How to make empty transforms?

Hi there! There are many approaches. Can you be more specific? For example

  • You can use property of FTransform type and store it in UProperty. To use it you need to apply stored value to transform of owning Actor
  • You can just add sockets for Skeletal meshes (socket is added to bone and its relative orientation is saved during animation or|and movement) and Static Meshes (socket is added to pivot and its relative orientation is saved during movement). You can get Socket transform after that by Socket Name
  • You can just use USceneComponent as empty Transform, configure it’s relative orientation and use
  • You can use empty Actor, because Actor has USceneComponent by default and parent it to other Actor (in fact all Actor attachments are done between Actor’s root components)

I am a Unity user transitioning to UE4. In unity you can just place empty gameobjects(with just transform component) as child of other objects and use them as origins for raycasts. I wish to do the same, but can’t seem to wrap my head around about this. How can I make such empty objects which then I can refer in code somehow to use their transforms to do whatever? Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks :slight_smile:

Wow, those all seem legit options. Well, I am making a vehicle in UE. And I was starting with suspension, for which I want to raycasts for each wheel going down to ground. Now I just want those points to be configurable, in a way, for our designer to tweak. And what better way than an empty transform, I said to myself, and here we are.

In common, vehicle are rather complex things in the sense of Phy simulation, num of parts, control and movement. So, choice should be made on the base of these many details.

For anyone with same dilemma: try to use “Scene Component”.
Add Component->Scene.

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