[LIVESTREAM] Training Stream - Tanks vs. Zombies, p.4 - June 14th

[Ian Shadden]

WHAT
The zombies are finally attacking! In this stream Lauren and Richard create simple zombie enemies to chase our tank, set up the collisions between tanks and zombies, and start doing some damage!

WHEN
Tuesday, June 14th @ 2:00PM-3:00PM ET - Countdown

WHERE
http://www.twitch.tv/unrealengine

WHO
Lauren Ridge - Technical Writer @LRRidge
Richard Hinckley - Sr Learning Resource Engineer

Feel free to ask any questions on the topic in the thread below, and remember, while we try to give attention to all inquiries, it's not always possible to answer everyone's questions as they come up. This is especially true for off-topic requests, as it's rather likely that we don't have the appropriate person around to answer. Thanks for understanding!

Assets

Archive:

[UchihaKite]

Here is a question for you guys. Currently, as I am sure many people watching this are, I am learning C++ at my school. However, I am always looking for extra things to study. What are some good resources that you could provide to us, that could help us reach an industry standard of C++? I know it isn't exactly an Unreal related question, but we need to learn to crawl before we walk the path of Unreal Thank you for your time and support!

[Richard Hinckley]

The project as it stood at the end of the stream can be found in this thread: https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...514#post548514

We'll update with the stream video when it gets up to YouTube.

[UchihaKite]

WHAT
The zombies are finally attacking! In this stream Lauren and Richard create simple zombie enemies to chase our tank, set up the collisions between tanks and zombies, and start doing some damage!

WHEN
Tuesday, June 14th @ 2:00PM-3:00PM ET - Countdown

WHERE
http://www.twitch.tv/unrealengine

WHO
Lauren Ridge - Technical Writer @LRRidge
Richard Hinckley - Sr Learning Resource Engineer

Feel free to ask any questions on the topic in the thread below, and remember, while we try to give attention to all inquiries, it's not always possible to answer everyone's questions as they come up. This is especially true for off-topic requests, as it's rather likely that we don't have the appropriate person around to answer. Thanks for understanding!

I had to switch over to my Laptop because of my Desktop, and I am having some problems opening the project files from the latest stream that are provided above. I posted a reply in the thread with the file links, if anyone could help me out, that'd be great

[Richard Hinckley]

Here is a question for you guys. Currently, as I am sure many people watching this are, I am learning C++ at my school. However, I am always looking for extra things to study. What are some good resources that you could provide to us, that could help us reach an industry standard of C++? I know it isn't exactly an Unreal related question, but we need to learn to crawl before we walk the path of Unreal Thank you for your time and support!

Well, I personally learned C/C++ by studying game code and making modifications. OpenUT might be a place to start if you like to do things that way, or you could use any of our C++ templates or sample games. If you prefer more directed material, there are a lot of resources, both paid and free, on the internet. Here are a few that we've worked with in one capacity or another, but I don't think Epic officially endorses any specific C++ training method or program:

https://www.udemy.com/unrealcourse/ - Ben Tristem runs this, and he has received a dev grant from Epic.
http://orfeasel.com/category/ue_tuts/ - This course has been mentioned on our streams.
http://www.tomlooman.com/unreal-engine-4/cpp/ - Tom Looman is now a full-time employee at Epic.

I responded to your other question in the other thread, but the TL;DR for other people finding it is that I'm not sure what's going on with your local setup, but VS 2015 might not have the C++ toolset installed since it is unchecked by default. I hope these resources help you. There are a lot of different ways to go depending on your learning style and what areas you want to explore, so I'd encourage you to look beyond this list if needed. Thanks for your question!

[Prometheus88]

Hey lauren and richard! Thanks for this amazing tutorial series! I am really enjoying it! Finally some c++ cool stuff.

But in part 3, where you setup the mouseposition input for the turret rotation, i´ve run into an issue. Basically my turret always seems to rotate about 45° away from my current actual mouse position. I´ve checked your project codes (especially the turret.cpp and blueprint static library) atleast 10 times. So far i haven´t found any misspells or differences from your code that could cause this. I´ve uploaded an video where i recorded this issue.

Switching the playercontroller from bp_playercontroller to standard playercontroller wont fix this as well. Seems to be a problem coming from the FindLookAtAngle2D function, but since everything is exactly like yours, im running out of ideas (tried the whole weekend to find an solution).

Here is also my turret.cpp file: http://txt.do/53k7w

and the TankStatics.cpp file: http://txt.do/53k78


Hope i don´t bother your time too much. Otherwise, i just call mine Drunk Tanks Vs Zombies so no one is gonna ask me whats wrong with the mouse input.

[Richard Hinckley]

Hey lauren and richard! Thanks for this amazing tutorial series! I am really enjoying it! Finally some c++ cool stuff.

But in part 3, where you setup the mouseposition input for the turret rotation, i´ve run into an issue. Basically my turret always seems to rotate about 45° away from my current actual mouse position. I´ve checked your project codes (especially the turret.cpp and blueprint static library) atleast 10 times. So far i haven´t found any misspells or differences from your code that could cause this. I´ve uploaded an video where i recorded this issue.

Glad you like the series! In watching your video closely, I would say that it appears you have a 90-degree error, not a 45, which makes me think that the turret sprite itself may be set up wrong. I would suggest looking at the turret actor itself and rotating some components by 90 degrees to fix this. I think we had to do this based on the sprites being angled differently in the sprite sheet from how we wanted them in the game. I hope this helps!

[Human3_0]

The main problem of UE4 C++ coding is the really small amount of lectures. You should do it twice frequently and twice bigger. And as i said in the project topic You left this project at half way to end.

[zeOrb]

Hey [MENTION=2247]Richard Hinckley[/MENTION] any news on next episode this month?

[Richard Hinckley]

The main problem of UE4 C++ coding is the really small amount of lectures. You should do it twice frequently and twice bigger. And as i said in the project topic You left this project at half way to end.

We'd love to do it more often! But I'm not sure about "leaving the project half way". Our last lecture was shorter than we had planned for, if that's what you mean, which is why we didn't get to all the material we wanted to cover, but we're not done with the Tanks! series. In any case, short lectures like the last one will continue to be the rare exception rather than the rule, and we'll be back on Tanks! soon.

Hey [MENTION=2247]Richard Hinckley[/MENTION] any news on next episode this month?

It will actually be on the 2nd of next month, and we'll be finishing up the material we didn't get to last time and then adding a couple of new ones that touch on gameplay and visuals/feel.

[Elencrak]

It's shame that I missed this training content. I will correct my error by starting the training just after work . The content seems to be great and qualitative.

Thanks to Richard and Lauren

PS: if i can made an advice, its possible to put in description training links to previous parts of trainings. I found the others thread but it's easier if links are in post description.

[Araxnid]

Glad you like the series! In watching your video closely, I would say that it appears you have a 90-degree error, not a 45, which makes me think that the turret sprite itself may be set up wrong. I would suggest looking at the turret actor itself and rotating some components by 90 degrees to fix this. I think we had to do this based on the sprites being angled differently in the sprite sheet from how we wanted them in the game. I hope this helps!

I have the same issue, triple checked everything in the c++ code, blueprint settings, sprite settings and didnt find any difference with you project.
Fixed this with setting "Player Start" yaw rotation to -90, but I think this is very dirty hack.

But there is definitely something that I'm missing, cause in your project tank spawns with orientation to right side of the screen, while in my with orientation to the top.