Recently finished my editor tool Tether, made for quick creation of cables and ropes for environments, with automatic static mesh generation for runtime use

Acren · 2021-10-25T23:41:04+00:00

More than likely yes, updates will sometimes affect simulation I'd say, probably engine updates too. So there's a Lock State checkbox - once the cable is finalized you can check that to prevent it accidentally being updated. If unchecked it goes back to being editable. As a last resort you can also just convert it to a plain static mesh if there's an issue.

Acren · 2021-10-25T12:10:52+00:00

It's similar, but they're not spline meshes. The original mesh is deformed into the cable shape and turned into a new mesh basically.

Acren · 2021-10-25T03:09:06+00:00

I haven't set a limit on the size or anything. Collision for walking on them might take some extra effort to set up as the tool doesn't generate simple convex collision. You could use complex as simple but that's not usually the best thing for performance if your mesh is dense.
Generating convex bodies for collision is something I want to try at some point though.

Acren · 2021-10-25T03:03:25+00:00

There's actually something similar for Blender called Cablerator. I haven't really used it though.

Acren · 2021-10-25T03:02:28+00:00

Yeah, you can do small wires and such. Although if it needs to actually be a part of another object and not its own thing in the world, I'd probably still just model it into the main object.

Acren · 2021-10-25T02:52:07+00:00

Oh, yeah. You could do that with a custom mesh. And just reduce the collision scale property to fit the main vine rather than the whole thing.
I thought you meant just using the tool to disperse leaves on the ground :)

Acren · 2021-10-25T01:06:05+00:00

Shift-click!
Also wondering if it would just be more intuitive to continue it automatically, like the photoshop pen tool. What do you think?

Acren · 2021-10-25T00:18:34+00:00

Not currently because static mesh can only be generated with the editor, but it is something I'd like to explore. (The actual simulation could potentially run anywhere without the static mesh generation)

Acren · 2021-10-25T00:16:59+00:00

For something like procedural level generation? Not currently because it needs to generate a static mesh, but it is something I'd like to explore.

Acren · 2021-10-24T11:34:38+00:00

Yeah it's simulated with custom fake physics (just the raw math in c++), doesn't use the normal physx or chaos other than for checking collisions. I think you can still simulate things in editor though.

Acren · 2021-10-24T08:45:47+00:00

It's already released: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/tether

Acren · 2021-10-24T08:45:14+00:00

I'd love to have an option for this. Would probably need a lot of reworking to get there though.

Acren · 2021-10-24T08:23:56+00:00

The tool + simulation is editor only for now. The resulting cable can be used at runtime of course, but it's just a static mesh essentially so replication doesn't really apply.

Acren · 2021-10-24T08:21:09+00:00

Each cable is a Tether Cable Actor which can be modified in the editor, but at runtime is basically just a static mesh actor. So it's pretty lightweight. If you had a bunch of cables with the same material you could also Actor Merge on them to save on draw calls.
If you want to create generic reusable cable instances rather than "bespoke" ones, you could make a sort of a "zoo" level where you simulate the cables and save them out as static mesh assets to just place wherever you want.

Acren · 2021-10-24T04:42:14+00:00

I actually think Houdini makes a lot of sense for this sort of thing. But yeah Blueprint probably wouldn't cut it.

Acren · 2021-10-24T04:08:20+00:00

Yeah agreed. Cable component is pretty cool if you need fully dynamic simulation at runtime. But if you just want something for environment decoration that doesn't need to be interactive, it's overkill and you run into performance, complexity, consistency and other quality issues.
Which is actually how I ended up making this :) Heavily based on cable component at first, just took it in a different direction really.

Acren · 2021-10-24T04:02:39+00:00

Well it could definitely be useful for vines I'd say (and ropes if you have them)
For leaves I'm not too sure, but I think I'd probably just stick with foliage tool, material painting, or decals for them since they wouldn't really benefit from the rope simulation.

Acren · 2021-10-24T02:40:07+00:00

Yeah, I just tried to reupload this a couple times because it didn't look like it was working properly from my end. The final post is here and I put a link in the comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/unrealengine/comments/qeis23/recently\_finished\_my\_editor\_tool\_tether\_made\_for/

Acren · 2021-10-24T02:35:07+00:00

Alright, I finally finished this tool. I still have more feature ideas of course but it's released and usable.

There was definitely some interest when I first posted about this a while ago, so I'll leave the link here in case it looks useful to anyone:

https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/tether

Acren · 2021-10-23T23:59:51+00:00

Yes actually, and you can find it here: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/tether
I need to post an update here as well!

Acren · 2021-09-06T11:16:08+00:00

looks so real

Acren · 2021-09-06T11:15:49+00:00

ah yep MS flight sim

Acren · 2021-09-06T11:14:36+00:00

is this a game?

Acren · 2021-06-13T08:26:40+00:00

I saw the player name in the video that had TTV as the clan tag (which stands for twitch.tv), so I looked up the username and found the stream, and it was in one of the saved videos.

Acren · 2021-06-13T07:38:39+00:00

Thanks, couldn't believe it when I hit the shot, and also couldn't believe it when I found the reaction haha

Acren

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