Making Characters Accept Bullet Decals

[homiJ15]

How should I go about this?

[Fi5h1fishy]

I dont really understand what you mean by this, do you want to create bullet decals on the wall, or decals on the bullets, im a bit confused with what you mean?

[reinrag]

i reckon he means decals on a skeletal mesh like a blood stain on a skeletal mesh something like that,

[homiJ15]

Yeah, reinrag got it. How would I go about creating damage decals for a skeletal mesh? Like in Far Cry

[Graylord]

That would be handled by the weapon. The UTWeapons already handles decals, you just need to define what texture to use.

If you do not use the UTweapon classes, you would look through the UTWeapon classes and see how they do it, then try to replicate it.

[attila135786]

I checked the UTWeapon class and it's super classes. It doesn't appear to have any variable associated with decals that I could find. I looked in UTWeaponAttachment class and found a DefaultImpactEffect object and an ImpactEffect object that seemed very useful. I previously used the defaultimpacteffect to spawn my particle effect and sound, but for some reason, it won't always spawn the DecalMaterial which I add to the DecalMaterials array (or whatever DecalMaterials object is because I'm really not sure at this point) Once I get this working, I can use ImpactInfo and add a materialtype so that when it hits a player or character, it will spawn the associated decal (the decal which is linked up to the generic person material)

(If my idea above isn't going to work, please let me know. Thanks)

Previously I was spawning decals via the ProcessInstantHit method of my weapon class using WorldInfo.MyDecalManager.SpawnDecal and that was working on static meshs very nicely, but not on characters. I'm just curious what I am doing wrong. Like stated above, when I comment out the ProcessInstantHit code I added for the decal spawn and use UTWeapon's ProcessInstantHit, it only shows the decals occasionally. Here is the code I used to initialize DefaultImpactEffect.

DefaultImpactEffect=(ParticleTemplate=ParticleSyst em'Postal2_Remake.Particles.Bullet_Impact',Sound=S oundCue'A_Weapon_ShockRifle.Cue.A_Weapon_SR_AltFir eImpactCue',DecalMaterials=(DecalMaterial'Postal2_ Remake.Materials.MachineGunHit_DecalMaterial'), DurationOfDecal=4.000000, DecalDissolveParamName="DissolveAmount", DecalWidth=16.000000, DecalHeight=16.000000)

[attila135786]

I am using the Feb 2012 version of udk. I'm not sure if that could be a reason.

[geodav]

if its blood effects you want then its called/set in the UTFamilyInfo.uc , have a look in the UTFamilyInfo_Liandri.uc

[attila135786]

Our BloodEffects with particle systems work (Not amazingly though). What we are trying to do is place a red mark on the enemy to indicate the location of a hit. We are also trying to get the decals to appear without having to put the spawning of the decals in ProcessInstantHit() of the weapon class.

[geodav]

maybe BloodSplatterDecalMaterial=MaterialInstanceTimeVar ying'T_FX.DecalMaterials.MITV_FX_OilDecal_Small01'

or in the weapon attachment class

DefaultImpactEffect=(ParticleTemplate=ParticleSystem'WP_ShockRifle.Particles.P_WP_ShockRifle_Beam_Impact', Sound=SoundCue'A_Weapon_ShockRifle.Cue.A_Weapon_SR_AltFireImpactCue')
	ImpactEffects(0)=(MaterialType=Water, ParticleTemplate=ParticleSystem'WP_LinkGun.Effects.P_WP_Linkgun_Beam_Impact_HIT', Sound=SoundCue'A_Weapon_Link.Cue.A_Weapon_Link_FireCue')

[TheAgent]

What you want is http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/HitMask.html

[attila135786]

Yes, that is exactly what I am looking for. I'm going to try to get it working, then post what I have. Thanks 'TheAgent', short and sweet.

[homiJ15]

TheAgent, thanks for the Hitmask link, but for the love of God, the tutorial on there is pretty vague and I'm going crazy trying to get it all to work. I'm pretty dang sure I have the code working just fine, but could some kind soul out there make a video tutorial or something on how to make the material?

Thanks

[homiJ15]

Bumpity bump bump

[attila135786]

We finally got it. It works just like the tutorial suggests but we were using our skeletal meshes in a weird way. Previously, we had a body skeletal mesh and a head skeletal mesh. We combined these with maya and allowed 2 materials, one for the head material, and one for the body material. We think the maskTexture that I created was wrapping around the whole skeletal mesh, not just the body skeletal mesh where the material was added. We believe this messed with the UVs and caused weird results when shooting the character. When we changed back to just having the body skeletal mesh, attaching the head as a skeletal mesh component to a socket located on the head bone. This worked perfectly! Thanks for everyone's advice.