Problem:

When the development of Shutdown began, we knew we needed to find the perfect model to represent our main character Z4CH. After a few hours of searching, we kept coming back to one model. The model that ended up catching our eyes was Cute Robot by Marcelo Barrio. Cute Robot fit exactly what we wanted for Z4CH. Now that we had found our model, the hard part began. My first problem would be creating an animation blueprint that would integrate fitting animations. After this, I would have to find the perfect spot for the camera to create a first-person perspective. This would end up being a lot more time-consuming than I thought it would be.

Solution:

To start, I followed this tutorial on how to connect my character model to an animation blueprint and create blend spaces. 

How To Make An Animation Blueprint And Blendspace - Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial

This ended up being relatively straightforward except for an issue with the jump animation. The jump animation would play but It would play while the model was already in the air. To fix this, I broke the jump animation into three sections(Start, Middle, and End). This led to a smoother transition between the animation and jumping. Then began the tedious and at times frustrating process of getting the camera in the correct position for first person. At first, I tried just putting the camera in the right place in the viewport. I found a good position but realized the camera would clip through walls when you walked into them and turned. To fix this I changed the shape and size of the capsule collider connected to the character controller. After That I thought, I had it in a good spot until I realized that when I jumped and looked up, the model's head would clip through the camera and be seen above. To fix this I had to start from scratch and go about it a different way. I created a socket connected to the head of the Model's skeleton and connected the camera to it. After multiple adjustments, I was finally able to find a good spot for the camera that gave the desired perspective we wanted. It was a journey full of multiple issues and iterations but in the end, I was proud of the end result seen below.

 - Christian Ortiz, VECCA Developer