Adding features to UE with Scriptable Tools: let's paint some FLOW MAPS!

[@romangromov7430]

Thanks a ton! This kind of content is super rare, please do more about scriptable tools and editor scripting.

[@AuthenticAfricanAdventures]

This is super interesting. I loved the overview of how it achieves the scroll effect. Makes it much easier to visualize and understand. Thank you for simplifying it enough, but not losing the important technical details.

[@definitelynotnick2454]

Just found your channel at its great. Thanks for the time you put into these.

[@ghislaingirardot]

Thanks!

[@9thCrusade]

man all ur videos are such bangers and go so indepth i fkn love it. ur such a chad for making these videos

[@username9426]

Yes! Thank you Ghislain!

[@leo-paulossola2846]

Your videos are amazing as always ! Got me out of trouble because i didn't check the boolean on On Hover Update.. Merci :))

[@ghislaingirardot]

De rien!

[@CyberWolf755]

For the UV transition issue, could you not: 1. store the previous triangle information, 2. find if the triangles are connected and if they are, find the edge connecting the two triangles 3. and convert the prior position that was in the old triangle to be relative to the new triangle? Primitive example on how I might do 3rd step: A1, B1 = old triangle edge vertecies A2, B2 = new triangle edge vertecies C = old point (on old triangle) D = new point (on new triangle) 1. Find the delta rotation of vector A1->B1 to A2->B2 2. Find the delta offset from A1 to A2 3. Rotate point C around vertex A1 by that delta rotation and add delta offset 4. Find vector from C to D and use that for the flow direction There might be better, more elegant solution, e.g. using a bit of geometric algebra or something else, but this should also work in theory :)

[@ghislaingirardot]

Yep, absolutely! Or if you're lazy and don't mind a far-from perfect solution, just use an arbitrary max UV travel distance for the brush. If it exceeds it, assume brush has jumped across an UV seam and cancel paint that tick.

[@seapickels9087]

god thats so useful

[@Hellishcaos]

Love your content! Would love to know if you keep or share repositories for the stuff you do in Unreal Engine. I particularly loved your execution of the Fog of War system using Niagara and would be overjoyed to learn more about the nitty gritty details

[@ghislaingirardot]

Ty! Everything's available to download on my Patreon

[@Hellishcaos]

@@ghislaingirardot awesome! I'll check it out right away!

[@swrcPATCH]

How does this look like when used on a spline mesh for making rivers? Would it create any kind of issues since one mesh gets duplicated along the spline with the same texture?

[@ghislaingirardot]

uh. I didn't think of spline mesh components :D Yes, likely troublesome. Also, not sure Geometry Scripting supports spline mesh component when copying a primitive component. Hm. I'll have to try.

[@swrcPATCH]

@@ghislaingirardot Wouldn't that be a general usecase? Like 'painting' flowmaps onto some splinemash that is supposed to act like a river? So you have a flowing river. I would really like to see this working tbh ^^

[@ghislaingirardot]

@@swrcPATCH afaik, no, using spline meshes is not the general use case. They come with extra cost, have limited support when it comes to Nanite etc (afaik) and you need an annoying setup to create one component for each spline segment, which results in one draw call per segment. You may use spline meshes in editor to create a river mesh but it should eventually be converted to a static mesh. Or, better, rely on geometry scripting etc to dynamically generate a mesh based on a spline. You shouldn't work with spline meshes imho.

[@swrcPATCH]

@@ghislaingirardot hm good to know. What if I made a river using a splinemesh and lets assume I knew how to convert it to a static mesh, would your tool be able to paint flowmaps onto it or would I have some UV or other kind of issues? Creating rivers using spline meshes is just very fast and flexable. I do not know a better workflow, its not like I really need the splinemesh but I need the flexability

[@ghislaingirardot]

@@swrcPATCH Yes my tool works on static mesh, as demonstrated in the video. No issue to expect, unless your mesh's UVs are messed up to begin with. Consider using geometry scripting to generate geometry along a spline instead of using spline meshes. Same benefit but you have much more control and it's easy to convert to a static mesh. Plus, my tool *should* allow you to paint directly onto the dynamically generated mesh, I think...

[@soseiqueNadasei-lh9ln]

How do you learn all this? Do you have previous experience in something? The gap in knowledge is too big haha

[@ghislaingirardot]

Gotta be curious & willing to learn. Things start to snowball at one point, if you keep pushing.

[@soseiqueNadasei-lh9ln]

@@ghislaingirardot i got really impressed with the strand-based foliage simulation video, I also share the dream goal of realistic foliage interaction, I hope to get there someday