For example, I’d like to spawn a cube at a set position. Not sure that’s possible yet but not seeing anything for it.
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You can spawn certain kinds of objects, more precisely props, from verse code by using the
SpawnProp<native><public>(Asset:creative_prop_asset, Position:vector3, Rotation:rotation)<transacts>:tuple(?creative_prop, spawn_prop_result)
function, more documentation can be found here SpawnProp function.
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Note that you can spawn the pre-existing Props that are part of FN, but you cannot currently spawn ‘custom’ Props (ie ones made from your own custom meshes), though we hope to in future. You can pre-place these in the map though, somewhere hidden (eg underground) and teleport them in when needed.
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Awesome thank you both, that helps clear it up. Congrats on the launch, really exciting.
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Jumping into this thread, is it possible to spawn devices? It seems like the answer is no and it’s only possible to spawn props but just want to confirm
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It is not possible to spawn spawn devices at the moment.
You also cannot ‘teleport’ a Device directly, but you can attach it to a Prop and teleport that, or use a Prop Mover.
+1
Add a way for devices spawning or make them work correctly as Level Prefabs (right now editables reset).
Even if they did make that, chances are you’re better off going ahead with the “pooling approach” already mentioned. E.g. place a whole bunch of props in your map somewhere underneath/hidden, and teleport them in/out as a way to “spawn”. Not only does this bypass the prop spaawn limit of 100/200 per-script/global, but you can do it with literally anything, and it’s also almost certainly better on performance to “pool instances” like this instead of actually spawning. Lots of modern games still do this by choice, as a way to “preload” the spawns and ensure there’s no stutter from literally loading the thing as soon as it’s spawned.
Also this has the advantage of showing a more accurate memory usage.
It’s obviously more initial work but it’s one of those things that you really only need to write the bulk of the code once, since everything you spawn will just be a creative_prop container anyway it’s very re-usable.
This isn’t enough when objects can be destroyed. The 100/200 limit should be obviously lifted or increased heavily to few thousands per minute.
Your approach requires the pool to be replaced (delete all leaving one and copy everything again) after every single little change. Blueprints help a bit but they are still limited as devices editables don’t work there.
This isn’t true. Pool isn’t placed on a map but spawned on map start or when needed. Otherwise they would have to spawn pools for massive amount of objects that aren’t even used most of the time.
If one pool isn’t used for majority of the game then it’s a huge waste of memory.
I’m sure you already know why the limits are important, that’s a good idea - rather than a flat spawn cap, a spawn rate is much better. Though a few thousand per minute seems like a lot tbh. I was thinking more like 10 per second max.
Spawned on Map Start vs Placed on Map are basically the same thing, just an implementation detail. Some game designers would prefer to have such things in a “dev room” (Bethesda’s Creation games come to mind), while others prefer to have an engine API that abstracts that away to keep the maps clean. It results in the same.
Things being “spawned when needed” is what a lot of open world games do, yeah - makes more sense. Again, Bethesda’s Creation games do that. Minecraft too. But it’s often a major cause of the stuttering in those games. It’s the old Latency vs Memory usage decision, and those particular games try to strike a balance. With varying degrees of success, haha.
It certainly isn’t an easy problem to solve. It seems that the more “open” a game is, the tougher time it has with spawning. Good discussion here.
I think ideally we would get a better Spawn API in UEFN. Like, even just a function to “get a spawner ready to spawn”. That, plus the “spawns per minute” rate suggestion you had - would be great IMO.
I’ve actually not tried to stress test the spawner yet, i.e. spawn 100 things as quick as possible - it might not even be an issue and I’m giving UEFN/UE5 too little credit 
I mean, since the Spawn command has to reference an Asset anyway, those assets are probably already loaded in memory once our map starts…
Rather 10 per second PER PLAYER. Item spawner device can do even more that currently so I don’t see a reason why we couldn’t.
My summary what is missing:
- @editables don’t work when creating Prefabs (Level playset as a prop)
- Add a way to spawn devices or set of props
- Add a method to set parent of spawned prop
- Increase spawn limits
Without these UEFN is a pain to use, huge waste of time compared to UE
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