Unreal Engine fun continues...
so I need to set limits to rotations within a skeletal mesh. So in other programms, like blender, you can specify a limit per axis, setting max and min angle. Makes sense, right?

Unreal Engine:
1. Let's call rotations sometimes xyz, sometimes roll pitch yaw, and sometimes swing1 swing2 and twist so that nobody knows what it is anymore.
2. IK node 1: limits? what are limits?
3. IK node 2: ok, you can set angular limits but they are all symmetrical to god knows what and to all axis apperently.
4. Physics: yeah you can define joint constraints but we give you only symmetrical constraints also
....
WHY. Were does this make any sense? One node is not like the other, and they talk rotations but use 100 different terms for them, since, hey, why the f not. And let's limit everything symmetricly so you can only set one value or have to fiddle with offsets to achive the range of movement you want.

I mean, one could just stick to xyz (or even roll/pitch/yaw, whatever) and min/max but hey, that's one extra field and then it would be easy to use. Who would want that? ....

!rant real talk though.

I am frustrated. Lately i have been having a slow time on the job, and it somehow dulled me down a lot.

In games you often have to think about transforms and rotations and offsets and hell knows what else.

I am usually pretty good at 3d object manipulation, it's one of those IQ test skills i generally score well on.

However lately i have not been able to come up with jack shit, i am simply unable to coherently think through a set of positioning and rotation changes to aquire the correct outcome for a mechanic and it pisses me off.

I have to fall back to slow as all hell trial and error and i don't even know what to do otherwise. It's been months now, do i have brain cancer or some shit? Arrrrrrg!

trying to rotate the character in Unreal Engine based on player input. It rotates around some sort of super weird point, so it looks like it's driving "backwards" while rotating, instead of rotating around the center of the mesh... sigh..
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Solution: pass down the rotation value to the animation blueprint, rotate rootbone.
SUCK IT <.< See? it's not that hard, nor awkward. ffs.

we write cryptic symbols and modify bytes somewhere so that every 30 or so rotations of the planet, some other bytes somewhere else are modified to add to make a number larger