You Should Start Using Data Assets in PCG

You Should Start Using Data Assets in PCG | UE 5.4

Рет қаралды 2,915

Күн бұрын

This is a tutorial on how to set up data assets with PCG in Unreal Engine 5.4. This allows us to very easily and quickly to swap assets around and implement different functionality as needed.
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Patreon: / procedural_minds
Discord: / discord
Twitch: / krozjin
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Chapters:
00:00 - What is New
00:43 - Getting Started
00:55 - Creating the Necessary Files
02:02 - Structs and Data Assets
05:31 - PCG Graph Start
09:20 - Utilizing the Attributes from the Data Asset
13:38 - Why Transform Point Doesn't Work
16:36 - Rotation Setup
17:35 - The Attribute Fix
18:32 - Easily Swap the Data Assets

Пікірлер: 39

@mihaiwilson 28 күн бұрын

Fantastic, love the clear straightforward approach.

@Procedural_Minds 28 күн бұрын

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it. :)

@mihaiwilson 21 күн бұрын

@@Procedural_Minds Seriously. Nearly lost my mind trying to do this kind of thing using loops. Your method has got things moving!

@imsaturncat Ай бұрын

This is saving me years of my life, I absolutely love this

@Procedural_Minds Ай бұрын

Haha. Glad you found it helpful. :)

@SellusionStar Ай бұрын

Wow, what a convoluted way of doing it, epic... Thank you for figuring that out!!

@Procedural_Minds Ай бұрын

Wait till the next video when I show how you do loops in PCG. It makes this look straight forward. lol

@SellusionStar Ай бұрын

@@Procedural_Minds haha :D you had my interest, now you have my attention! thanks! great channel content by the way

@kryogenicgames Ай бұрын

very helpful ;)

@Procedural_Minds Ай бұрын

Thank you! :)

@carlospastor127 Ай бұрын

Hello! Great video, thank you for teaching us about pcg, there is very little information even on the subject, one question, what is the difference between doing this method to generate a forest instantiating our tree variations in the range of the spline and doing it with a pcg and a spawn static mesh and add our trees to them and use a layer of the landcape so that it only makes them appear there?

@Procedural_Minds Ай бұрын

This doesn't require a landscape at all. This is entirely independent. You can use it for trees, or you can use it for debris, or houses, or whatever else you'd like.

@carlospastor127 Ай бұрын

@@Procedural_Minds Ahhh true!! thnx u so much!!

@SegundoFernandez-f8x 18 күн бұрын

Great content !! What if I want to use this method to spawn BPs tho ?

@Procedural_Minds 18 күн бұрын

Then just swap out the Static Mesh Actor Spawn Actor and plug your BP into it. :)

@SegundoFernandez-f8x 18 күн бұрын

@@Procedural_Minds Wow Thank You so much !! Tried to figure it out the hard way :)

@TheJackalxy Ай бұрын

12:54 I think the error is because quaternion rotator are four quad vector array (x,y,z,w), while the rotator used in the data assets is a euler rotator composed by 3 vector. If i remember correctly even though quaternion are present in c++ they are not represented in blueprint

@Procedural_Minds Ай бұрын

Huh, that's interesting. But when I sample the information with the A hotkey, it shows Rotation.Yaw / Roll / Pitch. There is no 4th. So it's odd that it's trying to get a 4 digit version. Possibly a bug. Either way got to figure out a good workaround.

@Nialonh Ай бұрын

@@Procedural_Minds The reason for that is that Quats are not really human readable, so they should always be translated to XYZ when displayed. The reason they are using Quats is that it avoids a locking problem that exists in XYZ(Euler Angles). Great video:)

@rabellogp Ай бұрын

I spent so much time trying to figure out a way to do something similar to this with what we had in 5.3... Unfortunately I still can't migrate to 5.4 in some of the projects I'm working on with PCG.

@Procedural_Minds Ай бұрын

Yeah I've wanted this myself since PCG came out. Hopefully you'll be able to update to it soon or find good workarounds.

@Josh_Alfaro Ай бұрын

Great stuff. I am admittedly a noob dev. What are some of the advantages of using this rather than just a spline sampler? Is it the bool and other variables that would let you spawn things with more complicated logic? Probably a stupid question but I don’t immediately see the benefit

@Procedural_Minds Ай бұрын

Spline sampler is just how you generate the points, data assets store all the information you can use for those points you generate.

@Josh_Alfaro Ай бұрын

⁠@@Procedural_Mindsbut you can do all the same things with a transform points node no?

@Procedural_Minds Ай бұрын

@@Josh_Alfaro This isn't about showing how to transform your points, it's about showing how you can now store all the information in a data asset and easily swap them out for different variations using the same base.

@tehf00n Ай бұрын

Just to add, if you weren't using Data Assets previously then you need to learn Epic's Best Practices. If Epic do it, you should do it. Obviously there is more than one way to skin a cat in game dev, but in my 14 years of experience I've learned that what you think is right is most likely wrong unless Epic did it first. They spend time, money and human resources on figuring out the best method before it even lands in preview. And in the case of PCG Biome's setup, it saves a lot of time switching things around to test if you use data assets.

@Procedural_Minds Ай бұрын

I'm using data assets for my game. They weren't available for PCG prior to this update.

@tehf00n Ай бұрын

@@Procedural_Minds I know, although you could implement them, the Biome setup has added that method. I meant in general though, not you specifically. Most people I see on a daily basis aren't doing 10% of best practice and Data Assets have been one of the methods Epic has been staunch on implementing in their system. I'm guilty of skipping on best practice myself sometimes when I'm in a rush or prototyping. But I tend to iterate back and do what Epic does.

@astralstormgamestudios1259 Ай бұрын

I kind of like the "old" way much more .. is there any fps gains in doing it that way?

@Procedural_Minds Ай бұрын

What do you mean by the old way? Using grass landscape nodes and foliage?

@astralstormgamestudios1259 Ай бұрын

@@Procedural_Minds bad grammar from my side , I understand the difference between using data table and the hard coded way, I dont really need to be able to switch out any assets quickly

@user-ci9vq2ce8p 18 күн бұрын

if errors in the graph still don't disappear, restart engine; worked for me

@Procedural_Minds 18 күн бұрын

That's a great tip, thanks for sharing! :)

@user-ci9vq2ce8p 16 күн бұрын

@@Procedural_Minds happy to help. btw is there a way to place meshes at random location on level?

@Procedural_Minds 16 күн бұрын

@@user-ci9vq2ce8p You can do it with just blueprints or have your bounds of the PCG graph cover the full level if you're using world partition for example.

@user-ci9vq2ce8p 16 күн бұрын

@@Procedural_Minds thanks alot!

@R4venshore Ай бұрын

Honestly, as a hardcore Unity dev I expected a lot more from UE5. The PCG are full of errors and buggy behavior, a lot of it scream to be improved so much. In the time I spent trying to get this going I could've written a PCG with splines in C# 5 times that still uses Scriptable Objects for data assets and dynamic generation...

@Procedural_Minds Ай бұрын

This is a new and beta feature that isn't ready for production. So I wouldn't use this as the benchmark for completed and fully implemented Unreal features.