I’m trying to tame Spawnables, but there is some issue I can’t come around. And judging by Epic videos, it was introduced in 4.12 and was not in previous builds and might be not in 4.13, but still want to report this to be sure.
Create a sequence, open it in Sequence editor.
Shift drag from Content browser a particle system(Or any other, but with particles example is better) to the level create a spawnable
Add 2 keys in sequence - at 0 frame with Spawnable off and at 25 frame with Spawnable on
Scroll time back to zero, and then to 26 frame. Particle system now won’t work, because “Auto activate” is disabled. Enable it.
Repeat step 4 - it’s not working again, because defaults for PS(And any object) are not saved. So each time Spawnable is off it just removes all data and you have to manually restore all settings and customizations each time you want to play it.
I want to mention that it works fine with actors like Cinematic crane because you actually can key values you’re interested in so it won’t “bug”, but with particle system you can’t modify Auto-activate values with keys thus making just impossible to have consistent experience.
It turns out that “Auto activate” on the particle system is a special case. All other properties should work as you expect - you should be able to set any property value on a spawnable (even if you’re not keyframing it) and when it despawns and respawns, the property value should come back the way you set it.
For “Auto activate”, we intentionally disable it because when it is enabled, the particle system will fire when it is spawned. In our internal uses, this wasn’t desired so instead we encouraged explicitly keyframing auto activate if you want that behavior.
I thought it might be the case because “off” is not default state for this property, however it’s not keyable in 4.12. I thought I might use “Particle toggle track”, but seems like it’s does not work until I press “Reset emitter”
Hello i am pretty new to Unreal and I working in a short animation inside it. I have the same issue with spawnables in sequencer. While you’re scrolling the particles behave in strage ways. If you go to first frame of the sequence and play it,It works as expected.
I have other issues too, for example. My character throws a rope and I want that the end of the “cable actor” remains attached to the actor I previously select. But when the actor goes inactive the attached actor dissapears.
There is any way to add a parameter of the actor as a animatable layer inside the sequencer ? Unreal 4.13.1
I suspect that your issue is different. As explained by Max, Auto-Activate is disabled on purpose so that the particle system doesn’t fire on level load.
Could you post a new thread explaining your issue in more detail?
I think it’s a very weird decision. In no way we can se this as something different than a bug. Ok, now we know it’s not, but it’s impossible to conclude this without find this page on answerhub. Unreal is ignoring the principle of least astonishment.
And why it would not be desired? I have a cloud that I want to be activated in the moment it is spawned, why I can’t use this setting?
Also, I can’t use the “particle toggle track” properly, maybe because I don’t know how to use it (I could not find any documentation).
I do understand that the fact that Auto-Activate is off by default for spawnable particles seems a little bit hidden. However, the tool, in general, is meant to take care of setting some variables to an expected(for sequencer) value for best performance. This is especially true with spawnables. Sometimes variables in a spawnable are expected to be off because we are giving users the most control over the actor through sequencer(i.e. the toggle track).
In the case of the particle toggle track not working, you must toggle on or after the frame that you key it to be spawned. If the particle is unspawned, triggering it will not have any affect.