Character Selection - Lyra Starter Game

[L.F.A]

This is my quick implementation of a character selection interface using Paragon heroes. More options to be added soon.

UE5 - Character Selection - Showcase (4k) - Lyra Starter Game #LyraUE5

[PresumptivePanda]

Hey there @L.F.A,

Hope you’re doing well!

Great work so far! The audio ui interactions are 10/10. Haven’t gotten a chance to play around with lyra to much so not sure which parts are made by you but I definitely think this looks wonderful.

Really hope to see more of your work soon

[L.F.A]

Hi there, likewise, I hope you are doing well, too.
Thank you for your feedback. Lyra is fantastic, very modular, and I have very cool mods coming soon.

Best regards

[L.F.A]

Hi, there. Could you please do me a great favor? I wanted to hear from Epic team what is the best workflow for creating and saving custom settings in Lyra with Blueprints, such as character selection you’ve seen in that video.

The reason for my request is that looks like saving selection options in the game instance/game mode/ player controller, as pointed out by Epic years ago (AI: State of Mind | Live from HQ), is not working in Lyra with Blueprints. Perhaps C++ modification is required. I would appreciate any directions or documentation.

Here is my workflow with basic save/load logic done with blueprints only. It works if tested locally, but it is not working in a packaged game and two computers. The selection made by the host player always overwrites the clients’ selection, as if all clients read the game instance from the host player, regardless the fact that the save game logic is working correctly locally.

I’ve just created a question in this forum with this topic.

Thank you.

UE5 - Metahuman Selection Screen - Timelapse 3X (4k) - Lyra Starter Game #LyraUE5

[PresumptivePanda]

I’ll definitely message some of the more knowledgable Unreal admins and see if I can get you the answers you need.

[L.F.A]

Much appreciated. Thanks.

[Balive]

Would love to know this also. Hopefully someone figures it out.

[PresumptivePanda]

Hey guys!

While we wait for the coolest of the Unreal people to get back to me on this, I did find this documentation that might help slightly. Let me know if it resolves your problem!

[L.F.A]

Hi, thanks you for this update. I believe that doc considers changing the C++ code. I’ll read it through and let you know if that helps. I appreciate your help.
Best regards.

[nomadic626 (Alain Hernandez)]

Would also love to know this workflow, thanks for the documentation, though as it is C++ based is there any examples or tutorials that you can point to on how to add custom settings? I believe the documentation is pointing in the right direction as it does cover how settings apply to local players and I think what is happening is once the packaged game starts the host player has authority and client players save slot is not passed by the server. I’m not C++ fluent and would love to see someone figure this out in blueprints.

[L.F.A]

I’ll update here if I find anything. I tried to use ColorBlind settings as example, but I couldn’t succeed on this. I created 2 C++ classes based on UIExtension and GameSettings, however the documentation regarding how to write the additional code to both .cpp and .h files is not clear enough to me.

[AJ_Lakeman]

Have you had any luck with this? I’m struggling to see how we are meant to be getting GameSettings which exist only on each client’s LyraLocalPlayer to the server. (At least that’s my understanding).

I used to simply pass through character selection as an arg with each player as they connected to the server, but was hoping GameSettings would provide a better solution.

[L.F.A]

Hi there, not yet. I haven’t had a change to go deeper on this topic. But I’ve learned that Game Settings is actually a plugin itself, so I’ll check it out in VS2022 later this week. I’ll post here if I find anything useful.

[L.F.A]

C++ is an ‘uncharted territory’ to me, but I did a quick search and here what I’ve found so far. It is not final, though.

1. In a new project, disable the MDL plugin (Omniverse) and restart. In your project content browser, show C++ classes, find LyraGameSettingRegistry, right click, and create a subclass of it, set as public and rename it as LyraGameSettingRegistry_Profile, ‘Profile’ as an example.

2. In VS 2022, build UE5 and then your game for the first time. The step 1 will create two files: LyraGameSettingRegistry_Profile.cpp and LyraGameSettingRegistry_Profile.h. To find existing settings, search for ‘LyraGameSettingRegistry’ in the solution explorer (check ‘search within external items’). You’ll find Gameplay (Languages), Mouse&Keyboard, PerfStats, Gamepad, Audio, and Video. Choose an existing setting, for instance, LyraGameSettingRegistry_Audio.cpp and copy part of the code, changing the existing data. In my example, I changed ‘Volume’ and ‘Overall audio’ (scalar settings) to ‘Character’ and ‘Selection’. I couldn’t figure out the proper content for the .cpp file for my particular use case.

3. Edit LyraGameSettingRegistry.cpp and LyraGameSettingRegistry.h to add this new setting ‘Profile’ to the existing lists, observing the proper syntax.

4. Open W_LyraSettingScreen and add a Profile Collection to the sequence node

5. Copy W_ColorBlindMode to a new folder Profile under Extensions folder, rename it to W_Settings_Profile, and change its icons. Add this new widget to GameSettingRegistryVisuals (Data Asset). Add a new map element ‘Profile’ and assign the new widget to the extension array

At this point, I couldn’t exam a proper reference for completely filling the *.cpp and the LyraGameSettingRegistry_Profile.h file for my particular case. I believe Video - Color Blind Mode is the closest setting to my use case, because it consists in a list of options to choose from a UI. I could build a list of character meshes (or actor blueprints) to be chosen from there.

Also, further analysis is needed, and many steps are missing here, because I got several errors in VS about missing references. That said, it was impossible to build the solution afterwards.

I am hoping someone is going to take it from here, it’s beyond my knowledge. It would be great if the devs could point us the right direction.

[L.F.A]

Hi, there, did you find someone who can help me with this matter? I would appreciate any inputs from the senior devs.

Best regards

[dromo (dromosys)]

Try this

LyraSettingsLocal.h

//  Character selection
public:
	UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable)
	int32 GetUserCharacter();
	UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable)
	void SetUserCharacter(int32 NewUserCharacter);

private: 
	UPROPERTY(Config)
	int32 UserCharacter;

LyraSettingsLocal.cpp

int32 ULyraSettingsLocal::GetUserCharacter()
{
	return UserCharacter;
}

void ULyraSettingsLocal::SetUserCharacter(int32 InUserCharacter)
{
	UserCharacter = InUserCharacter;
}

LyraGameInstance.h

#include "Settings/LyraSettingsLocal.h"

public:
        ULyraSettingsLocal* UserSettings;

	UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable)
	ULyraSettingsLocal * GetUserSettings();

LyraGameInstance.cpp

#include "Settings/LyraSettingsLocal.h"

void ULyraGameInstance::Init()
{
	Super::Init();
	UserSettings = ULyraSettingsLocal::Get();
}

ULyraSettingsLocal* ULyraGameInstance::GetUserSettings()
{
	return UserSettings;
}

In the blueprint use “Get Game Instance” cast to LyraGameInstance then “Get User Settings” then “Get/Set User Character”

I also used nodes “Is Locally controlled” and “Is Player Controlled” to stop the user select affecting the NPCs. Also only choose “Client Component” in the components list of the Lyra Experience Definition.

Result is here

[L.F.A]

I really appreciate that, thank you sharing this code and the link for the game on steam. I’ll test it out and let you know.
Thank you so much for the help.

[L.F.A]

Is this code already implemented in your game? I tested on Steam and it didn’t change the character.

[dromo (dromosys)]

It was until I updated Lyra framework and wiped out the reference to my custom version of B_PickRandomCharacter. Thanks for letting me know. Building a new version to upload now. Very much still in Beta…

[L.F.A]

It’s a journey, indeed. Let me know if you need any help with testing. Good luck in your project.