Mutable for Unreal Engine 4 | Child Object Node
Updated 328 Days AgoPublic
Actions

Function

Defines a customizable object children in the same asset as its parent, to ease the addition of small Customizable Objects directly into their parents asset. Functionally equivalent to the Base Object Node when it has a parent defined. It can be a children of the root object or of any children, allowing arbitrary nesting of objects. Defines materials that can be added to its parent, modify it, remove parts of it or change any of its parameters. Also defines properties for others to use or modify.

Node Properties

Object Name: Name of this Customizable Object child
Num LODs: When the Manual LOD strategy is chosen, this defines how many LOD input pins are offered. If this is a larger value than the parent object, extra LODs will be simply ignored. What LOD pin is used at every moment is chosen by the same system that Unreal Engine itself uses for LODs.
Auto LOD Stratetegy: Defines how are the LODs used from the Mutable side. For maximum control, the manual mode allows defining what is used exactly on each LOD, and the automatic mode uses everything from the LOD0 together with the LOD specific information in the static and skeletal mesh nodes. Inherit from parent mode makes this node use the same strategy as its parent. More details can be found here.
States(array): Array of states. Children states, if left empty, are just considered to have all their parameters ready at the same time.
Name(States array item): Name of this state. Used to refer to a state when changing states and when retrieving UI metadata.
Runtime Parameters(States array item): Array of parameter names that are prepared for modification when this state is active. These can be names of: Object Groups, Float Parameters, Enum Parameters, Color Parameters, Projector Parameters, Group Projector Parameters and/or Texture Parameters. This is not a hard limit, any parameter can be modified at any time. But when this state is active, Mutable makes sure all resources are ready to modify the parameters listed in this array, so their modification is as close to real time as possible. The performance of the parameter modification and memory usage is inversely proportional to the amount of parameters in the current state.
Don't Compress Runtime Textures(States array item):Toggle to enable or disable runtime compression of mutable generated textures. This only impacts mutable generated textures, and only those textures modified by one of the parameters active in the current state. Compressed textures use less memory, but Mutable will take longer to modify parameters that modify those textures.

How to include to a state the parameters defined by an Object Group Node is done differently depending on what Group Type it is: The group type All Options defines no parameter, as all their children are active at all times. The group types At least one Option and One or None define a parameter with the name set as Group Name, and the group type Toggle defines one parameter for each of its children, with their Object Name property as parameter name. When it's a Toggle type, each children is an independent parameter, so all of them have to be individually added to their respective states, if any.

It's recommended to have this option active for all states designed for use from a character edition lobby, to insure the fastest update time possible. It's also recommended to leave this option off for any state used during active gameplay and for NPCs, to minimize memory usage.

Build Only First LOD(States array item): Build only LOD0 for this state. Optimization for states used only in a lobby and never in-game.
State UI Metadata(States array item): Metadata associated to this state.
Parameter UI Metadata: Metadata associated to this child object.

Input Pins

LOD (LOD number): The materials and material modifications that are active for an instance of this Customizable Object when Unreal Engine sets that instance to the corresponding LOD.
Children: Connection to one or many child objects, directly as Child Object Nodes and/or trough a Object Group Nodes.

Output Pins

Object: The Customizable Object defined by this node, ready to be connected to a Object Group Node or directly to the children input pin of any Customizable Object node.