One Easy Way to Manipulate Instanced Meshes (HexGrid Devlog)

Swapping instanced meshes for static actors and back again is not as difficult as you might think.

In the next devlog tutorial video of our Unreal Engine 5 HexGrid series, we’re beginning our system for hex tile manipulation by clicking on tiles and making adjustments in-game.

In this episode, we’ll touch on a few important concepts including:

- How to detect the Item ID of instances within an instanced mesh
- How to swap an instance with a static mesh actor and back
- How to create an edit mode
- How to shift the camera when clicking on tiles
- How to maintain tile details during the mesh/actor swap
- How to adjust the height of any tile in the map and save that data into the instanced mesh

This system will work for UE4 or UE5 but I'm working in Unreal Engine 5.0.3.

Other HexGrid Episodes:

E01 - Creating a HexGrid System in Unreal Engine:    • Creating a HexGrid System in Unreal E...  
E02 - 250,000 Random Terrain Tiles in Unreal:    • 250,000 Random HexGrid Tiles in Unrea...  
E03 - Generating Procedural Hexgrid Maps in Unreal:
   • Generating Procedural HexGrid Maps in...  
E04 - Top Down Camera Made Easy in Unreal Engine:
   • Top Down Camera Made Easy in Unreal E...  
E05 - One Easy Way to Manipulate Instanced Meshes
   • One Easy Way to Manipulate Instanced ...  

If you would like to download the files for the Unreal project, you can visit the StayAtHomeDev Discord and check out the # tutorial-files channel.

StayAtHomeDev Discord:   / discord  

Chapters:

0:00 Start
0:17 Intro
1:15 Key Points in the Development Process
4:24 Deep Dive into the Blueprint Code
7:29 Swapping Instanced Mesh for Static Actor
11:58 Overview of Features

PC Specs:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-core CPU
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070

Programs Used:
Unreal Engine 5.0.3
Blender 2.8
OBS
DaVinci Resolve
Adobe Photoshop
PreSonus Studio One

My Gear:
Panasonic G7
Panasonic 15-33mm lens
Shure MV7X XLR Mic
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
Samson Boom Mic Stand
Elgato Stream Deck Mk II
Elgato Cam Link 4K
Elgato Multi Mount (camera)
Elgato Key Light Air (2x)

#unreal #hexgrid #devlog