Endless runner crashes editor, is there a there a limit to distance?

anonymous_user_642ca581 · June 2, 2015, 8:23am

UE 4.7 latest Ver
Mac OS X Yosemite latest ver.
After following unreal video tutorial I’ve created an endless runner game spawning tiles in front and destroying them behind. As a test to check that it would run endlessly I set it to only spawn plain straight tiles and let it run, each time after 4-5 minuets of running editor crashes. Is it not endless? there a limit to world? Why should it crash? How do I overcome this? I can post crash report later if required?

Thanks

anonymous_user_33800a51 · June 2, 2015, 6:22pm

Hi ,

There is a limit to world size: 1048575.0 from world origin (0,0,0). So if you run in a single direction from world origin long enough, you’ll hit that boundary and your character will be destroyed. This can be changed in code, I believe, but truth is that farther you get from world origin, more things like floating point errors affect your game.

Another possibility is using World Composition (essentially level streaming) and World Origin Shifting. You can read up on that a bit here:

I tested video tutorial in 4.7.6 and simply let tiles and character run to that limit, and character was destroyed but editor did not crash. Does it crash every time you let it run? Can you confirm whether it has reached that limit before it crashed? It would be helpful to take a look at log from your project after this crash occurs. Can you reproduce crash for me, and then go to your project’s Saved\Logs folder and /attach latest log? Thanks!

anonymous_user_642ca581 · June 2, 2015, 7:58pm

Thank you ,

just done some more testing and I’ve been testing in mobile preview this causes crash every time. just tried again with play in viewport and it works as you’ve explained destroys actor. At least i now now there is a limit and can look what you’ve suggested for a fix.
Thanks again for your help, you’re a star

anonymous_user_b782b2f51 · July 21, 2015, 10:09am

@
Can you explain where this world size limit comes from?
correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t seem to resemble any data type limit…
double could handle larger and float is not precise enough…

anonymous_user_33800a51 · July 21, 2015, 5:04pm

Past a certain point from world origin, floating point errors start becoming much larger issues. I believe this distance is what developers decided was within an acceptable margin of error. It’s certainly possible to extend that distance by editing source code, but it would start to cause many issues as you moved further and further from world origin.

links above give some information on using World Origin Shifting as an in-engine method for enlarging size of your world by essentially shifting everything behind scenes.

aWinter · January 10, 2016, 5:14pm

Are there any news on horizon in regards of “Right now world origin shifting is not supported in multiplayer games.”

anonymous_user_33800a51 · January 11, 2016, 2:52pm

No news yet.

Papa_Chaos · January 29, 2016, 11:15am

I think you went with a great idea in wrong way

from experience when making anything endless it’s better to make it appear like pawn is moving (But, standing still) while spawning things infront of player and moving it towards player while deleting everything that is behind player… pretty much what we did on drone trouble:

What we could have done to make it an endless runner is rather spawn (whatever player is running on) and traps(or whatever you call it and make it move towards player and give effect that player is moving and world is endless). But, in reality player is just standing still (or atleast moving in a small local space) and everything is moving towards player.

We took this option because we want games we are making to seem endless and at same time be as light as possible for mobiles.