Able Ability System Info and Support Thread

[fernmerc]

Hello,

I'm trying to create a blueprint function library to apply a passive ability for status effects. In C++ I already created my function that decides whether or not the proc occured, but in order to avoid having to strictly say where the blueprint ability is located, I made another proc function in blueprint that branches out depending on what tag (fire, ice, poison, etc.) was applied and gives the target actor that passive ability. Unfortunately, in the "CalculateDamageForActor" function (or anywhere that derives from any able ability) my function does not show up. The C++ blueprint function library one does, but the blueprint-only function library one does not, even though it shows up everywhere else in the editor that's not Able-related.

How should I be handling this? Is there any way of applying my passive status effects from within C++ without having to set the Ability's physical location? I'm using GameplayTags if that helps.

Thanks!

[AngeIV]

Can you elaborate? You mean Dynamic Montage blending?

yes.. please. using montages for abilities is essential. as montages can have additional level of complexity and can be made with more then one animation, have internal loops etc.
Also I had problems with detecting "ability use animation" and "is playing animation" inside the anim graph.

[Mighteemouse3]

spawning the invisible actor is what I was going to try to do, it was the threadsafe getting of the mouse position that I ran into a snafu with. I can do it in a regular blueprint so I'll see what I can come up with.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Ok, so I've tried to read through all the posts, all the documentation (which the activity level of everything is part of the reason why I bought able) and maybe I missed something but, what would be the best way to have an ability spawn at the current mouse position? (Think flamestrike from WoW?)
Matt, this plug in is by far the very best i've bought. Thank you for all of the time you saved me!

Thanks for the kind words.

For something like that, you'd need to write some code that does a raytrace to the world using the mouse position (pretty sure there's a method for that somewhere in UE4), and then you could spawn some invisible dummy actor that just plays the Ability.

That's probably the easiest way.

[Mighteemouse3]

Ok, so I've tried to read through all the posts, all the documentation (which the activity level of everything is part of the reason why I bought able) and maybe I missed something but, what would be the best way to have an ability spawn at the current mouse position? (Think flamestrike from WoW?)
Matt, this plug in is by far the very best i've bought. Thank you for all of the time you saved me!

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Ahh so you mean like a separate line trace from the tip of the sword to the hit actor, and then spawn it on that location?

Correct. Or you could just fake it easily by something like:

- Create a Vector going from the Actor who caused our damage, to the Actor who was hit by the damage.
- Normalize that vector then scale it by our Hit Actor's bounds size (XY).
- Set the Z to whatever the Component who hit us Z is.
- Spawn the particle at that location.

Something like that. The trace is probably easier, at the cost of a bit more performance (but again, it's not even fired unless you know the trace will hit something so that will help).

Sorry if this has already been asked, but can you do damage over time effects?

Sure. I actually do that in the Burning Man video. Basically I just create a passive with a damage task and set it to loop X times. The length of the passive Ability is the length of a single damage "tick".

[duke22]

Sorry if this has already been asked, but can you do damage over time effects?

[fernmerc]

Yea, Sweeps don't contain hit info, you could have it so when the enemy is hit, it does a trace between itself and the component that hit it - which would give you accurate info. That way you're only doing the more indepth/costly trace when you know for sure the attack was a success.

Ahh so you mean like a separate line trace from the tip of the sword to the hit actor, and then spawn it on that location?

[ExtraLifeMatt]

How would you recommend I approach spawning hit particles for a melee attack? Since I'm doing a shape sweep, I don't really have hit-location information, so I'm kind of lost as to where (and when) I should spawn my emitter. I don't think a fixed position is a good idea, because for instance, If it's a horizontal slash, and the enemy is all the way to the side, I don't want the particle effect to be right in the center as it will seem off. Do I just get the location of the hit actor and spawn it at the same z-location of the sword or something? I can't really figure out how to make it responsive... I realize it's not exactly related to this plugin, but some help is appreciated

Yea, Sweeps don't contain hit info, you could have it so when the enemy is hit, it does a trace between itself and the component that hit it - which would give you accurate info. That way you're only doing the more indepth/costly trace when you know for sure the attack was a success.

[fernmerc]

How would you recommend I approach spawning hit particles for a melee attack? Since I'm doing a shape sweep, I don't really have hit-location information, so I'm kind of lost as to where (and when) I should spawn my emitter. I don't think a fixed position is a good idea, because for instance, If it's a horizontal slash, and the enemy is all the way to the side, I don't want the particle effect to be right in the center as it will seem off. Do I just get the location of the hit actor and spawn it at the same z-location of the sword or something? I can't really figure out how to make it responsive... I realize it's not exactly related to this plugin, but some help is appreciated

[intoxicat3]

Yes, but you cant put it to event graph. Just try to put Trace or SphereOverlapingActors nodes. Event graph won't let you put these nodes.

[ExtraLifeMatt]

Thanks, if you can do it would be great. I have done it in my code and it's working correctly.

I have a question about your event graph, why we can't add some of the nodes to Ability Graph? For example:
- Get Sphere Overlaping Actors, ( https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest...OverlapActors/ )
- Trace,
- Basically more of them that need world context objects, but you can put Print String which is in need of world context...

Currently I need to add my own function to do these.

There's a UPROPERTY meta flag you can pass "WorldContextObject" I believe, that will add a pin to the World Context Object. Because Abilities are UObjects and not Actors, they don't inherently have a UWorld they belong to, so the BP is just reflecting that.You could also just get the "Self Actor" and their world and do the trace/sphere/etc that way.

[intoxicat3]

That was added for the AbilityComponent, but not the Ability itself. I see. Yea, I can see about adding that. I'm not sure it'll be 1:1 with the BP side (since BP nativization is pretty decent, it gets compiled to C++ anyway so I didn't have any huge performance concerns) - but I can see the appeal of having some of the larger hooks having a C++ counterpart.

Thanks, if you can do it would be great. I have done it in my code and it's working correctly.

I have a question about your event graph, why we can't add some of the nodes to Ability Graph? For example:
- Get Sphere Overlaping Actors, ( https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest...OverlapActors/ )
- Trace,
- Basically more of them that need world context objects, but you can put Print String which is in need of world context...

Currently I need to add my own function to do these.

[NilsonLima]

I suggest to open a console window and run that .bat file and see any message that might be telling what is wrong, because it should be there if the execution have succeded.

[Menelin]

I have looked on Youtube before I turned to you. I've run Setup and GenerateProjectFiles. The folder's never shown UE4.sln.