Can't control player 2 unless I click in the viewport

anonymous_user_bcd0d281 · January 26, 2015, 4:59pm

I have a local splitscreen multipayer game. When there is more than one player at the start of the level, only player 1 receives input from their gamepad; none of the other players will receive input from their gamepads.

The weird thing is that if I left click on the mouse, then everything functions normally; but until I left click only player 1 gets input.

Anyone have an idea as to why players 2, 3, and 4 aren’t getting input from their gamepad until I left click with my mouse?

Thanks!

JX53mb · January 26, 2015, 7:10pm

windows focus. a windows that have no focus will not receive input. that is how a computer prevent all kind of weird stuff from happening, for exemple you do not want your web browser to receive keyboard inout when you type on skype right? same thing.

anonymous_user_f54268a3 · January 26, 2015, 11:00pm

Is the game running fullscreen?

anonymous_user_0df12f74 · January 26, 2015, 11:18pm

Make sure you have it set up correct, go to Edit -> Editor Preferences -> Play (in the Level Editor section) then make sure “Game Gets Mouse Control” is enabled. With option enabled it should not require you to click before playing.

anonymous_user_bcd0d281 · January 27, 2015, 4:39pm

The also occurs in a build of the game; PIE settings shouldn’t apply in a build, correct?

anonymous_user_bcd0d281 · January 27, 2015, 4:40pm

No. The game was running in a windowed mode. I’m actually not quite sure how to get a built game to play full screen…

anonymous_user_bcd0d281 · January 27, 2015, 4:41pm

Then, how do I make the game always have focus?

anonymous_user_bcd0d281 · January 27, 2015, 5:16pm

I set “Game Gets Mouse Control” to true, but didn’t change anything. I can always control player 1, it’s players 2, 3, and 4 that I can’t control until I left-click, or right-click, the mouse. happens both in PIE mode and in a build of the game.

anonymous_user_bcd0d281 · January 28, 2015, 7:56pm

More info on odd:

I’m creating my game’s main menu; in it, I start with one player, but create players at a certain point along the UI’s flow.

If I launch the game, and just use the player 1 gamepad to control the UI, when I get to the point of other players being created, only player 1 receives input from their gamepad. No other players receive input. is just like before.

However, if I click the mouse, even before any additional players are created, when the other players are created they do receive input from their gamepads.

And, if I then load another map, players on the newly loaded map (which in the interim the players have been destroyed in the previous map, and then created again in the new map) are still receiving input from their gamepads.

In light of , I have a workaround; I’m going to force players to left-click their mouse in order to get past the first screen in the menu UI. That way players should correctly receive input from their gamepads.

anonymous_user_bcd0d281 · January 28, 2015, 10:23pm

I received a reply about on the AnswerHub here:https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/160794/cant-control-player-2-unless-i-click-in-the-viewpo.html

Here’s the answer, copied from AnswerHub:

Hey Jonathan,

Looks like the problem is that the game viewport is only setting keyboard focus when the window is focused (the keyboard == controller 1). So even after left-clicking, if you alt+tab away from your PIE viewport and alt+tab back to it, once again only controller 1 will be working. is certainly something we’ll have to check out further and fix in the future.

In the meantime, there’s thankfully a much more preferable workaround to forcing a click. The blueprint library function from UWidgetBlueprintLibrary called SetFocusToGameViewport. Since it’s provided by a blueprint library, it can be accessed by any blueprint. If you’re using C++, it’s equivalent to calling [FONT=Lucida Console]FSlateApplication::Get().SetAllUserFocusToGameViewport().

The only caveat here is that the game viewport needs to have been registered already, which hasn’t happened when the level blueprint’s BeginPlay event fires (that’s also something we’ll try to fix). So, the quick and dirty way to fix is to register a one second timer that triggers a call to SetFocusToGameViewport. Of course, if you have a better spot to put it after BeginPlay fires, by all means :).

-DanH

anonymous_user_bcd0d281 · January 28, 2015, 10:29pm

What I ended up doing was still forcing the player to press a button to get past the first screen of the UI, but instead of a click it is now responding to the Start button on the gamepad; and when the player presses Start I call [FONT=Lucida Console]SetFocusToGameViewport. fixes the problem.

It’s worth noting though that the will happen again whenever focus leaves the viewport; so if a player Alt-Tab’s away and back to the game, then [FONT=Lucida Console]SetFocusToGameViewport will need to get called again.

JonathanArmstrong · January 6, 2021, 7:28am

My specific was giving the player “set input mode game only”, after the pawn is possessed, needing to be owning-client replicated (non-replicated, or server, both broke any pawn past the first player).