[EDITOR] APEX Destruction Plugin

[Defuse Studios]

Hey guys,

It would be nice if when opening a project that uses APEX Destruction the engine ask if you would like to enable the plugin, the same way it does with the substance plugin.

As of 4.18 APEX Destruction is a disabled plugin and has caused error in my projects until enabled which is fine for me as I enable it once and their is no problem
but 1 of my marketplace assets uses the destruction system and people new to the engine will think there is an issue with the project due to the errors of
the plugin being disabled.

I'm sure there are other marketplace sellers that use this system too and it would be a big help for people new to the engine.

Thanks guys

[UnrealEnterprise]

It would be nice if when opening a project that uses APEX Destruction the engine ask if you would like to enable the plugin, the same way it does with the substance plugin.

+1...

Not a fan of this change either. It basically 'bricks' every single project that has ever had a destructible mesh - all without warning!

I understand Epic is pushing the plugin model to reduce core engine size. If so that makes perfect sense. But not like this... Could Epic keep the destructible mesh importer part of the core engine at least??? Just throw an error if 'destructibility is activated' etc... Otherwise the import failure causes widespread code breakage & carnage.

Also, this change slows workflow, because you have to open a project to discern if it has destructible-meshes, then activate Apex, and then restart the whole UE4-Editor again.. So, maybe, just maybe, this setting shouldn't be per-project, but per-editor instead, to cut down on all the confusion / false-errors and restarts??? Or at least detail the INI file changes, so we can manually work around it....

Last thing, while the 4.18 Release Notes mentions Apex being moved to a plugin, a little added warning would have helped a lot here. Anyone coming from the UDK world might blindly assume as I did that for basic destructibles, Apex wasn't even being used and so wouldn't affect existing projects.

in general, if something is obviously going to break past projects, an extra 'highlighted warning' would be welcome... There are so many plugins loaded now that lots of users don't even use, however going forward, this particular plugin change will break a lot of existing projects plus code samples plus tutorials etc...

[Moth Doctor]

Also, this change slows workflow, because you have to open a project to discern if it has destructible-meshes, then activate Apex, and then restart the whole UE4-Editor again.. /B]

And it costed you like 1 minute of your life. Once. Less than writing post above

The only thing needed is to adjust text of error. Simply adding few words like "probably you need to turn on APEX Destruction" would be enough for everyone. That's it, done. But maybe it would require some hack (engine doesn't know about missing module if module doesn't exist) and it wasn't that easy to customize message. Although it would be useful mechanism

So, maybe, just maybe, this setting shouldn't be per-project, but per-editor instead, to cut down on all the confusion / false-errors and restarts???

Bad practice. You'd have tell all the people in studio to turn on important module. And remember about this every time somebody joins team. Or after cleaning up configs (for any reason).
Editor prefs should be used to adjust personal preferences, nothing more.

[UnrealEnterprise]

kjustynski

There is a serious point here... This change makes the engine harder to use, especially for newcomers etc.
This is like a silent failure but a fully preventable one which isn't good. There must be a way to Auto-Detect.
But instead of a 'Warning', why not just enable the plugin automatically. Why is an Editor restart needed etc?

As Epic move 'more functionality to plugins', there's going to be more of these obscure errors to deal with.
Lots of legacy projects already open with too many errors needing to be fixed, this only adds to the burden.
Not asking for this for myself personally, but for noobs as it breaks things. That's why I feel its a bad move!

[Syed]

The plugin thing is a good move as it will reduce the code base - rather than lumping all features in executable file regardless they are being used or not. However, yeah there should be more 'communication' between engine and user. Probably the very least (but still helpful) is to emit the error in the log such as 'Have you enabled Destruction plugin?' when C++ compiler try to include the headers...

[DamirH]

I'm with kjustynski on this one. This is an extremely minor thing and it really seems that you're just making a mountain out of a molehill.

[Defuse Studios]

My point isnt about saving time, its about how some people new to the engine may buy something on the marketplace or open a project that has nothing wrong with it and will get all these errors.

I just think that if they were able to put in warning for the substance plugin, why not there own plugin, it just seams counter intuitive to assume people will know what is issue, especially with so many beginners in the community

[UnrealEnterprise]

Almost forgot an Interesting fact: UE4 already does Pre-Editor start-up checks right now.
So obviously Epic see merits in doing startup checks for key/core areas of the Editor etc.

Examples:

Display-Driver compatibility version-check & MS.Net support for packaging etc.

If either of these are out of sync, dialogs must be clicked through before the Editor loads...
So, why not just have a 3rd option, and add a 'Plugin prerequisite dialog' here as well???

[Rd Augustin]

hi I'm having that same problem atm and every time I enable apex destruction and try to it will just send that error and crash the engine, is there another way I could go about enabling it with the project plz?

[Tobiassoras]

same problem

[overreal]

Agree on this, it should check and not breaking with errors silently.