I have several blueprints that have a static mesh as part of them and I want to disable decals and turn off casting shadows for all instances, or even a single instance of the blueprint but cannot figure out how to do this. The options aren’t there. The mesh is actually a variable to the blueprint which uses a spline to deform and repeat the mesh.
I have looked at the blueprint, the instances of the blueprint, the mesh that I am passing in as variable, and I do not see these options.
They are there for a normal static mesh that I place into the scene, but if that mesh is part of a blueprint, I can’t figure out how to get to these variables for the static mesh object that is passed in.
The parameter type is a Static Mesh object reference. I place the mesh I want to repeat and deform, in this case a cylinder representing a cable, and it is passed into this blueprint. When I pull of from that mesh node, I do not see any options for casting shadows or receiving decals.
I figured I should, right? This is a reference to the static mesh object and should have the same settings as any other static mesh object I place into the scene.
Yeah I’ll try to make a video, but I am sure you know what I am referring to, I am just explaining it bad.
So I have a blueprint. The purpose of the blueprint is to use a spline to deform a mesh and repeat this mesh along the spline. I exposed a variable to this blueprint of the type Static Mesh object. I made a cylinder static mesh in blender with plenty of geometry so it deforms well. And I import into unreal. All of this no problem. Then I place an instance of my MeshOverSpline blueprint into the scene and pass the cylinder object that I created into it to serve as a cable that I can manipulate and lay down as cables within the scene. The blueprint works fine, BUT I want to turn off decals and cast shadows for the mesh but I cannot find the settings.
Normally you would go into the instance of the static mesh details panel. But in this case the blueprint is used. It is not in the components section of the blueprint because it is being passed in. So in other blueprints that I have, where there are static meshes within the blueprints I CAN go into the blueprint, select the mesh from the components window on the left like in your screenshot and then the options are in the details panel on the bottom right, but in this case the static mesh will never appear there because it is a variable that is being passed in to the blueprint, like my screenshot above.
So I don’t know. I have looked everywhere. I must be missing something. It has to be somewhere.
When adding the mesh to the spline using the Add Spline Mesh Component node, from the return value off that node you have access to all the usual settings for the mesh that is being passed in.
Just for anyone who might have a similar problem. So you have to change these settings in the event graph off of that node I am guessing because you don’t have access to the instance of the object until you add it to the spline. Once it is added as a component, you can then pull off of the node and set the various settings as you please including casting shadows and receiving decals.
