rdInst Tutorial 6.14 – Pickups and Highlights

Last Edited: 29th April 2025
Tutorial created using rdInst version 1.50

rdInst version 1.50 introduces built-in Pickups and Highlighting.

This is built into the existing scan system so comes virtually for free – and turns any StaticMesh instance into a fully interactive PickUp (non-physics).

The Pickup Highlighting can be either proximity or LookAt based (combinations of both on different meshes is supported) and can be done using either Stencil Buffers, or the “Inverted Hull” technique which fits in perfectly with proxy swapping. No extra mesh, Post Process Volume, Stencil Buffers or details are required – rdInst and the highlight material do all the work.

Communication with your Player Blueprint is done by hooking delegates – one for when a pickup is looked at (so you can display some text and filter if it is to be picked up (e.g. full inventory)) and one for when an “overlap” type pickup has been picked up.

This topic has already been discussed in Tutorial 2.4 – AutoPickups, and an example project showing pickups working from actors directly added to the level.

The tutorial here will start from that example and expand it by adding a rdProceduralActor with spawned Pickups, and a PCG volume spawning another type of pickup.

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Step 1. Open up the level from Tutorial 2.4

First step is to either load or create the level from Tutorial 2.4, it has a couple of benches with some products laid on top.

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Step 2. Create an rdProceduralActor to spawn coins

Now add a rdProceduralActor to the level from the Actor Panel or Menu.

Locate the Coin Mesh in the Content Browser, right-click on it and select “rdInst -> Proxy Settings”.

Step 3. Create a PCG Script to spawn health pickups

Now create a new PCG