Point and Click Adventure Toolkit

[Prototype6143 (Aaron Scott)]

Hey Everyone!

The Point and Click Adventure Toolkit - Update 1.1 is officially released on the Unreal Marketplace for UE4.22. (Soon coming to UE4.23)

This update focused on overall stability and usability of the toolkit, as well as additional player input improvements and additional dialogue features.

What to expect:

Features:

• Added keyboard support for character movement
• Added the ability to hold LMB to update move to location (Mouse Input Mode)
• Added Double Click LMB to run
• Added non-automatic dialogue scrolling. Developers can now set Dialogue ‘Duration Override’ to -1 to wait for user input before continuing
• Added Inventory Inspection support for Dialogue and/or custom User Widgets
• Added optional dialogue on combined items
• Added DT_GlobalActionsDialogue for universal dialogue responses that can be modified or added when actions cannot be performed.

Improvement/Bug Fixes:

• Added additional warnings and suggestions when features fail to initialize due to incorrect setup
• Fixed Inventory Max logic on inventory items was broken when not set to infinite. Items should now respect the max number of items set on the item data
• General Code/Comment cleanup

Example Content and Documentation Updates:

• Updated the example content with new feature examples
• Added “Doors” description and how to setup same-scene and cross-scene transitions
• General Documentation Improvements

… and more general improvements!

Thanks to everyone that gave feedback for the initial release and for all your feature suggestions!

For any feedback, bug reports, or comments about the toolkit or the update, feel free to reach out here or via the support email aaronscott.marketplace@gmail.com

Happy Dev’ing!
Aaron

[JW3153]

@Prototype6143 is there any plan to add melee or basic shooter functionality to the kit?
I have Dynamic Combat System would it be easier to add something like that? Just want to make sure it wouldn’t be too much of a mod to your core kit to implement a combat system of some sort before I purchase.

I am looking at coming across to UE4 and your add-on here from Unity and Adventure Creator if I think I can make it work in our upcoming project.

Keep up the great work, it looks amazing for such a young project.

[zcotty]

This has been asked a few time her and other places, but any plans on making some tutorial videos?

Yes, the documentation is available and it’s really well put together but I think that most people (myself included) are more visual learners.

Some simple How-to videos would be great, I’m sure.

[Prototype6143 (Aaron Scott)]

@JW3153

@Prototype6143 is there any plan to add melee or basic shooter functionality to the kit?
I have Dynamic Combat System would it be easier to add something like that? Just want to make sure it wouldn’t be too much of a mod to your core kit to implement a combat system of some sort before I purchase.

I am looking at coming across to UE4 and your add-on here from Unity and Adventure Creator if I think I can make it work in our upcoming project.

Keep up the great work, it looks amazing for such a young project.

Hey JW3153, thanks for

There are no plans to add any combat mechanics to the toolkit at this stage. These sorts of mechanics would require changes to a few of the core systems to support things like different types of inputs, varying character states, (potentially) turn based mechanics, etc, which would change or add additional complexity for non-combat focused games.

In saying this, knowing that this is the goal for your project, these changes or combining with another system would be possible. The toolkit is fairly modular, so you should be able to combine frameworks and plug them in where you see fit without having to re-write the whole thing.

Feel free to reach out to the support email if you want to discuss this in more detail.

@zcotty

This has been asked a few time her and other places, but any plans on making some tutorial videos?

Yes, the documentation is available and it’s really well put together but I think that most people (myself included) are more visual learners.

Some simple How-to videos would be great, I’m sure.

Hey zcotty,

Totally understand that video tutorials would be a great resource to have, I definitely fall into the same bucket.

This is something I have tried to attempt in the past but failed due to a combination of hardware/software issues and time, which Is why I have fallen back to documentation, example content, and support emails for now until I have some time to resolve the issues.

Let me know if there is anything that can be improved for now that will help get the ball rolling. Appreciate the feedback!

[madcrokki]

Hey it’s great and don’t want to sound whiny but video tutorials would be great… for someone who is getting started with UE4 and wants to do something like this as their first game using this KIT, the manual seems to be lacking details and is meant for like advanced people

[Neveridel]

@Prototype6143

Hey mengpo1!

You should see a reply in your inbox.

Hello!
I’ve bought the toolkit and it’s awesome, thanks!
I’m actually stuck with the same issue with creating new actions, could you resend the same reply to me? I would really appreciate this.

[mengpo1]

@Neveridel

Hello!
I’ve bought the toolkit and it’s awesome, thanks!
I’m actually stuck with the same issue with creating new actions, could you resend the same reply to me? I would really appreciate this.

Hey there,

Here is Aaron’s answer for my questions :

his should be a fairly trivial fix and it sounds like you got 90% of the way there.

There are a few ways to go about this, some easier and some more complex depending on how smooth you want the transition to be.

To give you a better picture of where some the animations are mostly handled…

When actions are performed (or actions fail), the character receives a notification of this and you can then handle this how you choose. This event can be found in the BP_PNCCharacter_Parent blueprint like below:

In side of the “On Action Performed” function, you will find a switch that you can tie your new action, whether to look at the interactable actor, and whether you want to play an animation. This does pass in an animation enum to play, so this may simply be set to None by default, so give that a look and see if it fixes your issue. The Play Animation function that’s called in here will set an animation state, which is then used by the animation blueprint to either change the state or play a specific animation. The main thing here that may be missing from your setup, is the transition or state that can move from the current (potentially Idle or Walking state) to your new “Sitting” state you have setup.

An alternative solution to this would be to setup an animation montage/blend and set the characters position at the chair when they interact. You could then have the chair bind an event to the players OnActionPerformed event and when this occurs then have the player getup and walk/interact as you would expect.

This is just a dump of info on how this could work so let me know if you need more clarity or direction for any of this.

***Here’s an extract from another answer : ***

What I would recommend would be the following:

• Create/have you’re chair interactable object
• On Use action, you will receive a reference to the interacting character, you can use this to run your animation montage and have the player animate to the chair location, or snap to the seat location.
• When this is done, you can have a custom bool that basically says whether there is someone sitting on the chair. When some one sits its set to true and false when they get up again.
• To get off the chair, when the player sits you can bind a custom function or event to the OnActionedPerformed event that comes from the PNC Player controller. This event/function will simply release the player and set the players state back to the anim bp

I hope it’d help you !

[Pointyshark]

Pretty pretty please:) Some small video clips that explain how things are set up, or how to make certain segments of the game. I will be reading the documentation, but still, videos would be great for us people still pretty new to unreal.

A simple video that goes through how to create a simple map. From complete start to finish. How we should copy what stuff to where etc. How to place the character/set up the character. Setting up navmesh. Setting up a simple text interaction, then a simple transition. Something like that.
Right now, Im trying hard to find out to do all those things, even though I have the documentation. There are fragments about all things, but not anything for a beginner.
I know I know… I’m pretty new to unreal, but it would be so nice to have.
I bought this to get started, but it seems that don’t have enough knowledge to even set up a simple empty scene and create a navmesh, placing a player that I can control etc. Would be great to have a step by step manual for all of this, so that us newbies have something to start with, and then go from there.
If not videos, then documents that explain in detail the first steps for creating a very simple project.
Thanks

[Pointyshark]

I’m having some problems following the manual on page 27 where I set up a cutscene camera.
I am supposed to place a camera facing up (done that), and set my cutscene to start with the position of the cutscene camera (facing up).

How do I make a link between the cutscene camera, and the cutscene camera variabel? (camera actor).

I assume that I am supposed to make a transition between the two cameras.I will do that by triggering the “my first cutscene event”.
That is triggered as it should and the transition takes place, its just not between my cutscene camera and my player camera. Its between a random position (not cutscene camera), and the player camera. I have made, as described, a camera actor called Cutscene Camera. But how do I link the actual cutscene camera (as placed in the level), to the cutscene camera, as placed in the blueprint, so it will transition between the two.

This part, on page 26 I dont understand:
11.Select the Scene Manager in your level and using the object picker tool, pick the new camera actor

What is the object picker tool? Will this tool connect the two?

Hope it makes sense. Otherwise just let me know and I will make some screenshots.

[Prototype6143 (Aaron Scott)]

@the19thbear

I’m having some problems following the manual on page 27 where I set up a cutscene camera.
I am supposed to place a camera facing up (done that), and set my cutscene to start with the position of the cutscene camera (facing up).

How do I make a link between the cutscene camera, and the cutscene camera variabel? (camera actor).

I assume that I am supposed to make a transition between the two cameras.I will do that by triggering the “my first cutscene event”.
That is triggered as it should and the transition takes place, its just not between my cutscene camera and my player camera. Its between a random position (not cutscene camera), and the player camera. I have made, as described, a camera actor called Cutscene Camera. But how do I link the actual cutscene camera (as placed in the level), to the cutscene camera, as placed in the blueprint, so it will transition between the two.

This part, on page 26 I dont understand:
11.Select the Scene Manager in your level and using the object picker tool, pick the new camera actor

What is the object picker tool? Will this tool connect the two?

Hope it makes sense. Otherwise just let me know and I will make some screenshots.

Hey the19thbear!

This should be a simple one to fix.

The object picker tool + camera variable will be available when you have the Scene Manager selected (And the camera variable is ‘Instanced exposed’ (via the eye icon next to the variable in the blueprint window)). The picker is represented by the dropper icon next to the variable in the details panel like below, where you can select this button then click over the camera in the scene. Alternatively, you camera should show up in the dropdown list also next to the variable in the details panel.

As for the scene setup, video tutorials are difficult on my end at the moment (hardware/software issues), but I would definitely suggest taking a dive into the example content to see how things work under the hood, along side the documentation tutorials, support email etc to make up for this if you can. Things like adding characters to the scene can be as simple as dragging your character instance from the content browser, but for engine features like the navmesh volume you can checkout the official documentation or search for some videos online to give you the rundown on how to setup and use this feature, which would definitely help.

Hope this helps!

[Aladin_Sane]

How can I use a door in same scene to go both ways. Imagine a door that leads to a room when you go in a trigger volume switches to different camera. Now I want to be able to use same door to leave the room. I cannot seem to get this to work in the same level. Is this supported?

Ok I found a way. I had to put a non visual door inside the room over the visual door. Not sure how this will work when I have a key and lock on the door…Seems like should be able to use a door two way without the extra non visual Am I missing something?

Sorry second issue. From what I can tell a key is not tied to specific doors? Are keys just named Key and they will unlock any door. Should be able to assign a key to a door or mutiple doors…Please advise.

Thanks.

[anonymous_user_e9afc6cc]

The toolkit is amazing, but due to the complex interdependency of so many systems/blueprints, it’s pretty daunting to reverse-engineer how to recreate the functionality of the demo example in a new scene/game. The written documentation is helpful, but it’s still difficult to get a sense of the best approach and workflow to set up the logic of a scene (dialogue gated by inventory, multiple levels of gated item interactions, etc.).

It would be super helpful if you could record some short step-by-step videos on how to set up core functionality (a dialogue scene, an item interaction, etc.) and over the course of the videos show how to build a basic scene (let’s say just the store) from scratch. Watching how you approach building a scene using the toolkit would give users a better roadmap for building their own games and be far more intuitive than reading written documentation.

(I’m not super comfortable with my voice being recorded and on youtube either, but I think viewers don’t really care or judge.)

[Bullethead_Games (Artem)]

Great asset!
It works great inside the editor, but when I`m package project and run, all inventory items disappear when the scene changed. Where should I look?

[PXDN]

Yes I feel your pain . I would love to see video tutorials too. I bought the asset and cant do anything with it. its simply too complex for me

[Pointyshark]

Same here and . I can do stuff, but really REALLY have to reverse engineer stuff. Its a great project, but some videos would be so much apprecieated!

[Pointyshark]

Luckily, if you email the creator, he’s very helpful and polite. But still… make a YT channel with some videos pretty please:)

[anonymous_user_743ca80a]

I quite agree about the tutorials!
I’ve been using a similar asset for Unity called Adventure Creator. It has a very good tutorial section on their website, as well as step by step recreation of the demo, which was super helpful! Doesn’t even have to a youtube video, really.

[josedc]

I’ve been struggling to get my simple scene to run on iOS. I followed the tutorial on page 43 to create a simple scene and I’m able to move around the walkable area on my Macbook Pro laptop but it doesn’t work when I build for my iPad. I really need this to work quickly.

I’m able to setup the iOS build parameters, provisioning profile and certificate so that the scene builds ok and starts to run on my iPad, but after the initial Unreal startup logo, the app exits with no error message. The above behaviour the same for the ForrestDemo and Overview scenes also: work ok on my Macbook but crash after a few seconds on iPad.

I don’t think it’s a problem with my setup of iOS build as I’m able to build and launch the standard ThirdPersonDemo on my iPad.

Could it be that some extra scenes are being used but not built? Has anybody been successful with PNC Toolkit on mobile? If it’s not going to work I need to find an alternative soon.

[Prototype6143 (Aaron Scott)]

UE4.24 Support Released

UE4.24 support has been released!

This update includes a number of bug fixes to support the latest engine version, plus some additional cleanup of some blueprint classes.

Update Notes:

More robust Save Game support
Interactive actors now use a global Unique identifier (GUID) to save and load actor states. This means that existing projects have an updated save game format and will require existing scenes and actors to be updated along with this change. GenerateGUID’s Tool
Because of this new format, I have included a **Editor Utility ****Widget **that can help manage and setup the actor GUIDs in your scene.

This can be found in /Game/PNCTookit/Tools/GenerateGUIDs/UWBP_GenerateGUID

This tool will only manage Unique GUIDs in the current scene, and IF it doesn’t already have a valid GUID.

Persistent actors, such as characters or objects that represent the same object in multiple scenes, should have these GUIDs generated on each individual actor blueprint that is unique within your game.

You can do this by opening the blueprint, selecting the Global Interaction Component, finding the GUID property in the details panel and using the dropdown to select “Generate”. You should see this set a new GUID. Save the Actor and you’re set

Actors should automatically generate these GUIDs when added to the scene (if one hasn’t already been generated for the blueprint), so only existing projects may need to use this to update to the new system.

Mobile Developers - Please Read
Due to a regression between 4.23 - 4.24, custom software cursors will cause the app to crash when deployed to your device (tested on IOS, android results may vary).

To fix this, you will need to go into the DefaultEngine.ini (YOURPROJECT\Config\DefaultEngine.ini) and remove the [/Script/Engine.UserInterfaceSettings] section from this file. Make sure your project is closed and don’t forget to save after this is done.

For Hybrid projects who want to release on both Desktop and Mobile platforms. It is recommended to keep a copy of both versions of this file, and swap between these when deploying to different platforms. The issue will hopefully be resolved in a near future release.

**Feedback, Support and Tutorials **
There has been a lot of great feedback coming in and I want everyone to know that I have been listening and looking into different ways to extend what learning resources are currently available.

While being able to provide video tutorials is unlikely at the moment, I will be continuing to listen here and through the support email (recommended) for any feedback around any additional learning resources the community would like to see.

As always, if you have any questions about the update, issues or feedback overall, please dont hesitate to reach out to http://aaronscott.marketplace@gmail.com.

Happy Dev’ing!
Aaron

[Prototype6143 (Aaron Scott)]

@josedc

I’ve been struggling to get my simple scene to run on iOS. I followed the tutorial on page 43 to create a simple scene and I’m able to move around the walkable area on my Macbook Pro laptop but it doesn’t work when I build for my iPad. I really need this to work quickly.

I’m able to setup the iOS build parameters, provisioning profile and certificate so that the scene builds ok and starts to run on my iPad, but after the initial Unreal startup logo, the app exits with no error message. The above behaviour the same for the ForrestDemo and Overview scenes also: work ok on my Macbook but crash after a few seconds on iPad.

I don’t think it’s a problem with my setup of iOS build as I’m able to build and launch the standard ThirdPersonDemo on my iPad.

Could it be that some extra scenes are being used but not built? Has anybody been successful with PNC Toolkit on mobile? If it’s not going to work I need to find an alternative soon.

Hey josedc

What engine version are you using? As you can see above, there could possible be some settings that may have caused your project to crash when on your device.

I would recommend taking a look at the most recent release (and the pointers in the above post) and see if this version works for you. There was a lot of DefaultEngine.ini cleanup that happened for this release due to issues around running the toolkit on the device.

Let me know if this helps solve your issue.