How would I spawn a Character Model in a HUD?

Hi, I am trying to create a character selection screen HUD, and when a player selects a character, I want the model of the character to show up on the screen doing their Idle animation. I have tried SpawnActor in blueprint, but nothing ever shows up, and so far my research into this hasn’t shown much other than try SpawnActor. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi fiea.ucf.edu,

I’m not sure if what you are wanting to do is starting from the Start/Menu screen then going to a character selection screen or if you are looking to have this being an option while you’re playing your game.

If you are talking about using it as a menu system selection, then you would need only to build this as a separate level that loads when you hit start game, then go to this map with your character selection. You can setup a main hud/room with your character idling. You can do this for all your separate characters and have them swapped out via BP with the next selection depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.

If you were in fact referring to having your mesh drawn on the HUD while you’re playing the game, then this is not possible to just have your mesh place on the HUD like this. As only materials and textures can be drawn on the HUD this would limit that ability.

A workaround, one that was employeed by Insomniac in one of their games, is to have a sub-level with a room and your character that is streamed into each level. In this level would be your character playing its idle animation. You would then need to have a Camera Capture 2D that would then be able to render the idle animation onto a texture/material (Content Examples > Reflections Map > End of the hallway for the example) then that material could be drawn and shown on the HUD.

I hope this makes a little bit of sense. If not, post back and I’ll do what I can to clarify anything.

Thanks!

Tim

That works very well for me Tim, i’ve been doing that but for some reason when i render the captured image in the HUD it look way darker and does not look the same as when i use the render tuxture on a geometry face. Also, even rendering textures and materials from any other source, they look way darker than the original image!

Is the hud darkening the final texture/material? is there a way to set it up to make them look in the same way as the original?

Tim, I was trying to do it from the Start/Menu screen and I ended up doing pretty much exactly what you suggested with that and it worked perfectly, thank you.

I’ll take a look at this and see what I can find out for you. I’ll get to this as soon as I can.

Tim

Edit: Would you mind uploading some screen shots of what you’re doing as well? Could it possibly be a light not lighting properly or a setting with the HUD? Is the HUD lit everywhere else fine but just not on the scenecapture?

Hi OFEKA,

Okay, So I’ve finally taken the time to mess around with the Screen Capture 2D. I can see where it’s darker than the initial image. I didn’t find way (but I’m sure there is some checkbox or setting somewhere!) to just ramp up the brightness with great effect. What I ended up doing was taking a spot light and shooting towards my camera with shadows turned off for the character and for the spotlight. I added a couple of point lights behind my character to give some ambient lighting for the back ground (if you need that) with the shadows turned off. I was able to get the Hud screen brightness up this way and by having multiple lights not casting shadows I could even out the light on the character.

Depending on the look you are going for in the capture camera 2d’s detail panel you can switch “Capture source” to “Final Color (LDR with Post Process)” to be able to adjust and utilize the settings below in the details panel. This will allow you to add some camera tricks that Post processes use to get something better. You may even be able to tweak this the way you would like to get a better image.

Good luck and I hope this helps you out!

Let me know via this post if you have any other issues with it and I’ll help you out!

Thank you!

Tim