Seamless, Proper Loading Screens! [Play Movies, Audio & Animated Widgets!]

Jambax · December 28, 2015, 4:56pm

After being somewhat frustrated with the loading screen solutions I’ve seen people follow so far, I’ve decided to share how I handle Loading Screens in my Hovertank Game.

IMO I think this is personally the best (and most sensible) way to go about it. Current examples require all sorts of workarounds to implement such as loading into different levels, using streaming for the entire project etc - completely defeating the purpose of a loading screen in the first place. Less than 20 lines of code lets you avoid all of this.

No temporary maps or streaming level nonsense!
No additional calls, nodes or setup required, engine code automatically handles all transitions and kicks in when a map is triggered to load. All you have to do is call Open Level, or Join Session etc…
No conflicts in PIE.
Can easily play Movie Files, Audio Files & Animated widgets
No Garbage Collection / reference issues.
MoviePlayer is supported on all major platforms
Integrates seamlessly with an existing project.

There’s a very minimal amount of C++ to set this up (very minimal), and I’ve pasted full source that you can easily copy-paste into an existing project.

eXi · December 28, 2015, 5:06pm

Thanks for sharing this! (:

zerofiftyone · December 28, 2015, 5:14pm

Woo! It’s a Christmas miracle! Thanks for this

anonymous_user_29d468e51 · December 28, 2015, 6:09pm

Thank you very much.

Geodav · December 28, 2015, 6:20pm

ok bookmarked for future referance

quick question though, see-ing as my project uses other(plug-in/steam) for the gameinstance how would i add that together with your fix

Zarkopafilis · December 28, 2015, 9:15pm

Bookmarked as well. Such a mechanic should be built in the engine.

Jambax · December 30, 2015, 12:41am

The code in my Game Instance is absolutely minimal, you should be able to copy it into your custom game instance and everything will work as before

PeterLNewton · December 30, 2015, 12:53am

Nice share TheJamsh, I actually have a Blueprint equivalent – I had to do this for something I released last year requiring multiple levels / loading screens.

Its not as straight forward for obvious reasons, but achieves similar results.

Hi Jamiex304,

Depending if your menu level is interactive. Such as if it has actors which are used as menu props. Then you want to be able to unload that level, and load another. Well! To do this is not entirely crazy.

You do this with Level Streaming. The way level streaming works is by having one persistent level, and other levels which you stream in at even given moment. So this persistent level will be the the “Transition” level. All it is responsible for is loading, and unloading levels.

There is a tutorial on level streaming here.

A new, community-hosted Unreal Engine Wiki - Announcements - Epic Developer Community Forums

So what you essentially do is on loading the persistent Transition level first. Then the persistent level is your constant state. Actors in this level will always be active, allowing your full control while other levels are interchanged. Next, you load your menu level. Then the player does whatever, and tells the menu it wants to load Deathmatch. Menu level now communicates to transition level, open Deathmatch. Now put up some video animations, and keep the main menu up. Keep in mind – while Deathmatch is streamed into the Transition level. Everything on the menu is still going. You can hide it or update it after Deathmatch is finished. Then jump in Deathmatch, unload the Menu. Done!

Doing it that way, you never once pause the state of the game preventing any unwanted waiting or unresponsiveness.

Best,

Peter

ProlixLegend · December 30, 2015, 9:53pm

Thanks for sharing with the community!

sleepingdragon · December 31, 2015, 1:07am

thanks share

Jambax · December 31, 2015, 1:30am

Have updated the OP to contain a bit more information

Cultrarius · January 7, 2016, 2:33am

Thank you, this is incredibly helpful!

Elvince · January 7, 2016, 11:30am

Thanks for the sharing.

What happen in case of SeamLess Travel? Is it drawing your loading screen?

anonymous_user_10f3a621 · January 7, 2016, 2:40pm

Thank you!!

Buddy_Arief · January 8, 2016, 8:33am

Great tutorial man, thanks for sharing

Amsirahc · January 8, 2016, 4:08pm

Wow, thanks for sharing! I’ve been looking at several different ways of doing this, and this is by far the best method I’ve seen.

anonymous_user_10f3a621 · January 11, 2016, 4:30pm

I have this working and it’s great! One thing to note is that it does not seem to work in PIE - so I actually had it working long before I knew I had it working… As long as you run in standalone all is groovy. Many thanks to the author!!

anonymous_user_10f3a621 · January 11, 2016, 4:36pm

I do have one question though. In the FLoadingScreenAttributes struct, it says that the WidgetLoadingScreen can be used to display a custom widget during loading. Can this be used with a UMG widget or is this a Slate widget? If it can be used with UMG can you provide info on how this is done? – Thanks, .

Druha · January 12, 2016, 3:55pm

antsonthetree, Yes, this can be used with UMG widget:


UUserWidget* LoadingWidget; // Pointer to your UMG widget

FLoadingScreenAttributes LoadingScreen;
LoadingScreen.WidgetLoadingScreen = LoadingWidget->TakeWidget();

Beregron · January 12, 2016, 8:30pm

Thanks for sharing this.

But i have no clue abaout C++. 8 years ago a coded in C (or LIITE-C), but i forgot all. Your WIKI is good, but i don’t know, in what files i have to put that code. Can you explain this with Little more Detail please? Thank you.