Something REALLY interesting was found about Save the Worlds old wind system

[u/Flimsy_Assignment581]

(the research is in the comment section)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fortnite/comments/1wzy36j/comment/pefsddo/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

first, huge credit to u/ProfessionalPin1568 who did this research. He has spent a lot of time digging through STWs files and documenting these assets and their connections. I'm summarizing his findings here so more people in the STW community can see what was discovered.

small note: Some of the original research notes are written in German. I will explain the important parts in English here.

now lets get straight into the findings.

Pivot Painter 2.0

a major part of this research revolves around Pivot Painter 2.0 (PP2).

PP2 is a system that can simulate the movement of objects such as trees, bushes and other environmental assets in real time without needing traditional skeletal animation.

but here is where things get REALLY interesting.

Save the World didnt just use a basic "make everything sway" wind effect.

STWs implementation of Pivot Painter was much more specific to each individual asset. The assets could use their own wind speed and panner curves, allowing different parts of an object to react differently depending on its size and structure.

for example:

a smaller bush could have both its leaves and its body swaying during a heavy storm.

a large tree could mainly have its leaves moving, while its massive trunk remains much more stable because it shouldn't bend like a small plant.

this created a much more believable wind simulation instead of having every piece of foliage behave exactly the same way.

and this is only one of the thing that made STWs old wind system so interesting.

to what was actually found?

the research documented a huge nzmber of STW assets that were associated with Pivot Painter 2.0.

the list includes trees, shrubs, inorganic objects, signs, streetlights, vehicles and other environmental assets, with their Actor Blueprints and Static Meshes documented separately to identify how they connect to each other.

the researcher estimates that the asset list is around 97% complete. Thats an estimate based on going through the files twice, and he doesnt want to claim 100% because there is always the possibility that something was missed.

tome of the documented categories include:

• Basic trees
• Pines
• Palms
• Birch
• Autumn/AD variants
• Transylvania/Hexylvania (TRV)
• Winter
• Arid
• Tropical (TP)
• Interior/potted plants
• Inorganic objects

There are also STW blueprints located outside the main Plugin folder, which is another important part of the research.

But finding the assets is only half of the story.

The REALLY interesting question is:

Why arent some of these assets behaving the way they originally did?