How can I stop my character from falling off surfaces?

Development Character & Animation
1

Hello
I didn’t post anything in the forums yet so before I describe my problem I’ll quickly introduce myself.
I am Eddy from Germany.
I am 26 years old and I had some ideas for video games for some years already.
So after school and all the exams etc. I tried to realize some ideas with several engines
and I came to the conclusion that the Unreal Engine is the best solution for me.

I am quite new to UE4 and I wasn’t able to find a solution for my problem in the documentation and the forums yet.
First I made some BSP boxes so that I can make it additive or subtractive
(for the case I want to add doors and windows or something) later.
I managed it to make some walls and ceilings and assign materials to it for a very basic looking mine.
So far my character is able to walk on the surface.
After doing that for a while I had problems with freezes since tons of actors use a lot of memory.
So I tried to export my work and import it as a single actor.
Exporting the FBX file and importing it to the project again worked indeed.
Importing the FBX file again creates a static mesh
and UE assumes the walls and ceilings are one actor instead of 4.
Having one actor instead of 4 improves the performance
(FPS and ms) and that also makes building a level a lot faster.
However, my character always falls down,
but it shall walk on the surface until it reaches the next level (for example an abandoned laboratory).
I am not sure if I just missed an option in the World Settings or Details tab or if I need to fix that with C++
so I am not sure if this is the correct sub-forum either :frowning:

So do you have any ideas how I can Stop the character from falling down
so I can actually walk through the mine?
Or do I need to work with the slower way and create BSPs like described above?
Thanks for your ideas in advance.

2

I think you simply just need a collison mesh… You can create it within the engine but i would recomend to do it manuel in your 3d application.

https://docs.unrealengine/latest/INT/Engine/Physics/Collision/Reference/index.html

3

Thanks Adik. I will check if that works.
I’ll also try to learn more about blender.
I can’t afford Maya or something :frowning:

4

Have a look at Maya LT, it’s much more cheaper than the regular Maya. And for the beginning you can download the free 30 day trial from autodesk.
I think there are some blender tutorials on youtube on how to create collisons for UE4.

5

When you prefer a video tutorial: :slight_smile:
This here is a good tutorial series:

6

you can get the student version of Maya or Maya LT for free on their website. In my opinion, Maya is far more advanced and easier to use. (I’m using both blender and maya) It has a steep learning curve, but after that you’ll be glad you put the time and effort into it.

7

Took me a while to follow the documentation,
but Adik you are a genius :slight_smile:
Adding the collisions helps indeed.

8

And Noah thanks for the advice.
I’ll see if I can get a cheaper maya version and get something nice out of it :slight_smile:

9

I create the collision meshes when building the models. I use 3ds and since they are all named with the same prefix it is easy to turn them on and off in the 3ds when working with the model. Just remember if you take this approach the collision meshes in 3ds must never touch each other. Also, they cannot be concave in any wey.