Getting started
A working camera in three steps, then how to make it feel handheld and change it as the player moves.
Pick your route#
Your engine version decides whether the ready-made Rigs come in the box. The code is identical either way.
On 5.8, everything is included.
Presets, Rigs, shakes and points of interest install with the plugin. Carry on to the three steps below.
On 5.3 to 5.7, you create the Rigs.
The plugin installs without content and you build the Rigs by pasting in published values, and the shakes, points of interest and lock-on presets the same way if you want them. About ten minutes for the Rigs, step by step.
Go deeperWhy older versions ship without content
A .uasset saved by 5.8 can't be opened by an older engine. Package versions only go forwards and no build setting changes that. Shipping assets for every version would mean authoring everything in 5.3 and never opening it in anything newer, which would pin the plugin's development to the oldest engine it supports.
So the tuning is published as text instead. The rig values page has every Rig as a block you paste straight onto a new asset, and its neighbours do the same for the shakes, the points of interest and the lock-on presets. Assets you create on 5.4 still open on 5.8 later.
The three steps#
- 1
Add the camera.
Drop a Blendable Follow Camera component on your pawn. It makes itself the view target, so there's nothing to wire up.
- 2
Choose a Preset.
Assign one in the component's details. Start with Third Person.
- 3
Press play.
That's a working camera. Everything else in these docs is optional.
If it feels right, stop here and come back when you want something specific.
Make it feel handheld#
The follow camera gives you a clean, steady shot. For the life on top of it (breathing, footfalls, lean, landings and shakes), add a second component.
- 1
Add the shakes.
Drop a Blendable Shake component on the same pawn. The follow camera finds it and puts what it plays on screen, after collision, with nothing to tick.
- 2
The handheld comes with the Preset.
Every shipped style's Rigs carry their own handheld and walk, so Third Person already has its Steadicam operator and Survival Horror its walking bob. On 5.3 to 5.7, make them from shake values and pick each Rig's as its block says. A Rig of your own with none uses the component's Handheld (When The Rig Has None).
- 3
Give the pawn a body, if its Rigs don't bring one.
The shipped styles carry their body motion on their Rigs. For Rigs of your own, add Shake_Body_Default from
Shakes/Bodyunder Body for head bob, sway, lean and landings, or its Heavy or Light version.
Changing the camera as the player moves#
Place a Blendable Camera Preset Volume, pick a Preset, and choose a mode:
| Mode | What happens |
|---|---|
| Latch | Switches the camera's standing Preset and keeps it, even after the player walks back out. Good for crossing into a new area. |
| While Inside | Uses the Preset while the player is inside, and hands back whatever was there before on the way out. Good for a space with its own feel. |
Volumes can sit inside each other without any bookkeeping from you. Step out of an inner volume and you're back on the outer one, because the outer one never let go.
For anything that isn't an overlap (a door, a scripted beat, a cutscene) use a Blendable Camera Trigger and call Apply Camera Preset and Release Camera Preset yourself. It's the same actor with nothing wired up.
Go deeperPreset On Exit, and how volumes are drawn
Set Preset On Exit only when leaving should mean something specific, like walking out of a horror section into a normal one. Left empty, leaving restores whatever was in force before.
The volume is a subclass of the trigger, so both follow exactly the same rules. Both draw a thick wireframe box with the Blendable mark in the middle, so you can see your regions across a level. Neither the outline nor the mark exists outside the editor.
Where the character sits#
You tell a Rig where on screen the character sits, in percent: 0 is the left edge, 50 the middle, 100 the right, and Y counts down from the top. So 35, 55 is a third of the way across and a little below the middle. The camera works out where it has to be for that to be true, at every distance and angle. Composition covers the rest.
Go deeperRigs from 1.0, and centimetres
Rigs saved before 1.1 described the framing as a shoulder offset in centimetres. They're converted the first time they load: the old offset becomes the on-screen spot that resolves to it, so the shot looks the same. First-person Rigs skip composition automatically, because with no arm there's no shot to compose.
Finding your way round a Rig#
A Rig reads from the top down, broad strokes first:
| Band | What's in it |
|---|---|
| The Shot | The framing preview and the spot, the arm, the lens, the resting pitch and the blend time, then Limits on pitch and yaw, Hold The Angle and the Pivot. |
| Following | How the camera keeps up: auto follow, slopes, falling, recentring, follow lag, overshoot, pitch room and look-at. |
| Collision | Walls and things in the way, shoulder swaps, tight spaces, and keeping you in frame. |
| Feel | Pitch response, handheld, the lens and post process. |
| Advanced | First person, how blends behave, and hooks for your own code. |
| The Whole Rig | A fresh start from an archetype, and the whole Rig as text, to copy onto another or paste in. |
Each feature is one line with its switch and a few words on what it's doing. Tick it and its settings come in under it; the finer numbers wait in a More fold. Camera presets, points of interest, shakes and Lock-On Presets open the same way, broad strokes first. The panels has the rest.
Where to go next#
- Choosing a style if Third Person isn't your game.
- Recipes for a camera built for your kind of game, step by step.
- The claim ladder is the idea everything else rests on. Read it next.
- Composition when you want to change the framing.
- Debugging the first time the camera does something you didn't expect.