _EventFlowID + "," + _EventCatID + "," + _EventID + "

");
RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER->BP_NextRow(result);
}
}
//Using NewObject VS NewNamedObject here causes an error where the object created to be transient and thus will disable this BP from being saved.
if (eventDatatable == nullptr)eventDatatable = NewNamedObject<UDataTable>(this, “EListDataTable”);
eventDatatable->RowStruct = FEventListDataTable().StaticStruct();
err = eventDatatable->CreateTableFromCSVString(TableString);

if (err.Num() &gt; 0)
{
    for (FString tmp : err)UE_LOG(LogTemp, Error, TEXT("%s"), *tmp);
}else{
    for (int32 i = 0; i &lt; EventListSelection.Num();i++){
        EventListSelection*.DataTable = eventDatatable;
    }
}

}

//Called from event begin to load the first active event attached to the NPC in the list of events added to the NPC
int32 AAI_NPC_Character::LoadEventActiveEvent(){
int32 eventIndex = 0;

cleanEvents();

if (NPC_NAME == ""){
    //Log Error
    return 0xFF;
}


if (EventListSelection.Num() == 0){
    //Log Error
    return 0xFD;
}

if (!OpenDatabase(SourceDataBase))return 0xFC;

static const FString ContextString(TEXT("GENERAL"));
int32 result = 0;
FString SQLQuery="";

do{
    FEventListDataTable* eventPTR = EventListSelection[eventIndex].DataTable-&gt;FindRow&lt;FEventListDataTable&gt;(EventListSelection[eventIndex].RowName, ContextString);


    SQLQuery = FString("Select EventID,EventCategoryID,EventFlowGroupID FROM Events WHERE isEnabled=1 ")
        + " and EventID="
        + FString::FromInt(eventPTR-&gt;EventID)
        + " and EventCategoryID="
        + FString::FromInt(eventPTR-&gt;EventCatID)
        + " and EventFlowGroupID="
        + FString::FromInt(eventPTR-&gt;EventFlowID)
        +";";


    result = RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_Query(SQLQuery);
    if (result == 0)eventIndex++;
} while (result == 0 && eventIndex&lt;EventListSelection.Num());


if (result == 0 || RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_EndOResult(result))
{
    //error("COUNT NOT LOAD ARMOR: populateArmorData()");
    if (result)RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_ClearResult(result);
    RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_CloseDatabase();
    return 0xFC;
}
else{
    
    while (!RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_EndOResult(result))
    {


        EventID = FCString::Atoi(*RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_GetColumn(result, "EventID"));
        EventCatID = FCString::Atoi(*RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_GetColumn(result, "EventCategoryID"));
        EventFlowID = FCString::Atoi(*RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_GetColumn(result, "EventFlowGroupID"));
        SYSTEM_LOAD_EVENTS(EventFlowID, EventCatID, EventID);
        RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_NextRow(result);
    }
}


if (result)RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_ClearResult(result);
RPG_DATABASE_CONTROLLER-&gt;BP_CloseDatabase();
return 0;

}

Luftbauch · November 18, 2015, 8:00am

Thank you very much for your work @ your splinelink is still down.
When Mega is complaining about something, could you not please use another hoster for that?

Shoiko · November 18, 2015, 11:46am

You know i fixed the issue with Mega but forgot to upload all the things. Might take me a minute to get back to that

Shoiko · May 20, 2016, 6:36pm

Answered a question on how to make a drop down selection menu in the details panel using C++ and Datatables:

&stc=1

Rollocasual · May 23, 2016, 11:11am

Awesome , thanks for sharing

Shoiko · May 27, 2016, 9:29pm

No prob i just hope it helps some

Shoiko · August 3, 2017, 4:53pm

Just created a cool Odometer Material with a LED Stepper parameter as well.

&stc=1

Shoiko · March 22, 2018, 2:13am

So i was working on a new test for my party display and i really wanted the effect from Photoshop to get into UE4 so I made one that’s pretty close and wanted to share. The solo pic is from photoshop the other is in UMG. I hope it helps some, Blueprint Pastebin: Gradiant HP Bar posted by shoiko | blueprintUE | PasteBin For Unreal Engine 4