mrcrocker
June 19, 2015, 7:58pm
1
Hey there!
I originally posted this as an after thought on a bug report on the answerhub but was told quite rightly that I should repost the information here…
On the same subject I would like to recommend a few possible additions to the blueprint viewport to make it more usable. In our next game we are using blueprint to define chunks for a procedural dungeon generation system so they contain a lot of meshes and assets. This works great in game but can be really slow to put together in the blueprint editor for a number of reasons. For example;
most keyboard shortcuts don’t work in the blueprint viewport like CTRL + W to duplicate (or ALT + Drag) unless you click on the component list first which is much slower than being able to select and drag meshes in the viewport when you are dealing with a lot of assets.
Child Actors don’t appear to be selectable by clicking on them so you have to hunt them down in the component list.
The default directional light in the viewport should have an option exposed to turn on and off since in some cases it makes it hard to accurately set light settings without looking back and forth between the a level and the blueprint window
being able to convert assets into blueprints from a level is a great feature to counter these problems but one issue is that blueprints being converted are split into their individual components and broken. I believe the conversion should add the blueprints included as child actor components (retaining values is possible) or at the very least an option should exist to allow you to choose what happens to blueprint when it is converted to be part of another blueprint from the level.
Lastly being able to uncheck “Run construction script on drag” is fantastic but is it possible to take it a step further? In blueprints that have lots of assets even the delay from the script firing on release can start to take its toll. Is it possible to maybe have construction script stop firing all together until you specify you are done. So for example an asset could be dragged and positioned multiple times without the construction script firing. An option for the construction script to fire only when absolutely needed like, I imagine, on adding a new asset.
I realise that’s a lot of information to dump at the end of a bug report so if you believe I should post it elsewhere then please say so. I’ve been using blueprint avidly since the beta (must be nearly 2 years now) and kismet for 5 years and have been consistently blown away by updates and what is possible and upgrades to the areas I mentioned would be the icing on the cake. You’re all doing fantastic things for the industry and I couldn’t be a part of it if it wasn’t for software like yours.
I was told that number 2 has already been suggested and entered into the system. If you need any more information from me such as how I’m using blueprint or specific usage scenarios for the requests I’ve made here then please let me know!