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Movement, stamina and the camera

Walking, crouching and jumping are Unreal's own Character Movement. Sprint and stamina live on one component, and everything the first person camera does lives on another. This page shows which number to change for each.

  • The character: Content/MPFriendslop/Blueprints/PlayerCharacter/BP_FriendslopCharacter
  • The components: Blueprints/ActorComponents/BP_StaminaComponent and BP_ViewMotionComponent
  • The camera settings: Blueprints/DataAssets/ViewMotion/Childs/DA_ViewMotion_Default

Walk, crouch and jump

These are native fields. Open BP_FriendslopCharacter, select CharMoveComp (Character Movement) in the Components panel, and change them there.

Field What it does Shipped
Max Walk Speed Walking speed, in cm/s 200
Max Walk Speed Crouched Speed while crouched 130
Jump Z Velocity How high a jump goes 420
Air Control How much you can steer in the air 0.05
Crouched Half Height Capsule half height while crouched 40

Crouch is held: Left Ctrl down crouches, releasing it stands up. Jump is Space. To change a key, see The controls.

The body animations are authored for these speeds: walk at 200, run at 500, and the crouch clips are slowed to match 130. Change a speed without changing the animations and the feet slide. Swapping the clips is covered in Use your own animations.

Character Movement has one top speed for every direction, so strafing and walking backward move as fast as walking forward.

Warning

Crouched Eye Height on the character (Class Defaults) must stay equal to the height of ViewRoot, the scene component that holds the camera (80 on both). If they differ, every trace that starts from the eyes starts from the wrong height as soon as you crouch. Nothing reports it.

Sprint and stamina

Hold Left Shift to sprint. Sprinting drains stamina, jumping costs a fixed amount, and stamina comes back after a short pause. All of it is on BP_StaminaComponent, on the character: the first three fields in Settings|Sprint, the rest in Settings|Stamina.

Field What it does Shipped
Sprint Speed Top speed while sprinting 500
Sprint Stamina Per Second Stamina spent per second of sprint 20
Minimum Stamina To Sprint Below this, the sprint does not start 10
Jump Stamina Cost Stamina spent per jump 12
Stamina Regen Per Second Stamina recovered per second 18
Regen Delay Seconds without spending before regen starts 1
Update Interval How often, in seconds, stamina is updated 0.1

Walking speed is not on this component. It reads Max Walk Speed from Character Movement when the game starts and puts it back when the sprint ends, so tune walking in one place only.

Sprint only drains while you are on the ground, not crouched, and actually moving. You cannot start a sprint while crouched. When stamina reaches 0 the sprint stops on its own.

The stamina value itself is a vital, stored with health on BP_VitalsSystem, so the pawn needs a Stamina row there. See Health, damage and new vitals.

Dispatcher When it fires Fires on
OnSprintStarted The sprint begins every player
OnSprintStopped The sprint ends, by release or empty stamina every player

Bind these for a breathing sound, a HUD effect or anything else, without opening the component.

Tune the camera

Head bob, look sway, lean, the landing dip, crouch smoothing and the sprint FOV kick all come from one Data Asset read by BP_ViewMotionComponent. Its class is BP_ViewMotionDataAsset, in Blueprints/DataAssets/ViewMotion/, and Motion on the component only accepts that class. DA_ViewMotion_Default is the one the character ships with.

  1. In Blueprints/DataAssets/ViewMotion/Childs/, duplicate DA_ViewMotion_Default. Name it DA_ViewMotion_<Name>.
  2. Open it and change the groups below.
  3. Open BP_FriendslopCharacter and select BP_ViewMotionComponent.
  4. In Settings|View Motion, set Motion to your asset.

The fields are grouped by category. A field ending in Cm, Deg or Hz is in centimetres, degrees or hertz.

Group Main fields Shipped
Walk Step Length Cm, Full Motion Speed, Max Motion Scale 95, 240, 1.65
Bob Bob Vertical Cm, Bob Lateral Cm, Bob Roll Deg, Bob Pitch Deg 1.1, 0.8, 0.225, 0.125
Look Sway Look Sway Yaw Deg, Look Sway Pitch Deg, Look Sway Roll Deg 1.6, 1.2, -2.6
Lean Strafe Roll Deg, Accel Pitch Deg, Lean Stiffness, Lean Damping 1.1, 0.7, 70, 12
Landing Land Dip Cm, Land Full Impact Speed, Land Stiffness, Land Damping 14, 700, 120, 16
Idle Breath Cm, Breath Rate Hz 0.7, 0.22
Sprint Sprint Fov Add, Fov Blend Speed 3, 7
Crouch Crouch Blend Speed 11
Jump Air Offset Cm, Air Velocity Reference, Air Blend Speed 9, 450, 9

Step Length Cm also times your own footsteps, so a longer stride means fewer steps heard.

For a calmer camera, lower the Bob, Look Sway and Lean values. For no bob at all, set the Bob fields to 0.

Two things to know about the camera

  • The component is the only thing that moves the camera. Every frame it writes the position of ViewRoot, and the rotation and field of view of ViewCamera. Keep Use Pawn Control Rotation off on the camera. Do not set these from another Blueprint: the component overwrites them on the next frame.
  • The player's field of view wins. ViewCamera ships at 90, but the Field of View setting of the settings menu (90 by default) replaces it when the game starts, and again each time the player changes it. Changing the camera alone does not change what players see. See Settings and volume sliders.

Leaving Motion empty is not a way to get a still camera. The component then never runs, and it is also what applies looking up and down to the camera. For a still camera, use a Data Asset whose Bob, Look Sway, Lean, Landing, Idle and Jump amounts are 0, and whose Sprint Fov Add is 0.

Other components read the camera motion through BPI_ViewMotion, which BP_ViewMotionComponent implements. Its one function, GetViewMotionState, returns an S_ViewMotionState, which holds the current look sway, lean, stride phase and vertical offset. BP_WieldSwayComponent uses it to sway the held item with the camera. It looks on the pawn for a component that implements BPI_ViewMotion, so it never needs BP_ViewMotionComponent by name. To make your own effect follow the camera, do the same with Get Components by Interface on the pawn. Leave BP_ViewMotionComponent off your own pawn and the item in your hands stays still in your view, with no error.

To show stamina and health on screen, see The HUD, and adding to it.

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