Inspired by several daily programming challenges like Reddit’s daily programmer , Starting Monday 22 February, I will be posting a new thread in this subform in the format [DPC-Month-day-year]Title of the challenge. every day around 2 PM (GMT+7) an Unreal programming challenge every day.
The main goal of the challenge is to challenge everybody from beginners to experts to solve game and UE-specific problems to freshen our knowledge and skills, learn new things or more efficient ways to do what we already know but wasn’t optimal.
Got a challenge for the community? I will be accepting challenges requests via PM, challenges solutions have to be linked on the specific topic and described.
There will be no official winner as this is not really a competition against others but everybody against himself but from time to time, based on my, users acclaim or moderator/staff opinion some users might receive virtual karma.
Also, we want people that are learning, or want to see how others solve specific problems, to go through the threads and read the discussions for personal improvement as learning also requires understanding why another working solution is not optimal.
Moderators or staff could maybe provide an incentive with forum special banners for some challenges or marketplace discounts? (that’s a proposal, I have no voice in this matter, but if the daily challenge gets popular, why not)?
There are several rules:
-The challenges and solutions must only involve in editor solutions, and they cannot involve in any way the use of external programs including Visual Studio.
-Challenges have to be focused on game logic, pawn movements, camera and ai. Basically what you would find in animation, blueprints and AI subforums. They cannot be related to materials, rendering, sound and archviz. Exceptions might happen if I judge your challenge more based on logic than an artistic/performance problem.
How do I create this smoke effect? is not a valid challenge.
How do I create a smoke effects that tends to follows a specific path (e.g. ventilation grids) in my level? might be accepted.
**-While the primary focus is logic, the challenge solution must be as tied as possible to Unreal Engine.
**
How do I count the elements in an array and stop when I get the desired one and remove it from the array? is way too unrelated to Unreal Engine and too generic from a games point of view.
Extensions of similar problems are not good either.
How do I count the elements in an array and stop when I get the desired one, remove it from the array and shoot a grenade?.
How do I find the intercepting point of the local right vectors of two different pawns and move pawn B to it unless they are on different stories? Is much more acceptable as it involves local and glocal coordinates and much more UE specific scripting.
Exceptions might be made obviously, as generally every UE problem is aswell a logic, maths or geometry problem but try to not have something too generic and without a specific game situation example.
Redoing stuff from other games is welcome, e.g.:
-How do I create a third person pawn character that has the controls of World of Warcraft’s characters?
-How do I create a spawn system ala Counter-Strike?
-How do I create a “possess” mechanic like Dishonored’s?
-How do I create Half-Life 2’s gravity gun?
-How do I create Portal’s portals?
As many people can be not aware of the game you’re referring to, be sure to explain well.
You’re also invited to send me challenge requests for problems in your own project as it can be a solid occasion for your work to progress or improve.
-Challenges should not be extremely long.
This is hard to quantify but, take Portal’s portals. You need to create additional cameras, you need to create an extension of your mesh that enters the portal even if you’re not totally in (you can clearly see a gun or part of your body already in the other part of the level despite you not crossing it totally). Similar challenges might be better suited for special occasions.
-This thread is only for commenting the challenge system, not the specific challenges.
-Problems are not to be confused with challenges.
A challenge is about creating solutions to new and old problems. The fact that your third person camera clips through the walls is a technical not logical problem and is specific to your project, not gaming logic.
Let me know what’s your idea, I will post the challenges and solutions (at the last moment), regardless of the fact the challenges will meet or not a response from the community.
Again, this is an occasion to learn, confront and know each other.