Hi there,
I am quite new to UE development. I need to get polygons within a certain distance from a point so that I can display them in another area of the screen. However, I have not found any way to do this (through forum searches, etc). Is this even possible? Maybe if this isn’t, I could instead get a list of collision surfaces within distance of said point? This would be less ideal for sure, but it would still be useful.
Thanks for any help!
Hm. I’m not sure if I stated my question clearly. Here is an example:
There is a point in 3D space from which I iterate over all of the level’s polygons and get all polygons within a certain distance (eg: 5 meters). I then take these polygons and display them on the bottom right quadrant of the screen in wireframe. Is this possible at all?
I’ve never tried this, so I can only point you in certain directions.
For getting a point in space, it is very easy to do this in Blueprints by running a Line Trace by Channel (“Visible” or any other collision type you specify). Then you “Break Trace Results” and get the 3D point in space.
Now here’s where I can’t help: I’ve never tied a blueprint function (especially regarding vectors) into a material. BUT, you should be able to change a parameter in a Material Instance through the Blueprint so that you are getting a real time update of something. And from there, there are a few different distance functions inside the material editor that you can play around with to create a black and white gradient of distance, which will be your wireframe mask.
Any material can be turned into a wireframe with a simple checkbox in the basic settings (just look for it). Basically, I would have a wireframe material and your other base material for that quadrant be separate, and you LERP between them in another material (?) based on the distance mask that you created. I’ve never done material functions or material blending, but I hope it is straightforward.
Hopefully this gives you some ideas?
Oh, i see. I was looking for a way to do this through c++, rather than through blueprints (because I’m much more at home with c++ than blueprints). I’m surprised that blueprints offer so much versatility though. Maybe I should look into it.