rdInst FAQ
Last Updated: 15th April 2024
Q. Do you need rdInst installed once the StaticMesh/Actor/Components are created?
A. Yes, rdInst is a runtime plugin and is needed for those objects, and needs to be packaged with your project.
Q. Will you be providing on-going support for building rdInst on new versions of UE?
A. Yes, I will provide updates for new versions of UE as quickly as possible. I also provide support for building in custom builds.
Q. Is rdInst compatible with Linux?
A. Yes, rdInst is compatible with Linux.
Q. Is rdInst compatible with Mac?
A. It has not been tested, but it should build and run fine. If anyone runs into problems I will provide solutions.
Q. Is rdInst compatible with Android and IOS?
A. It has been tested on Android and works correctly. It has not been tested on IOS, but it should build and run fine. If anyone runs into problems I will provide solutions.
Q. My Packaged build is not working with rdInst
A. Copy the rdInst plugin into your project, e.g. MyProject/Plugins/rdInst
Q. Can you post some FPS comparisons of spawning actors with and without the plugin?
A. Spawning Actors is comparable to Blueprint, but when implementing conversion to Instances and assimilation with rdInst, it reduced the set up time to an average of 0.9% of non-instances.
The Spawn system itself will only be slightly faster than Blueprint – it’s just adding them to the level in the same way Blueprint does.
The benefits for Spawning from rdInst are that you can spawn from the Construction Script, and all Spawned Actors and Actor Components are managed – you can call functions to remove all existing actors/components you’ve spawned for a specific actor.
What I’ve added to combat large spawn times is to write an “Assimilation” system where you can merge many actors into one, that just shows all their static meshes as instances. This is what the Motel demo does, I’ve converted the walls, roof, floors and randomly placed scatter into one actor, and the doors and triggers are left as actors – it speeds editing up no end! It would also speed up any type of spawning system if you can combine multiple actors into one.
If you’re generating random data for those actors – rdInst can speed that up by large amounts.
Also – if you’re spawning those actors into rooms – Something that can dramatically optimize your level is if you re-use a small set of rooms over and over – just randomizing the contents and then moving the room into place.
Another way that rdInst could potentially speed up spawning is if the actors you’re spawning have their static meshes converted to rdInst Instances – once you’ve set up one actors instances – any more of those actors you spawn can just add more instances to the already generated Instance Managers.