Tag: wolf

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Unreal Engine Breakthrough: My Next Big Project Unveiled!

For nearly two years, I’ve been immersed in small projects and commissions within UE5, yet I’ve never fully committed to creating something truly my own—something worth sharing. From the moment I first dabbled with Project RPG Alpha (dont worry I still have that toiling away somewhere), my humble RPG Maker game, the thought of evolving it into a fully-fledged Unreal Engine experience has lingered in my mind. But as I poured myself into that project, a new, insistent idea began to take root, demanding my attention, refusing to be ignored.

That was a 3rd person / top down action/RPG game, Lets have a bit of a back story.

My love for old-school games runs deep, rooted in countless hours spent on the Commodore 64, and evolving with each new generation of console and PC alike. Among those early treasures, The Last Ninja II by System 3 held a special place in my heart—a masterpiece that captivated my imagination. I’ve long believed this iconic game deserved a rebirth in a modern engine, and many have tried to bring it back to life. Yet, each attempt has been silenced by cease-and-desist orders, as System 3 fiercely guards their stake in this legendary title.

last ninja II on the commodore 64

Last Ninja II – Commodore 64


As a game developer, especially in the indie scene, I fully understand the importance of protecting IP and copyright—they’re the lifeblood of our industry. So, I decided to put the idea on hold, at least for now. But then, another light-bulb moment struck: why not create a shooter from a similar perspective? My mind instantly flashed back to the thrill of playing Cannon Fodder as a kid—the addictive music, the nonstop action—it had everything I loved in a game. Yet, what really stuck with me was the iconic main menu: the green hill dotted with the graves of your fallen soldiers, while new recruits marched down to the recruitment barracks. This haunting image left a mark on me, and now, I’m driven to recreate that atmosphere—but with my own twist, breathing new life into that nostalgic memory.

Cannon Fodder

Without revealing too much—after all, IP is sacred—I’m aiming to reinvent this concept with a fresh twist. Imagine a game where your player-created character isn’t the only hero—other playable characters come with their own status, ranks, experience points, and the looming threat of perma-death. I’m also toying with a POW mechanic that adds an intense layer of strategy: rescuing captured comrades and returning them to your ranks, knowing full well that each mission could be their last. It’s a dynamic, high-stakes world where every decision could mean the difference between victory and permanent loss.

Enter: Project ProtoFodder

Once again, protecting IP is key, so ProtoFodder is just a working title—a nod to the inspiration driving this project. I wanted this game to be a true reflection of my vision, so I started from scratch with a blank UE5 project, building everything from the ground up. For now, I’m using models from the marketplace and Sketchfab, allowing me to focus on prototyping the core game mechanics. But before I could dive into that, I needed to establish the basics—a functional level and a solid movement system—to lay the foundation for what’s to come.

I began by crafting a basic floor plan and pinpointing the ideal location for the starting area. From there, I partitioned off various sections, realizing I needed a dedicated space for spawning enemies. It was crucial to avoid the pitfall of designing an expansive test level only to later struggle with integrating the movement and aiming systems. My focus was on creating a functional environment that would allow me to fine-tune these mechanics effectively before expanding further.

I shifted my focus, diving into the technical setup by organizing a dedicated folder for my AI components. I integrated an IMC and mapped out the movement keys, then moved on to the Character Blueprint to refine the aiming-at-cursor system. The results were promising—my character could now navigate the environment while tracking the cursor with precision. It was a significant milestone, marking the successful implementation of a core feature.

To cut to the chase, after nailing down the look-at-cursor system, I turned my attention to testing the weapon aiming mechanics. I created a crosshair cursor and equipped my character with a pistol to see how it would handle. That’s when I hit my first major roadblock: the line trace. I set up two trace points—one from the pelvis and another from the barrel of the pistol—but quickly realized the trace from the barrel wasn’t intersecting with the crosshair. This misalignment meant that shots fired at enemies wouldn’t hit where the player aimed, presenting a critical challenge I needed to overcome.

No matter what I tried—tweaking aim offsets, adjusting parameters—I just couldn’t get my character to aim precisely at the cursor. I suspected the issue lay with the camera angle, but I couldn’t figure out how to resolve it. Up until now, my experience had been with third-person, first-person, or top-down games—never one where the camera was set at a distance with such an unconventional angle. It was a frustrating challenge, one that pushed me to confront the limits of my knowledge and forced me to think beyond my usual approaches.


My progress ground to a halt. Countless hours bled into frustration as I tried every possible approach to perfect the look-at-cursor function. I scoured forums, dug through endless YouTube tutorials, hoping for a breakthrough. But no matter what I did, nothing worked.

In the end, I gave up.

Breakthrough

It had been nearly two months since I last opened my project, and the frustration had drained even my desire to work on my RPG game. I haven’t mentioned this on my blog before, but I’m a tertiary education teacher, specializing in general IT and game development. Recently, during a lecture on game development using UE5, a student asked a question. Though it wasn’t directly related to my issue, the way they phrased it sparked an epiphany—ray tracing!


I had been stuck on line tracing all this time, but then it hit me—why not use ray tracing from the camera to the plane and create an intersection to fix the cursor problem? Math has never been my strong suit, so I did some Googling and pieced together a solution from various sources. With a bit of trial and error, I managed to set up a ray trace to line intersection.

Ray tracing to line intersection is all about precision. Instead of relying on basic line tracing from the character to the cursor, I realized I could leverage a more sophisticated approach. By casting a ray from the camera—essentially a straight line—to the game’s plane, I could calculate the exact point where that ray intersects. This intersection gives a true point of reference for where the cursor actually is in 3D space, perfectly aligning the aim. It’s a more complex solution, but one that ensures the character’s aim hits exactly where the player intends. It took some research and a bit of cobbling together, but it finally brought everything into focus.


Vola! With the new system in place, my shots finally hit their mark, bringing those pesky enemies down with precision. Since then, I’ve made significant progress, even overhauling the older weapon system—but that’s a story for another time.

Sometimes, all it takes is stepping away, letting your mind clear, and trusting that the solution will eventually reveal itself.

Until next time!

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Unreal Engine Vault Cache Location

Running out of local diskspace?

Unreal Engine’s Marketplace boasts an extensive array of assets, providing creators with a rich palette to enhance their projects. However, the process of downloading and incorporating these assets into your projects comes with a caveat: the accumulation of data in your Vault cache. As these assets are added to your Vault cache before being imported into specified projects, the cache can grow substantially over time. By default, Unreal Engine deposits these files in your user directory, leading to a potential strain on your primary OS drive’s disk space

How do i do it?

Well its a lot simpler then you may think, Fire up Epic games and click on Unreal engine, the option on the left. It will most likely load to the News tab or the Marketplace tab so at the top change it to Library.

If you have a lot of projects installed you will need to scroll down but you should see a divider and the title says VAULT. Here you will see a filter by option and the right of that will be the amount of space the vault is taking up.

The simplest of solutions would be to remove the vault files you are no longer using unless they are files you share between projects or regularly use for new projects as these files already exist in your project folders. so you can click the yellow drop down arrow and select remove local content.

Below each plugin/ package it will show you the space that it takes up on your drive.

Now, what you have been waiting for. To change the vault cache location select settings on the left and towards the bottom of the new window you will see Edit Vault Cache Location.

A Vault location screen will appear and you can use the Browse button to change the location of the cache, go ahead and click on it.

A windows explorer window will open and you can point it in the direction of where you now want to store it. I suggest a non-primary drive or external drive with sufficient space.

Conclusion

In conclusion, by relocating your Vault cache, you’ve taken a significant step towards optimizing your system’s performance. This simple adjustment frees up precious space on your primary drive, alleviating the burden that once caused your rig to stutter and slow down. No longer will you find yourself perplexed by the ominous red line signaling dwindling disk space. Instead, you can revel in the newfound efficiency and speed of your workflow, unencumbered by storage woes. It’s a small change with a substantial impact, ensuring that you can focus on unleashing your creative vision without the distraction of storage constraints

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Sink or Swim: Navigating Water in UE5

Why?

Having a swimming mechanic will add a lot of volume to any game. In the vast expanse of game design, the inclusion of a swimming mechanic not only expands the horizons of gameplay but also delves into uncharted depths of immersion. By integrating swimming mechanics, game worlds become boundless oceans teeming with exploration opportunities. Imagine traversing expansive bodies of water, uncovering hidden treasures beneath the waves, or embarking on epic underwater quests. The addition of swimming mechanics introduces a dynamic dimension to gameplay, enabling players to access locations that would otherwise be unreachable.

Required Files

Retargeted animations from mixamo:

SwimmingAnimations.zipDownload

Process

Setting up the level and adding the water body.

To swim we of course need a body of water to use. So we need to enable the water plugin. Goto Edit > plugins and search water. Enable water (experimental) and then restart the editor.

When it restarts if you see this error make sure you scroll the the left and click on the add entry to Defaultengine.ini – this is important!

Create a basic level > remove the floor > add a basic landscape and enable edit layers.

Now we have our land scape lets add water, go to the quick add > all classes > type water > water body ocean. (or water of your choice)

If you have a problem where you cant see the water or a beach etc, it maybe the position of your waterbody and the landscape. You may need to make sure they overlap by selecting them in the outliner and moving them around and adjusting the height.

Once you can see it lets adjust the area by making a small island, to do this we can adjust the area by clicking and then moving the splines > lets just make a small island.

When we enter the water we can not swim. That’s because we don’t have anything setup to tell it how to work. If you end up walking on top of the water click on the water body in the outliner, select the physics tab and scroll down till you see Collison presents. change this option to WaterBodyCollisions

Setting up the character blueprint

Open the Character blueprint you are using.

Create two custom events called Start swimming and Stop swimming.

Lets create start swimming first, get character movement from the components menu and drag it just below the event.

from the movement node > Get player volume > set water volume > Tick water volume >

Create a new var isSwimming (boolean) > Connect it to the water volume > Tick isSwimming?

From the set swimming > Change movement mode > add character movement > change movement mode to swimming

Copy and paste everything except the event and connect it to the stop swimming. {Untick the water volume and isSwimming? And change movement mode to walking)

Swimming movement.

Next we need to modify the movement input (this is already in the blueprint.)

Find the movement input section of the blueprint and drag the IA_Move node to the left to make some space

We are going to drag in the character movement from the components section > Get movement mode > switch on EMovementMode

Connect IA_move to the Emovementmode. Click on the reveal arrow and Connect walking pin and falling pin to the existing movement blueprint. (you can make a junction/move joint and connect falling there)

Copy and paste the add movement input below the existing one.

Get control rotation > Get forward vector > World orientation (new movement input)

Connect the swimming option from our movementmode to the movement input

Connect the Y axis from the IA_Move to the movement input.

Compile and save.

Setting up the water body.

If we were to test the function of swimming now nothing would really happen as we have yet to tell the game when to start and when to stop the swimming events. To do this we need to go back to the main screen and in the outliner select WaterBodyOcean.

Next to the add button click on the blueprint button and a create blueprint dialog box will open up.

Leave the name if you would like and click on the select button and the blueprint will be created. The blueprint should open. Select event graph and delete event tick.

We now need to add a new event called ActorEndOverlap to get this event you may have to click on the ActorBeginOverlap event already on the blueprint.

ActorBeginOverlap > Cast to BP_ThirdPersonCharacter (or what ever is your character blueprint) > As BP thirdperson > Start swimming.

Repeat this process for the ActorEndOverlap however instead of Start swimming do Stop swimming. Except the event nodes.

while we are here we also should change the collision value other wise when our feet touch the water you will change to swimming animation in mid air. In details search for offset, navigate down to collision and change the collision height offset. Lets start with -70 but you may need to adjust this to your liking.

Compile and save.

If you find the water has disappeared, select one of the spline nodes and move it slightly.

We are now going test this (ignore the animation for now) you will also notice your character is sliding around a lot.

Lets fix it. Open the Character BP and open character movement and search for swimming in the details.

I feel our swim speed was ok, lets change our braking and change it to 150 this is your call what you set it to.

Setting up the Animation Blendspace

In our Main Animations folder Create a new one call swimming and import our swimming animations Swimming and TreadingWater.

Once we have imported the animations we need to make a change to the TreadingWater animation otherwise when we are treading water at the surface the water level will be at the hip height of the character.

Open TreadingWater and on the left hand side menu find transform you may need to expand it.

We want to change the last value which is the Z value of import translation to -50 then at the top click reimport animation you will notice the mannequin shift position. You can change this value depending on your preferences.

Go back a step and create a new animation blendspace and call it ABS_Swimming

Open up ABS_Swimming and Under the Asset details tab find the horizontal axis and change the name to Speed and set the Maximum Axis Value to the speed you set in the blueprint. Default is 300. Also change your grid divisions to 2 and select snap to grid.

Now on the right under asset browser find your Swim idle and drag it to the left side of the time line and then find your Swimming and drag it to the right side of the timeline.

If you hold Left CTRL and move your mouse over the time line the animation should play.

Save and Exit.

Setting up the Animation.

Open animation BP > Main state machine add new state SwimmingLocomotion.

open it > add ABS_Swimming > result > speed > right click and promote to variable

Create a new Var (bool) Swimming. Create transition lines from and to the main locomotion state and transition to will be the swimming Var.

Transition from is get the Var > NOT > Result.

Save.

Goto the event graph and on the Sequence add a new pin. Add a new movement component > get is swimming and set swimming.

We now need to setup how our the engine determines the speed of the character.

From set swimming > Cast to BP_ThirdPersonCharacter.

From thirdperson object > Try Get Pawn Owner

From thirdperson as BP third person character> Get velocity (scroll down find it under transformation) > Vector length > Set speed and connect the cast BP third person to set speed.

Now we need to go into our AnimGraph and add a swimming > not >AND (may need to create this Drag from the NOT and search AND Boolean) > Should Do IKTrace (control rig)

Now when we enter the water the swimming animation should happen, note you may need to go back and adjust the collision to your liking.

You could also setup a few more animations to smooth out the transitions this is up to you.

Conclusion

With the implementation of a swimming mechanic, you’ve unlocked a new realm of possibilities within your game world. Just as the vast oceans hold unexplored territories and hidden treasures, your game now offers players the chance to dive into untold adventures. While your swimming mechanic may require further refinement to align perfectly with your vision, it serves as a solid foundation for bringing your aquatic landscapes to life. Whether it’s navigating through sunken ruins or discovering secret underwater realms, your players will embark on journeys beyond their wildest imagination. Embrace the endless potential of your newfound aquatic frontier, and watch as your game evolves into an immersive experience like no other.

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The first big goals of development

It has been a little while since I have been able to put a blog post up about the progress of Project Alpha RPG (Title in development). While I have been doing a some development unfortunately i have not been able to do anywhere as much as i would have liked to and the game is no where as far along as i would have hoped it would be since the date I started.

The main reasoning behind not being as far along as I had hoped to be is a combination of work, life and creative burn out. I am coming into a holiday period in my work and which will allow me to have a lot more free time over the next few weeks. This will be great because I am hoping to set aside enough time to develop the game to a point where i can release the first prototype of the game.

In order to get to this stage, I am happy to show a road map to prototype V01:

  • Complete mapping out Mid-town (Name in development) – 40% complete
  • Create interior’s for shops and other buildings in Mid-town – 5% complete
  • Add NPC’s and events to Mid-Town – 10% complete
  • Develop a town notice board for quests (Mid-town) – 0%
  • Generate and develop quests to be given from the notice board and NPC’s in the town – 5% complete
  • Complete Tavern (1F, 2F and cellar) Including internal quests – 60%
  • Complete Sewer, Mapping is complete however eventing and questing areas are needing to be setup (thinking about a secret shop hidden in the sewer). Overall 45% complete
  • Script NPC dialog – 15%
  • Implement dialog – 10%
  • Script at least 2 NPC’s to allow them to join the players party (have an existing NPC in mind)
  • Debug and fix battle system (calculations are preventing player taking damage) – ???%
  • Create classes for player and NPC’s (currently standard RPG MV classes) – 25% complete
  • Test and expand upon reputation system – 40% complete
  • Develop Initial Game start and basic path for the prototype – 35% complete.

Currently out of those tasks completion of this goal is about 19% overall, So lets break down each one of the goals above and establish the where I am currently up to, what I feel i need to do and thoughts on how i may expand on that at this point or maybe into the future.

Complete mapping out Mid-town

So as it stands I consider “Mid-town” to be about 40% complete and to be honest my concept drawing of the town isnt much more complete then that. as you can see by the image.

Well maybe it was a bit more complete then i remembered however I never finished it. However it did give me enough to go off to start developing it in engine with a few tweeks and changes as seen below.

From the image above you can see that it is not at all near being complete.
You can see the tavern is in the bottom section of the map and then the main town above, there are also currently two shops at the top of the map which may very well eventually move because there will be an entry to the upper town and castle. So I may alter this plan to have a guard post instead.

To the left there is a circle that will be the main guard building which will be where the player can interact with some NPCs and it could eventually also be the gaol.

To the right, there will eventually be houses that may or may not be accessible and this could also be determined by a few different variables.

For this to reach 100% completion I will need to finish painting/ building all of the buildings, foliage, water and lights. As it stands i am not sure exactly what sure what I am going to do in the lower half. I do know i want to show some sort of shanty town outside the main wall be it old run down wood buildings or tents.

Create interior’s for shops and other buildings in Mid-town

The only interior that is mostly complete is the tavern building which I will elaborate more on later in this blog.

I will need to concept a few interiors for the homes as well as the shops which will be throughout the game as the player progresses. Mid-town at current only has two other shops on the town map and that is the main shop and the weapon shop.

In the top right you can see a ladder access which takes the player to the sewer. I am planning on having these access locked until the player completes a quest that they perhaps get a key to open these access points. there is another south of this location.

Depending on the size of the outside will determine the size of the shop on the inside, in the image the general shop will be relatively small where as the weapon shop may have a back area with a smithing station. I have yet to even consider a crafting mechanic for this game. at all..

Add NPC’s and events to Mid-Town

At this stage in development there is only one NPC visible in the town itself and that was more to act as a reference for a little tent stall I was concepting. This particular NPC currently does not have a name nor any programming. Please feel free to leave a suggestion on their name. The sprite is also only a place holder for now and may eventually change.

Overall I would like to add at least a dozen NPC’s that will wonder around the town and that just grunt or utter pleasantries to the player.

I would also like at least four or five NPC’s that will communicate more in depth and perhaps provide a quest. They may also only interact with the player after they have completed a quest for that NPC from the notice board.

Develop a town notice board for quests (Mid-town)

Firstly I need to prototype this concept further and find or create some sort of sprite for it to be in the town itself either in the town center or near the stairs the player has to climb to enter the town proper. The only thing I have close to this concept is a note on the wall in the tavern. So I will need to setup an event and script a choice function for the player to select quests from the board.

I would really like to have a pool of quests that this board could call upon randomly and display five or so at a time.

So there is a little bit to figure out with this goal as well as seeing if i can integrate it with the already present quest tracker (I am considering doing a separate post on this)

Generate and develop quests to be given from the notice board and NPC’s in the town

For the quest board to be usable there needs to be quests for it to show to the player, for this to be accomplished I’ll have to brain storm at least a dozen or more ideas for quests the player can do around town such as find a missing item, catch a NPC’s run away pet or to venture into the sewer and defeat enemies or even complete bounty’s for the guard.

Complete Tavern (1F, 2F and cellar) Including internal quests

Ok so complete it almost is, alot of what the game currently has in it was tested and practiced in this little tavern and I feel that it may get a make over to the second concept image I showed in the last post.

First floor is the most complete and has NPC’s sitting at the table and one is walking around which i am thinking could be a party NPC, you’ll need to complete a few quests for that character first.

There is also a quest on the wall to collect the empty plates for the tavern owner behind the bar. for the moment the NPC is transparent and can be walked through to access the cellar however I plan to change this and add an excuse me option to their conversation tree to move them for the player to get past, this will be appear after you complete a few quests for the tavern owner. I also need to come up with a name for the NPC

At this point the 2F is complete except for NPC’s and events, I might add a few sleeping NPC’s in some of the beds which will perhaps have locked doors.

When the player sleeps at the tavern they are teleported to one of the rooms after the fade out and in.

Lastly for the Tavern is the Cellar and it is one of the more complete rooms, however I may change this to have some sort of different appearance or a chance of an enemy attack.

But for now this serves as the main entrance to the sewers which for the the prototype will be one of the main questing areas as well as the area the player can battle and level up.

Complete Sewer, Mapping is complete however eventing and questing areas are needing to be setup (thinking about a secret shop hidden in the sewer)

This by far is the biggest map in the entire prototype and the most intricate. I have probably put the most time into designing, mapping out and painting this map mostly because for this stage of development it is the main area that the player is going to operate in.

It has areas where the player steps through door ways to get through the wall and some of those doors lead to little maps inside of the sewer it self. I have toyed with the idea of having a sub cavernous area under the sewer however I have yet to decide this.

The image doesn’t show the full extent of the map however i would say this is about 20% of the final product. There will also be other aspects to the sewer and I’m planning on having a secret shop located somewhere. Currently there are active enemies which i will talk a little about below.

Script NPC dialog

As it stands there really isn’t a lot of dialog written for the game, just a couple of lines for really the only two interactive NPC’s at this point. I would like to write enough to make the game and quests interesting and not generic. I would also like most if not all interactions to have a choice to the player results may be determined by the players reputation

Implement dialog

Some Dialog has been implemented for testing purposes. however I do require most of what I will script to be implemented in game.

Script at least 2 NPC’s to allow them to join the players party

For the testers to get a good taste of what the game is meant to be like I am going to need at least two NPC’s to be able to join the players party however this is going to require the player to do some quests and increase their reputation with that person or their general reputation.

Debug and fix battle system (calculations are preventing player taking damage)

Currently the battle system works and the NPC’s take damage from the player but there are a few enemies that don’t seem to be able to damage the player, so I’m going to have to look at the calculations and do some math to get this working correctly.

Currently there are rats, bats and thieves for the player to fight in the sewer. I am not planning to have weird creatures and monsters in the game however some different enemies or allies maybe conjured or summoned by a mage or the like.

Create classes for player and NPC’s (currently standard RPG MV classes)

At the moment i am using the standard classes that come with RPG maker, While they are ok they are not complete and are only there as a base so I have started to write different classes out in my Codex book. I have yet to implement any of the classes I have written out.

At this stage for the prototype i am planning on having three different classes

  • Mercenary / Ranger
  • Knight / Paladin
  • Archer / Rogue

I will probably do a sub blog at some point to talk about these different classes however eventually I am intending on having a class upgrade system that will allow the player or NPC follows to be upgraded.

Test and expand upon reputation system

Currently I have a basic reputation system in place that when a player completes a quest it adds a certain value to global variable called reputation, yet to be implemented is the system that only allows certain interactions to occur when the players rep is over a certain amount. I also need to implement events that contribute negative reputation such as theft. once this is in place be careful because guards may come in waves to arrest you and take you to gaol

Develop Initial Game start and basic path for the prototype

So this is a hard one to plan for or to map for progress as it is the prototype as a whole, the way that I see it i would like the player to at least have a good hour or two of game play in the prototype. It will also need some clues to point the player in the right direction to move through what is playable in the first version. This means dialogue, quests, mostly complete back end systems, sound and a part story that can assist the player testing the core functions of the prototype.

Thank you for reading this blog entry into my game development series, once I am able to get to the prototype version I will be looking for testers to test and document their findings to then help with the second prototype so make sure you sign up and register to get notifications for when I do post.

For those that do want to test, I am planning to provide you with a document to complete for the prototype and I would also like to say thank you for your contribution by having you become apart of the game. So you will have your own NPC, Quest line and house which you can design yourself or by giving me some ideas on what you would like.

Until next time.

Take care.

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Item interaction with counter – Unreal Engine 5 tutorial

For some strange reason this post is missing some information and screenshots I will need to fix this post

Why?

In Unreal Engine 5, the ability to interact with items is a fundamental aspect of many games. One of the most common interactions is picking up items as our character moves over them. This mechanic not only enriches gameplay but also adds layers of complexity and engagement. Imagine your character collecting coins, gathering resources, or picking up key items essential for progression. By implementing item pickup and counting systems, we can create immersive and rewarding experiences for players, enhancing both the challenge and the satisfaction of the game.

The Process

If the object is a staticmesh you will need to convert it to a BP do so by adding the item into editor and then using the blueprint button convert selection to blueprint.

If the object is a staticmesh you will need to convert it to a BP do so by adding the item into editor and then using the blueprint button convert selection to blueprint.

Edit the added object blueprint from the world outliner.

Once in the editor open viewport and you will need to add a collider. (which one depends on the item)

Now rescale the collider to match the item

Next scroll down in the right menu and find events. Select on component begin overlap

In the editor cast the event to the character. If using the 3rd person template cast to ThirdPersonCharacter and add other actor from the event into the object of the cast then to show the item has been picked up connect the cast to a DestroyActor (don’t forget to compile)

Create a counter for the item

What good is an item if we do not know what we have, or how many we have picked up? Lets create a simple counter.

First open up your Character Blueprint (First person/ 3rd person/ top down)

Select viewport from the top tab and then create an overlap event from the details menu (on the right)

The event will be triggered by the coin actor with a Cast to “object name”, we will also create a Variable as an integer and call it TotalCoinItems and specify the default value will be 0. We will the Set the value by dragging off the cast and getting our variable and adding 1 and connect it to our set

To add a counter to the screen you will need to add a GUI widget and bind a text box and use the following code

Conclusion

This is how we are able to interact with items on a basic level and have a counter on the screen showing the amount of items we have picked up.

For some strange reason this post is missing some information and screenshots I will need to fix this post

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Crouch with Confidence – Unreal Engine 5 tutorial

Why?

The crouch. One of humanity’s most basic movements. Humans have been crouching since they figured out that going under things doesn’t always require us to crawl. Sometimes in games we need to duck under objects or sneak past enemies so this mechanic can be very versatile and we can build many different game mechanics into it as an example some of these could be to improve accuracy when shooting / Snipping, to reduce the characters detection rate when sneaking some games have even used crouching jump combination to reach higher platforms. All in all it can be a very useful thing to have in your game.

Resources

Provided Crouching Animations converted from Mixamo

CrouchingAnim.zipDownload

How?
Action map and blueprint

Since 5.3.1 released we do action mapping a little bit different, no long are we going into your project settings and mapping from there. Now we are adding an Input action and adding that to a IMC (you can have multiple of these)

Now we are going to create a new input. Navigate to Content>Thirdperson>input>Actions. Right click and go to input and select input action and name it IA_Crouch. Once created open it and leave all the options as default and click save and close it.

Now we need to add it to our input mapping context, should be in the previous folder. Its call IMC_Default, open this up so we can add our mapping.

Use the plus button and from the drop down select our IA we just created and bind it to the Left CTRL key and make sure you save.

For our next step we are going to open our character Blue print (ThirdpersonBP) and setup the blue print for crouching.

Left click and search and add the action map we just created IA_Crouch and click on its expand arrow. Drag from the Started pin and search for and add the crouch function. From the completed pin add Un Crouched.

Select the Character Movement in the components tab on the top left and search for crouch.

Here we are going to click on the option at the bottom called can crouch.

We can also change our crouch speed as well as our height. The height options changes our collision capsule so we can fit under objects or landscaping you can change this if you wish. This wont make your actor animate into a crouch yet it will just reduce the size of the collision capsule. If you decide to test it at this point all you will see is the camera move. (You can also make the collision capsule Visible to test also)

Another thing that you can do at this point is that If you feel the camera movement isn’t smooth enough you are able to enable camera lag. What this will do is smooth-en the camera movement when you toggle the crouch. In order to do this select camera boom in the components tab then search for lag in the details tab and enable camera lag

Animation configuration.

Next we are going to setup the animation, we need to import the animations that are compressed in the CrouchAnim.zip file. You can click and drag or add them how you see fit. Create a folder under content call it Animation (Can add a subfolder if you wish) and add them here. You will be prompted with a FBX import options, target the SK_Mannequin skeleton and import all. Once done you should see all Five animations imported. (We are only going to use two for now, however having the others there will be good for future use)

Before we setup the blend space we need to modify the CrouchedWalking Animation to stop it repeating so open it up and on the left under asset Details we are going to enable two options EnableRootMotion and Force Root Lock

Now we are going to setup our animation blend space. To do so right click in your animations folder and goto Animations>Legacy>Blendspace 1D and select the sk_manequin and call it ABS_Crouch

Open up ABS_Crouch and Under the Asset details tab find the horizontal axis and change the name to Speed and set the Maximum Axis Value to the speed you set in the blueprint. Default is 300. Also change your grid divisions to 2 and select snap to grid.

Now on the right under asset browser find your crouch idle and drag it to the left side of the time line and then find your Crouchedwalking and drag it to the right side of the timeline.

If you hold Left CTRL and move your mouse over the time line the animation should play.

Save and Exit.

Configuring the AnimGraph in the character BP

In the content browser navigate to Content>Characters>manneqiuns>Animations and select the ABP_Manny. (this also works with custom characters.)

Find the Sequence node in the middle of the current screen and select add pin, next either get the movement component or copy and paste it from one of the existing one’s on the screen. Drag from the pin on the new movement node and add is crouching. Right click the return value and promote it to a variable and call it isCrouching? Now connect the Set to the new pin you created earlier.

Now goto the eventgraph tab in the top middle and when it is open access the AnimGraph this should be a tab in the middle top section of the screen and open up the locomotion state machine. You should see something like this

Create a new state machine and call it Crouched drag off the pin and create a new Cache pose and call it crouched.

Open the Crouched State machine and add a new state from the entry and call it crouched locomotion.

Open Crouched locomotion and add in our ABS_Crouch animation from the asset browser to the right and connect it to the result. Then from the speed pin drag it out and get ground speed.

Go back to the main AnimGraph page and open up Main States State machine. Add a new state and call it Crouched Locomotion and connect it to locomotion and back (this can be tricky at first, try dragging from the border)

Click on the locomotion to crouched locomotion. Add the variable isCrouching? And connected it to the result.

Now do the same for Crouched locomotion to Locomotion, add the variable isCrouching? From the pin drag it out and add a NOT bool and connect it all to the result.

Open up crouched locomotion now by double clicking now add our cached pose (Crouched) to the result

Compile and save.

Conclusion

You have now created a crouch input action and designed an animation blend space to facilitate crouching. This means you can now duck under low objects and hide behind cover like a true stealth master. Well done!

This versatile mechanic opens up a world of possibilities, from enhancing shooting accuracy to reducing detection rates. How you choose to implement and balance these pros and cons is up to you. Happy crouching!

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Walk This Way – A Unreal Engine 5 Tutorial

Welcome

Welcome, adventurers, to the first of many epic Unreal Engine 5 tutorials! When I first ventured into the vast realms of UE5, I was met with a labyrinth of confusion and intimidation. Though countless YouTube tutorials offered guidance, the seasoned explorers crafting them often moved at a pace that left novices like myself struggling to keep up.

But fear not, brave traveler! Enter my enchanted tutorial series, where written guidance shines like a beacon in the darkness. Here, you can progress at your own pace, and with the aid of detailed screenshots, each step of the journey becomes clearer and more manageable.

In this inaugural tutorial, we shall embark on a quest to master the basic yet essential art of character movement. Our first mission: to implement a walk mechanic. This spellbinding process can be woven into any UE5 template featuring a controllable character.

So, gather your courage and your creativity, and let us begin this wondrous journey together!

Why do we need to walk?

When we play a game we are not always running everywhere and we are also not walking everywhere. With the default presents in UE5 regardless if its FPS, 3rd person or top down. The max movement speed is the same. We can change this by creating a blueprint that is toggled by a key. When we do this the 2d blend space takes over and slows the animation or speeds it up depending on the way we go.

The Process

Start a new project or open an existing one that has a player actor blueprint for this tutorial we are going to use the thirdperson template. When you are in the engine we are going to setup a new action. Doing this will later on allow us to customize the key binding for our walk / run function allowing your player to customize what key binding they are going to use for it.

This has now been replaced by using the Input action and input mapping context system (look below for the updated procedure)
To do this we are going to go to settings and search for action mapping. We will add a new action mapping using the plus button and call in Walk/Run Toggle and for now bind Caps lock to it.

Action map and blueprint

Since 5.3.1 released we do action mapping a little bit different, no long are we going into your project settings and mapping from there. Now we are adding an Input action and adding that to a IMC (you can have multiple of these)

Now we are going to create a new input. Navigate to Content>Thirdperson>input>Actions. Right click and go to input and select input action and name it IA_Walk/Run Toggle. Once created open it and leave all the options as default and click save and close it.

Now we need to add it to our input mapping context, should be in the previous folder. Its call IMC_Default, open this up so we can add our mapping.

Use the plus button and from the drop down select our IA we just created and bind it to the Capslock key as shown in the first screenshot and make sure you save.

Next we are going to find and access our character blueprint, depending on the preset you selected the name is going to be different for this example we are using the 3rd person preset so find BP_ThirdPersonCharacter and navigate to the event Graph tab. Click in a space to add a new node and search for our action event “Walk/Run Toggle” and add it.

Instead of inputaction it will now show as enhancedinputAction IA_Walk/run toggle

Just to reiterate, doing it this way allows your player base to customize what key they use when your game is released.

Next lets take a look at how we can create our blueprint to alternate our walk/run speed. We could do this with a flipflop however by learning the more complicated way of doing it will give us a few more options later on. So lets do this with a branch or a ELSE IF.

Firstly lets create a Boolean variable and call it “walking” compile your blueprint so we can set its default value and this is up to you however I am going to leave it unticked so our default state is running.

Once you have done this we need to now add this to our blueprint and start formulating our
branch. Click and drag your variable into your blueprint and use Get. Drag off the pin and add a branch node. The Walking variable will now be the condition of the branch. Go ahead and connect our action node “pressed” pin to the branch.

Next we are going to setup our True/False conditionals, if walking is currently true that will change our movement speed down and if its false it will increase our movement speed. So lets add the Character Movement, from the top left in our components tab click and drag Character Movement to the blue print. From its pin drag out and add Set Max Walk Speed, this will allow us to alter the speed. Connect the true pin on the branch to the set and make the speed 500 (this is the default)

Now when walking is false we need to setup what to do. Once again drag off of the character movement node already in the blue print and add another set max walk speed. Position it so it is below the first this way it makes sense when we connect our false pin to it. For the value it is upto you but lets say we set it to 120. You should now see something that looks like this

now this is complete we still need to tell the walking variable what to do, so we need to drag and set our walking variable in and connect it to our top movement set and make sure its un-ticked. Do the same thing for the bottom set and make sure walking is ticked.

So compile and save so when you now play test and press caps lock or whatever is bound to it it should alternate the speed the character moves. Ultimately the speed set is up to you and what you want for your game.

Conclusion

So now, with just a press of a button, we can seamlessly toggle between walking and running, creating a more immersive experience for players. This enhancement allows them to better appreciate and explore the stunning landscapes you’ve meticulously crafted, making every moment in your game more dynamic and engaging.

Additional

We can expand upon this by controlling the speed with variables (Float) we would ideally do this if we want items, encumbrance or even a leveling system to dictate the speed at which our characters move. Just makes it a little more easier to manipulate. So Create two new variables and name them MaxWalkSpeed and MaxRunSpeed set them as a float, compile your blueprint and then edit the default value. Once done drag and get them into your blueprint and pin them into the corresponding set nodes we added previously.

Additional 2

Now we have a complete blueprint setup for Walk/Run toggle we can turn this into a function. This basically turns all of your nodes into one. This makes for a cleaner blueprint, this also makes it reference-able and reusable in any part of our game. To do this highlight all of our nodes and right click, in the contextual menu find and click collapse to function.

It will now appear on the left-hand side under the blueprints tab and we can rename it by right clicking and selecting rename. We can rename this function WalkRunToggle.

Additional 3

If you have a crouching mechanic you can also alter the speed of this using the same process simply add in your max crouching walk speed.

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This is but the beginning of something.

Starting to develop a game can ether be simple or a complex process, that of course depends on the type and style of game you are making. regardless of that generally the process starts with brainstorming and mind mapping ideas which then leads into different type of documentation and prototyping.

For the title that I am currently in the process of developing, Its idea started a long time ago and it was strongly influenced after i read a trilogy of books called The Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan. That idea turned into a short story of my own as well as a “codex” of sorts with different types of items such as drinks etc. I guess this was world building really.

Unfortunately, I lost that document from failing to have a decent backing regime. Something that i have since corrected using a onsite back up and one online using a cloud platform.

So many years later, I have started the long painstaking process of redeveloping that idea from what i can remember at least.

One morning I woke thinking about this idea for a story and thought why not make it into a game? that was what I originally wanted to do after writing it as a story,. The shift in switching this up could be directly influenced by my “day job” however more about that another time.

The morning i woke up thinking about it i decided to open my phone and start jotting down ideas and what i could remember from my original idea, once that i had some ideas down i decided that I really needed to create a Game Design Document (GDD)

While i was writing the GDD i was considering my options for Game engine, My original idea was to prototype the game using RPG Engine just so i could have something working and have something achieved even if it was just something basic and that would act as a driving force for me to develop it further.

Beyond that i was then going to move development of it into Unity as i had heard good things about that engine until recent events, so after that I decided that i would make the Prologue entirely in RPG engine developing what i could and using plugs for the engine i have found online. I will of course credit these plugins as well as any other asset I use in the eventual game.

So with RPG engine MV selected i started playing around with it and getting a feel for the program and I have to admit that it is a pretty powerful little game engine, specially with a select few plugins.

Once i started getting a grip on the usage i took a step backwards, I went back to pencil and paper to do some prototyping on some level design.

One of the key locations of the prologue is the “Midtown” Tavern, its a multistory building that will connect into the sewer system of the town. I say “Midtown” as i haven’t settled on a name for the main city/capital where the player starts their journey. I have yet to design the 2F of the tavern.

I have created my 1st ideas in the game engine to see how well it flows and if there is any sort of limitations to the design, after doing so Im going to make the 2nd Ideas i had to see if they work out a little better.

That’s it, that is how I have started on this particular journey and as I delve deeper into its development I intend on sharing more of the progress on this blog as well as engaging with you the reader.

Until next time, Thank you for reading

-Wolf

LINKS:
Black Magician Trilogy – Trudi Canavan
RPG Maker MV – Steam

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All apart of the process

All good developers have a splash screen that shows when their product is loaded in the game world. For Wolf Interactive I have expanded upon the main logo adding a body and some shadowing along with the wording Wolf Interactive.

The Background and the wording are all colour coded to the Wolf to help create a nice contrast that isnt overwhelming and is easy on the eyes.

This splash screen will appear when any of my products start.