Project: Paper2D

[Michael_Noland]

@;104027

I’m trying to scale a sprite in an animation, however it scales from center pivot point. It doesn’t appear I can move pivot point with ALT + Middle Mouse to somewhere else, is there any way to make it scale from one of corners instead?

might matter too: I’m working with components, not actors.

I’m not sure I follow RE: moving pivot point. You can change pivot point of a frame in sprite editor (or for all frames using Property Matrix), but it’s an editor-only concept. baked render data is ‘rezeroed’ so that pivot lies at local origin.

Longer term I’d like to have an animated transform track in each flipbook, so you can translate, rotate, or scale frames over time, but there isn’t anything like that yet.

Cheers,

[Michael_Noland]

@;106688

It is that time of day again to ask for your help !
I do not understand what is going on with collisions in unreal.

I have attached a box in my turtle character so i can detect collisions between her and my hero. (second one is to detect if my hero is falling on top of her).
My hero capsule is set to vehicle (don’t ask why!)
as you can see from picture i have set on purpose to block vehicle category so i can have a visual of what is going on because with overalap i could see it firing all time in BP but i couldn’t figure out why.
When i start

game after approx 2 seconds collision box of my turtle blocks me and hits me even across screen!it is like it’s expanding.
Any ideas of what is going on?
Thank you

I’m not sure exactly what is going on there, for questions like I’d really start a new separate thread in Blueprint section to get more eyeballs, but as a first glance to get more information, try typing ‘show collision’ or ‘pxvis collision’ into console during PIE. will show current collision shapes (from Unreal’s POV or PhysX’s, depending on command), which can be super-useful for debugging collision/character movement problems. You can turn on right at start, and watch what happens with turtle collision shape, which may give you a clue as to what is going wrong.

@;106688

Edit so i wont create another post:
Do collisions work in flipbook?
I have created a BP with only a flipbook animation and a box for detecting when my player is in close proximity to them so i can activate them.box trigger works wonderfully.
My problem is that although i have set up all my spear-trap sprites with appropriate collision box(in case shrink wrap) activating collisions in flipbook inside BP does nothing.I have even set it up to block all and my player runs right through them.
Is there a way for flipbook to take into account sprite collision box so we can have pression collisions for static objects?
Because my spear-

trap moves up and down it makes no sense to add a capsule or a trigger box since size changes every frame

but if flipbook took account of individuals sprite collision box that it is inside it then everything would work perfectly!

No, flipbooks do not have any kind of collision right now. You’ll need to team a flipbook component up with another collision component such as a box or capsule to get collisions.

Cheers,

[Michael_Noland]

@alwei;106872

Hi guys!

I use Paper2D, make games.
But do not know how to do notifications in animation.
animation notification tool it seems not, but what to do?
Want to use effects and sound in animation.
Is there a way or something?

Skeletal animations support very well with notify tracks (Animation Sequence Editor in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.3 Documentation), but they aren’t supported yet in flipbook animations.

Right now, easiest approach would probably be to make an associated timeline for each flipbook that needs to trigger other things (creating an event track per VFX or sound you want to trigger), although it would be awkward to keep them in sync if you edit one or other.

I’d like to add support for something like notify tracks in 4.5, but I can’t guarantee anything.

Cheers,

[alwei]

@;107670

Skeletal animations support very well with notify tracks (Animation Sequence Editor in Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.3 Documentation), but they aren’t supported yet in flipbook animations.

Right now, easiest approach would probably be to make an associated timeline for each flipbook that needs to trigger other things (creating an event track per VFX or sound you want to trigger), although it would be awkward to keep them in sync if you edit one or other.

I’d like to add support for something like notify tracks in 4.5, but I can’t guarantee anything.

Cheers,

Thank you !!
I didn’t think to use timeline.
Is a very good idea!

I hope to track notifications support will be added in 4.5.

[anonymous_user_21a58d97]

For future reference temporalAA(under post process settings/misc) was making everything blurry.In conjunction with turning off : Project settings/engine/rendering/mobile HDR i managed to get rid of a weird lighting effect that was showing all over my sprites.
Happy day!One victory at a time.

regarding flipbook collisions is something that can be done and it will be done eventually or it is technically impossible?
I am because i don’t know how it is possible for me do to proper collision with sprites that change size and shape during runtime.
In my previous post i gave an example with my spear trap.If i add a collision box that is size of animation inside BP then when they are subtracted to floor and my hero tries to jump over them then he will get hit.

Let me take to next level.
An important gameplay feature of my game is his ability to defend himself with his shield.

In my limited time as an aspiring game creator i encountered 2 different approaches to whole sprite collision thing.
One is classic “i assign collisions straight to sprite itself” and they would send me a signal in my code when they had an interaction so i knew when to play appropriate animation.

And other method is that i have a bone structure that tweens realtime my PNG’s and from there i turn collisions on only to ones i care about(in our case shield and sword).

Both those cases produce pixel perfect interactions with world ,meaning that if my hero starts to unequip his shield and a arrow flies below shield even by a few pixels it will hot collide with it and it will kill him.Or his sword will hit an enemy when it is fully extended and not when subtracted and has no actual overlapping with enemy.

How can we do something like in Unreal?Is there another way i do not know, because with static trigger boxes that is impossible.
In case we cant, i hope that i gave you enough evidence to consider as a number 1 priority for implementation because without proper sprite collisions there can be no serious game creation.I mean for a simple 2d template everything works fine with collision system you have right now,but as you can see second you want to create something more complex then everything falls apart.
Thank you for your time once again and i hope that you will give us a solution to such a crucial aspect of paper2d.

[anonymous_user_21a58d97]

Because i feel at home here and before i post to answer wiki and make a fool of myself i wanted you to see it first if you don’t mind, and tell me with your expertise if it something that i am doing wrong or it is unreal’s fault.
As you can see first collisions works as intended.he gets hit on collision with turtle.after that collision stops working and then all hell breaks loose!

[Michael_Noland]

@;106726

For left and right you do not need a bool since you can check if he is left or right by input axis and send appropriate animation from there.(-1 is left, 1 is right and you can use 0 for an idle animation meaning he is not moving.)
And yes you will reach a point where you will have many checks to ensure that your hero plays appropriate animation and that real human player when he mashes buttons won’t make your character get stuck.
I have 17 animation for my hero so you can imagine all possibilities.

It takes a lot of careful planning ahead to be able to do many different animations that interact with each other.

Here you can see part of a more complicated flipbook animations. Because there is still no “on animation end” you have to use timers which is big pain in the… especially when you are new and try to understand how new software works but i figured it out with help of forum and digging in other forums to understand why timer is not working.It appears that it needs a function to function!

I’ve added a flipbook completion delegate in 4.4, which should make things a little bit easier (triggered whenever a non-looping flipbook hits end (or beginning when playing in reverse)). You can bind to it from Blueprints (by selecting component variable) or via C++ in 4.4.

Cheers,

[anonymous_user_5ead68421 (anonymous_user_5ead6842)]

Hello !!! and All people working on 2D Project
, thanks for your previous answer, i confirm for those who want wish to remove blured rendering, you need to add a Post process volume around your map and set AA Method in Misc “Advanced section” to None.

1]But , i’m still not able to view a Post process effect such as Vignet, bloom or any others by way, i don’t know why, i’ve checked my show option everything is ok, and so i don’t know if i’m missing something to enable them… (of course i’ve checked enabled and unbound check box in Post process volume section)

2)Another concern i’ve actually is About Loading Screen and switch between levels, in my game, i’ve different levels, a loading screen (who is actually a level) and a worldmap, i’ve looked everywhere on forums and i’ve asked on the “ASK Question” but it seem there is no easy things to switch to another level while using a loading level (even if i see in project setting something related to a level devoted for loading) don’t know how link .

3]Last but not least, i have posted on the “Ask question” my current problem of defaultengine.ini who are not saved, it seem my custom channel are only recorded in my saved folder , and if i remove them i lost everything i’ve actually already set, so if you heard about a way to fix , i will be eagger to know :p, but in mean time i confirm you bug is not fixed in 4.3.1 with project created from 4.2.

Kinds regards

[anonymous_user_5ead68421 (anonymous_user_5ead6842)]

Oups i forgot to ask you something regarder to Atlas,

do you know when you expect allow UE4 to package and group textures into Atlas ? i tell you that because in 2D during production i’m not using any Atlas, just separate textures to allow me to quickly edit or change any art i need, so i hopet that feature could be available in 4.4 or 4.5

Regards & Again thanks

[Michael_Noland]

@GolgothX01;109043

Hello !!! and All people working on 2D Project
, thanks for your previous answer, i confirm for those who want wish to remove blured rendering, you need to add a Post process volume around your map and set AA Method in Misc “Advanced section” to None.

1]But , i’m still not able to view a Post process effect such as Vignet, bloom or any others by way, i don’t know why, i’ve checked my show option everything is ok, and so i don’t know if i’m missing something to enable them… (of course i’ve checked enabled and unbound check box in Post process volume section)

2)Another concern i’ve actually is About Loading Screen and switch between levels, in my game, i’ve different levels, a loading screen (who is actually a level) and a worldmap, i’ve looked everywhere on forums and i’ve asked on the “ASK Question” but it seem there is no easy things to switch to another level while using a loading level (even if i see in project setting something related to a level devoted for loading) don’t know how link .

3]Last but not least, i have posted on the “Ask question” my current problem of defaultengine.ini who are not saved, it seem my custom channel are only recorded in my saved folder , and if i remove them i lost everything i’ve actually already set, so if you heard about a way to fix , i will be eagger to know :p, but in mean time i confirm you bug is not fixed in 4.3.1 with project created from 4.2.

Kinds regards

1. I’d open a thread in Rendering section of forum. Note: If you have mobile HDR = false then most post-processing effects won’t work.

2. You should be able to transition to loading level, unload old level, and then load in next level (while still displaying transition level). It’s certainly supported at engine level but I’ve never actually written code to do it so I don’t know more than principles.

3. I was able to repro collision settings issue and tracked it down. Fixed in commit /UnrealEngine/commit/028ec3683ff2f3463bf517cef8698afc2ff44787 (4.4 branch), but you can work around it by copying the [/Script/Engine.CollisionProfile] block from Saved\Config\Windows\Engine.ini to Config\DefaultEngine.ini block (make sure to replace current one in there if present, not just append it to end). Can you post AnswerHub thread and I’ll reply there.

Cheers,

[Michael_Noland]

@GolgothX01;109045

Oups i forgot to ask you something regarder to Atlas,

do you know when you expect allow UE4 to package and group textures into Atlas ? i tell you that because in 2D during production i’m not using any Atlas, just separate textures to allow me to quickly edit or change any art i need, so i hopet that feature could be available in 4.4 or 4.5

Regards & Again thanks

There is already some prototype support for it that you can enable in Experimental section of settings, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It hasn’t progressed any in 4.4, but I’d like to get it further in 4.5. We’ll see how things end up, there are always more features to do than time to do them in

Cheers,

[Michael_Noland]

Here’s a list of features and ongoing improvements in Paper2D in 4.4 preview release:

NEW FEATURES
Paper2D: Add support for dicing sprite render geometry, separating out translucent/masked quads from opaque ones (WIP)

• Sprites now have an alternate material and ability to have a second render section defined using that material (only used for diced geometry right now, with a convention that alternate material is opaque one in that case)
• Adds a new ESpritePolygonMode::Diced value, valid only for render geometry (treated like SourceBoundingBox for collision)
• Adds opportunistic triangle merging for both collision and render geometry when there are multiple source polygons
  Paper2D: Add support for casting 3D shadows from sprites (FPaperRenderSceneProxy now obeys CastShadow from source component)
  Paper2D: Add support for drag-drop reordering of keyframes in flipbooks
  Paper2D: Add OnFinishedPlaying delegate to UPaperFlipbookComponent, called whenever a non-looping flipbook finishes playing (reaches end or beginning, depending on play direction)
  Paper2D: Add snap to pixel grid option for pivots (enabled by default on new content), and enforced snap to pixel grid for source rectangle (always)
  Paper2D: Add a Paper2D demonstration level to Content Examples
  Paper2D: Add support for replicating state of flipbook components
  Paper2D: Add support for importing tile maps and tile sets exported from Tiled 0.90 as
  Paper2D: Significant improvements to tile map support (still experimental, must be enabled in Paper2D project settings)
• Add limited support for different projection modes on tile maps (orthogonal, isometric, and staggered isometric; only orthogonal works with in-editor editing)
• Add adjustable Spacing and Margin values on tile sets (Spacing is a gap per tile in texture, and Margin is a gap around border)
• Add adjustable Z offset per tile in X and Y, as well as per-layer, which permits a fix for z-fighting when using overlapping isometric tiles
• Add ability to drag-drop a tile set to make a new tile map actor (just sets tile width and tile height to good defaults, nothing else)
• Move part of geometry generation to a one-time step on game thread instead of per-frame (WIP)
• Edits to tile sets and tile maps now refresh placed tile map instances
• Add a placeholder standalone tile map editor (doesn’t edit much yet)
• Add a component asset broker allowing tile maps components to be used in Blueprints
• Add display text for tile map render bounds to tile map editor
• Add support for dragging tile map assets into editor viewport to create tile map actors
• Make tile set viewer/editor draw translucent/masked textures as translucent
• Finished deprecating layer-wide tileset pointer and removed several bogus uses
  Paper2D: Add support for importing TexturePacker atlases, including trim, rotation and pivot settings.
  Paper2D: Improve “Edit Source Region” performance in Sprite Editor by deferring rebuilding slow render and collision mesh generation until after user has stopped dragging

Templates: Update TP_2DSideScrollerBP to better work in multiplayer scenarios

• Drives controller rotation instead of local rotation
• Enable replication on Sprite flipbook component (works server->client but client->server will still require an RPC)

ONGOING EFFORTS
Paper2D: Improved comments on various types and methods
Paper2D: Convert UPaperSpriteComponent to derive from UMeshComponent
Paper2D: Force wireframe color for opaque sprite sections to green (color of GPU happiness)
Paper2D: UX improvements to details panel customization for UPaperSprite
Paper2D: Remove display of collision geometry debug text if there is no collision on sprite
Paper2D: Fix unreliable behavior when double-clicking in Source view when PixelsPerUnrealUnit is not 1.0
Paper2D: Fix potential assertion when cooking Paper2D content (Add ConditionalPostLoad call for associated textures to avoid load-time ordering issues when opening older sprites)
Paper2D: Fix external content reference warnings on placed assets that use default materials
Paper2D: Add FPaperSpriteSceneProxy to pair with UPaperSpriteComponent, removing some code from common FPaperRenderSceneProxy parent
Paper2D: Fixed broken tangent calculations in FPaperRenderSceneProxy that caused bogus lighting on lit sprites
Paper2D: Rename texture context menu command ‘Configure For Sprites’ to ‘Configure For Retro Sprites’ to better reflect function it performs
Paper2D: Fix bug where bSimulatePhysics could not be set on a UPaperSpriteComponent in blueprint editor
Paper2D: Add DLL export to UPaperSpriteComponent and APaperCharacter

Cheers,

[anonymous_user_21a58d97]

I owe you a beer!

[anonymous_user_21a58d97]

@;109180

Here’s a list of features and ongoing improvements in Paper2D in 4.4 preview release:

NEW FEATURES
Paper2D: Add support for dicing sprite render geometry, separating out translucent/masked quads from opaque ones (WIP)

• Sprites now have an alternate material and ability to have a second render section defined using that material (only used for diced geometry right now, with a convention that alternate material is opaque one in that case)
• Adds a new ESpritePolygonMode::Diced value, valid only for render geometry (treated like SourceBoundingBox for collision)
• Adds opportunistic triangle merging for both collision and render geometry when there are multiple source polygons

means we can have flipbooks that will take into account papersprite’s collision?

[Michael_Noland]

Hi ,

@;109300

I owe you a beer!

Haha, thanks!

@;109305

means we can have flipbooks that will take into account papersprite’s collision?

No, lack of collision on flipbooks won’t change in 4.4. specific note RE: collision was if you somehow manage to set CollisionData.GeometryType to Diced, it will instead behave like you specified SourceBoundingBox, although PostEditChange should prevent you from choosing it in first place.

Cheers,

[HavocX]

Nice to see isometric getting some love. Will save us a lot of work.

[Mr_SquarePeg]

Hey ,

Just curious is there plans for Per Pixel lighting support with Paper2D?

Here is what I am talking about

ut0SqBeAy1Q

[HavocX]

@;110942

Here is what I am talking about

lighting can be done right now (or at least with 4.4 as there is a bug with normal rendering in 4.3). As for shadows I do not know how they are done. If anyone knows, please tell me!

[Mr_SquarePeg]

@HavocX;110999

lighting can be done right now (or at least with 4.4 as there is a bug with normal rendering in 4.3). As for shadows I do not know how they are done. If anyone knows, please tell me!

Alright !

Thank you for heads up HavocX.

I will have a look into

If I get stuck I will ask for help.

[anonymous_user_21a58d97]

Hey, it’s me again !
I am trying to do
I followed devs tutorial on to try and understand how pathfinding works here and i failed miserably in making it happen.I cannot even see it by pressing “P”
Does has to do with my project settings and fact that we use Z as Y?
ideal for me is to set gravity to zero and let spider move inside web(with a NavMeshBoundsVolume size of spiderweb) but for now i would compromise even if it moved along floor left or right. little insect refuses to move!

If i did not make any mistake is same setup as video tutorial . i have a navmeshboudsvolume a target point and i want it to move there when i press “H”.
Nothing happens.
I would be greatfull for any pointers to right direction.