Creating static meshes programmatically

[schotime]

We need to generate static meshes programmatically, and would like to do it in c#.
There are possibly two ways to do it as far as I can see.

1. Invoke a CLR function that uses the managed API's to generate the mesh and add to the world
2. Return an array of points (via variables or other mechanism) to the blueprint and generate from within there.

Let me know if there are other ways or you have a better suggestion.
Thx.

[nxrighthere]

I'll look into this after I finish relocation and IRL stuff.

[schotime]

No probs. Good luck with the move. 👍

[nxrighthere]

@schotime I'm still busy IRL but started to dig into this. So you would like to use UProceduralMeshComponent as far as I understand to generate meshes at runtime? From what I read, people prefer this custom implementation since it has more features and probably works better in terms of performance. Have you tried it?

[jimboc1]

We haven't tried it, but we came to same conclusion - that RMC is the way to go, especially as Epic recently granted it and Epic loves people supporting granted projects and gives them grants. 😉

Please let us know if there's anything we can do to help.

[nxrighthere]

Right. So after you give it a try, I'd like to know what you would like to have in the UnrealCLR API for your particular project to generate meshes from managed code, if required.

[jimboc1]

Shall do, thanks. I spent a bit of time today going through it - it's quite impressive. I'll do a few examples of what we initially wish to do via C++ and then let you know what we'd love to see in the UnrealCLR API.

[IceReaper]

Joining in. Any possible way to create map geometry and load models / materials / ... from filesystem via c# and using the UE for rendering only is highly appreciated.

[nxrighthere]

My goal would be to provide interoperability with RuntimeMeshComponent, because from what I see, this is what people prefer over built-in UProceduralMeshComponent. I need some feedback about it to get an idea of how I can help.

[jimboc1]

An update on this - @schotime and I have now implemented dynamic mesh creation in C++ with the RMC sdk. It's working well and very promising. I could list some required bindings now, but as you indicated you've got a move in progress and will be time challenged until January, we thought we continue implementing to discover more of what we'd need rather than continually bugging you for more bindings. For example, we've done mesh creation, material assignment, UVs and manual LODs, but not colliders or physics.

But please let us know if you'd prefer to get more of a MVP implementation going earlier so you can indicate RMC compatibility, and we'll start implementing alongside in c#.

Thanks

[nxrighthere]

Thanks for the info!

I think it's possible to make RuntimeMeshComponent work with 3rd-party libraries like SharpGLTF and so on.

As for textures importing at runtime and assigning them to materials, it's supported with Texture2D API. See constructors for creation from a raw PNG, JPEG, BMP, or EXR byte buffer or file.

[schotime]

hey @nxrighthere, just following this issue up. Is there a way to get some of these API's exposed so we could expose more or this is something you're likely to look at soon. We'd be happy to help out on the implementation if that were possibly once the base had been done, to give us something to work from, but this C++ thing is really slowing us down now, so it would be good to have a solution without it. thx.

[nxrighthere]

@schotime You mean exposing UProceduralMeshComponent? Please, provide more information on where you get stuck in your pipeline.

[schotime]

I mean RMC, but at the moment its these.

• RuntimeMeshComponent,
• Interactive Tools Framework
• MeshModelingToolset plugin

[nxrighthere]

Exposing functionality of 3rd-party plugins to managed code is problematic and I have certain concerns about maintainability and future updates of the engine which often breaks compatibility. This is a low-priority task for now.

What might help as a general-purpose solution is using blueprints as a glue between plugins and managed code, but #33 should be finished for this.