Fixed Half-Life GoldSrc-Like ladders

This type of ladder was bugged a lot - espacially over network. Movement modes wasn’t switching for players and I learned next thing about writing custom movement code. I have to fix a lot of stuff in my net-code but I will get back to this later. My ladder movement code was bugged because I was sending from client variables like bIsLadderClimbing EVERY FRAME. This is not how it should be done.

DXBaseMovementComponent.cpp

void FSavedMove_DXMovement::PrepMoveFor(ACharacter* Character)
{
	Super::PrepMoveFor(Character);
	UDXMovementComponent* CharMov = Cast<UDXMovementComponent>(Character->GetCharacterMovement());
	
	if (CharMov)
	{
		CharMov->bWantsToSprint = bSavedWantsToSprint;
		CharMov->bStaminaCanRegenerate = bSavedStaminaCanRegenerate;
		CharMov->Stamina = SavedStamina;

		CharMov->bIsFullySubmerged = bSavedIsFullySubmerged;
		CharMov->bIsTouchingWater = bSavedIsTouchingWater;
		CharMov->WaterLevel = SavedWaterLevel;
		CharMov->DXCustomMovementMode = static_cast<TEnumAsByte<EDXMovementMode>>(bSavedDXMovementMode);

		//CharMov->bIsLadderClimbing = bSavedIsOnLadder;
		//CharMov->LadderNormal = SavedLadderNormal;
		CharMov->CurrentLadder = SavedCurrentLadder;

		CharMov->PlayerForwardInput = SavedPlayerForwardInput;
		CharMov->PlayerRightInput = SavedPlayerRightInput;

		CharMov->ViewPlaneNormal = SavedViewPlaneNormal;
		CharMov->ViewPlaneRight = SavedViewPlaneRight;

		// Source Ladders
		CharMov->SourceLadder_StartPoint = Saved_SourceLadder_StartPoint;
		CharMov->SourceLadder_EndPoint = Saved_SourceLadder_EndPoint;

		CharMov->bIsOnSourceLadder = bSavedIsOnSourceLadder;
		CharMov->bIsGettingOnOrOffLadder = bSavedIsGettingOnOrOffLadder;

		CharMov->DismountPosition = SavedDismountPosition;
	}
}

See this commented out lines? That was causing my problems with player ladder movement. As you can see I am stupid as shit. I must remove these variables from this place. These are stateful so I want them set only once in necessary place. There are a lot of redundant variables here which would wase a lot off network traffic.

Source-like ladders

Finally I added also Half Life 2 ladders. I think this is the best ladder movement system for FPP games. I am attaching video below how it works:

As you can see there are StartPoints and EndPoints. Additionaly I made LadderDismounts which are helper components which sets the “exit” position from the ladder. They are being automatically recognized by movement system if some are nearby.

Also in GoldSrc Ladder and Source Ladder we can choose type which is setting proper footstep sound set for them.

So ladders are properly functional (I hope) and replicated over network. More info you can find in documentation

Footsteps

Over this period of time I also implemented player model, animations and footstep sound system integrated with my custom Water Actor

Footsteps are changed depending on material. Nothing is hardcoded. Footsteps in water also emit particles but they need some work and polishing.

More water work

Now swimming in this game and using the water is fun. I added some sound effects when player is underwater, water impacts when he is jumping into water and many others

I am really happy with it. As you can see there are also swimming animations. I must also add some events for them to emit particles and sound when for e.x. player hand model hits the water surface or something.

Interaction system

When I was working on Source Ladders I was forced to add simple interaction system for my players. So I added simple networked interface IInteractionInterface to ladder code. Player presses the interact key and it is executing Server RPC which invokes the Interact() function on the target.

So I went ahead and made a simple event system similar to the Input/Output system from the Source Engine. I wanted this to be handled by level blueprint to have more freedom over what can be done with them. I am still wondering what proper way wouldbe to implementing this system. I think it is the topic for separate post.

Video above also shows the power of Lumen :)

Player ragdolls

After death we can watch how satisfying ragdoll is behaving with world and physics objects

Rewrited spectating system

Which is less bugged and more functional now. “Chase camera” is now more smooth and pretty.

Custom camera punch

I wanted to do simple camera effect which I had on mine Garry’s Mod gamemode done and it turned out that Unreal’s camera shake system… sucks. So I coded my own simple, smooth, pretty camera punch. Of course it is HL2 stylized xD

Player crushing

I implemented simple moveable door. It can emit sounds when opened, fully opened, close, used, used on lock and many more… you can set up misc properties:

but the problem was with the famous DOOR STUCK. I want that map creators will be able to set if door or moving platform can damage/crush player or not. I found some solution but it requires a lot of work because palyer can be killed whenever he stucks in the door. For example when player have high ping/latency it can be also treated as door stuck and kill the player.

Door-stuck bug:

I am also trying to make map creating easy and smooth and possible so I added some visualizers for entities like doors:

It is visualized in which direction door moves and how far it would slide.

Time of Day / Weather system

I bought the Ultra Dynamic Sky plugin. I think this is the best solution to have a nice weather system and time of day which is REPLICATED and we can also set is to synchronize with local time and geolocation.

I thinks that’s all I done in that time peroid. The next things I want to work on are:

• Physics Entity
  • Impact Sounds
  • Particles
  • Possibility to pickup objects
  • Breakable physics objects
  • Damaging player with heavy objects
• Custom damage system - because I noticed that Unreal’s one is heavliy limiting me
• Implementing better event system
• Write BaseClass for entities like buttons, doors - to implement things which are in common. For example moving things should have possibility to specify blocking damage or should it stop, return when something is blocking it’s movement.
• Physics interactions with players. I hope to implement a player movement that reacts to the physical world. Example below:

What it looks like when player is non-physical object in the world:

and what if it is physical: