Custom Pawn crashes the editor

[OmniOwl]

@The Beej;600709

I just looked over your code more thoroughly, and theres a couple things wrong that will cause crashes later on. First off your pointers need to be declared as UPROPERTY() because the objects they point to can easily be deleted from under you, you should mark them as UPROPERTY so UE4 can properly use its memory management. Second, you don’t need to store a pointer to the InputComponent, the engine automatically calls SetupPlayerInputComponent and gives you the input component it wants you to bind stuff to as the argument to the function, if you change your code to what you just posted, it will go into an infinite loop and run out of stack space. Did this code used to be on a component? Because I’m seeing a lot of GetOwner() calls which don’t make sense. There’s a UActorComponent::GetOwner() which gets the outer actor of a component which would make sense if this code were on a component, but you’re doing AActor::GetOwner() which gets the actor that owns this actor with regards to network permissions, and it doesn’t make sense in this context. Also it almost looks like you’re coming from a Unity background, there’s far too much FindComponentByClass<> which doesn’t really work that well in UE4 since you often have multiple components of the same type on an actor. Also, doing GetWorld()->GetFirstPlayerController() isn’t really the right way to do it, you really should use GetController() which is a function of APawn. I don’t mean to be mean, but you should probably go through the gameplay framework documentation and follow along with some c++ tutorials (preferably made for version 4.10 or later), because what you’ve written so far isn’t really the right way to go about writing code in UE4.

Okay so lets take it one thing at a time. Sorry, I’m new to C++ in UE4 and I’ve never extended the Pawn before so, a lot of this is probably just beginner mistakes ._.

First off your pointers need to be declared as UPROPERTY() because the objects they point to can easily be deleted from under you, you should mark them as UPROPERTY so UE4 can properly use its memory management.

Should I do that to all my pointers in general…?

you don’t need to store a pointer to the InputComponent, the engine automatically calls SetupPlayerInputComponent and gives you the input component it wants you to bind stuff to as the argument to the function, if you change your code to what you just posted, it will go into an infinite loop and run out of stack space

But this code here:

void SetupPlayerInputComponent(class UInputComponent* InputComponent)

Doesn’t return anything, so how would I get the InputComponent? Something like GetController()->GetInputComponent()?

Did this code used to be on a component? Because I’m seeing a lot of GetOwner() calls which don’t make sense. There’s a UActorComponent::GetOwner() which gets the outer actor of a component which would make sense if this code were on a component, but you’re doing AActor::GetOwner() which gets the actor that owns this actor with regards to network permissions, and it doesn’t make sense in this context.

Yes, this code used to be part of a “DefaultPlayerController” component that I stuck on a DefaultPawn_BP (Blueprint) so that it got some custom controls as you see in the code (Grab, Use). But I felt that was dumb and wanted to move it into the Pawn instead but this resulted in the mess I’m in now haha

Also it almost looks like you’re coming from a Unity background, there’s far too much FindComponentByClass<> which doesn’t really work that well in UE4 since you often have multiple components of the same type on an actor.

I followed a Udemy class that was backed by Kickstarter (basically the one with Learn C++ with UE4, pretty good) and he used the method seen above. I haven’t moved on to the next part yet where you make a much more complex game with AI and such so perhaps this is further discussed in that part. I have used Unity before and I was surprised too that the teacher (who also got a Unity background) just used that in UE4. I didn’t pay it much mind because he is a teacher.

Also, doing GetWorld()->GetFirstPlayerController() isn’t really the right way to do it, you really should use GetController() which is a function of APawn.

The same reason as above. My understanding of UE4 C++ is still very limited. I learn by doing :')

what you’ve written so far isn’t really the right way to go about writing code in UE4

I understand that. That’s why I’m here so I can learn a bit from my mistakes. I understand C++ but I haven’t used C++ before. Learning to use it here is what I want to do so…I’m trying. I have a bachelor’s degree in computer science so programming is not alien to me, but I was taught in Java and C#. Had to teach myself C++ so, it’s going to be rocky in the beginning I’m sure. Thanks for taking the time to teach me by pointing out my mistakes