A piece of knowledge to embrace. http://turbanov.ru/wiki/ 2026-04-16T19:45:08+00:00 http://turbanov.ru/wiki/ http://turbanov.ru/wiki/_media/logo.svg text/html 2022-01-05T09:55:39+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/architecture?rev=1641376539&do=diff Apparatus Architecture Overview Apparatus is a complex tool. It’s more of a framework with its own ecosystem then a simple plugin. In order to use it effectively and consciously you have to understand how it actually works. We’re not talking about the very specifics of the implementation however but the main top-level architectural concepts. Let us begin our acquaintance with a top level text/html 2023-01-14T12:15:34+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/beginner?rev=1673698534&do=diff Apparatus: Beginner's Guide In this prolonged tutorial we will talk about using the Apparatus plugin inside Unreal Engine. You will create your first detail and implement the game mechanics in a special Blueprint class. We will demonstrate the most important features on the example of a simple two-dimensional platformer. text/html 2023-08-01T09:19:46+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/blueprint-nativization?rev=1690881586&do=diff Blueprint Nativization Support Current State of Things Unfortunately, as of version 5.0, the Blueprint Nativization was officially deprecetated. This perhaps was motivated by the lack of support for certain operations (nodes), even by the stock engine features. We however hope that the Unreal development team will rethink on this decision as this renders Blueprints a lot less performant (and thereby less usable) in certain scenarios that were formely well covered by Apparatus. text/html 2022-06-08T19:06:53+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/deferred?rev=1654715213&do=diff Deferred Operations (Deferreds) It’s no secret and if fact by design, that you can’t execute methods that change a Subject’s structure when using the Solid semantics. That essentially means you can only change the state of the individual Traits themselves, but not add nor remove the Traits themselves. The main advantage of the Solid enchaining is that it provides for the concurrent text/html 2022-01-05T10:59:39+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/detail?rev=1641380379&do=diff Detail Details are the main building data blocks in Apparatus. They are high-level entities (unlike Traits), which support some additional ECS+ functionality like multi-iterating and inheritance. Details do derive from UObject and are subject to garbage collecting and Unreal text/html 2022-06-07T08:07:20+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/ecs-glossary?rev=1654589240&do=diff Apparatus Glossary Apparatus provides all of the basic ECS idioms and even more. To be unambiguous (and self-sustained) our framework uses a somewhat different naming scheme as compared to the classic ECS. Here is the list of the terms used throughout this manual: text/html 2021-12-18T12:19:51+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/ecs?rev=1639829991&do=diff Introduction to ECS OOP Quirks & Limitations Prior to exploring the ECS main concepts, we should address the object-oriented programming (OOP) pattern and some of the issues related to it. That’s because the current state of Unreal Engine’s user-level API is basically OOP-based. Even the actor text/html 2022-07-18T15:12:30+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/enchaining?rev=1658157150&do=diff Enchaining Enchaining is a process of selecting a subset of Chunks (or Belts) based on a certain Filter criteria. Once they are Enchained the corresponding Belts and Chunks are becoming locked, i.e. any structural changes become minimized for the sake of consistent text/html 2022-08-18T14:06:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/extended-tutorial?rev=1660831593&do=diff Sorry, but I can not continue to work on this tutorial, cause I have not enough time. Maybe I will go back and end with this a bit later.👋 You can find a project source at github. Apparatus: Extended Guide In this second tutorial, we will talk about using the Apparatus plugin inside Unreal Engine 5 in a deep. We will create a full fireman game. The goal of the player is to put out at least half of all the wood blocks until his house wouldn text/html 2023-01-12T10:01:45+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/features?rev=1673517705&do=diff Apparatus Features The current list of features includes: * Fundamentally ECS. A complete Unreal Engine integration of the data-oriented workflow. * Loyal to the ecosystem. Both C++ and Blueprint development paths are supported. * Best of two worlds. Flexible UObject-based text/html 2022-06-07T20:18:24+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/filter?rev=1654633104&do=diff Filtering Filtering represents a way to narrow down the iterating (or operating) process down to Entities with only certain combinations of Components (or the lack of). The filtering specification is represented by a special data structure called Filter. Filtering can be both text/html 2021-12-06T19:50:22+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/flagmark?rev=1638820222&do=diff Flagmarks A flagmark is a lightweight per-Subject fixed set of flags. You could meet a different terminology in other engines like “tag components” or “flag components” for a similar functionaly. In Apparatus it is essentially a 32-bit integer that can be trivially tested at runtime. text/html 2022-06-05T12:26:41+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/iterating?rev=1654432001&do=diff Iterating In order to implement your actual Mechanic logic you have to be able to process all of the Filter-matching Subjects (and Subjectives, which are in turn - Subjects). For the purpose of effectiveness (and consistency) this is mainly done through Chains. You iterate those Chains by iterating through all the Subjects and Subjectives inside them. text/html 2021-06-18T19:23:15+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/mechanical?rev=1624044195&do=diff Mechanical ECS clearly separates the data and the logic operating on that data. This logic in turn is usually executed on an iterative per-frame basis. Apparatus implements this animation-like functionality via a concept called Mechanical. Mechanicals are complex in nature and comprise multiple Mechanics that are executed inside of them. text/html 2021-12-30T17:52:53+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/mechanism?rev=1640886773&do=diff Mechanisms Mechanisms are the main parts of the Machine which contain scoped Subject, Subjectives, Chunks and Belts. You enchain the matching Iterables via Mechanisms, so these also actually manage the Chains. Each UE World, that has any Apparatus-specific entities is accompanied by a Mechanism automatically, you don text/html 2022-05-13T10:07:16+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/naming-conventions?rev=1652436436&do=diff Naming Conventions There are certain naming conventions used within the framework. You should be aware of them, since they actually denote a certain behavioral semantics. Those are usually featured across both C++ and BP workflows. Terms Get – acquire some property value (or an item) in a direct manner, without performing any sophisticated time-consuming searches or calculations. text/html 2021-11-27T19:47:21+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/networking?rev=1638042441&do=diff Networking While the manual is being written, here is a quick-start guy. Quick-Start Guide * Create your own Player Controller Blueprint. * Add our built-in Network Bearer component to it. This will be the network mediator and must be present in order to push traits to the plain non-Subjective Subjects. text/html 2023-01-14T10:13:01+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/operating?rev=1673691181&do=diff Operating The newer and more robust way of handle your chains is through the process called operating. C++ Workflow Using a Lambda You can easily operate on your chain via a C++ lambda and this is how you do it: Note that you’re not allowed to acquire a reference to the trait while processing a non-solid chain, only its copy. So in order to operate on a solid chain, you could do something like this: text/html 2022-06-08T18:45:34+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/patterns?rev=1654713934&do=diff Common Patterns Singleton (Unique) Sometimes you need to get an instance of a certain Subject that has a globally unique combination of Traits. This can be thought of something like a singleton pattern within a classical OOP approach. You can totally achieve that with the help of a simple method like this: text/html 2023-03-24T12:43:03+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/rendering?rev=1679661783&do=diff Rendering Techniques Rendering some massive crowds can be challenging. Our official Apparatist utility kit already contains a Trait Renderer Component, that manages the rendering of the entities with a common Trait through Instanced Static Meshes. Animations Check out this video on using text/html 2021-10-30T09:35:03+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/solidity?rev=1635586503&do=diff Solidity Apparatus implements an additional compile-time and runtime semantic which is called solidity (or being solid). The solidity state is assigned per each Mechanism of the Machine individually. This is managed automatically, during the enchaining operation. When the Mechanism is in a solid state, you are not allowed to perform any structural changes to your Subjects and Subjectives, i.e. you can text/html 2021-04-08T19:24:04+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/steady-tick?rev=1617909844&do=diff Steady Ticking Almost all video-games (and thereby game engines) have a common technique for iterating on the game process. The game is basically run in a loop. This loop is thereby called a game loop. On each iteration of this loop the game should prepare and actualize the state of the game for rendering and perform the graphics rendering itself. These iterations are called Ticks within Unreal Engine. They are like a heartbeat to your game. text/html 2022-05-05T13:59:47+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/subject-record?rev=1651759187&do=diff Subject Records Subjects being low-level are essentially runtime-only entities and can not be serialized directly. A special kind of Subject should be used instead. These are called Subject Records. Subject Records are essentially storable and editable entities which are not text/html 2021-12-06T19:36:13+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/subject?rev=1638819373&do=diff Subjects. The Low-Level Entities Subjects are the foundational lightweight entities managed by Apparatus. They are mostly UE-independent and consist of Traits and Flags. Subject Handles Subjects are not used directly and their internals are hidden deep from the framework user text/html 2021-09-20T14:58:59+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/subjective?rev=1632149939&do=diff High-level Subjectives Subjectives are basically containers for Details. Unlike their lower-level Subjects, Subjectives are actually UObjects and are part of Unreal’s own infrastructure. Different kinds of Subjectives are provided by Apparatus, depending on their relation to text/html 2022-06-07T07:53:56+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) http://turbanov.ru/wiki/en/toolworks/docs/apparatus/trait?rev=1654588436&do=diff Trait Traits are low-level data blocks (components) comprising subjects. Unlike Details, Traits are plain UStruct data. They are managed manually by the framework in a cache-efficient manner and mainly targeted towards the runtime performance. Changing Traits