Why isn't the simulate physics button available for some of my individual actors.

i am trying to follow a tutorial on making a basic game and in the tutorial it requires physics to be enabled for a target object. i have done everything the tutorial said but no matter what i can’t get the simulate physics button to appear. the only place the simulate physics button seems to show up is directly in the blueprint editor.

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Actors do not simulate physics, their components do:

image

You may have an actor with 10 static meshes and only some may need to simulate physics. Select the desired component and then enable simulation.

The actor only has one static mesh and in the blueprint editor simulate physics is available. My confusion is from the fact that despite having set up the actor the same way it was done in the tutorial I am not getting the simulate physics button outside the blueprint editor when it is there in the tutorial.

tutorial when creating target
tutorial when enabling physics

The actor you mentioned is not set up the same:

This is your BP:

It’s an editable BP. You probably created this actor and added a static mesh component to it. Below is a shot from the timestamped link:

It’s a Static Mesh Actor type and has the sim exposed because the static mesh was dragged into the scene and a Static Mesh Actor created automatically. Had the author selected one of these…

image

…the simulation would not have been available there either.


Test it yourself. Grab any Static Mesh and drop it in the scene - you’ll have the sim option available because this automatically converted and highly specialised Static Mesh Actor inherits it but can do nothing else. However, when you assemble a fully-fledged editable BP actor that can have many components, you get the chance to work with each of its components individually.

Thank you. I assumed he was using the blueprint that he had made but it appears he only used the mesh. that also explains why when he dragged it into the scene the total number of targets was not increased.

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