WEBVTT 00:06.990 --> 00:08.160 Welcome back. 00:08.250 --> 00:09.750 Now we have death working. 00:09.750 --> 00:15.170 And if we get our enemies down to zero health, we know that we can rag doll them. 00:15.180 --> 00:20.220 Now, in this video, I'm concerned with a little bit extra of an effect. 00:20.220 --> 00:22.350 I'd like to dissolve the enemy. 00:22.350 --> 00:24.200 So what do I mean by dissolve? 00:24.210 --> 00:27.930 Well, let me go ahead and close down any of those tabs I don't need. 00:27.930 --> 00:33.510 And let's take a look in our assets folder into materials. 00:33.540 --> 00:37.380 Notice I have something called M Dissolve Effect. 00:37.500 --> 00:39.720 Let's take a look at this material. 00:39.720 --> 00:41.550 Here's what it looks like now. 00:41.550 --> 00:46.410 This has a number of material parameters and by number I mean two. 00:46.410 --> 00:50.130 Let's open my dissolve effect and check it out. 00:50.160 --> 00:52.050 We have dissolve and glow. 00:52.050 --> 00:58.110 Now Glow is going to make those edges glow just a bit more or less, depending on the value. 00:58.110 --> 01:00.840 But look at the dissolve parameter. 01:00.840 --> 01:03.870 If I click and drag to the right, it dissolves away. 01:03.870 --> 01:07.600 If I drag to the left, then the material comes back. 01:07.690 --> 01:13.960 Now if we look in m dissolve effect, we see that it's just a base color and that's this pink color. 01:13.960 --> 01:16.120 That's why it looks pink like this. 01:16.120 --> 01:19.090 But then we also have this little bit here. 01:19.090 --> 01:22.990 This is what's responsible for the dissolve effect. 01:22.990 --> 01:30.760 And it's really because we get an emissive color for the glow and that's nice and properly masked out 01:30.760 --> 01:35.200 according to some noise magic that we do here that gives us that golden glow. 01:35.200 --> 01:38.110 And there's that color for that golden glow right there. 01:38.110 --> 01:44.230 And then we have this opacity mask right here going into opacity mask. 01:44.230 --> 01:50.140 And as we change this parameter called Dissolve, we're changing. 01:50.140 --> 01:50.800 Here it is. 01:50.800 --> 01:51.730 Dissolve right here. 01:51.730 --> 01:57.430 We're changing how much is added to this texture sample, which is just noise. 01:57.880 --> 02:06.580 So if we use this dissolve effect material instance, we can choose to dissolve any given material if 02:06.580 --> 02:09.880 it uses something similar to the nodes in here. 02:09.880 --> 02:17.950 And that's why this right here, this little section is in its own comment because it's designed to 02:17.950 --> 02:20.890 be copied and pasted into a material. 02:20.890 --> 02:24.250 If you'd like that material to be dissolvable. 02:24.460 --> 02:27.730 Now, notice it even has a couple of things up here on the comment. 02:27.730 --> 02:31.120 It says Surface masked default lit. 02:31.150 --> 02:33.790 It's telling you about some of the settings that you need. 02:33.790 --> 02:36.420 So we need a masked material. 02:36.430 --> 02:37.840 Let's see what this looks like. 02:37.840 --> 02:40.690 If we apply it to our goblin material. 02:40.690 --> 02:48.760 If I click on the Goblin and choose its skeletal mesh here in the Details panel, let's select Mesh 02:48.760 --> 02:50.800 and browse to that. 02:50.830 --> 02:58.460 Here's our folder with the goblin and in the materials folder here we have M underscore Goblin and actually 02:58.460 --> 02:59.270 take a look. 02:59.270 --> 03:02.030 We already have an M Goblin dissolve material. 03:02.030 --> 03:10.280 If we open that, then we have some of those nodes from the dissolve effect here. 03:10.400 --> 03:17.480 Looks like we have one going into Emissive color and we have another one going into opacity mask. 03:17.480 --> 03:23.930 So these are essentially the same thing that we saw in that M dissolve effect. 03:23.960 --> 03:26.450 They just happen to be pasted in here. 03:26.480 --> 03:32.390 They are these nodes up here looks like we're using a different texture sample, but that's okay. 03:32.390 --> 03:34.460 Same principle applies. 03:34.640 --> 03:42.530 So this M Goblin Dissolve exists here for us and it looks like we have a material instance created from 03:42.560 --> 03:46.610 that and we can even see what this looks like with a preview mesh. 03:46.610 --> 03:53.960 If we go back to Goblin Select Xxm Goblin with that selected in the content browser, we can click on 03:53.960 --> 03:59.900 the rightmost icon at the bottom right of the viewport and that will give us a preview mesh to preview 03:59.900 --> 04:06.470 this material and we can see what it looks like and we can change the dissolve amount and see this mesh 04:06.470 --> 04:08.690 dissolve and it looks pretty cool. 04:08.690 --> 04:17.630 So this is what I'd like to do is I'd like to change this dissolve parameter at runtime smoothly when 04:17.630 --> 04:19.190 the enemy dies. 04:19.310 --> 04:24.590 Now currently the enemy is not using this dissolve material instance. 04:24.620 --> 04:32.000 We can go to the Xxm Goblin and open it and in the asset details we see it's just using M Goblin. 04:32.150 --> 04:38.690 So when the enemy dies, we need to set its material to that material instance. 04:38.690 --> 04:43.520 But specifically we need to create something called a dynamic material instance. 04:43.550 --> 04:50.240 A dynamic material instance can have its parameters dynamically changed at runtime, and I'd like to 04:50.240 --> 04:51.020 do that. 04:51.170 --> 04:56.780 So we have a couple of things we need to do, and we're going to start in the C plus plus domain. 04:56.780 --> 04:58.880 So I'm going to close out of the editor. 04:58.910 --> 05:03.050 Looks like it says you've changed a material, right? 05:03.050 --> 05:04.490 Because I moved some things around. 05:04.490 --> 05:06.650 I'm not going to save any of those changes. 05:06.740 --> 05:08.990 It's going to ask if I'd like to. 05:09.140 --> 05:11.330 I'm not going to save anything that I did. 05:11.330 --> 05:17.900 So what I'd like to do is go to our character base, and Ora character base is going to need a couple 05:17.900 --> 05:18.770 of things. 05:18.770 --> 05:23.570 It's going to need a material instance that we can set as a variable. 05:23.570 --> 05:25.910 We can set it to that, dissolve material. 05:25.910 --> 05:30.080 So I'm going to go into the protected section, scroll down to the bottom. 05:30.590 --> 05:40.190 I'm going to make a comment here that says Dissolve effects and we're going to have a T object pointer. 05:41.380 --> 05:44.560 Storing a new material instance. 05:45.280 --> 05:53.020 And I'm going to call this dissolve material instance and I'm going to have this something we can set 05:53.020 --> 06:00.070 from the blueprint with edit anywhere, and we'll go ahead and make it blueprint read only as well. 06:00.070 --> 06:08.140 So we have a dissolve material instance, but I'd like a way to create a dynamic material instance based 06:08.140 --> 06:11.980 on this and swap out our enemies material. 06:11.980 --> 06:13.630 In fact, this is on or a character base. 06:13.630 --> 06:17.890 So we'll just say swap out our character's mesh material. 06:18.250 --> 06:21.160 Now they also have a weapon skeletal mesh, right? 06:21.160 --> 06:25.150 So let's have two dissolved material instances. 06:25.300 --> 06:29.860 We'll have one for the mesh itself and one for the weapon. 06:29.860 --> 06:34.300 So we'll call this second one weapon dissolve material instance. 06:34.390 --> 06:44.470 Now I'd like to have a function to dissolve this thing, so I'm going to make a function void dissolve 06:44.470 --> 06:47.990 and this function is going to swap out the material. 06:47.990 --> 06:55.310 It's going to create a dynamic material instance based on these material instances, one for each one, 06:55.310 --> 06:58.580 and swap out those materials on the mesh and the weapon. 06:58.580 --> 07:01.460 And then I'd like to start a timeline. 07:01.460 --> 07:05.870 And timelines are much easier to implement in Blueprint. 07:05.900 --> 07:11.630 This is definitely one of those cases where it makes more sense to do it in Blueprint. 07:11.660 --> 07:17.210 We've done timelines in C plus plus in my multiplayer shooter course If you'd like to do it that way, 07:17.210 --> 07:22.250 check out that course, but we're going to make a timeline in blueprint, and that means I'd like a 07:22.250 --> 07:24.230 blueprint implementable event. 07:24.260 --> 07:29.660 So I'm going to make a void function called Start Dissolve timeline. 07:31.000 --> 07:38.830 And this is going to take that dynamic material instance that we're going to create and the timeline 07:38.830 --> 07:43.600 is going to update parameters on that dynamic material instance. 07:43.600 --> 07:49.670 Now, the type for a dynamic material instance is you material instance dynamic. 07:49.720 --> 07:56.410 So this is going to take a pointer of one of those and this will be called Dynamic material instance. 07:57.330 --> 08:00.330 Now this is going to be a blueprint, implementable event. 08:00.330 --> 08:05.220 So we're going to make it a new function blueprint, implementable event. 08:05.610 --> 08:10.890 So we're not even going to implement this here in C plus plus we're going to implement it in the blueprint. 08:10.890 --> 08:14.130 But dissolve is something we need to implement here. 08:14.640 --> 08:17.730 So what are we going to do when we call dissolve? 08:17.730 --> 08:23.790 Well, what I want to do is check to make sure my dissolve material instance is valid. 08:23.790 --> 08:28.380 So we're going to say if is valid, dissolve material instance. 08:29.110 --> 08:32.650 So if it is valid, then what are we going to do? 08:32.680 --> 08:38.080 Well, we need to make a dynamic material instance based on this material instance. 08:38.110 --> 08:43.630 We can do that by making a new material instance dynamic pointer. 08:43.660 --> 08:47.680 We're going to call this dynamic mat inst. 08:47.710 --> 08:48.970 I'll just call it that. 08:49.210 --> 08:56.080 And we can use the static function you material instance dynamic create. 08:56.110 --> 09:02.770 This is a creation function, a factory, if you will, and this requires the material instance. 09:02.770 --> 09:05.860 So that's going to be desolve material instance. 09:08.300 --> 09:10.100 And it needs an outer object. 09:10.100 --> 09:11.990 We're just going to pass in this. 09:12.110 --> 09:14.300 This character for that. 09:14.570 --> 09:19.940 So this creates the dynamic material instance, but we need to set the character's mesh. 09:19.940 --> 09:27.140 So we're going to get the mesh and we're going to call set material on it. 09:27.620 --> 09:31.580 Now, a mesh can have multiple indices for its material. 09:31.580 --> 09:33.350 It can have multiple materials. 09:33.680 --> 09:41.480 So if your mesh has, say, 4 or 5 materials, then you'll need to do this for each of those materials. 09:41.480 --> 09:47.960 Some meshes have a lot of materials, so you'll have to have a dynamic material instance for each of 09:47.960 --> 09:49.150 those materials. 09:49.160 --> 09:51.710 In my case, I just have a single material. 09:51.920 --> 09:57.200 So I'm going to use the first index because that's the index for a single material. 09:57.200 --> 10:02.540 It's going to be zero and we're going to pass in dynamic Mat inst. 10:03.170 --> 10:09.360 So we're now setting the material on the mesh to this dynamic material instance that we'll create based 10:09.360 --> 10:13.410 on our material instance that will set from the editor. 10:13.530 --> 10:20.430 Now as soon as we do that, I want to call my blueprint implementable event, start, dissolve timeline, 10:20.760 --> 10:28.090 and this takes a dynamic material instance we're going to pass in our dynamic mat inst. 10:28.730 --> 10:31.580 And so that's going to take care of our mesh. 10:31.580 --> 10:34.190 But we want to do this for the weapon as well. 10:34.190 --> 10:43.910 So we're also going to say if is valid weapon dissolve material instance and if that is valid, we'll 10:43.910 --> 10:45.830 do the same exact thing here. 10:45.860 --> 10:51.890 So we'll copy these lines, except we're going to use weapon dissolve material instance and instead 10:51.890 --> 10:57.980 of our character mesh, we're going to use our weapon, we're going to call weapon set material, and 10:57.980 --> 11:02.480 then we'll start the dissolve timeline with this dynamic material instance. 11:02.810 --> 11:09.770 Okay, So now we need to decide how that timeline behaves and we'll need to set those material instances 11:09.770 --> 11:10.820 in the editor. 11:11.030 --> 11:13.640 So we just need to make sure to call dissolve. 11:13.640 --> 11:19.550 And this is something we want to call both on local machines and on the server machine. 11:19.550 --> 11:26.330 So we're going to place this in our multicast handle death function that should be up here somewhere. 11:26.420 --> 11:28.860 Here it is multicast handle death. 11:28.860 --> 11:30.900 We're going to call dissolve. 11:31.230 --> 11:39.900 So now we can compile and launch and set that material instance for each goblin and create the timeline. 11:41.940 --> 11:42.330 Okay. 11:42.330 --> 11:43.740 So I'm going to click open. 11:44.570 --> 11:50.690 Now we know that we have this my goblin dissolve and we've already seen what it looks like with a preview 11:50.720 --> 11:51.350 mesh. 11:52.220 --> 11:56.740 We can take that SQM goblin and click on this icon here to see. 11:56.750 --> 12:04.700 And if we click, dissolve and drag all the way to the left to about, oh -0.1 or so, we know that 12:04.700 --> 12:06.260 it's completely full. 12:06.260 --> 12:17.420 And if we drag to the right to about, say, 0.6 or so, 0.55, 0.6, then it's completely dissolved. 12:17.540 --> 12:28.880 So we want to start a timeline from some value around right here, -0.0 to -0.1 or so and have it smoothly 12:28.880 --> 12:32.960 go all the way up to about 0.5 or 0.55 or so. 12:32.990 --> 12:37.010 Now I'd like to implement this on the base enemy class. 12:37.010 --> 12:39.550 That way all enemies will inherit this. 12:39.560 --> 12:48.140 So I'm going to go into character and open up enemy base, open that event graph and we have a blueprint, 12:48.140 --> 12:53.570 implementable event to implement and it's called Start Dissolve Timeline. 12:54.130 --> 12:56.920 And this takes a dynamic material instance. 12:57.010 --> 13:00.130 So as soon as this gets called, I'd like a timeline. 13:00.130 --> 13:01.360 So I'm going to make one. 13:02.690 --> 13:08.750 So I'm going to scroll down to add timeline, and this will be called Dissolve Timeline. 13:09.290 --> 13:11.990 So let's open this and add a track. 13:12.020 --> 13:17.100 It's going to be a float track and we'll call this dissolve track. 13:17.120 --> 13:20.150 And we just need a couple points on this track. 13:20.150 --> 13:26.690 We're going to add a key by right clicking, adding a key, and at time zero, we're going to have our 13:26.690 --> 13:36.020 value at -0.1 because on this dissolve material, that's about where we're at. 13:36.050 --> 13:39.080 It's actually about zero really. 13:39.080 --> 13:42.800 But a little past that is a -0.1. 13:42.920 --> 13:45.800 That can be where our timeline starts. 13:46.190 --> 13:48.440 Now we're going to add another point. 13:48.470 --> 13:55.520 Add key, and this will be some point in the future, let's say three seconds later. 13:55.520 --> 13:59.660 And where do we want to be on the dissolve curve? 13:59.660 --> 14:08.280 Well, if we scroll forward to about 0.5, maybe 0.55, that's where we'll be completely dissolved. 14:08.280 --> 14:10.530 So we're going to have this at 0.55. 14:10.560 --> 14:17.190 Now I can click on Zoom to Fit Vertical and zoom to Fit Horizontal to see both of these and I can select 14:17.190 --> 14:22.200 both key points, right click and select Auto and we have a nice smooth curve. 14:22.320 --> 14:28.220 So now this timeline we can use to update this dynamic material instance. 14:28.230 --> 14:30.210 So we're going to hook this up to play. 14:30.330 --> 14:37.650 We're going to take the dynamic material instance I'm going to drag down here and type RA for Root Node. 14:37.700 --> 14:42.150 I'm going to reroute it around the timeline and come back up here. 14:42.330 --> 14:46.260 And we want to set a dynamic material parameter. 14:46.260 --> 14:55.110 So I'm going to type set material parameter and the function I want is set scalar parameter value, 14:55.110 --> 14:57.510 and this requires a parameter name. 14:57.510 --> 15:02.790 So if we look at our material instance Goblin dissolve, the parameter is called Dissolve. 15:02.790 --> 15:09.300 So we can stick in, dissolve here and the value is going to be the result of the dissolve track. 15:09.300 --> 15:13.500 So every update we're calling set scalar parameter value. 15:13.920 --> 15:22.170 So we're calling this When the enemy Dies, we can test this out by killing the enemy and seeing if 15:22.170 --> 15:25.080 that material instance is swapped out. 15:25.080 --> 15:29.820 Now, of course, we have to set that material instance on each enemy, right? 15:29.820 --> 15:31.980 So here's the goblin sphere. 15:31.980 --> 15:38.490 We can browse to it and search for Dissolve and we have a dissolve material instance. 15:38.490 --> 15:44.760 I'm going to search for my goblin and here's my goblin dissolve. 15:44.790 --> 15:46.890 Now do we have one for the sphere? 15:46.920 --> 15:48.000 Let's check. 15:48.090 --> 15:50.670 Let's go to content assets. 15:50.670 --> 15:51.840 Enemies. 15:51.870 --> 15:52.980 Goblin. 15:52.980 --> 15:54.000 Spear. 15:54.030 --> 15:55.470 Now here's the spear. 15:55.500 --> 15:57.720 Here's a materials folder. 15:57.720 --> 15:58.680 And look at that. 15:58.680 --> 16:04.680 We have an m sphere dissolve and an MI sphere dissolve material instance. 16:04.680 --> 16:11.520 And if we mess around with the dissolve parameter, we can see it dissolving and it looks like this 16:11.520 --> 16:15.840 one has even a glow color parameter that can be changed. 16:15.840 --> 16:21.510 So we're going to set this to my sphere, dissolve on the goblin sphere. 16:21.510 --> 16:25.440 So my underscore sphere dissolve. 16:26.260 --> 16:28.960 So that will take care of the spear Goblin. 16:29.200 --> 16:34.690 Let's go back to Goblin and go to Slingshot and go to materials. 16:34.690 --> 16:37.360 And here we have a red and green folder. 16:37.360 --> 16:46.000 And in the red folder we have an slingshot red dissolve material and we can open the m I slingshot red, 16:46.000 --> 16:50.960 dissolve material and it looks like this is a material for the slingshot. 16:50.980 --> 16:56.800 So if we go to Goblin Slingshot and Centered, here's the actual slingshot. 16:56.830 --> 16:58.540 We can preview this. 16:59.790 --> 17:08.130 In the material instance and mess with the dissolve parameter so we can set this material on the Slingshot 17:08.160 --> 17:08.880 goblin as well. 17:08.880 --> 17:14.580 I'm just going to click one in the editor, browse to the asset and open its blueprint and search for 17:14.580 --> 17:15.330 Dissolve. 17:15.450 --> 17:22.320 So I'm going to search for my underscore goblin and we're going to use Goblin Dissolve for the body 17:22.440 --> 17:29.730 and m I underscore slingshot read dissolve for the weapon. 17:31.290 --> 17:34.010 All right, so we've just set those. 17:34.020 --> 17:37.140 Let's see what happens if we kill an enemy. 17:37.500 --> 17:41.850 So I'm going to get an enemy down to zero health. 17:42.570 --> 17:43.800 And. 17:46.210 --> 17:51.280 Looks like the weapon dissolved, but our mesh did not. 17:51.910 --> 17:54.070 So we do have an issue here. 17:54.190 --> 18:02.560 It looks to me like we can't share that timeline, so we have to go back to the base enemy and we're 18:02.560 --> 18:07.720 going to need to have a separate timeline as these can't both be running at the same time. 18:07.720 --> 18:13.390 If we start one with one dynamic material instance and then start another, which we're starting the 18:13.390 --> 18:16.410 weapon second, well, we can't share the two. 18:16.420 --> 18:22.900 So we need two different blueprint, implementable events, one called Start, dissolve timeline, and 18:22.900 --> 18:24.760 then one for perhaps the weapon. 18:25.030 --> 18:28.170 So we'll just really quickly make one of those. 18:28.180 --> 18:35.140 We'll go to Aura Character Base and we'll copy the start, dissolve timeline and we'll go ahead and 18:35.140 --> 18:43.780 just paste it and we'll call this start Weapon dissolve timeline and we'll call this one for the weapon. 18:43.780 --> 18:49.810 So we'll go back to or a character based CP and go back down to the dissolve function. 18:49.810 --> 18:55.970 And here instead of start dissolve timeline, we'll start weapon dissolve timeline and we'll implement 18:55.970 --> 18:57.500 that separately. 18:58.010 --> 19:01.250 So let's go ahead and go back into the editor. 19:02.410 --> 19:07.900 And we'll go ahead and open up our enemy blueprint for BP enemy base. 19:07.900 --> 19:14.530 And let's implement start weapon dissolve timeline and we'll make a separate timeline. 19:14.530 --> 19:18.100 So let's right click type timeline. 19:18.730 --> 19:21.160 We'll scroll down and add timeline. 19:21.160 --> 19:25.780 We'll call this weapon dissolve timeline. 19:26.590 --> 19:34.360 We'll double click it, add a track, it'll be a float track called Weapon Dissolve Track, and we'll 19:34.360 --> 19:35.680 have a key here. 19:35.680 --> 19:40.270 Starting at Time zero, we'll be at -0.1. 19:40.270 --> 19:44.260 And for the weapon, we can dissolve a little quicker. 19:44.260 --> 19:52.000 Let's add another key and this one will say, be at two seconds and we'll go up to 0.55. 19:52.150 --> 19:57.490 And just because I can, I'm going to highlight both keys and select auto. 19:57.490 --> 19:59.170 So we have a smooth curve. 19:59.380 --> 20:02.360 And here in the event graph, we'll hook this up. 20:02.360 --> 20:06.560 We'll add a reroute node to go around here. 20:08.920 --> 20:14.230 And I'm just going to take the node from above Ctrl D and duplicate it. 20:14.260 --> 20:15.730 Hook it up to update. 20:16.120 --> 20:18.040 Hook this up and hook up. 20:18.040 --> 20:20.420 Weapon dissolve track to value. 20:20.440 --> 20:23.230 And now we have two separate timelines. 20:23.230 --> 20:24.940 So let's see how this works. 20:31.860 --> 20:35.310 And there goes The Dissolve. 20:35.430 --> 20:41.400 Our curves are working separately and it's looking really, really nice. 20:41.430 --> 20:42.090 There it goes. 20:42.090 --> 20:46.700 The enemy and the weapon as well. 20:46.710 --> 20:49.650 And we know that their life spans are being set to five. 20:49.680 --> 20:53.340 We've seen those disappear after five seconds. 20:53.340 --> 20:54.720 So that works as well. 20:54.810 --> 20:56.820 So that's a really nice touch. 20:57.000 --> 21:06.180 And if you don't have dissolve materials for a specific enemy, you can always go to the materials here 21:06.180 --> 21:08.420 in content assets, materials. 21:08.430 --> 21:17.190 You can take this dissolve effect and copy this section right here and hook up the two emissive color 21:17.190 --> 21:21.180 part to the emissive color that's for the glow part of the material. 21:21.180 --> 21:24.300 And you can hook up the two opacity mask. 21:24.900 --> 21:30.540 To the opacity mask and just make sure the material has these qualities to it. 21:30.660 --> 21:36.270 If we go to Im Goblin Dissolve, you'll see that in the details. 21:36.270 --> 21:43.080 Panel Material domain is surface blend mode is masked, shading model is default lit. 21:43.110 --> 21:49.380 Going back to that, im dissolve we see dissolve effect surface masked default lit. 21:49.410 --> 21:51.420 Those are those parameters there. 21:51.420 --> 21:57.360 So this can be easily copied and pasted into really any material that you want to use it for. 21:57.390 --> 21:58.140 Great. 21:58.140 --> 22:03.960 So now we have a nice dissolve effect for when we kill enemies and it looks a lot better than having 22:03.960 --> 22:05.670 them just disappear. 22:05.970 --> 22:07.020 Excellent job. 22:07.020 --> 22:13.680 I'm going to go ahead and close down all the tabs, saving everything like so. 22:14.870 --> 22:16.580 Close down and save all. 22:16.580 --> 22:18.680 And I'll see you in the next video.