Hey there. I’m trying to use a spine to animate some escalator steps but I have no idea what I’m doing. I can’t find any tutorials on this either. I’ve looked through the content examples and the closest I’ve seen is a particle effect following a spline. However, I need to make a very precise spline and so far, I’m unable to pull this off using the manipulators in the main viewport.
You could also implement something like this inside a blueprint using some math and a delay.
[Here’s a sample of what that would look like.][1]
And I’m attaching pics of the blueprint (It’s ugly, but it works.)
I’m using a stair mesh (made with box brushes inside the editor) and an extra step for the top step that only moves forward.
Basically, each step is 20 units wide and 10 units high, the stairs mesh’s location is 0,0,0. Your exact numbers may vary based on your step height and width, but this should work. Also, the delay controls how fast the stairs move. Smaller numbers = faster escalator.
Hopefully this is helpful.
For some reason, this isn’t working for me. I’ve made my own mesh in Maya exactly the same as yours. I’ve replicated your blueprint exact;y but when I simulate the entire editor locks up. The blueprint works if I disconnect the ‘Equal To’ node at the start but of course, the stairs go off into space forever and don’t reset.
Hmm… I see two differences between yours and mine. your delay is .5 while mine is .05 and when the branch evaluates true you’re resetting to 20,0,0 where I reset to 20,0,10. That said, none of that should crash the engine. The delay would make the whole thing rather slow though. I’ll play around for a minute and see if I can find the problem.
Oh! You’re using != (This is NotEqual) for the vector check in the beginning. You need == (This one is “Equal”).
I got it working! I’d actually used the wrong type of = node right at the start so it was looping to infinity. Thank you! Just for anyone else wondering, this works fine with a mesh imported from a 3d program.
Awesome! I’m glad it works. Also, I actually made my stairs directly in engine by duplicating a bunch of steps, shift selecting them all, right click > Convert to Static Mesh.
Here is the method I’ve come up with. I’m using timelines. You can control the speed from within the timeline and you get a nice smooth movement instead.
Oh, neat! That should work too. For the sake of posterity, I should mention that the original code should also produce smooth movement, so long as the delay is quick enough (.042 seconds is about 24 frames per second which is the standard film framerate) and the intervals (the amounts being added which determine how many units you move per delay) are set properly. But yeah, timelines work. Ultimately, what gets the job done is what is best. Awesome!
Hello I’ve gone through the thread but I’m confused on where to start.
Do I need to create only one step and the blue print generates the rest going upwards or I create the whole system?