ProInstance Tools Plugin

Totally love the tools, thanks a lot.

I just have a little problem with placing the meshes 100% exact, every mesh (grid, path,…) seems to have an offset by +1 on the z-axis.

To counter this, I adjust the elements by -1 on the z-axis (e.g. 699 instead of 700) or tweak the local instance location settings. Other meshes w/o instance tools align perfectly.

So there’s an easy fix for the problem, just wanted to ask if I miss something or if it is intentional behavior?

Thank you very much.

@TheCyrexx, lol! You’re right… never saw it before. Need to investigate that, but it has to be the “Placement Line Tracing” function.

i have tried Niagara and it is def not easy for an artist type - how would u even get some random curvy spline shape and artistically control it - u would need to do alot of blueprinting to get anything great out of Niagara - it just drives me crazy Unreal doesnt have a great array tool like Mograph that can do all kinds of world building stuff built in - animating an array of objects should def be a standard easy to use feature of the engine by now . thanks anyway

Hello, loving the tool, makes prototyping sooooo much easier :slight_smile:
quick question if anyone can answer maybe ive missed something: Theres the ability to add actors to the spline but can it also retain its properties, i know i can change the material and material instance but say if i have light object in the actor and want to retain its colour and radius attenuation ( so i can change the values while using proInstance, is that possible), hope that makes sense.

Well the way I see it is that you have to create blueprint with a light component and set everything you want to right there. Then you use that blueprint actor to be procedurally placed using ProInstances. Then if you want a different variation, you must create a child blueprint of your firstly created light blueprint and make some changes there.
I don’t think that changing parameters in child actor in a blueprint is possible in a details tab or I don’t know the way yet.

I second this, especially when the placed actors are blueprints :wink:

I know that’s a wanted feature and it should be there and I know that as a customers that probably does not concern you a lot guys but… I’m a bit overwhelmed by work now.
May and June were very hot for overall attention, feature and support requests (which is great) and I do anything I can to keep up. Eventually I had to prioritize tasks and firstly I’m going to release a big anticipated Sky Creator update and only then I will return to ProInstance Tools and Blockout Tools too.
Sorry for keeping you waiting!

Thanks for getting back :slight_smile:

Hello. I just starting using this tool and it’s extremely helpful! I was looking for a way to randomly place actors along a path and have their location change each time the map is loaded. Using the path scatter, I was able to call “Set Random Seed” in the level blueprint on Begin Play. That works great, but I keep getting a warning that says “PersistentLevel.ProInstance_PathScatter_5 : Root has to be ‘Movable’ if you’d like to move.”

It doesn’t seem to be game breaking, but warnings bother me. I like to see a clean message log when I play. :wink: So is there something I can do to fix this warning? I don’t see an option anywhere to change the mobility settings for any of the Pro Instance Tools.

Thank you for your time and the great tool! :slight_smile:

Hello! Thanks for using it.
I guess when you’re calling “Set Random Seed” on Begin Play, you’re deleting static instances in runtime and placing others and static actors usually don’t support this behaviour. It’s a cool usecase, though I never intended it to be that way. And yes, instance components are hardcoded to be static right now… I’ll add this to “todo” list so you’ll be able to choose component mobility.

any chance of adding a bake to individual elements feature. Say I wanted to use your tool to drop a bunch of boxs at spots then i wanted to use those to parent other things too . Its in some of the other array tools but i use yours the most and I use a plugin that makes prefabs which is kinda like an easy to use blueprint but i cannot figure out how to get the way u can use a blueprint to work with them

did u ever look at the preset thing - i can find other systems that use it and send u one to look at

Hello! At this point baking is coming in a next update as a necessity. And yes, let me know about other systems using presets, it would be quite useful.

Hello,

I have an Actor with a Destructible Mesh, I use Pro instance path to lay the actors inside the level. But no matter what I do, if Simulate Physics is On for the Destructible Mesh, the mesh breaks immediately with Pro Instance (The actor is fine by itself in the level without PI). Any idea why? Thanks

Hello! I can only suppose that your actors may be overlapping when placed by ProInstances somehow?

I’m trying to use the circle tool with a Blueprint - i thought i got it too work before but now I cant seem to get ti to work - do you change the actor class ?

Is there a way to make these attachable to parent ? It wont let me turn them mobile so I can put under a empty obj

No, actor class is the same, but I did change the blueprint of Circle a bit, I deleted some obsolete features.
You can create a ChildActor Component in your BP and then attach ProInstances to it. As far as I know, this is an only option right now.

Update 1.20 is here! And here’s changelist.

  • Added new “Bake Instance” function
  • Added new “Mobility” variable
  • Added new “Custom Collision Profile Name” variable
  • Added more platforms to Whitelist (IOS, Switch, Xbox One, PS4)
  • Renamed “Set Random Seed” function to “Ranzomize Seed”
  • Removed class icons to keep consistent look to editor
  • Removed unused assets in “DemoRoom” folder

New function “Bake Instance” as the title says will let you convert procedurally placed instances to a separate Static Mesh Actors or Actor Classes depending on the choosen Instance Type. Currently does not delete ProInstance Actors itself. This function is only supposed to work in editor! You can find it in the details panel under the ProInstance Functions category. Have fun!

hello is there a way to use it with a simple blueprint actor made of a static mesh and a light?