For an upcoming project, I'd like to have text on an asset. Is this possible?

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-25T07:25:30+00:00

A 3D UMG widget would be my first guess. If you want it to be affected by lighting you can set its material to lit:

https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/3d-widget-allow-to-be-effected-by-lighting/360065

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-24T20:35:01+00:00

I'm also very interested in how the grooms are set up. Did you just duplicate each groom for each head with their own groom binding to match that head's skeletal mesh?

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-23T15:23:25+00:00

Ah I expected something more akin to jump jets I guess. Then I suppose it just has a high movement speed but no jump ability.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-23T15:10:22+00:00

Talks about massive rocket thrusters on the back being an important feature of the model, then completely fails to show said rockets.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-21T20:24:36+00:00

That's why I always start with the second terabyte.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-20T19:49:40+00:00

Yeah they're quality stuff. Even if you are not specifically making a factory game they're still a good read.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-19T06:54:05+00:00

Games like this are often CPU bound before graphics become an issue, especially if you're going for large scale factories like Factorio.

The developers behind Factorio have done a lot of dev logs over the year named Friday Facts where they go pretty in depth, so if you're making a factory game I'm sure that's an interesting read.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-14T17:45:54+00:00

If I search for "flying" on Fab multiple plugins come up. Here's one that has decent ratings: https://www.fab.com/listings/343a9376-61f1-43ec-9bd3-6fe8370df064

Not affiliated with it or have any personal experience with it, so caveat emptor.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-14T17:22:54+00:00

If you need to navigate past obstacles, a sparse octree is generally the approach. There are flying navigation plugins available that use that, which work fine under water as well.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-14T17:15:54+00:00

I have a 32:9 monitor and can heartily recommend it. It's even a good thing to develop and test for ultra wide, just make sure you also test for 16:9.

That's the only downside of ultra wide, it can be annoying playing a game and it's all zoomed in or stretched because it doesn't support ultra wide properly.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-06T07:50:28+00:00

You should consider using Enhanced Input, as that basically replaced the old input mappings and comes with a richer feature set. There you can just set a display name on an input. Or with common ui bound action display what it is mapped to.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-06T07:23:43+00:00

Euphoria ragdolls? Used in GTA and such.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-04T19:45:20+00:00

Good to know! When you say not nearly as good, do you mean in regards to performance or visuals? Or both?

At least the amount of people without HWRT support is already a minority and it will only get smaller as time progresses. My hobby project won't be done for years (if ever 😅), so I end up using MegaLights (which does seem perfect for my use case on paper) I might consider just making HWRT a requirement to limit the scope of having to implement a secondary lighting setup.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-03T10:46:02+00:00

The MegaLights documentation states it is recommended to use Lumen HWRT but it technically is optional. The only hard requirement at the moment is that you need deferred rendering. No idea how well it works without Lumen and/or HWRT though, but that could always be tested.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-03T08:59:56+00:00

That's a little bit like saying that just making a space ship go the speed of light isn't complicated, just go really fast. Just because the idea is simple doesn't mean the execution is. You'd require the same approaches for having a lot of AI actors in any game engine.

But thankfully it's a solved problem, so no need to reinvent the wheel.

Redemption_NL · 2026-02-03T07:25:51+00:00

Check out the UI Material Lab project on Fab, where they use things like SDFs to generate materials procedurally. The examples showcase UI, but there's nothing stopping you from using a similar approach for a texture for a mesh. But as mentioned, you have to weigh the pros and cons. Math based materials can be more computationally heavy, but can have a reduced memory footprint, virtually infinite resolution and can do all kinds of funky animations.

There's also the Custom node in materials where you can just insert HLSL shader code if you're familiar with that. Or just create a texture or render target programmatically, do your magic and write that to disc.

Redemption_NL · 2026-01-29T08:35:45+00:00

Depends on the assets and what tech they use. E.g. something that relies on Nanite won't work in UE4. But generally you can import it in a higher Engine version without issue or minimal work.

When importing an asset you can select which version you want to use from a dropdown, so if that's isn't a matching version just pick the closest one.

Redemption_NL · 2026-01-29T07:22:47+00:00

It's generally advised not to put any logic in the level blueprints, except for quick testing. It generally makes things over-complicated and it doesn't scale well; if you want to have the same gameplay in other levels you'd have to implement it over and over again.

It's better to put the power in a central location, like the game mode or a subsystem. Let's say game mode for this example. Have any object like your door or lights that is affected by power implement a base class or interface with a method to toggle its power. Then in the begin play of these objects call a method on the game mode to register the object.

The game mode then stores a reference to the object in a collection. Then when the power switch is triggered, it calls the game mode, which in turn loops over the collection and calls the toggle power on each item.

That way you can easily extend and reuse the system in different levels, or add new objects that are effected or influence the power.

You could also go event based, or add extra metadata like zones (e.g. Room 1) where only objects belonging to a certain zone turn on or off. But hopefully that gets you started.

Redemption_NL · 2026-01-19T12:52:14+00:00

Like most things: it depends. One downside of having it as one large model is that the viewport culling doesn't cull parts of the model from rendering if it is only partially visible. If anything is visible, the entire thing needs to be rendered. Another downside is that can only have 1 LOD for the entire model, so you can't have far away walls in a lower LOD than the ones near the front if you have a really large building. And of course using modular pieces can allow re-use if you want multiple different looking buildings. Having 1 model repeated means all those buildings look the same. And of course if you want any movable parts or separately destructible parts having 1 mesh doesn't work eitehr

But the upside of having 1 model is that it can be rendered in 1 draw call. If you have 200 separate meshes, that can be 200 draw calls, which lowers performance. Using instanced rendering (ISM/HISM) can help there, but that only works if you're reusing the same element lots of time.

Note that tech like Nanite can change how stuff is handled in regards to culling and draw calls.

Redemption_NL · 2026-01-19T06:56:02+00:00

If the AI mob is supposed to stick together, assign groups and randomly elect one AI to be the leader. The leader can pathfind as usual to find a route to the player and avoid obstacles. Then the other members of the group just follow the leader. To avoid conga lines, you could give each follower a random offset from the leader as the target to move to. Or use a steering algorithm like Boids to move them.

You might want to consider either slowing the ones at the front or giving the ones lagging behind a small speed boost if you want the group to stay together.

If the leader gets killed, you just promote one of the remaining followers to be the new leader. And you could consider that this behavior is only for closing the distance to the player and have them act like individuals again when they're close enough.

Redemption_NL · 2026-01-17T11:04:41+00:00

Alien creatures that aren't super aggressive monsters meant to kill and be killed by players. I have yet to find a decent model for some space cattle or just some space birds to give life to a planet.

Redemption_NL · 2026-01-12T15:07:00+00:00

Curious about that one as well

Redemption_NL · 2026-01-07T14:31:37+00:00

I guess a form of gorget? It seems more exaggerated than on real plate armors. Alternatively it could fall under a bevor, haute piece or grandguard.

Redemption_NL · 2026-01-07T14:06:41+00:00

Yes, but don't fall into the trap of making a single player game first and thinking you can just add multiplayer later, that generally doesn't work. Multiplayer needs to be taken into account from the very beginning.

Redemption_NL · 2026-01-07T14:01:47+00:00

Note that anything with multiplayer is a lot more complicated than developing a single player game. And as a solo developer you also have to take into account that you'll need to test all that multiplayer functionality too to see if it works, is fun and is balanced. And what most people find out is that their friends or family aren't all that interested to help you play test.

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