Able Ability System Info and Support Thread

[Roland_Price]

Hi

Is there a way to scale the ability play rate to a curve in anim montage it's using? I've tried to figure it out through the "On Get Dynamic Property Play Rate" binding, but got lost along the way


Thanks

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Hi, Does Able have Instancing Policy? Just like GAS.
Instanced per Execution: A copy of the Ability's Object will spawn each time the Ability runs.
Instanced per Actor: Each Actor will spawn one instance of this Ability when the Ability is first executed, and future executions will reuse it.
Non-Instanced: This is the most efficient instancing policy in all categories.

By the way, we've used your plugin for 2 years, it's very powerful, i like it.

No, not currently. The Scratchpad is meant to skirt that requirement as you can put per-instance info there.

[MichaelLiew]

Hi, Does Able have Instancing Policy? Just like GAS.
Instanced per Execution: A copy of the Ability's Object will spawn each time the Ability runs.
Instanced per Actor: Each Actor will spawn one instance of this Ability when the Ability is first executed, and future executions will reuse it.
Non-Instanced: This is the most efficient instancing policy in all categories.

By the way, we've used your plugin for 2 years, it's very powerful, i like it.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Hello, I've just watched all the videos you posted and am considering purchasing this system, I wonder, for future video suggestions, or just an answer here: does it make sense to use this system for setting up "pickups", like health, powerups, ammo, etc. So if the player interacts with an item, they can pick it up, store it or consume it and have that ability affect their stats, like health, or ammo count, or even give them new abilities, like picking up weapons or picking up "magic" powers, etc. Does that make sense? A lot of example videos deal with abilities the player already has, and is inflicting on other targets, but can an ability exist in the game world to be picked up and have an effect on the player?

Able, at it's core, is a data driven system that just plays various tasks (animations, effects, logic, etc) along a timeline. What other system uses that is up to you. You can have weapons that reference different abilities (light attack, strong attack, etc), and then each weapon, when you picked it up, would grant different abilities without you having to change the code around.

You can do something similar with pick ups (a pick up just plays it's ability on the player when it overlaps with them). I also use Able to do spawn-in animation/effects/sounds for AIs, and whatever else I want to leverage that core system design with.

[vbs]

Hello, I've just watched all the videos you posted and am considering purchasing this system, I wonder, for future video suggestions, or just an answer here: does it make sense to use this system for setting up "pickups", like health, powerups, ammo, etc. So if the player interacts with an item, they can pick it up, store it or consume it and have that ability affect their stats, like health, or ammo count, or even give them new abilities, like picking up weapons or picking up "magic" powers, etc. Does that make sense? A lot of example videos deal with abilities the player already has, and is inflicting on other targets, but can an ability exist in the game world to be picked up and have an effect on the player?

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Sure!
EDIT: The scratchpad is derived gfrom AblCustomTaskScratchPad, and has nothing added to it.

I was Able to get it working locally, right now I have a Custom Task that just picks a random number, stores it in the custom scratch pad, and then displays that number when the task is done.

You can check my setup here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gbawgn9koh...omTask.7z?dl=0

I was also able to reproduce the crash when recompiling Custom Tasks in Abilities. I'm still working on that fix however.

EDIT: Looks like there is a new BP Reinstancer, going to look at setting that up for Able Blueprints.

[Recall93]

Hello
It is a bug when use custom task.
First I create a custom in bp , and override GetTaskColor to return red;
And add this task to ability, it work weel ,look the picture one


and then, I compile the custom task, the task in ability is broken. all function that overide in bp is not work;
look the picture two



thank you , it's important for me , hope your answer soon, thank you

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Sure!
EDIT: The scratchpad is derived gfrom AblCustomTaskScratchPad, and has nothing added to it.

Hmm, alright. I'll try and repro this locally and let you know what I find (and if a bug fix is required/coming).

[Maxilos]

Did the class you create for your ScratchPad inherit from UAblAbilityScratchPad?

EDIT: The error says it's returning a nullptr.... are you sure it's being returned? Can you post a screenshot of your CreateScratchPadBP?

Sure!
EDIT: The scratchpad is derived gfrom AblCustomTaskScratchPad, and has nothing added to it.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Hey Matt!
First of all, it's an amazing plugin, really makes everything way easier. However, I've encountered pretty much the same problem, as was described by OneSaltyBoy, where whenever I try to use a custom ability in a standalone game, i get a following crash:
Fatal error: [File:/Build/++UE4/Sync/Engine/Source/Runtime/CoreUObject/Private/Templates/Casts.cpp] [Line: 10] Cast of nullptr to AblAbilityTaskScratchPad failed
My CreateScratchPadBP is overloaded.

Did the class you create for your ScratchPad inherit from UAblAbilityScratchPad?

EDIT: The error says it's returning a nullptr.... are you sure it's being returned? Can you post a screenshot of your CreateScratchPadBP?

[Maxilos]

Hey Matt!
First of all, it's an amazing plugin, really makes everything way easier. However, I've encountered pretty much the same problem, as was described by OneSaltyBoy, where whenever I try to use a custom ability in a standalone game, i get a following crash:
Fatal error: [File:/Build/++UE4/Sync/Engine/Source/Runtime/CoreUObject/Private/Templates/Casts.cpp] [Line: 10] Cast of nullptr to AblAbilityTaskScratchPad failed
My CreateScratchPadBP is overloaded.

[michalss]

That actu

michalss Here ya go, try and open this project. The collision is all working for me locally, you can see I laid out a bunch of various collision types (you can hit ~ and type "Able.DrawQueryDebug 1" to see the shapes being rendered).

I set up a simple "hit reaction" (basically just the explosion particle effect) anytime the character takes damage, which the queries apply. You can move the characters out of range to verify.

Cone, Sphere, and Box are all tested in this level and appear to be working.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zlwu2ixgmp...onTest.7z?dl=0

Yes, that actually works. Thank you for preview, I'll try the same setup in my project and then give you some feedback.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

michalss Here ya go, try and open this project. The collision is all working for me locally, you can see I laid out a bunch of various collision types (you can hit ~ and type "Able.DrawQueryDebug 1" to see the shapes being rendered).

I set up a simple "hit reaction" (basically just the explosion particle effect) anytime the character takes damage, which the queries apply. You can move the characters out of range to verify.

Cone, Sphere, and Box are all tested in this level and appear to be working.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zlwu2ixgmp...onTest.7z?dl=0

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Tested, because all my character are parent of one character blueprint, I setted up default collision response to pawn for both and deleted my custom "clickable" collision channel to check if custom channels are not causing the problem. Also didin't worked, simply it does nothing.

I fixed it for now by spawning actor with sphere collision to check overlap and do damage on overlap (works totally normal). But that is not reason why I bought your plugin. So, there is definietly gonna be some problem in code whether it is visualization, translation or other bug.

Also as I mentioned, I downloaded your example shooter project and it doesn't worked as well on 4.24.3, one possibility is that damage is not firing or collision is not working correctly.

Hmm... Alright, let me toss together a quick collision test level and see what I find. Once I have it done, I'll share it out as well if you want to compare settings.

[michalss]

I think I see the issue, you're using a custom layer (by using the custom preset), but have the object type set to Pawn. That task searches by Layer, not object. Try setting both objects to the Pawn Layer, or World Dynamic and see if they see each other..

Tested, because all my character are parent of one character blueprint, I setted up default collision response to pawn for both and deleted my custom "clickable" collision channel to check if custom channels are not causing the problem. Also didin't worked, simply it does nothing.

I fixed it for now by spawning actor with sphere collision to check overlap and do damage on overlap (works totally normal). But that is not reason why I bought your plugin. So, there is definietly gonna be some problem in code whether it is visualization, translation or other bug.

Also as I mentioned, I downloaded your example shooter project and it doesn't worked as well on 4.24.3, one possibility is that damage is not firing or collision is not working correctly.