Engine Features Preview 10/27

General Announcements
21

Would be great if when we get the preview builds (latest preview tag) we could maybe get a breakdown on the features introduces. I understand that we can peruse through the commits but that doesn’t show which are the main features.

Maybe posts like this (which are great and I really like) and the updates to the preview could somehow be related so we know which builds have which features?

Cheers
Dan

22

[= ]

We’re working on iteration times with UnrealBuildTool, specifically allowing it to start compiling instantly. More on this soon.

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I would love to see this soon!

23

[=KlausT;171314]
I would love to see this soon!
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I have just tried the latest preview build to see if the incremental build speed has been improved. The build time after a dummy change (like inserting a new line) seems to be much worse (4.6 preview: ~9sec; 4.5.1: ~3.1sec). The editor startup time feels slower as well. I know this is a preview build and I shouldn’t be worried yet.

24

[=KlausT;171348]
I have just tried the latest preview build to see if the incremental build speed has been improved. The build time after a dummy change (like inserting a new line) seems to be much worse (4.6 preview: ~9sec; 4.5.1: ~3.1sec).
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Are you comparing the 4.6 you build from source to a ‘Rocket’ official binary build of the 4.5? If so you are comparing apples and oranges: editor build from source is always slower in my experience.

25

[=;171378]
Are you comparing the 4.6 you build from source to a ‘Rocket’ official binary build of the 4.5? If so you are comparing apples and oranges: editor build from source is always slower in my experience.
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Right, I forgot that I activated the experimental features for faster dependency scanning & build iteration in my 4.5.1 build. Without these features the build time gets to 8.1sec.

26

Ah thanks, I forgot to try this experimental option!

27

This all looks great! Is there a way though to render widgets to a texture?

28

[=;170552]
**C++ Question For Epic

Custom Character Movement Components in 4.6?
**

How are we going to use the constructor to initialize custom character movement components in 4.6 ?

Example code from 4.5 and prior:



AStarChar::AStarChar(const class FPostConstructInitializeProperties& PCIP)
	: Super(PCIP.SetDefaultSubobjectClass<UMyCustomMoveComp>(ACharacter::CharacterMovementComponentName))
{

Please do let me know so I can prepare!

[/]

For Actor classes you have to specify constructor with FObjectInitializer as argument and still call Super(ObjectInitializer). You can use parameterless constructors(or define arbitrary amount of them) on UObjects only, as i understood after few tests.

29

So subobjects and just references to a component (not necessarily in this actor) are defined the same, but they are initialized differently, is that what I am hearing here??
Would you still define subobjects like they used to be: OI.CreateDefaultSubobjet(…) ?

Thank you, all these C++ changes look awesome.

30

Why does the latest version ask for Steam files when none of the other releases have?

31

[=dinker99;172575]
Why does the latest version ask for Steam files when none of the other releases have?
[/]

They added SteamVR plugin module that is trying to get compiled all the time, which requires steam API files. If you really want to try out master branch, add UEBuildConfiguration.bCompileSteamOSS = false; in UE4(Editor/Game/etc.).Target.cs files.
Take a note, it may lead to unwanted engine recompilations, i had to add the same configuration line to my game projects as well to make it work.

32

Epic said they got the rights to include the steamworks SDK in the sources, but the copy right now isnt complete. Either disable it or copy the full SDK inplace.

33

[=;172719]
Epic said they got the rights to include the steamworks SDK in the sources, but the copy right now isnt complete. Either disable it or copy the full SDK inplace.
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I am still trying to decide if it`s worth installing the SDK, too much stuff and your PC ends up a mess.

34

I just set bCompileSteamOSS = false; in Engine\Source\Programs\UnrealBuildTool\Configuration\UEBuildConfiguration.cs and it compiled OK

35

[=dinker99]

I am still trying to decide if it`s worth installing the SDK, too much stuff and your PC ends up a mess.

[/]

Are you serious? The latest steamworks SDK is only 41MB and doesn’t even require an installation. Just copy some header files, libs and DLLs to the unreal engine directory and you are done.

36

[=pedro_clericuzzi;170351]
Well, at least now UMG will start being used by enough people so that the Slate rendering performance problems get addressed.
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Good to hear it’s not just me, then.
I went from silky smooth to unplayable, just by adding a widget with two vital bars yesterday.
I actually started out in blueprints, but I quickly decided to go back to square one, after laying down a lot of functionality in blueprints, and seeing how horrible the performance was once (unthreaded) tick events started to mass up. Maybe it was the slate widgets that were the culprits then as well.
Does any one know if it will help to write the HUD entirely by code? Can’t understand how a Tegra is supposed to run the third person demo (with one light slate widget), when my mac pro can’t:p

I remember I read somewhere that an Epic rep said that blueprints are in general 20% slower than well written c++. Is this right?

37

[]
We need mesh render sorting back to the engine or “render layers” to prevent first person guns/arms from clipping into walls/objects
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I don’t think blatting the 3D first-person arms/weapons on top of the scene is actually a good solution, for a few reasons:

  1. For shadowing, either I’d have to not shadow the arms/gun at all, or the dynamic shadow of the wall in front of me would shadow the weapon where it “would” clip.
  2. For deferred rendering, render layers become a PITA; either a resource hog, or a slow-down, or some hack that doesn’t actually work right.
  3. For stereoscopic rendering, the weapon would still look like it’s clipping through the geometry, except it would still draw – very confusing!

A better option is to have an “outer” collision shell that detects possible clip, and raise/withdraw the weapon so that it doesn’t clip through the wall and stays within the inner collision shell; the inner collision shell prevents the player from getting close enough to the wall that anything (character body, weapons, attachments, …) clips through.

38

[=KlausT;171395]
Right, I forgot that I activated the experimental features for faster dependency scanning & build iteration in my 4.5.1 build. Without these features the build time gets to 8.1sec.
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I couldn’t find this experimental option. Where did you find it?

39

[=dokipen;173605]
I couldn’t find this experimental option. Where did you find it?
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The Unreal Build Tool configuration options are listed in Engine/Programs/UnrealBuildTool/BuildConfiguration.xml.
The experimental options which I was talking about are:

  • bUseExperimentalFastDependencyScan
  • bUseExperimentalFastBuildIteration

Here is my old Engine/Saved/UnrealBuildTool/BuildConfiguration.xml



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?><Configuration xmlns="https://www.unrealengine.com/BuildConfiguration">
	<BuildConfiguration>
		<ProcessorCountMultiplier>2</ProcessorCountMultiplier>
		<bUseExperimentalFastDependencyScan>true</bUseExperimentalFastDependencyScan>
		<bUseExperimentalFastBuildIteration>true</bUseExperimentalFastBuildIteration>
	</BuildConfiguration>
</Configuration>

However, I would advise against using bUseExperimentalFastBuildIteration - it leads to some problems like not being able to rebuild my project (I don’t know if I am the only one with this problem).

40

Is it known when the 4.6 update will be available??