Why does my TextRenderActor look bad when it moves?

Albert_Espin_1 · April 18, 2014, 7:48pm

Hi, I have a TextRenderActor and its location is adjusted every Tick to be at a specific place depending on what a character does; however, the text becomes partly translucent when moving, though it corrects if it’s not moved for a bit of time. I’m using the default material for text render actors. Is this a bug or has a solution?

Steve_Allison · April 18, 2014, 8:45pm

Hey Albert,

We’ve been unable to reproduce this with a simple setup based on your description–would you be able to provide a screenshot of your BP setup or provide the asset itself? Can you also include a copy of your DxDiag?

Thanks,

-Steve

Steve_Allison · April 23, 2014, 11:35pm

Hey Albert,

We haven’t heard from you in a few days about this issue. If you are still getting this issue, please reply and provide a screenshot of your BP setup (or the asset itself) along with a copy of your DxDiag. In the meantime, we’re going to mark this thread as resolved.

Thanks!

-Steve

Albert_Espin_1 · April 25, 2014, 9:21pm

Sorry for coming back late. Here it is, the image is from my character blueprint’s Tick (one of the Tick’s sequence parts, actually).

And I don’t know if the text becoming partly translucent is the best way to describe this; actually it seems that with movement of the character, the text render actor relative to its location sees how some part of the text lettes loose part of thickness; it looks bad.

[dxdiag_relevant_part][2]

Steve_Allison · April 29, 2014, 11:44pm

Hey Albert,

We are still unable to diagnose what may be going on–would you be able to provide a screenshot of the issue or possibly a video?

MulleDK19 · April 30, 2014, 9:16am

I think he’s refering to the bad reflections in UE4. It’s difficult to see small things in front of something that’s reflective, as it smeares the object to an unrecognizable mess. Especially the text render actor/component becomes difficult to read, and takes several seconds to fully “rest”, and become readable.

You can see an example of it here Unreal Engine 4 - Blueprint - Key Pad - Added hacking - YouTube at 1:25+. The small blue text on the key pad is all smudgy and difficult to read the first few seconds after it changes.

scrcro · April 30, 2014, 12:52pm

I’ve noticed this happening.

I had a text object on a vehicle blueprint that was displaying various data as the vehicle moved around. The effect looks somewhat similar to the TXAA texture distortion you get when using the Rift.

Albert_Espin_1 · May 1, 2014, 12:54pm

Hi, thanks for the attention. Here there’s an image with the TextRenderActor on a character when it doesn’t move and then the blurry one, seen when the character moves (and the TextRenderActor is attached to it so both move at the same time). The camera is also zooming out, so it gives a bit more of blur, but simply compare the relative thickness between letters, you can see something is wrong with it.

Skye_Mohlin · May 5, 2014, 5:18pm

We’re also experiencing this very problem. We’re making a 3d-HUD and it’s absolutely crucial that the text is clear all the time. Worth noting is that our TextRenderActor is added as a component in the Blueprint’s “Component”-tab, and blurs even if it is stuck to the cameras movement (aka it stays still on screen, but moves in the world). Would really appreciate a solution to this (our deadline is in three weeks… :/)

Steve_Allison · May 5, 2014, 11:58pm

Hello everyone,

Sorry for the delay in response on this issue–we were able to reproduce this effect internally and a defect report has been created to have this issue fixed. We do not have an ETA for a fix at this time, but will try to provide one as soon as possible.

Thanks,

-Steve

Albert_Espin_1 · May 6, 2014, 12:27pm

That’s great, thank you.

joelr · May 10, 2014, 4:48am

Same issue here. My pawn is basically a flat quad with a mouse cursor material on it which is translucent to create a smooth transparent edge. When moving around, the effect can be described as washy. It looks like the area occupied by the material gets cleared at a lower frame rate than the rest of the scene, and the color smudges around.

So it looks like this is not just for text, but maybe all translucent materials.

Albert_Espin_1 · May 10, 2014, 8:13am

Now that you say it, I’ve also noticed another effect: if I make the capsule component of my character to be unhidden so shown in-game, with movement it gets nearly invisible.

Davixe · December 6, 2014, 9:20pm

You can try to disable this quality options, that may be are in conflict with Text

robi2005 · December 8, 2014, 3:04pm

Hi Steven,
We have the same problem and we also want to create a 3D-HUD.
We’re trying to use the new UMG of the 4.6 but still, the text render are once again very blurry when our avatar starts to move

joelr · December 8, 2014, 3:15pm

I had a similar issue. The Temporal AA was the culprit. Try switching to FSAA in your Post-Process Volume. I haven’t switched back to Temporal since then.

anonymous_user_689e935a · April 2, 2015, 4:00pm

is this being fixed still?

wolftheai · July 26, 2015, 12:29pm

I know this issue is old but has a resolution been posted somewhere else?

anonymous_user_a8f2264d1 · September 18, 2015, 9:36pm

Is there any chance we can get an update on this issue?

I can import custom letter meshes to work around this, but I’d much rather use Text Render in the future. This bug is detrimental to being able to use text render in VR, and I don’t want to give up Temporal AA as a “Work Around”.

Thanks!

.

anonymous_user_e0ac47fb · November 21, 2015, 2:10am

This helps but renders the overall-quality of the text poorly. I am experiencing the quality issues with a non-moving text element that simply changes color when a click event happens.