Camera system¶

The camera is built on Unreal's Gameplay Cameras. A Blueprint camera director picks camera rigs every frame from the character's state, and the component AC_CameraSystem handles the perspective, attaches the camera to the right mesh, and draws the crosshair.

Perspectives¶

1 cycles: third person, top-down, side-scroller, first person, back to third person. The visible mesh is the retargeted character's when one is active, so the camera follows it.

Styles¶

The style picks a variant per perspective. 2 cycles it; DDCvar.CameraStyle sets it too.

How the rig is chosen¶

Every frame the director:

1. Reads the pawn's Get_PropertiesForCamera: perspective, style, mode (Free, Strafe or Aim, from the pawn's rotation mode and aim input), shoulder side and stance.
2. Evaluates the chooser table CHT_CameraRig, which branches by perspective into CHT_CameraRigs_ThirdPerson, _FirstPerson, _TopDown or _SideScroller. Third person picks by style and mode: nine rigs CameraRig_TP_<Close|Medium|Far>_<Freecam|Strafe|Aim>; the Aim rigs blend in smoothly. The fallback is CameraRig_TP_Medium_Freecam.
3. Activates the result, and CameraRig_FP_Scale in first person when the character uses the Split first-person mode.
4. In third person (except the debug style), stacks offset rigs:

First person needs no crouch offset: the first-person camera follows the head bone, so it lowers with the head when the character crouches (about 26 cm, measured on the Mover pawn with the UEFN mannequin).

The persistent layers CameraRig_Layer_Global and CameraRig_Layer_Base are activated when the director starts.

The base rigs hold the shared parameters, and the variants override them:

To change the look, open the rigs in the Gameplay Cameras editor. To change which rig is used when, edit the chooser tables. See Customize the camera.

Crosshair and aim¶

For the locally controlled player, AC_CameraSystem creates W_Crosshair and keeps its dot on the aim point:

• Third and first person: a line trace (Visibility, 100 m) from the camera along its forward vector; the dot sits where it hits.
• Top-down and side-scroller: the world point under the mouse cursor (Fixed Camera Mouse Aim Type), or with a gamepad, 3 m out along the right stick direction.

GetCrosshairAim returns the aim origin, direction, point, whether it hit, and a flattened direction. Cover targeting and aim from cover use it. The dot turns green while the cover button would take the character to cover.

Ragdoll camera¶

With Change Perspective During Ragdoll on (default), the camera switches to Camera Perspective During Ragdoll (top-down) while the CMC pawn ragdolls (AC_RagdollSystem), and back afterwards. Allow Camera Control During Ragdoll decides whether the player can still look around. The Mover ragdoll pawn uses its own ragdoll and keeps the camera.

Settings¶

On AC_CameraSystem:

DDCVar.NewGameplayCameraSystem.Enable (project setting, default on) must stay on. Off, the pawns fall back to a plain spring arm camera and none of this runs.

Using the camera from Blueprints¶

Networking¶

The perspective is set on the owning client and sent to the server (Server_SetCameraPerspective); it replicates to other machines. Style, shoulder and crosshair are local to the player.

Limitations¶

• A new style or mode needs matching chooser rows and rigs.
• The offset rigs (crouch, shoulder, cover) apply in third person only.
• Rig graph edits need the Gameplay Cameras editor; save each rig asset after editing.