Is it possible to replace an instanced static foliage mesh with a skeletal mesh as the player approaches it? I’m trying to create plants and foliage that can be moved by the player. I would like to do this with blueprints if possible.
I think you can do this through Dynamic Material Instances (I am NOT a materials guy so most of this is way over my head). It has to do with “Parameter Collections”. I am using the details to set this exact same thing up, so there is no need to change the mesh… just read this and play around with the material.
I really do need to replace it with a skeletal mesh though, not just using a world position offset. But I think I can use the way you suggested to hide the mesh using opacity in the material, so that is one half of the equation. I would just then need to spawn a foliage actor to replace it, using the same transform. I will try that, thanks.
Components like static and skeletal mesh in the blueprint also have a checkbox “visible” in their settings. One other way to do this would be using a skeletal mesh with a few LODs, those change based on distance from camera.
Destroying Static Mesh and spawning SkelMesh in same place is also an option.
There is also the possibility of making your foliage a blueprint with a static mesh component and a box trigger around it, and upon entering the box, get the mesh and change it to another mesh. I cannot find the reference on the answerhub that I found a few months back concerning this, but I know its possible.
You can’t use blueprints with the foliage tool as far as I am aware.
you are right you can only create static meshes with the foliage tool and I don’t think you can access the static meshes through blueprints to get rid of them or even find their positions.
here is a thread that is trying to answer a similar question. Removing single instance of a foliage actor? - World Creation - Epic Developer Community Forums
I am making a game where you play a dragon and I want to make destructible forests, that you can smash or burn through but I cant see how I would do it yet. here is a video of my game, Unreal Engine 4 Dragon game prototype - YouTube
I know this is an older thread, but I believe this is what you need.
Yes, this was the answer. Sorry it took so long to respond.