Ray Trace - Skeletal Mesh

Development Programming & Scripting C++
1

Hi,

Could someone show me some example code of Ray Tracing A Skeletal Mesh and returning the Actor. I am trying to look at a Skeletal Mesh Rifle on the ground and then attach it to my character but it is having trouble returning the actor from the ray trace.

thanks.

2

Proper Collision Setup for a Weapon Pickup

  1. If your skeletal mesh rifle is a pickup in the level, it is more efficient to use a static mesh version that has no bones and uses simple geometry for collision, this is just for a visual pickup representation that could also optionally have physics.

  2. if you really want to use a skeletal mesh for your pickup, I can still recommend using a box collision primitive in the actor class to assist with collision detection, much like how the character class works with a capsule component. This would give you benefits of #1 without requiring you to re-import the asset as a static mesh.

  3. As a final method, ensure your skeletal mesh rifle has a proper physics asset, this is what gets used for component level traces

It’s not that easy / efficient to do a trace straight against the physics asset without incorporating simple primitive collision of #1 or #2


**Summary**

Your fundamental weapon pickup actor needs to be adjusted before a code sample would become relevant, and once you have some primitive collision for your weapon pickup its just a simple line trace from your character / screen center.

**World.h**



```


/**
	 *  Trace a ray against the world using a specific channel and return the first blocking hit
	 *  @param  OutHit          First blocking hit found
	 *  @param  Start           Start location of the ray
	 *  @param  End             End location of the ray
	 *  @param  TraceChannel    The 'channel' that this ray is in, used to determine which components to hit
	 *  @param  Params          Additional parameters used for the trace
	 * 	@param 	ResponseParam	ResponseContainer to be used for this trace	 
	 *  @return TRUE if a blocking hit is found
	 */
	bool LineTraceSingle(struct FHitResult& OutHit,const FVector& Start,const FVector& End,ECollisionChannel TraceChannel,const struct FCollisionQueryParams& Params, const struct FCollisionResponseParams& ResponseParam = FCollisionResponseParams::DefaultResponseParam) const;



```



Enjoy!

:)

Rama
3

Rama to the rescue as usual :).

Just two additional notes:

  • Regarding 2), you can also duplicate your skeletal mesh and create a new physics asset in which you set up only a single box volume that covers the whole mesh - this should register line traces. Then, in your FHitResult, you should use the function GetActor() instead of the Actor property.
  • LineTraceSingle() - it’s been deprecated, so we should now rather use LineTraceSingleByObjectType().