HTF do I? Level Streaming using Volumes in Unreal Engine 4

[@SOLHCQ]

More and more I find myself looking for your WTF & HTF videos related to a particular subject over the 'live traing' and other official Epic Games videos. Allways concise, clear and to the point. Later if I have time I visit the official Unreal vids for more details and comments, but your contribution to the Unreal Engine community (and to gaming industry as a whole, as UE is one of two main game engines) is more than remarcable. You should be proud.

[@daniel.pandele]

Thanks! It's a pretty straightforward process, but it got me a while before I could wrap my head around it.

You are great at explaining. Truly thank you for these tutorials they are beyond helpful!

[@TheF4c3m4n]

As always great videos, amazing Help and explanations. I wish more people was as skilled at explaining things as you are! Thank you.

[@MetricZero]

You know I noticed something about your teaching method. You (presumably) intentionally make obvious 'mistakes' that viewers might be able to anticipate, like going through the level only to say it won't work because it wasn't set up yet. I could be wrong but, that's actually brilliant. It engages the viewer to be proactive in their thinking when watching your videos. Might just be over analyzing though. Thanks for the video, helped me create some impossible geometry.

[@MathewWadsteinTutorials]

It depends on the video but yes I try and show what a person might run into if they just try and use a node and any issues they might run into out of the box and then show how to fix them.

[@harrysanders818]

@@MathewWadsteinTutorials Really fantastic forethought. Thank you so much.

[@Cepaceous]

@@MathewWadsteinTutorials "oops we can't do it that way" is a more engaging method than "and here's how you do it" like some of those other tutorials do

[@juanmilanese]

Mathew Wadstein you are the living definition of useful! :D thanks man, nice tut.

[@RiverFox_YT]

this is an extremely easy to follow video and explains it easily for noobs like me. I have been working on my map for over a year now and its a large open world map that has a lot of assets in it. what would be the best route to change that map so that it was lots of separate maps with this streaming volume set up so that you would not see certain parts of the map if you were not in that area of the map.

[@scottlee38]

Cool function, I never knew how that worked in large rooms

[@LDT7Y]

Noob question: How do you work with terrain where it has multiple levels? I mean, I have a huge map, so I've cut it into many small grid plots and have each of those in a sublevel attached to one persistent level (which works fine). My issue is now that on some of those terrain sublevels, I could have upwards of 7 layers. One has a city that is built in a 'stacked' formation as it's in a valley. So all the layers combined are very dense with too many objects for the average computer to handle. But a player on level 1 doesn't need to see any objects in layers 2-7 below them, so I want to cut all of those out if the player is in a certain location. Is this where the volumes come in? So you have many sublevels to a persistent level and many volumes to a sublevel? Or have I got that completely wrong?

[@WoodysAR]

What if, you want the levels to be loaded (alternately) in the same 'space'? Like a Holodeck for instance,.. Thank you!

[@r11va39]

You are great teacher! thank you!

[@Restart-Gaming]

Can you update this no longer works with the new unreal engine

[@Restart-Gaming]

@glyn hodges Thanks but would that only work with let say buildings etc will it look right if used in a open world game that is only mountains and trees rocks etc and thanks for the responds

[@SairentoHiruGuy]

If we don’t see part of level, they simply disappear? what in this case do, for example, the enemies who ran after us and did not manage to get into the level streaming? do they just fall down?

[@VoidRose]

Good afternoon, I had this question: we loaded the level, spawned the box on it and returned back to the menu, then loaded the level again and the box remained in its place, how to return the level to its original state?

[@Shanataru]

Great tutorial! Is there any console command to turn the streaming volumes off (to ignore it for a while) and let everything be loaded?

[@vegitoblue2187]

What if I have ai chasing the player across the map but I also want to use this?

[@nicholaspoling9691]

I have a question about this, I have a level with some rng in it for location of coins, does going in and out of the volumes reload the level, and therefore reset the level, cause I want the rng, just only the one time when the level is first visited that run, and if they revisit it that run everything will be exactly where it was last time they were there that run

[@Cepaceous]

Test it, if it respawns the coins when you load, instead store some variable to influence it in the game mode or game instance, and have the level read from those when it begins play

[@hiQer]

Hi I know this video is kinda old now, but maybe you can help me with this simple question: Where are the Streaming Level settings now? They were in the Level details many but are gone now and can't find the new location. Also the documentation is not telling it.. its outdated.

[@Silent_Chief]

Hi thank you for you great content ! I would know : i have build map différent levl into différent map , is possible to joins all my map or two together with your technic ? Because my map are already build so i dont know

[@CalmStationZ]

I enjow the videos but find it difficult to find te videos I am looking for. Can you please add links to related videos of a type inside your video descriptions etc. It would help alot

[@r2ghclan271]

About 7:02 when I select the volume it presses and does nothing stays at none

[@MathewWadsteinTutorials]

+r2gh Clan That is the drop down list for Streaming Volumes that are currently in your map. If you do not see any then you do not have any streaming volumes in the loaded map. You might want to make sure you have your persistent level selected in the Levels window and have your Streaming Volumes created and in that map.

[@OmegaMouse]

Interesting, but what if you have AI chasing you around and you unload the level they're in? They just disappear? And do all the elements with a level reset when it's loaded/unloaded?

[@andreibogdi]

I want to know how to do this too. Because when I load the stream level it saves the AI and all the pickup objects on the ground from previous level too.

[@bat4019]

In your case I think that you need to create the AI players and the AI Navmesh bound volumes at the streaming level which might beat the purpose!

[@TheTchaume]

Thanks. Is it possible to have a movement of the level with blue print ? Like an actor could do with a timeline along vector ?

[@lordGoldemort]

Question: supposing I had an "inside a house" and "outside a house" volume, and that when I went into the house the outdoor level was unloaded. Going back out re-loads the outdoor level, but that could be *huge* and so a big resource drain and a noticeable glitch. Can you put the outdoor model "to sleep" rather than fully unload it so that it's still there when you go back outside? Or is this handled by clever or cache-based resource management?

[@MathewWadsteinTutorials]

As far as I know you can't really put it to sleep but assuming you built your level properly it should occlude and cull most of the outside so it would reduce resources automatically for you. If you wanted to do something like this see about adding in an exit area, like a hallway or some part of the house that you would know leads towards the exit and indicates the player wants to head out. You can then set it up to load the outside area using the non blocking version so by the time the player gets to where they want to be going outside it would have loaded it without the playing knowing it was not there earlier. If you are concerned as well about it not being loaded there are smaller tricks you can do to allow the level to load up before the player exits as well such as slowing their walk speed as they get closer to the door until the level loads outside.

[@lordGoldemort]

The reason I ask is that I want to do a "Final Fantasy" style battle thing whereby the player is teleported to a combat level, and afterwards returns to where they left off. I would like the main world to stay resident rather than unload, so that the transition back from the relatively low resource arena is smooth. Level streaming seems to be the thing to do, unless you have a better idea? :-)

[@MathewWadsteinTutorials]

I can't think of any better ideas off hand but if you wanted to unload and load like that you can just use the normal Blueprint nodes to load and unload the level as you needed them. Unload the world map when they are transported to combat then during the victory part of the combat load the normal map back up. Honestly if I was doing this I wouldn't even bother I would just load up the combat area and keep the world still existing as you would have to restore the world to the previous state when you loaded it back in and that might be more problems than it would be worth.

[@lordGoldemort]

Thanks Mathew, your thoughts are appreciated!

[@azagwen]

I did everything you did, except when I launch my game the world doesn't load at all except for the persistent parts...

[@Thunder_Owl]

I wonder, can I stream the same level around my initial "quadrant", with some visibility fog applied (so I not see myself and not shoot myself in back). That would make infinite looping world that I am looking for, for UE4. Can such be done? Or some other method maybe? Thank You...

[@MrGoatsy]

How can you prevent a FPS drop when loading a level? For me it drops to like 10 FPS for 0.1 seconds when I load a level, it is annoying.

[@MathewWadsteinTutorials]

You might want to try making the volume you are loading up smaller or have less things in it. This method can have issues depending on what you are trying to stream in and it might be better to use the blueprint nodes and have them load in the background if this is an issue.

[@AndreaAvellinoVideo]

hey man, first of all: I love your tutorials, super essential and clear.. thank you! second, I have a question fo you: can i use level streaming in order to separate light build for lightmaps of a large area into different chunks? I am struggling building lightmaps for a big building and since it's a VR project I need to bake all the lights in the scene but i can't really do it in one step cause the graphic card (gtx 980ti) goes crazy and UE4 crashes, maybe level streaming could do the job? Thank you in advance :)

[@juanmilanese]

Hummm... I think the Swarm Agent that bakes the lights doesn't uses your GPU. In fact there is an "unofficial" GPU light baker for 4.19

[@AustinTFordham]

Hey Mathew, I have a quick question. So I was designing a level for a project and I had a huge performance lag (hitting 17fps when looking in certain directions). Will level streaming help with performance? Also is there a way to do level streaming in my project without starting all over?

[@MathewWadsteinTutorials]

Level streaming can help with performance if done correctly. You can use this, for example, to unload unused assets or items in another part of your map/area which should help. The biggest thing might be to determine where the slowdown is coming from. If it is coming from looking in certain directions do you just simply have too much stuff without any occlusion/blocking items in that direction? If the problem is something like this it's possible streaming might help by letting you load in maps around you with less "stuff" and as you get nearer to them it can load in the version with more stuff once you are closer. As for using Level streaming without starting over you can yes. any map can be a part of level streaming or have other sub-levels in it for streaming. Just open up the Levels window and then you can add other sub-levels. If you plan on maybe breaking up your existing level you can always create a new blank map, add it as a sub level to your current map, grab the items you want out of the main map then make the sub level/new map active and paste them in. This is an easy way to move items between maps.

[@AustinTFordham]

Awesome! Thank you for the quick and informative reply. Love your videos by the way, you've helped me with soo many things.

[@chandlerruffing5546]

When i select my streaming volume.. it does not do anything still stays at none

[@MathewWadsteinTutorials]

+Chandler Ruffing At what part are you having the problem? Maybe a time code from the video or more details?

[@r2ghclan271]

Yup I have streaming volumes in those levels it just does not do anything when I try and select it :(

[@MathewWadsteinTutorials]

the streaming volume should probably be in your persistent level And not in your sub levels as it will control which sub levels will load up. you should also make sure the persistent level is the one you have chosen and is active when you open the menu to assign the strraming volumes.

[@Michael-gf1jn]

Thanks for all work.. brilliant. :)

[@NiteOwlStudio]

I assume this method doesnt work in 4.15?

[@MathewWadsteinTutorials]

Any reason why this would not work in 4.15? As far as I can tell nothing major has changed with streaming volumes or the streaming levels methods so this should still be fine.

[@NiteOwlStudio]

My game has no option for level streaming when I right click on the level in the levels window. I put the streaming volumes in the persistant map and cannot assign or use them at all. and I see in the levels browser you have somehow 8 levels representing 4, I cannot figure out how to get what you have, which is..... Map_1(Hidden) Map_2(Hidden) Map_3(Hidden) Map_4(Hidden) Map_1_2 Map_2_2 Map_3_2 Map_4_2

[@MathewWadsteinTutorials]

For my example I have 8 maps showing because I have 8 maps being used in that example project. As for your problem I just booted up 4.15 and had no issues with streaming levels working as expected. You need to make sure you add the levels/maps into your levels browser in the persistent level so that you have access to the levels itself. Around 6:40 it shows how we add the streaming volumes to the list that is used to load the levels.

[@NiteOwlStudio]

Ok so it must be my project which is based on the MPFPSK from the market place extremely buggy. I opened a new project and it all works fine. thx so much

[@kyledavis8056]

Great tutorial

[@NatePlayzGamez]

good vid buddy :) thank you

[@alexanderdimitrov7965]

thnak you

[@screamingfox5666]

I like that all your videos i seen (so far) are 'video 4' =3..

[@stonel1985]

good

[@HateSonneillon]

I dont like how you stayed on world settings the entire time so no one could even see the settings on your volumes