Hey, I’m making a game in 5.4 and a few materials use the DistanceToNearestSurface node to calculate their opacity. This works perfectly in most scenarios, but some player’s lower end computers seem to not be creating/using/displaying distance fields for the materials to use.
The materials show as either invisible, or fully opaque, as opposed to only being visible or invisible near surfaces like they should be. Is this a known issue with distance fields? Do I need to set a default setting somewhere to never have distance fields turn off? Or is it an issue with the DistanceToNearestSurface node?
Any help would be great cause I can’t find any real info about this happening anywhere.
I see this
but as usual, the AI has attached the wrong article for it.
I’m also thinking where distance fields sit in the engine scalability settings. That would also have an effect.
EDIT: I just read that distance field calculation is stripped out unless you’re on High or Epic.
I recommend testing it for yourself, because I think that’s incorrect.
Hey thanks! Yeah I saw that same response from AI too. But the only place I see actually mention is the official documentation, but they give literally no other details about that fact.
I’ve been able to figure out that it’s specifically the Global Illumination quality that’s effecting it, but only on low. And within that setting specifically r.DistanceFieldAO is the command that’s turning the distance fields on or off.
I’ve testing it specifically by setting the GI to low, then entering the command r.DistanceFieldAO 1, and it turns distance fields on and makes the materials look how they should even while still on low settings.
BUT I can’t get this to work in the packaged build. I’ve tried using the Execute Console Command BP node in multiple places (level BPs, player BP, and game instance init event) and none of them worked.
I’m also having a separate problem though where anytime I add a line in a .ini file for setting this command, then I package the build, it resets the .ini file back to how it was before I added the line. If I’m able to figure out what’s causing this do you think it could solve the distance field issue?
AND (sorry I know this is a lot) I am testing this on a laptop with integrated graphics, so for all I know this is entirely a waste of time. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t there be SOME more info out there about a very common effect being entirely useless on a ton of hardware? (It’s Intel UHD graphics btw if it might matter)
