Get Started Making Games with Realtime PCG

[@TorQueMoD]

Awesome video! Thanks so much for sharing :) I'm curious why all of the artists at Epic suck at simulating wind in their materials. In UE4 we had all foliage moving in circles, and now we have it bouncing up and down. lol.

[@Procedural_Minds]

Yeah I noticed that as well. This is from megascans and since Epic owns them now from what I recall, I would have guessed the base wind movement would have been much nicer.

[@MarioCola]

not true, change the Transformposition node inside the ObjectPivotPoint (engine) to Instance and Particles, apply and voilà, wind is more beautiful than ever on megascans..

[@RushedYT]

Been binging your PCG videos today, might be slightly off topic but would it be possible to generate a world with 3D grid assets sort of like tiles with this PCG feature? Just learning the basics in UE for now but so far ive only seen people create forests and buildings with PCG on top of a landscape or mesh, but im wondering if its possibile to generate a world built up by small 3D grid tiles?

[@Procedural_Minds]

Absolutely, if anything that's easier cause you just set the grid size you're spawning and then spawn level instances that hold all your sections for example, or static meshes. Depending on the size.

[@RushedYT]

@@Procedural_Minds Awesome, thank you!

[@JoachimPileborg]

Very good PCG tutorials. But, if it's possible, perhaps a tutorial on using PCG on a mesh-terrain instead of landscape? A game I'm planning is going to be using a rather large continent, and I've heard that large landscapes aren't especially performant, even with world partition, and that it would be better if using meshes. But if I loose the ability to use PCG I need to rethink that. Other than that, keep up the good work!

[@Procedural_Minds]

Most of my tutorials, including this one, use a mesh and not a landscape. Is there something specific you're trying to figure out with a mesh base?

[@JoachimPileborg]

@@Procedural_Minds Oh... Maybe I should have started with some earlier ones, and not the latest. 😁

[@thomas-ly1zt]

Awesome vid ty Sir! I'm using now the Biome Template and have everything set up nice! For the Grass and small Plants i'm using the Grass Tool because its very performance optimized. The Landscape Layers are plugged into an RVT Texture. Now I'm looking to make Roads and Paths. The Spline Curve in the Template is one Solution to exclude PCG from Spawning Assets there. A Better way would be to use a Landscape Layer but i'm struggling how to modify the PCG Setup. Do you have any Idea? Ty!

[@thomas-ly1zt]

The Spline Path works just with the right Tag "PCG_BiomeExclusion". I sadly didnt find a way to tag a Landscape Layer the same way.

[@Procedural_Minds]

I'm not sure if there's any way to use the old Grass Node together with PCG. I believe those are two separate systems. If there's a way, it's not something I have looked into as of yet.

[@charlieashwood]

When I go to sample my points I can't see them. Any idea why that would be? I followed your instructions to the T. I tried resetting everything under "Show" in the viewport. Also restarted UE5.

[@Procedural_Minds]

Try doing a generate from the PCG node. Maybe somehow it hasn't generated the graph so nothing comes up.

[@charlieashwood]

@@Procedural_Minds Okay I'll give that a shot. Thanks!

[@SAPER1985ytb]

Thanks for your content! I can't find the answer to the question: is it possible to runtime smoothly change the grass scale depending on the distance? I want to make the culling less noticeable, but do without opacity and WPO

[@Procedural_Minds]

You can probably do it during runtime but you'd want to do it every frame, which at such a scale would be extremely expensive I believe. You can spawn blueprint actors with PCG, and if you do large clusters then have those adjust scale, it might work.

[@SAPER1985ytb]

@@Procedural_Minds You got the problem absolutely right, I was just hoping that there was some elegant solution that I just didn't know about. Thanks!

[@cezarystaszek5377]

Great video! Is there any reason why PCG not working on all my maps? I used it on 2, test map where i worked for some time but now actors are not spawning at all, and another map - game map, where everything works fine.

[@Procedural_Minds]

It's hard to say. Debug the PCG graph, see if it's generating the points and go from there. There could be a multitude of reasons nothing spawns.

[@cezarystaszek5377]

@@Procedural_Minds actually debug never generated any points for me. But when i created new map from tests it works (so now :D)

[@ecal202]

Think it would it be possible to make an endless runner with PCG spawning a randomized environment?

[@Procedural_Minds]

Yeah should be very possible. :)

[@turningcog]

That would be so evil to make a random maze that resets on a trigger like that

[@Procedural_Minds]

Doesn't even need to reset on trigger. You could have it generate a new maze each time and instead of separate levels it can all happen inside a single one. :)

[@ElPajaroLoko]

Thanks! ... How can I create a selectable LIST type field, where I can choose different PCG environments, such as Jungle, Forest or Desert? After selecting the option, the PCG changes and the environment is redrawn.

[@Procedural_Minds]

Check out my video on PCG Data Assets. You can setup your different biomes in data assets and then just swap the data asset with a BP before re-generating.

[@ElPajaroLoko]

@@Procedural_Minds You are a genius, thank you!

[@kmtsvetanov]

I created a PCG from blueprint that generates rooms with biom and AI.

[@Procedural_Minds]

Really cool, nice job!

[@DronX_]

Is there a way to activate collision only where the player look?

[@Procedural_Minds]

You would need to setup a trace from the character or camera depending on what you need and then modify the collision based on what it overlaps. At least from the top of my head that's one way to accomplish that.

[@astralstormgamestudios1259]

Why would I want to use runtime pcg?

[@Procedural_Minds]

Because depending on what you're trying to achieve it's quicker and more performant than alternatives. All the meshes it spawns are automatically all instanced.

[@astralstormgamestudios1259]

@@Procedural_Minds Arent they instanced anyway? Isn't everything instanced in UE when using pcg or foliage tool? .. is runtime pcg better for open worlds?

[@Procedural_Minds]

@@astralstormgamestudios1259 I was referring to PCG in general. Runtime just means you can change it or generate it dynamically during gameplay, not just when you're creating it. Allowing for control and mechanics to be driven by it.

[@MarioCola]

Challenge: you tell me how to create a single point on a landscape with no custom blueprints and i subscribe and donate

[@Procedural_Minds]

If you want a single point, you can set a get actor data to Single Point and it'll be just a single point. You can drag the PCG volume into the level too and have it set to single point.

[@MarioCola]

@@Procedural_Minds i subscribed but didn't donate yet, because I already have a getactordata node set to all world actors by class "landscape" and single point, but i still think it's not working properly for example, if i spawn meshes on that point those would be multiple meshes on the same spot, easily fixed by a prune node set to remove duplicates.. yet when I spawn an actor instead, let's say a player start actor it still spawns multiple actors it can be done right with a blueprint for sure, but am I missing something here? also I didn't get the "volume and have it set to single point" part, is there such option in the outliners detail tab too for the volume (not just on the getactordata node in the graph)?

[@MarioCola]

@@Procedural_Minds i also found that each regen it keeps in memory the instance number, so for example on my case it spawns 4 playerstart instances each regen, so first regen would be PlayerStart,PlayerStart1,PlayerStart2,PlayerStart3 and then, if i regen even flushing pcg cache.. it goes PlayerStart4,PlayerStart5,PlayerStart6,PlayerStart7 all in the same exact spot Again with a static mesh spawner it's one mesh since it's one point.. amazing, or better, unreal

[@Procedural_Minds]

@@MarioCola I was mis-remembering the volume sampler having the single point. But yeah the Get Actor Data has the Get Single Point mode. So you can just create a PCG Graph, use a Get Actor Data node, and then have a single point whose bounds are those of the volume you set. So if you attach some kind of spawner to it, like a static mesh spawner, then you only get one things spawning whose size and is based off of the volume its in.

[@MarioCola]

@@Procedural_Minds yes as I wrote I already got to that before, the issue is that spawn actor spawns 4 instances instead of one, while it works fine with static mesh spawner (with some heavy pruning though..) I don't get why if it's a sigle point It still spawns multiple entities