What I tried today#
When it comes to setup, I know I can’t get everything perfect, but everytime I try to at least follow a better practice than the last time. This time I setup the Perforce on my home server, and make sure the project is properly versioned. I found this useful style guide for Unreal Engine game development and it covers all the bases.
As mentioned in the last post I’m using the ALS-Refactored for the 3rd person control, and I’m loving it for its C++ support. I followed the example class AAlsCharacterExample to create my own controller class, and create a quick interaction function with the “Mech” (double quote because I’m still using the vehicle placeholder).
What worked#
Once everything is setup properly, Unreal with C++ is smooth with the Live Coding. Now although Live Coding isn’t a silver bullet as it’s just a quick runtime patch, since I’ve been more familiar with when I should and when I shouldn’t use it, it has made my life much easier. For reference (from Druid Mechanics Discord FAQ):
What is fine with live++#
Editing existing functions (including its parameters if it isn't a ufunction)
Adding new functions
Adding static variables
Adding new (non reflected) classes and structs
What isn’t#
Adding virtual functions
Editing constructors
Adding reflected functions
Adding reflected classes (questionable at best)
Adding new members
And what didn’t#
ALS-Refactor documentation is a bit sparse than I would hope for. I guess the logic being that you should just reference the example given by the plugin to understand it, or even reference the original ALS plugin documentation. I made some awkward mistakes such as not initializing Camera component properly, and that has cost me more time than just copying everything over. I wish I would find more time to learn while building the project…