[Twitch] Tools - May 1, 2014. Blueprints stream - May 8, 2014

QUESTIONS - FROM HERE
https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?4060-Twitch-Live-Stream-with-the-Blueprint-Team

  1. Blueprint functions can have a “local variable”, but, these don’t have the same Get/Set UI as regular variables, so you end up with a mess of crossing wires. Any plans to fix this? Right now I put hack variables in the blueprint that I make sure to only modify those within the scope of the blueprint function.

  2. When adding a blueprint as a component of another blueprint I would love to be able to edit that blueprints public properties in the component tab of the blueprint I just put it in. This will allow me to create a car blueprint and then have various children blueprints (ChildActorComponents) that are editable within in. Then I can take this special car and put that into my level.

Hi ,

There will be a tile map editor built in, though at least in the short term it will be rectangular grid based only. We’d like to support other tile types in the future but it’s not as high of a priority.

Cheers,
Michael Noland

Regarding tools or any new major (long-term) features.

I think it would be cool to have active forum threads per tool such as in the case of UMG or Sequencer. These are “Many Months Out” and it would be interesting to see and hear about progress, share feedback, and allow the community, especially those unable to contribute to code, the ability to help shape these future tools.

Thoughts on this?

About blueprints, can you shed some more light between the difference of create a custom event in a blueprint and just a function? Is there a way I can like trigger one of my custom events and it will trigger on all my blueprints that “implemented” that custom event, or on all instances in the level of a single blueprint? Right now I only found out how to fire the event on a specific object, which kind of feels the same as just calling a function on it.
Slightly related to that, is there any possibility to create static blueprint functions?

Lastly I have a non-blueprints related questions but maybe you have some ideas or are able to ask someone that has. I’m looking for more info about networking. More specifically I want to find out if there’s any functionality that allows me from code (or blueprint) to connect to a certain ip-address/port and communicate using own packets. So communicating without replication/RPCs. Also just knowing how to connect/disconnect from a certain ip/port using the replication/RPC system would be very useful. As now I only know how to do it from editor or command arguments on executable, which is of course not what you really want in a game.
I’m really hoping for network documentation to get out soon :smiley:

Thanks for your time and dedication and keep up the good work!

Question about Blueprints:

What do you think about the possibility of adding Blueprints into other Blueprints? I think this isn’t possible currently, right?

For instance, I could create a headlight Blueprint with some functions to turn a light on or off and maybe change something on the lamp mesh. Then I could build something more complex out of simpler Blueprints like this, like a floodlight that has multiple instances of the same lamp child-Blueprint. Or a spaceship that has a body, and some child-Blueprints, like lights, propulsion rockets, hatches etc.

Hi i got referred here for my ideas and input to make UT better, sorry for a long post but it would be greatly appreciated if you read it as I’m a die hard UT fan :stuck_out_tongue:

Give warfare an option to disable orbs(ut2k4 style)

bring back dominion

bring back a balanced assault(fix spawn timers and placement) (reminds me of conkers live and reloaded)

bring in king of the hill(was such a fav in perfect dark)

bring in mobile item king of the hill, or mobile with Damage over time on hold(like the skull thing on halo, but with a DoT twist or even a proper portable box where the more teammates are in it the more score you get like a portable hill, so they get blown up easily with rockets lol…)

new game type phantom: default> can only attack phantom(deathmatch), phantom is red, longest time being the phantom + kills give +time = win
Stealth Phantom: limited stealth ability(stealthed but clear polygons so barely visible), more melee oriented, once killed you stealth instantly and become next phantom(evolve like feel).
(also level up over time for increased damage and health, creating a balance where once you go past a certain buffness you have literally most likely won the game from skill)

a mode where the center has a elite for each team ‘construct’ type enemy where you have to charge it up to go against the others bases of some sort.


Maybe not include the 5-6 small layers of mouse acceleration even though that was very well done in UT3 so well done in fact, well up to you i guess, but most competitive games(source engine for example) don’t utilize any form of acceleration. The biggest flaw with UT series which results in less people playing is the netcode, the netcode in the unreal engine is quite terrible to be honest, no matter how low your latency is for example 30ms, when you fire your guns they delay by that exact amount making aiming near impossible, also since no servers are in Australia playing with near half a second delay… well yep you see the problem. The best games netcode i have found with high latency is of course the release of halo 2. Im not sure how they do it but latency doesn’t effect your guns(delay) at all, it doesn’t even affect 'hit registers from ‘your screen’ instead of relying on server side, but if u hit someone 250ms before you die with 300ms latency that hit doesn’t count obviously, maybe implement some sort of net code like that to increase the amount of players online, because as it stands now the game(as fast as it is, all UT’s) its net code makes it terrible to play on anything BUT LAN.

Question about Blueprints:

Would it be very difficult to add a “Go to implementation…” option on Blueprint nodes? With implementation I mean the C++ code that the node represents. I think it is a good way to get used to the engine to build simple graphs and read their C++ implementation. Currently what I’m doing is to hover over a node to get the tooltip. Then I search the entire engine source for this comment, which usually is right above the C++ implementation of that BP node.

I already asked this in the “Tools” stream last week, but I think it was misunderstood as “Go to the implementation of a BP function or a collapsed graph”. They briefly mentioned that finding the actual C++ implementation of a BP node might be difficult. If this is indeed the case, I don’t want to distract you from more important things, but if this could be done, I would certainly welcome this feature.

I can’t find the github commit so i think this is maybe what your are looking for. It is in the latest 4.2 preview (warning large image i run 2 1440p monitors)

Wow, this seems to be exactly what I meant. Now, either the hosts of last week’s stream didn’t know this was already in development, or Epic is **** fast at deploying new features. Either way, can’t wait for 4.2, great news!

@ : In regards to livestreams, with the latest (Cloud) version of RealPlayer, its downloader plugin can grab previous videos straight off of Twitch…

Alternatively, you can download YouTube videos with Freemake Video Downloader with resolution/format options.

Question about Upcoming UT:

Can you go over some ways you plan on deviating from past UTs and some aspects of past UT games you feel it is important to stay loyal to?

Question:

  • Is there any word on when specular highlights on transparent materials will become available? The lack of these make water, glass and various other commonplace materials extremely difficult to achieve.

  • Can we expect to see more example blueprints in the future? (E.g. Player Inventory, 6DOF Flight…)

Thanks for your ongoing support and updates!

Question:

Will the upcoming Unreal Motion Graphics UI tool be connected to Blueprints, C++, or both? (Also, how’s the UMG development coming along? ;))

Not that I try to push my agenda but:
https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?4409-Editing-class-field-variables-in-properties-without-need-to-spawn-object-from-class

Is it possible for blueprints ?

Tl;dr version.
Can class variables in blueprint, have exposed properties of said class in blueprint where the class variable have been created.
For exapmle we have Blueprint_A and Blueprint_B.
Blueprint_A:
float Property_A
float Property_Test

Blueprint_B
class’Blueprint_A’ Blueprint_A_prop
Now select Blueprint_A_prop and in Default Properties you can edit it’s fields:
Property_A value
Property_Test value.

As it stands now you need to either create new blueprint with new values, or spawn blueprint in graph and set variables then. Which is not possible if your blueprint is not derived from Actor, which in my case is very often case.

So in my case, solution is to add native properties in C++. Which is no good solution either, as it create properties that are not used in most cases, or complex inheritance.

I’m pretty sure that’s a given. They said they’ll keep releasing Content Examples and Templates as long as they (or we) can come up with ideas.

Question for the live stream today: Is it possible to have multiple blueprints per actor? In that way I can create a set of blueprint “component” classes much as I would have done with Unity components. I’d love to see Unreal move towards composition rather than inheritance for its functional composition.

Question for the live stream/Mark Rein…
What are your plans to support the competitive gaming scene for Unreal Tournament this time around? If that is too general of a question, then a second part to it…will epic be getting behind sponsors and LAN envents to bring tournaments to the forefront and make it a fun and successful competitive scene?

Questions for tonights/todays livestream.

  1. Will the next UT have better (hassle-free) support for Listen and Dedicated servers? (in previous games it was dead easy to setup a game with friends but not in UT3)
  2. What are the character height, jump height etc related to in UE4? (for those that wants to start mapping or making assets right this minute)
  3. Will it be easier to install maps, mutators and new characters than in UT3. If yes, in what way?

Are planning to release Blueprint-Tuts with real examples like Inventory, Interface, Ingame Map, Item system like Diablo/WoW etc.

Question about UT:
Will there be actual Tournament-ladder-whatever-call-it singleplayer/ co-op (why not?) mode where one actually plays against other teams and kicks Malcolm/ Xan/ Some other guy’s *** in the final of the Tournament, please? :rolleyes:
Sorry if smth similar was asked before (although I haven’t find any Q about SP-campaign-ladder asked before).
Have a good stream everyone! Too bad, I can’t tune up for the actual stream.