Legacy:Movable Actors

This tutorial is how to make a movable actor.

Warning: Attaching an actor with bStatic defaulting to true will not work in netplay in most engine versions. Best-case scenario: it simply doesn't show up on the client. Worst-case: client crashes out with an assertion failure.

HOWEVER, if you subclass the actor class you want to attach and set bStatic=False in the defaultproperties, it will work just fine in netplay. But you cannot change the default value of bStatic in the editor, so you will need to create a new package outside of UnrealEd.

Prerequisites

Know how to...

• ...make a level. (Read the first section of the Mapping Resources page to get a rough idea on how to create a level.)
• ...use the UnrealEd Console.

Setting up

First, subtract a space, say a cubic 1024 room, and make a same-sized room far far away, but not too far. Next, place a PlayerStart and a Light (or Actor in the first room, and rebuild.

You need to Create A Mover in the second room and then make the keys in a small to medium distance from key 0. Tweak the mover to your liking and then set the following properties:

• Object -> InitialState = ConstantLoop

Now match these tags:

• the Mover's Events -> Tag
• the Actors's Movement -> AttachTag

Tweaking hidden properties

The crux of making the actor actually move is setting its bStatic property to False. (By default it is set to True, which means that the actors are fixed at their initial position and cannot be moved.) Unfortunately, the bStatic property is normally hidden. See Actor Properties Window to find out how to edit hidden properties.

Final Touches

You are now in the final stages of making the actor move. You may do any effect with the mover, actor, an added trigger, etc. This tutorial can also be used for weapons, volumes, etc.

In the next section, you will find examples of how to utilize this information.

Example Utilizations

• Energy rings moving through a tube.
• Rockets that launch.

Test Maps

You can download a test map that utilizes this technique.

Related Topics

• Lighting
• Dynamics
• Actors
• Movers

Discussion

Ragdoll:I found out how to get lights to attach to movers without the bStatic netplay crash issue. Its very simple-Use a TriggerLight. it has bstatic as false by default. works well with coronas on trains/cars etc but can cause a SERIOUS impact on performance- before i attached corona light i was 90 FPS, after 20 FPS

SuperApe: Right. That impact is due to the dynamic lighting eating up CPU cycles.