RT Assets - Runtime Advanced Cables

Distribution Product Discussion
1

RAC | Runtime Advanced Cables | Unreal Engine 5 Plugin
Build grappling hooks, cuttable ropes, tow cables, ziplines, climbing ropes, decorative wiring, leashes - all from one plugin!


OVERVIEW VIDEO

PLAYABLE DEMO LEVEL
FULL DOCUMENTATION

Features

  • Grapple Swing - aim to attach, pendulum physics, pump-swing, launch on release

  • Cable Cutting - cut at any point, creates new cable from the cut, auto-destroy and regrow

  • Cable Physics - particle-based solver with world collision, rigid endpoints, drift, and wind

  • Rope Climbing - input-driven climb with gravity sliding, friction, stamina

  • Vehicle Towing - physics-coupled cable with stiffness, damping, break force, tension events

  • Zipline - rideable cable, zero setup

  • Pull / Tractor Beam - mass-compensated force, auto-retract, arrival detection

  • Runtime Pinning - pin cables to the world or actors with socket support

  • Wrapping Cable - section-based simulation with dynamic wrap anchors around geometry

  • Tether Component - visible rope to any target with leash physics and slide along cable

  • Cable Interaction - proximity or aim detection, grab, drag, pin, unpin, cut, extend, retract

  • Tendrils - spawn tendril-like clusters of cables between actors

  • Cable Webs - auto-connect cables between endpoint markers with cascading defaults

  • Niagara Integration - custom Data Interface exposing particle positions and cable length to VFX

  • Multi-tier LOD - distance-based quality scaling for scenes with many cables


Blueprint-First
Every class is fully exposed to Blueprints. Components ship with event dispatchers for all gameplay moments (OnGrabbed, OnCut, OnPinned, OnReachedTop, OnTensionChanged, etc).

Performance

  • Multi-tier LOD (Full / Medium / Low / Sleeping) with global budget caps

  • Parallel solver across CPU cores

  • Sweep-based particle collision with adaptive trace priority

  • Swing, Pull, and Climb components are zero-cost when idle

  • Overlap capsules for spatial queries without per-frame traces

Required Plugins

Niagara (unreal engine built-in)

2

This looked like exactly what I needed for gameplay cables, but when I tried out the demo I immediately saw tons of visual issues, clipping, stretching and wonky physics that completely broke the cables. Is this an error in the demo build, or is this representative of the quality of the plugin itself?

There are indeed some issues with the demo that should probably be addressed, especially with the player not being a physics driven actor, that allow the character to completely break the cables while moving or picking up the physics actors.

3

Hi there,

We just noticed the demo version linked was v1.0.0, that one’s a little old now sorry! That one did have the issues you’ve described; this was due partly to cable config errors in the demo and some bugs with the RAC code.

We are continuously improving RAC using user feedback and the cables are now performing much better than our first demo, please give our latest one a try and let us know how it goes for you!

Here’s the latest: RACPlayableDemo v1.0.3 - Google Drive
Here’s all the changes done since that demo (we have another update coming out later this week too): RAC Docs | Changelog

4

Hello, I emailed a few days ago and never got a response, so I thought id try here. I am trying to build a crane to lift vehicles that can be driven around. Think a big magnet crane in a junk yard. I’ve read through the documentation and have experimented with a few blueprint calls and settings but I can not for the life of me figure out how to make a cable lift something like a winch. The crane arm its self remains stationary and the cable its self changes length and lifts the vehicle. How would I go about setting this up? Any help would be greatly appreciated.