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Unreal Engine 4 plugin for communicating with SSI via Blueprints

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UE4-SSI

SSI plugin for Unreal Engine 4 to send and receive SSI events and streams with blueprints!

SSI is a framework for social signal interpretation (hence SSI) from the University of Augsburg. More information at https://hcm-lab.de/projects/ssi/.

It uses oscpack, a C++ library for packing/unpacking OSC messages, by Ross Bencina. http://www.rossbencina.com/code/oscpack

Integration

Install Visual Studio 2015 on Windows (Community edition works) or XCode on MaxOSX.

Create a "C++" project, or convert a "Blueprint" project to "C++".

Create a "Plugins" directory in the project root (near the "Content" directory) and put the "SSI" folder of the plugin in it. (e.g. "/MyProject/Plugins/SSI")

Run the "*.uproject" file: the plugin is compiled automatically.

Alternatively, right-clic the "*.uproject" to generate Visual Studio or XCode project files.

Usage

Streams

Streams are logged via the components tick methods. The logging frequency can be set via the component's TickInterval.

Location

The location p = (x, y, z) is send to SSI as the 3 consecutive float values x, y, and z representing the logger's world location in euclidean coordinates.

Rotation

The rotation q = (x, y, z, w) is send to SSI as the 4 consecutive float values x, y, z, and w representing the logger's rotation as a quaternion in world space.

Transform

The unscaled transform of an object is send to SSI as a concatenation of the object's location and rotation (x, y, z, qx, qy, qz, qw).

Sender

Set the "Send Targets" addresses in the plugin settings. (Edit/Project Settings/Plugins/OSC)

You can also add new targets dynamically, using the "Add Send Osc Target" function. It is especially useful for "ping"-like behavior.

Send a single message with "Send Osc" or a bundle of messages with "Send Osc Bundle".

The "Send Osc" function takes: the OSC address, the OSC parameters and the "target index" of the destination.

Build the OSC parameters for a message:

  • chain PushFloat/Int/Bool/String/Blob functions, or
  • fill an array of "Osc Data Elem" with the standard array functions and the FromFloat/Int/Bool/String/Blob functions.

The "target index" refers to an index in the "Send Targets" array in the settings, or to the result of the "Add Send Osc Target" function.

Inputs (experimental)

List the messages that should be UE4 inputs (like a game controller). A new input is created for each message.

Bind OSC inputs to UE4 action in the usual "Input" project settings.

General information

Known issues

The plugin currently only supports the UDP protocol.

Troubleshooting

The plugin uses the standard UE4 logging system.

Check your logs (Window/Developers Tools/Output Log) before asking for help!

String limitation

Historically, the plugin handles OSC string using "FName". Unfortunately, the length of a "FName" is limited to 1024 characters. So this plugin does not handle long strings correctly.

If you need long strings, prefer using blobs.

Blob

The OSC protocol supports buffers as "blob".

This plugin implements them as "Array". It plays nicely with the "Extended Standard Library" plugin by "Low Entry".

Engine version

The current version of the plugin was developed with the Unreal Engine version 4.19.2.

If the plugin does not work/build for the current version, feel free to create an issue or email me!

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