UE5.2, Editor Mode, CHOP Rework, Stability, DX12, Vulkan improvements, reworked samples and doc, what’s next.
Hello everyone,
We are back with a new release in Unreal Engine world.
You can head over to GitHub and grab the latest release of the plugin and give it a try with our samples project. Don’t forget to update your TouchDesigner build to the latest available, 2022.33910.
Disclaimer: Users updating from an older project should carefully read the documentation and head over to this page.
They are a few backward compatibility issues and breaking changes that we couldn’t quite work around but this guide should help if you need to update.
What is new?
UE5.2.1
CHOPs Rework
The CHOP workflows were subject to a massive rework. The new workflow should be much closer to feature complete now and on par with what you can find in TouchDesigner. They are many new blueprint nodes that allow you to unleash your inner CHOP moves and work with samples, channels, by names or indices and CHOP objects directly.
Editor Mode
It was a requested feature by many of you. We are glad to announce that you can now run TouchEngine Components directly from within the editor, without having to hit the Play button or package your game. They are limitations when it comes to debugging in that mode, but it enables fast prototyping, debugging, and instant tweaks.
Parameter Nodes
When you want to work with Parameters, you can now use dedicated nodes: Set / Get TouchEngine Parameter. The previous nodes that you are familiar with (Set / Get TouchEngine Input / Output) still work for Inputs / Outputs. You don’t have to use the confusing prefixes anymore such as p/, o/ and i/. Just use the input / output operators names or the custom parameters names directly when working with Parameter Nodes.
New Events
Some new events are exposed on the TouchEngine Component.
The new Begin Play and End Play events are similar to what you now have in vanilla blueprints, but they should be preferred if you want those events to trigger also in Editor mode when you Enable the loading of the TouchEngine directly within the editor.
Some other events were renamed to be a bit more clear and self explanatory. See docs for details.
Samples
The Unreal Engine project sample map was reworked to better categorize the samples. The samples are not numbered anymore but simply named and sorted in a matching category. i.e. If a sample aim to showcase how to work with Parameters, it will be in the parameter category. They are a few new samples to showcase parameters workflows, and especially CHOP workflows. All samples were overall tweaked and reworked to accommodate some of the new features and some comments were added, especially in the first few samples that introduce new ideas.
Please let us know in the comments below if you wish to have a sample on something specific, bite sized, or if you wish to submit a sample.
Documentation rework
There was a massive documentation rework. Some screenshots were added, some new pages, a new landing page, more details in places… We recommend going through it, both in the Plugin repository as well as in the Samples repository and it should help you get started.
Other changes and improvements
You can have a look at the complete changelog or the git history if you wish to have all the details, as there were many smaller changes, improvements and bug fixes all around the plugin and samples. The list is long, reflecting the amount of work and care pushed by the plugin development team.
Next
Moving forward, we will bring future features to UE5.2 and above only. Unless there is a major issue in an ongoing project with no workaround available, consider the plugin version 1.1.2 to be the latest and final release against UE5.1.
Behind the scenes, the team has been working hard at improving overall stability with sync modes. This will be our next major update.
We have been working on various experiments around nDisplay as well to make sure that the plugin does support the cluster features of nDisplay when necessary. This is a work-in-progress and ongoing development.
Improvements to DATs in Unreal is on our list of upcoming features: we want to bring the DAT workflows closer to the new CHOP workflows.
Aside from those, we have various core plugin improvements we wish to work on to improve the overall stability as well as small UX improvements and known issues.
That’s a wrap
We hope that you enjoy this new version and we can’t wait to see what you create with it. Please feel free to share your work with us in the comments below. If you have any questions, requests, or if you found a bug this is a good place as well. Thanks!
