Unreal Engine 4.5 Preview!

General Announcements
84

[= Fricker;158136]
We’re still QA testing 4.5 and bashing out last-second bugs. is a huge release so it might take us a few extra days to get it super final, but as always you guys have access to the same builds that we do. In the meantime if you are feeling brave you can grab the 4.5 preview release from the Launcher by selecting “Preview” after clicking the plus button to add an engine version slot. If you find any serious issues please do let us know!

–
[/]

Preview isnt showing up for me and im a subscriber. forced to use source code.

85

[=;158790]
Preview isnt showing up for me and im a subscriber. forced to use source code.
[/]

Click on the + sign next to Engines. It will create a new slot where you can download the preview build. It doesn’t show by default in the launcher.

86

Ok, so I got 4.5 down and moved my project over to test it out and it moved over fairly seamlessly but I have one big problem I can’t seem to get past with regards to ragdoll.

I have a system in my game where I can knock down an enemy (enemy goes to ragdoll) and then after a few seconds he can get back up (blends back to animation). I had a method for doing in ver 4.3 and 4.4 and it worked really well. Basically what I did was as soon as the ragdoll enables, I re-attach the mesh to the capsule and snap it into place. allowed me to later on blend back from ragdoll to animation, seamlessly. I would re-position the capsule to the ragdoll and then blend it over. So allowed the mesh root to be in the correct position for the blend to happen correctly.

Now in 4.5 it does not work at all. Attaching the ragdoll back to the capsule, puts it directly back into animation. If I try and adjust the pivot without attaching it, it also does some weird stuff, jumping around. Basically, I can’t do anything to get the pivot in the correct position so when it blends back to animation, it’s actually upright and oriented correctly.

I’ve tried many things. Keeping the root forced in position through the animation blueprint. blending it into place over time at the same time blending from ragdoll. I also tried to add a rigid body to the root so that it’s part of the simulation but set it to be kinematic so it doesn’t move. kinda works, the blend is nice and clean but I can’t re-position it, it drags the ragdoll, even though I take out any constraints between the root and the pelvis.

So, I wonder if there is a specific work flow to deal with ?. I use blueprints only.

I’ll also mention one other thing with regards to Blueprints in general. When I drag a connection off a component for instance to GetWorldLocation and I have Context Sensitive enabled, I don’t get any options for “Get” anything… only options to “Set” something. So, I guess that’s a bug?. Basically I don’t get all Context Sensitive options I should be getting.

87

When I compile with Development Game or Development Server targets, I get errors with the 4.5.

88

[=Onoa;158792]
Click on the + sign next to Engines. It will create a new slot where you can download the preview build. It doesn’t show by default in the launcher.
[/]

I did, the preview build doesn’t show up. has been problematic for sometime.

89

[=;159072]
I did, the preview build doesn’t show up. has been problematic for sometime.
[/]

It doesnt show up the preview version but it says Preview. Doesnt it appear either?

launcher.JPG

90

@ you should be able to attach a ragdoll to the capsule using “add constraint” to hold them together, at least as a workaround

91

4.5 Artist Template rock!

I love the new Artist Template!

://lookpic/O/i2/1224/Jmxv46kn.jpeg

92

^ :open_mouth: Surely that’s a photo!?

I love that the Advanced Lighting level uses Epic Games’ Front Lawn as the CubeMap :smiley:

93

[=;159096]
It doesnt show up the preview version but it says Preview. Doesnt it appear either?

launcher.JPG
[/]

i see it now. it was hiding under 4.2.
That probably needs to be fixed because it will lead to confusion when you have alot of engine version as in my case.

95

Product Reveal

[=SonKim;159179]
I love the new Artist Template!

://lookpic/O/i2/1224/Jmxv46kn.jpeg

[/]

might interest you

[=]
I am both happy and sad that they are releasing “ARTIST TEMPLATE MAP” - https://de45xmedrsdbp.cloudfront.net/blog/45_Preview/ArtistTempMap-940x558-1044565222.png

As me and my team were looking into creating an advanced UE4 Lightbox\Turntable system to be released on the UE4 Marketplace for artists to quickly setup their creations under many different lighting and shading conditions among other things which I will keep a lid on for now.

If is something that would interest any of you, please let me know via a reply :slight_smile:

p.s. we have some internal dev debug asset tools we might release too
[/]

Source = Comment section ofwww.unrealengine/blog/unreal-engine-45-preview-notes

[HR][/HR]
I have spoken to + my own internal people regarding the matter and if anyone is indeed interested you can shoot an email to [EMAIL=“contact@binarysword”]contact@binarysword or to me personally via email @ [EMAIL=“@binarysword”]@binarysword or via Skype @ benjamin.smith175

As we have limited resources and it would be a shame to dedicated resources to something that Epic Games may very well have on their internal roadmap…

I would also like to mention that we are looking into exposing the Material Editor among other aspects of the engine via a and if we make solid progress in the area we will be sure to offer up a Pull Request for those who want to make Plugins which can control and automate some material node functions :slight_smile:

To further explain what we intend to release,
We are looking to create a alternative to Marmoset Toolbag 2 directly in UE4 for artists who are using the engine for portfolio and arch viz type work. If there is a great interest in such a product we will continue our R&D on the subject and will be creating a thread soon on the UE4 Marketplace section of the forums. However as stated above, if Epic Games has something similar in mind to bundle directly with UE4 then we will most likely focus our resources elsewhere and abandon the product…

p.s. is our premature reveal of our potential product as Epic Games has forced us to play our hand on the matter :wink:

96

@Benjamin - Is it anything SLIK? ://community.thefoundry.co.uk/store/kits/slik/

The artist template is pretty good,but its not as good as the PBR display in Substance Designer(left) and Quixel Suite(right):

://lookpic/O/i2/1875/T7K1Roo.jpeg

though to be fair I’m new to UE4 and I didn’t use the same HDRI between UE4/SubstanceDesigner/Quixel and UE4 doesn’t allow uncompress texture which is really need for portfolio showcase with all that said I still think there’s still a market for lighting setup.

97

[=RhythmScript;159099]
@ you should be able to attach a ragdoll to the capsule using “add constraint” to hold them together, at least as a workaround
[/]

Thank you for suggestion, but the problem I’m having is not related to being able to constrain the bone or position the bone, it’s that, when I do, the ragdoll is affected by it where in the older versions of the engine, it wasn’t.

So, I’ve done some more experimenting and I just can’t seem to get past problem. There must be either a bug there, or a very specific way to go about achieving .

I don’t know if someone from Epic can maybe give some insight?.

The actual problem is with updating the capsule position to the ragdoll. Because when the enemy goes into ragdoll, you can kick him around and then later he gets back up. So before he gets back up, the capsule and the root bone has to be in the right position. I can have the root bone correct fairly easily but positioning the capsule is then the problem. The way I do that is with a “MoveComponentTo” node. The problem is that now, in ver 4.5 the ragdoll gets dragged along when I move the capsule, where in the older versions, it did not.

98

Ok, so breaking it down to what’s probably the root of the problem, no pun intended. In ver 4.4 the root bone of the skeleton does not move when I enable ragdoll. As it shouldn’t, because there is no rigid body associated with it. So I can freely update the position of it and the capsule, without problems.

Now, in ver4.5 what happens is, as soon as I enable ragdoll, the root bone moves along with the pelvis. It basically jumps to the pelvis and moves with it, so the root bone moves where ever the pelvis goes. As soon as I try and move it manually it affects the ragdoll too. It’s not “free” from the ragdoll as it should be, since it’s not part of the simulation.

Now, in theory, you want the root to actually follow along, because when you blend back to animation, you want the pelvis to blend back to it’s position above the root. But in practice, doesn’t actually happen. Because now in the ragdoll state, the root follows the pelvis, it totally screws with the blend. The thing spins around or jumps off screen or does some weird thing.

So, before in my previous post I mentioned I can easily place the root. To do I give it also a rigid body, although I free it from the rest of the ragdoll, the ragdoll can move around and the root stays in place. and in way I can keep the root in place when I set the ragdoll. I also only use the SetPhysicsBelow node in stead so I can set physics to the pelvis and down the rest of the tree. So the root never goes into physics state.

That’s the only way I can duplicate the previous behavior, going into ragdoll. But now, blending back correctly is not possible because trying to place the capsule, moves the root which in turn moves the rest of the ragdoll as if I am physically dragging the ragdoll across the floor. I can’t seem to find a way where I can keep the root free and re-position it without affecting the ragdoll.

It has to work backwards because I have to match the capsule and the root to the ragdoll, and not the other way around. Otherwise I can’t blend the ragdoll back to animation, in the correct position.

99

Amazing work!

I know I am a little late to party, but I just started playing with the Preview 4.5 release, and I had to come say Bravo! and… Thank you!

All of the features that have been mentioned by others are exciting for me as well… C++ hot reloading is the best improvement, but animation retargeting, ray traced soft shadows and UMG are awesome as well.

I am also pretty excited to play with the subsurface scattering . Realistic skin shaders are so important in modern games.

And I know it is minor, but the blueprint-based tutorial system is rather exciting to me. When marketplace content producers release content, they can now include an in-editor tutorial for using it. Genius.

Keep up the excellent work. I am really glad we moved from Unity!

100

[=;158768]

  • Are there any plans to expand the capabilities of Source Control i.e. allowing multi-line commit messages, Ticket\Issue Preview and/or Update Support and perhaps in-editor branch support now that Hot-Reload is fully functioning?

[/]

Multi-line commit messages are in!

101

[= Sarkanen;159613]
Multi-line commit messages are in!
[/]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

102

[=;159427]
Thank you for suggestion, but the problem I’m having is not related to being able to constrain the bone or position the bone, it’s that, when I do, the ragdoll is affected by it where in the older versions of the engine, it wasn’t.

So, I’ve done some more experimenting and I just can’t seem to get past problem. There must be either a bug there, or a very specific way to go about achieving .

I don’t know if someone from Epic can maybe give some insight?.

The actual problem is with updating the capsule position to the ragdoll. Because when the enemy goes into ragdoll, you can kick him around and then later he gets back up. So before he gets back up, the capsule and the root bone has to be in the right position. I can have the root bone correct fairly easily but positioning the capsule is then the problem. The way I do that is with a “MoveComponentTo” node. The problem is that now, in ver 4.5 the ragdoll gets dragged along when I move the capsule, where in the older versions, it did not.
[/]

Right. What I’m saying is (and is what I did), is you simulate physics on the mesh and capsule, and create a physics constraint between the entire mesh object and the capsule object for when ragdolling happens. That way you have a full ragdoll, but it’s tugged around by the capsule’s position and vice versa. If you give it some linear flexibility the ragdoll can still hit the ground and such rather than floating at capsule center, but when it gets back up it will be proximal to the capsule’s position rather than having gone flying away from it. I think what’s happening is in 4.5 if you manually define a bone’s position in some way, it stops simulating physics on it… a constraint is a way to control that bone’s position like you want (keeping it capsule-bound) without ever manually defining its position or stopping physics simulation.

Again, perhaps inelegant, but as a workaround to the new system it might help.

103

[=RhythmScript;159643]
Right. What I’m saying is (and is what I did), is you simulate physics on the mesh and capsule, and create a physics constraint between the entire mesh object and the capsule object for when ragdolling happens. That way you have a full ragdoll, but it’s tugged around by the capsule’s position and vice versa. If you give it some linear flexibility the ragdoll can still hit the ground and such rather than floating at capsule center, but when it gets back up it will be proximal to the capsule’s position rather than having gone flying away from it. I think what’s happening is in 4.5 if you manually define a bone’s position in some way, it stops simulating physics on it… a constraint is a way to control that bone’s position like you want (keeping it capsule-bound) without ever manually defining its position or stopping physics simulation.

Again, perhaps inelegant, but as a workaround to the new system it might help.
[/]

Ok, yeah, makes sense now, but man, that’s a pretty drastic workaround. I think that is a big problem and should be addressed, rather than weird workaround. Either that or there’s something to make it work properly, just don’t know about it.

I have also realized now doing more testing with my enemies, that Root Motion does not work on them anymore either. When I attack them I use root motion to push them backwards. works perfectly in 4.4 and 4.3 but not at all in 4.5

My player Root Motion seems to work fine though. I did not do any real searching to find a possible fix or setting that has to be set, but just by default, root motion seems broken on my enemies now.

Can someone from Epic please reply?. I’d like to know what’s going on with ragdoll and also root motion, if it’s a real problem or I’m missing something somewhere that got changed and I just need to set it up correctly?.

104

[=Ben Marsh;158766]
I’ll see if I can track down what might be going wrong here and get it fixed before the final 4.5 release.

It looks like someone’s made an assumption that there’s a target name matching your project name, which isn’t true in your case because you based your project on ShooterGame. In the meantime, you might be able to work around it by renaming the ShooterGameTarget class in ShooterGame.Target.cs to BpoFPS03Target, and the ShooterGameEditorTarget class in ShooterGameEditor.Target.cs to BpoFPS03EditorTarget.
[/]

Thanks! I figured you might want to see these message since I used to be a maintenance programmer for our shop.

Some more background info. I think these projects started with either 4.2 or 4.3 version of the engine. I’ve been moving them forward with each release. I think the BpoFPS03 project (based on shootergame) is currently having trouble compiling due to an error where the automation tool has some sort of. I didn’t even know we had an automation tool! What’s strange is that it was compiling just fine. So these projects are having there problems.