Why material can't be dynamically set in constructor?

Development Programming & Scripting C++
1

Hi, so I had this:


AMusicalBlock::AMusicalBlock()
{
    StaticMesh = CreateDefaultSubobject<UStaticMeshComponent>("BaseMeshComponent");
    auto MeshAsset = ConstructorHelpers::FObjectFinder<UStaticMesh>(TEXT("StaticMesh'/Game/Meshes/musicalblock.musicalblock'"));

    if (MeshAsset.Succeeded())
    {
        StaticMesh->SetStaticMesh(MeshAsset.Object);
        StaticMesh->SetMaterial(0, DefaultMaterial);         //DefaultMaterial is a UMaterial object I have in my .h as UPROPERTY
    }

}

and it won’t work.

However if I put the ‘StaticMesh->SetMaterial(0, DefaultMaterial);’ in BeginPlay() instead, it works perfectly.

I’m curious about why is this (I was lucky I found this was my error in the answershub, couldn’t figure out how to set the material because it wasnt working in the constructor).

2

The constructor runs before uproperty initialization, so your material is not set yet.

3

Ah, didn’t know that, thanks.