The video is not meant to disparage people from using boolean variables entirely. Like in most cases, the word "Never" really means "unless you know for sure it is your best option." The example I used is overly simplistic, but the idea of the video is to show newer developers that, when dealing with systems which do not require enums, they have options which may be better suited to some scenarios. Especially when trying to string together functionality form multiple systems that were created by following KZbin tutorials from different creators, it can be a headache to try and go back through the systems and add additional booleans and update them accordingly to keep track of additional "state" information. It's much easier to just get the information you need with a small function that returns a boolean.

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline then STOP using terrible click bait titles that has nothing to do with the content, the title is "NEVER Use Boolean Variables In Unreal Engine 5!!" so its WRONG, simple as that i dont care about your excuses for FALSE titles, then write a title that accurately describes the intent of the video content

@ The video was made quickly in response to someone from the comment section of one of my other videos. I am not making excuses, I have no reason to make excuses to you, you are one person who happened to watch my video. I am just telling you how it is. If you want to be angry about nothing, there is not much else I can do. Many people seem to understand what I was going for. This might be a you problem.

@ its you who named the video, u are the problem, stop acting like false and wrong click bait video titles are OK, they are not, so i dont care about your excuses

@ You are not even reading what I am saying. But that is okay 😁 thank you for your feedback.

Glad to help you solve migrating issues! One thing to keep in mind that I cut out of the video, which I have been getting feedback on for project specific systems, is that casting to the ThirdPersonCharacter and other always loaded classes (and their parent classes) is not necessarily an issue. Since the hard reference will be to a class that is already loaded 😁 and UObject casting is even more efficient than c++ native casting.

It is definitely not wrong to use boolean variables. Like in most cases, the word "never" really means "unless you know for sure it's your best solution". The example in my video is much more simplistic than it's intended use case, but the idea is to show newer developers that they have options outside of meticulously updating boolean variables when dealing with situations where an enum is not necessary. It can be much easier, and when working with multiple systems more accurate, to get the information directly from the objects you are working with instead of creating more work for yourself.

I am aware that casting is not slow. U_Object casts are more efficient in every way than c++ native casts. The reason to avoid casts, and what I present in this video, is the hard references it creates. The video you link confirms this. Of course, my example is quite small, and as pointed out in the video you linked casting to a parent class of an object which is already loaded is not a problem. Especially when that class is the player character, which will always be loaded. But the idea is to get new developers thinking about the hard references they are creating. As another person so elegantly put it, once you know the rules, you will know when it's okay to break them.

You are right, the player character is always loaded so having a hard reference to it is not a problem. The intention of the video is to introduce the reference viewer to new developers and get them thinking about the references they are creating. This is just a small example, having a hard reference to anything in the project I used would not actually cause a serious issue. You may be happy to know though that my next video will not be this same format :)

It's every node needed to make an actor component based targeting system (minus the logic in the actor component for the targeted object) which you are free to copy if you pause the video when needed 😁ideally though, it's a quick rundown of what such a system (albeit simply implemented) entails and some of the more important nodes like the logic for finding the closest object to the center of the screen using vector dot products.

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline no I meant to say there is a lot of stuff missing lol

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline you got discord

@ With the targeting explanation? Which part feels incomplete?

@@DeepFriedOreoOfflineL potential variable and some stuf in the beginning

Thanks! The wires on my node graph are because I had a plugin enabled called Electronic Nodes.

@BattleHVT You're 100% correct! I had it in the recording that in this particular case the player character should be loaded anyway, but ended up cutting it out. The idea though is to show new developers that the reference viewer exists and how to manage hard references and system coupling 😁

@DeepFriedOreoOffline ya new dev should avoid using casting cuz it make things easier and then they are not able become better at understanding blueprint communication and as for this casting they will eventually get it that sometimes little cheating is fine 😅

I could provide the link, it is very easy to find on fab though 😁 www.fab.com/listings/d6148766-27b1-47db-a730-832c53b7a895

@bryarroland3936 Yea, I made this quickly for a specific purpose, and apparently, it took off. Glad you found something helpful 😁

The length of your bones should not matter as long as the character is setup so it has the same amount of bones in each chain group to use for the IK retarget. There may be some weirdness if you need to account for, say, an extra bone in the leg because it's curved and things like that. If the number of bones are the same, and it is the same type of humanoid, it should be fine :)

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline Thanks, I'm still a beginner (started just 2 weks ago) and I need to learn so much. :)

That's awesome! There really is a lot to learn with Unreal Engine, especially if you are making your own characters and art too. You will get there 😄good luck with your character!

I think you may have missed the point, which I totally understand as my fault. I made this video quickly to show someone I was talking to how to go about using pure functions to accurately check for object state instead of using many booleans when working with multiple systems made by following tutorials from different creators. If you want to know how I feel about "Cast to", check out my more recent video going over the reference viewer 😁

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline I'm even less interested in what you think about the Cast to after watching this video that I do. You are using it in a very bad way, increasing the consumption of the game by a large percentage just with that error and as a teacher of Unreal Engine 5 that I am, I cannot allow people who want to learn to be misinformed in this way

@ Not that I think using casts are a good idea outside of prototype code (which this small example is), they have little to no overhead. The main reason not to use them is to avoid unnecessarily loading objects. Otherwise, they are more efficient than c++ native casts. The cast in this video is done in an animation blueprint. The same animation blueprint that the character is using. So the animation blueprint will not be unnecessarily loading the character, it will already be loaded... The fact you are so upset about something that is not only a non-issue, but is not the focus of the video, is extremely funny. I highly encourage you to watch my video about never using casts to properly understand how they work 😁

Like in most situations, the word "never" really means "not unless you know for sure it's your best option". The idea is to provide an alternative for new developers to avoid the hassle of constantly updating boolean variables when prototyping systems, or trying to couple systems from different tutorials. I am sorry that you were so upset by the lack of detailed explanation.

​@@DeepFriedOreoOffline I completely disagree with the premise. There is nothing wrong with using booleans. They are a fundamental part of programming and often the simplest and most clear solution to many problems. Discouraging inexperienced developers from using them only creates unnecessary confusion and complexity.

@@MalaCebulka You are allowed to disagree. I also dont think there is anything fundamentally wrong with boolean logic. However, I feel like the problem here is not that my alternative is unnecessary or overly complex, but my demonstration is overly simplistic and lacks the ability to show why this alternative is useful. Say someone has a weapon system, and an inventory system, and those systems were created by following separate tutorials. This leaves the coupling of taking an item from the inventory system and having it equip a weapon to the character to the user who might not fundamentally understand either system. In this situation, it might seem like the easiest solution is to throw more boolean variables at the problem and eventually you are juggling 10s of boolean variables, when you could just as easily create a pure function that returns some needed information from either system to get what you need without additional booleans. It can also be helpful in the event you have a class which you intend to inherit from. At the base level you could create a pure function that returns a boolean, something like "CanTrigger". Then you can change the output of the pure function on a case-by-case basis in each new child instead of needing to create additional booleans.

I had a plugin enabled called electronic nodes. It changes the wires to look like a motherboard. It is much nicer than the default!

@DeepFriedOreoOffline thank you!

You are right, enums are the king for state management! This is meant to be an alternative for prototyping to avoid having to deal with the hassle of constantly updating boolean variables, or if the system is not robust enough to need an enum.

You are right, boolean variables have their place and this is an alternative approach. The intention here is to help avoid the headaches that come from over using booleans and then needing to remember to change them constantly. If the system is so robust that this causes efficiency issues, either than can be tackled during a refactor, or an enum might be ideal instead of multiple boolean checks.

@Shestirukiy Thanks! The appearance of the lines on my node graph are from a plug-in called electronic nodes.

@VastavPansuriya I am not sure, what part isn't working for you?

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline Brother, I'm talking about those lines from one node to another

@@VastavPansuriya Oh, sorry! I had a plug-in enabled called electronic nodes.

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline thanks brother

There are 50.000.000 different ways to do things! There is no doing it right or wrong. However there is doing it efficiently or not doing it efficiently. Rule of thumb is: Do whatever to make it work. If it works bad. Try to make it work more efficiently.

Just use gameplay tags(in gameplay tag container) if you plan bigger project, but also create a function that does enumeration for them, "on tag change", with tag input. This way you can always simply change tags and the function automatically turns other states off(enumeration). The reason is that not all tags require enumeration. You dont want to end up with some enumeration and some booleans. Those that can have just one of the states, it is good to have function to turn others off. It requires some extra work in the beginning, but it works great if you do it like that, and later you dont have to worry about it. In large scope gameplay tags are good and simple mechanism to use, when it is automated. In very small and simple game, enumeration is better option.

@@ghstproject yeah my code seems to work fine. optimizations shall come later when the code works. rule of thumb: if it works. don't fuck with it

@@KenlieroGames so tags are connected to enums?

@attentivenettle7643 Branches, tags, and actor components are great! I personally recommend always using actor components. You could even replace delays with an actor components which is a self contained timer with dispatchers. Not sure who told you all that.

@ThyTrueNightmare That is a great suggestion! Gameplay tags are definitely more efficient. The goal of the video is to provide the path of least resistance for a new developer to help prototype code quickly without the headaches of having to think about setting arbitrary variables along side object-based logic in the same class that could otherwise be directly checked. I also personally enjoy the visual feedback of having many execution lines for different purposes. I have a few other videos planned, one is on refactoring. I will look at including gameplay tags in that video!

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline Well the main reason I hate switch statements like this is because it makes it hard to expand, if you add something to the switch card, I don't remember if you used an enum or not but lets say you update an enum within a switch. Now you need to edit every single switch taht uses that enum to make sure it does what you want. Just muliple reasons I don't like this method

@ThyTrueNightmare I do not use an enum in this example, no. I agree with you, switches can be annoying to maintain in situations where an enum makes more sense. The reason I recommend a switch in this case is because it's the exact opposite. This will be the only switch of its kind, in a dedicated function which, changing that one instance updates every situation the function is used. It also more easily allows adding new bone names as opposed to updating an enum structure.

@DeformedStudios235 No clickbait intended. Admittedly, I was not as descriptive in the video as I wanted to be. The idea was to provide an alternative for new developers to prototype code without the headaches of juggling tons of booleans. While recording, I went off on a tangent about how the animations work, and how the child actor components works for maintaining the weapon, instead of better explaining the actual concept. Most of which had to be cut out.

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline You have never in all caps saying NEVER use booleans!!!!! obviously that's ridiculous and dont mean that, you cant make a game without them, you should just title it what the video is actually about because there is some good information here you might even get better views off that. It seems other people agree the title is misleading.

You and one other person have commented on the title. I am not really sure what a better name for the video would be. I do not say "NEVER use booleans", I say "NEVER use boolean variables". There is a soft distinction there which is the whole point of the video. Boolean logic is good. Cornering yourself into needing to juggle tons of arbitrary boolean variables can lead to frustrating development when you can easily create simple functions that return exactly what you need without constantly having to update boolean variables as well. I understand the video does not properly represent the struggle given the simplicity of the example.

I understand what you mean about the title. I tried to make the title and thumbnail go together, you read the title that says never use boolean variables, then you see the thumbnail that shows a boolean variable node. I also included the "look into the future" at the beginning of the video in hopes of making it clear using boolean logic is still the goal. Like you say, boolean logic itself is extremely valuable. You are also correct about the videos intentions. The idea is to provide an alternative solution to over using boolean variables in systems which don't require enumerations by directly checking the state of the objects instead of needing to think about changing a variable continuously during development. Like in most cases, a word like "never" really means "not unless you know for sure it is your best option".

This would be useful in situations in which the weapon is equipped or unequipped without the player's input such as cinematics or actions that require the character to use their hands. Technically you are always using a boolean but in this example you don't have to directly set the boolean since it is checking for the slot name.

The intention of the video is to help new developers who may run into situations where they might be over using booleans as state checks for systems which are not complex enough to need an enumerations. This can lead to potential headaches when prototyping code and needing to remember to change the boolean every time you change the things which the boolean defines. Most prototype spaghetti code is not neatly bundled into simple events. If you are a more seasoned developer and you want to see through the most efficient solution, booleans may be your friend. In most cases, doing things this way is fine since the pure function should never need to access anything outside the class. Of course, pure functions should not be over used either. They have their own problems, such as being executed fully every time the output pin is accessed, even within the same tick. Not a problem if you only need it once or twice, but if you are returning 3+ variables and you use them 2 or 3 times a tick, you might want a regular old function.

​@DeepFriedOreoOffline if that's the case then why is the word "never" in the title? Shouldn't it say "Stop overusing"

If I am being honest, the main reason it says "Never" is because I didn't want "Stop" to be in both the title and thumbnail. I was originally going to call it "Stop Using". Once I thought to use Never, it seemed like a better idea to me for the added reason that it seems so hyperbolic that it would be intuitively understood that it should be taken with a grain of salt. Obviously a skilled developer is going to know when they want a boolean, when they want an enum, when they want to use a function. The goal is to help new developers understand they have options.

The thing is, whenever you say "never do X", you instantly lose all credibility. Never means Never, and no context will ever change that. Even experienced devs still like to learn, so they will come here to check what's the fuzz all about. I suggest you rename the video to something like "When to use bools in UE5". You will be much more helpful, and seasoned devs will stop hating.

Happy to help 😁 Hope you enjoy your time in Unreal!

Well, the video itsel is a very bad example, in this particular scenario you don't need the boolean var. But there is no actual argument to not use boolean, is a perfect fine thing to do like any other variable. Don't go that drastically on "never cast". Cast is also a perfect fine operation, you get the important part, you don't want to cast to unloaded things, like having a event on the third player character that cast to see if the enemy is the last boss of the game, casting it to the last boss BP with hard class reference (purple), that would be a very bad idea, because it would load the last boss bp and all its dependency always. But casting to player controller, game session, maybe some widget that are just collapsed, it is a perfect fine thing to do, casting to a projectile that you will be about to spaw anyways. Key thing is, you can cast to anything else basically that is just a c++, most base classes from unreal directly and stuff that will be always in memory anyways. And for the boss thing situation, would go interface/component, or use a soft class reference (pink), that doesn't load, but also require more manual handling when needed

Casting does load the referenced actor into memory, that's correct. The spot that I cast in this video is in the Animation Blueprint, which would happen whether or not you are using a boolean variable to track the logic in the player character. I don't think getting the socket name makes a cast, it reaches down into the scene component, I could be wrong though. @Sworn973 is right, this is a very bad example of why not to use boolean variables due to it's extreme simplicity. I wanted to make this video to hopefully help someone who I was responding to recently about using logical pure functions instead of boolean variables to avoid unforeseen headaches when coupling systems created by following different KZbin tutorials. They were working with a weapon system, so I threw this together. The idea, really, is that you should not over use booleans for every state check in systems that are not complex enough to need enumerations, especially when prototyping. It is easy to wind up in headache inducing situations when you are working quickly and you throw down a bunch of booleans in a system, then you wind up needing to manipulate the boolean in other places due to the potential spaghetti code. It is easier as the developer just to have a function that returns an exact logical condition for a state where possible. Of course you should not throw them out entirely. If you know you need the efficiency of a boolean variable, you can always refactor once you have the system flushed out. However, in most cases, using a pure function here and there to check the exact current conditional state of something is not that heavy. Unless you should be using an enum, in which case none of this matters. Just make sure not to include something like a "Select" node in a pure function if you can help it. A switch will only execute the intended execution line. A "Select" node will simultaneously execute every input pin to determine the correct one.

You are correct about pure functions in other languages. That is actually also how they work in C++! However, when dealing with Blueprints, the Pure modifier simply means that the function will process and return the output when the output is called for from the calling function's input pin rather than through the execution process. When a function gets called through the execution, the value of the outputs are akin to local variables. For the rest of that tick, you can pull from the outputs of the function as many times as you want and the function is only called on that first execution. This is very efficient, but can have some drawbacks if your function is intended to have different outputs for different situations. The benefit of a pure function is that every time it gets asked for an output, it will be processed again, and does not store the value it returns. The down side of this, of course, is that if you are returning many values from a pure function which are all going to be used as inputs for functions in a single tick, you are calling the function once for every value you pull out of it. This means you need to be a little more intentional about when to use pure functions. In the case of this video, if you are going to be executing a validation check or other such process to determine the state of something without needed the over-efficient headaches that come with using boolean variables, then having the pure function trigger a few times is equivalent and is not that heavy either way 😁

That sounds ridiculous! I can understand wanting to get the smoothest animation fade possible, but you shouldn't need an idle/sneaking blendspace. If you go into the anim blueprint, and select a transition rule, you sbould see information about it appear in the details panel. Not only is this handy because you can do things like share a rule with other transitions, you can also change the duration and mode of the transition to better fit the animations you are fading through 😁As long as it is written into your character to handle slowing down when you crouch, all you need to do is transition from the idle/walk/run state to a sneaking state. Alternatively, if you have an idle state separate from your walk/run state, you can have an idle/sneaking blendspace, and then a walk/run/sneaking blenspace2D... A little more complicated though.

@DeepFriedOreoOffline The video I used as a tutorial that worked for me is years old, it went from blender to mixamo to unreal, so I already have alot of issues animations wise, I was able to fix most of it with weight painting but not the root bone missing. So if my character is sprinting and they crouch they roll into a crouched state, if they are sprinting and they prone they dive into the prone state, my prone state is a blend space between an idle prone and crawling prone, my crouch is the same way idle crouch, sneaking blendspace ive had some trouble getting it to recognize your falling versus your jumping but I got it to the point if you sneak off an edge you play the fall animation and land sneaking same for prone and just walking, I want to add stamina and health next

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline ive used this video to get my character into unreal kzbin.info/www/bejne/kGGpdJiOoKiKas0si=aqT19KKUlLRN2DOD

​@@smcfadden1992 Oh, okay I think I understand a little better. When you said your character rolls into the sneak state, I thought you meant it was unintentionally rotating the character's skeleton. That video seems to be fine for importing using mixamo animations, unfortunately not having root motion has always been a problem with mixamo and unreal engine. There is a plugin you can buy that properly sets up a mixamo skeleton to be IK Rigged for the Unreal skeleton, which fixes the IK problems I believe it adds in the root bone, but the new version for Unreal 5 is quite expensive and I dont think it fixes the root motion issue since the root bone would not be defined in the animation. When I have done rolling and diving in the past I tend to disable movement for the character and temporarily add a constant forward movement in their current direction. You could Launch them as well, but going the movement input approach helps account for ramps and terrain changes.

@DeepFriedOreoOffline I managed to fix the roll into prone animation by adjusting individual bone movement in the animation itself it was a pain but it worked, I followed another video on how to add a dash mechanic, and just this week reused that to give the forward momentum you mentioned to fix some other animations I didn't think about disabling controls, I have no clue how to rig or auto rig or make animations lol. I did follow other tutorials on equipping weapons dropping weapons picking up weapons sheathing weapons and I had it all set up but something was off with the communications because I could sheath a weapon and it still thought I had something in my had so it broke picking things up.

I don't have a mid-length video for this at the moment, I am planning on putting something together but I have been rather busy and trying to learn Resolve and change my editing workflow. If it helps in the meantime, if you check my live streams, my most recent stream goes over making both this system, and a slightly more accurate system using traces that follow the path of the sword instead of tracing the blades position from by frame 😄

That would fix a problem like this? If I experience something like this again I will try that, thank you!

I am learning Resolve right now so I was going to tone my next video down a bit, but just for you, I will try and make it happen 😎

Sorry, I don't think I have this in any of my longer videos or stream recaps. I did a lot of planning toward a full tutorial series but I got quite busy and made a few short ones instead. I have been getting the urge to make some videos again, learning Davinci right now so I can drop Premiere. I can't say it will be soon but I can look at expanding this concept into a more educational video!

@DeepFriedOreoOffline that would be appreciated 🙏

And I pretty much immediately fixed the issue!!! THANK YOU!!!!

@doubla871 Glad it was helpful and that you got your character corrected too! Good luck with your game 😁

Hey, I might be able to look into making something like that. I have been quite busy lately and learning how to edit with Resolve instead of Premiere so I have not had time to plan and make any tutorials. I will put this on my list for when I have some time to sit down and make something 🙂

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline i got it working on my end, which was good learning. I think if you could get a concise video out it would help alot of people struggling with this niche problem.

I was not experiencing any wobble, no. I am not sure what your camera settings are, but for the best results you should turn on rotation lag for your character's camera component. This example directly rotates the camera without any interpolation, so it is possible for it to overshoot slightly without rotation lag. Otherwise, you can add some "r interp to" nodes when setting the rotation values to smooth the rotation strength directly.

@@DeepFriedOreoOffline The RInterp solved it! Thank you.

I have a 2 hour live stream recap going over creating a sword combat system if your interested 😁

PIE does have a huge overhead in UE5 as it's constantly live-rendering lumen unless you turn that off for your project. It's possible your systems don't have enough RAM? I am running with 32GB on my work machine. It also might help to use the studio drivers if you have an nvidia GPU. Idk for sure, but I tend to keep them installed unless I am sitting down to record gameplay. That does sound like a fun minigame though, just don't play with shots... lol.

Glad it was helpful 😁

Essentially, the focus point is a point in space between the character and the target. So, let's say you want that point to be at 60% of the distance. What you would do is get the character's location, and use a distance node between the character and the target, and multiply that by .6 to get 60%. Then, find the look at rotation from the character to the target, get the forward axis of that rotator, and split the input pin on the forward axis node so you can just plug in the yaw. With that, you can take the character's position, add the forward vector multiplied by your 60% distance, and you will get a point 60% of the way between the character and target.

I'd then set the spring arm's target offset to the point, yeah? Just wanna make sure I understand properly lol really appreciate the help Edit: heh, I set the world location of the spring arm and it seems to work pretty well, no idea if that's the right solution lol

​@@vaanidel2117 Setting the world location of the spring arm would center the camera on that point if that's what you're looking for, yea. In my test I left the spring arm where it was, and then set the control rotation of the player to look at the target point. Either way, you can also use the distance from the character to the target to control the target arm's length. In breath of the wild, for example, as you get farther from a target, the camera zooms out to exaggerate the battlefield.

Aye, that's a good idea too

I played a little bit of breath of the wild to see how finding a target works. It seems they check in front of Link, and in view of the camera. Enemies in combat with Link don't need to be in front of him specifically, just in view of the camera. But the old guy on the plateau, he needed to be in front of Link even if he was in view of the camera. Kinda wild how much work goes into this lol

I don't know why I never got a notification about this comment but this is all very helpful info, thank you! 😁

I hope so, lots more on the way. I appreciate the encouragement!

Thank you! This is a pretty well known topic now so I just wanted to have fun with it, glad you enjoyed it anyway.

Thank you! I wasn't quite sure what editing keyframes like UI was going to look like, but it was really fun 🥲