Unreal Engine 4.17 Preview

[Asim Khattak]

I use gradle but I cannot understand it. Please tell me properly. Thank you so much.

[silvermehran]

Why alembic enhancements that used in fortnite cinematic is not in this release?

[eryang]

the arkit plugin in preview 3 is not work correctly. the package will crash once i open it on my ipad.
you guys should make a tutorial about how to use arkit in ue4.

[Michael Noland]

Bug discovered in 4.16 verified as continuing to exist in 4.17 Preview. Unable to set screen to any form of windowed mode or otherwise set screen resolution dynamically during runtime.
In the several years I've worked with UE4 I've usually had the opposite problem trying to get a packaged project to enter a full screen mode.
What has been attempted in 4.16:
1. Execute Console Command.
2. Getting User Settings, setting a screen resolution, and then applying that screen resolution.
3. Using an .ini file setting.
4. Command line argument.

Only #4 worked with 4.16
So far with 4.17 only #1 and #2 have been tested. Given the definite lack of response by any staff member when I reported this in the support forum I'm given little reason to doubt that it's been fixed in 4.17 for the other two options.
Only possible work around - Windows only (that I know of).
1. During execution write a bat/cmd file with the new command line arguments and some reference to where the packaged product should restart.
2. Prompt the user with instructions to run the batch command if they wish to continue.
3. Exit and hope the user is still interested in using the packaged product.
4. Thank Epic for returning us back to the days of DOS.

Sorry for sounding snarky but this is a major bug. No package product should be forced to either windowed or fullscreen mode. I was hoping the 4.16.3 would have had the fix but apparently no one thought it worthwhile.
If I'm doing something wrong in trying to do this basic task that has changed since 4.15 I'd dearly love to know but for now I have to either assume that it is a major bug or a new feature that hasn't been explained or documented correctly. I'd happily track down the bug in the engine source but I don't even know where to start with that even.

Right now I have a project that I can thankfully split into two smaller projects, each with its own engine version. I have to use 4.15 with one because of this bug introduced with 4.16+, and use 4.16+ with the other because of a bug that was only fixed in 4.16+. But this means distributing two different copies of the engine. Is this even allowed in the license?!

I'd expect #2/#3* to work fine and it's what our games use. One big gotcha is that you need to call ConfirmVideoMode() when changing resolutions or fullscreen to make sure it's recorded permanently. This dates back to the days where you could set a resolution on a CRT and see nothing if it was out of specs for the monitor, so typically games would show a 'keep changes' prompt with a countdown timer before they reverted back to the previous settings. If you are calling that and it's still not working, please open an AnswerHub ticket with your code or BP logic.

*(#3 is effectively the same as #2 on subsequent runs, assuming you do SaveSettings or ApplySettings after modifying something)

Cheers,
Michael Noland

[Avelworldcreator]

Bug discovered in 4.16 verified as continuing to exist in 4.17 Preview. Unable to set screen to any form of windowed mode or otherwise set screen resolution dynamically during runtime.
In the several years I've worked with UE4 I've usually had the opposite problem trying to get a packaged project to enter a full screen mode.
What has been attempted in 4.16:
1. Execute Console Command.
2. Getting User Settings, setting a screen resolution, and then applying that screen resolution.
3. Using an .ini file setting.
4. Command line argument.

Only #4 worked with 4.16
So far with 4.17 only #1 and #2 have been tested. Given the definite lack of response by any staff member when I reported this in the support forum I'm given little reason to doubt that it's been fixed in 4.17 for the other two options.
Only possible work around - Windows only (that I know of).
1. During execution write a bat/cmd file with the new command line arguments and some reference to where the packaged product should restart.
2. Prompt the user with instructions to run the batch command if they wish to continue.
3. Exit and hope the user is still interested in using the packaged product.
4. Thank Epic for returning us back to the days of DOS.

Sorry for sounding snarky but this is a major bug. No package product should be forced to either windowed or fullscreen mode. I was hoping the 4.16.3 would have had the fix but apparently no one thought it worthwhile.
If I'm doing something wrong in trying to do this basic task that has changed since 4.15 I'd dearly love to know but for now I have to either assume that it is a major bug or a new feature that hasn't been explained or documented correctly. I'd happily track down the bug in the engine source but I don't even know where to start with that even.

Right now I have a project that I can thankfully split into two smaller projects, each with its own engine version. I have to use 4.15 with one because of this bug introduced with 4.16+, and use 4.16+ with the other because of a bug that was only fixed in 4.16+. But this means distributing two different copies of the engine. Is this even allowed in the license?!

[Michael Noland]

Can anyone tell me what this actually means?

They are similar to C# properties if you are familiar with those. It means you can write things like this:

private:
	UPROPERTY(EditAnywhere, BlueprintSetter=ApplySkin)
	UCharacterSkinDescription* ActiveSkin;

public:
	UFUNCTION(BlueprintSetter)
	void ApplySkin(UCharacterSkinDescription* InSkin)
	{
		if (InSkin != ActiveSkin)
		{
			ActiveSkin = InSkin;

			USkeletalMeshComponent* MyMeshComponent = GetMesh();
			MyMeshComponent->SetSkeletalMesh(ActiveSkin ? ActiveSkin->Mesh : nullptr);

			MyMeshComponent->OverrideMaterials.Reset();
			if (ActiveSkin != nullptr)
			{
				for (int32 Index = 0; Index < ActiveSkin->Materials.Num(); ++Index)
				{
					MyMeshComponent->SetMaterial(Index, ActiveSkin->Materials[Index]);
				}
			}
		}
	}

And then the ActiveSkin will look and behave just like a variable in the Blueprint, but under the hood will call ApplySkin whenever it is modified.

Cheers,
Michael Noland

[wilberolive]

Native member variables can now make use of uproperty markup to be exposed to Blueprints via ufunction accessors even if the property had been previously exposed directly using BlueprintReadOnly or BlueprintReadWrite markup.

Can anyone tell me what this actually means?

[MADHOUSE]

Assertion failed crashes when loading a dev build client of a project..



Same problem in 4.17 preview 2 and 3. This problem does not exist on any other Unreal Engine version prior to 4.17.
https://answers.unrealengine.com/que...on-failed.html

This seems to be a project breaking bug when upgrading from 4.16 to 4.17 with some possible workarounds:
https://issues.unrealengine.com/issue/UE-47991

So far I've not been prompted in 4.17 to copy/overwrite/update assets when opening a 4.16 project tho, it just opens the project.

[Devero]

And the release date is indeed "soon". Most likely within a week.

Cheers

Woot! I'm excited.

[mblogest]

thank you so much,and sorry for big quote

[motorsep]

I don't know where to report the bug, but I'll write it here:

https://www.unrealengine.com/support/report-a-bug

[smbv1]

Can someone make clear instruction to run lightmap over the network? I saw some from 5 years ago for UDK3. It would be nice to have Unreal Engine live event about network lightbaking in real life situation where user have LAN access to powerfull machines with regular network settings.

[smbv1]

I don't know where to report the bug, but I'll write it here:
I wanted to create my own UV for lightmap, so I just duplicated UV tag in Cinema 4D and named them 1 and 2. When I import to UE, it's imported second UV map okay (don't forget to uncheck Generate UV light map). So technically it works and catching my second UV as lightmap. This object currently has one material, when I adding second material (Selection Tag and applying material to the selection) it has 2 materials and 2 uv. Technically everything is correct.

Bug: When I import this FBX to UE, I have two "options": Either have only one material and 2 UV (one is my own UV and second is my own as well for light map, technically it's the same UV layout) OR I can have 2 materials (or full materials set in case if there many) but it cannot see second UV map, I have to go to the object properties and Generate second UV for lightmap, when I click Apply, magically it generates lightmap UV (removes my own UV map for lightmap or overwriting it) and showing me all materials as it was on the object, this way I loossing second UV.

it's very odd glitch, I cannot track who have a bug Cinema 4D or Unreal Engine. Currently, I use generating UV for objects with many materials and using second UV only for object with one material. Can you please have a look to this? it's kind of annoying, if it's UE4 bug, I would mark is as high impoirtance.

[ayretek]

SOON * Drools *

[Stephen Ellis]

I edited the post with the mega-quote.

ayretek answered accurately (thanks). You will need to download the full 4.17.0 when released, although it overwrites the Preview in the same engine slot on the Launcher.

And the release date is indeed "soon". Most likely within a week.

Cheers