AnimInstance is having trouble finding the pawn owner...

Development Programming & Scripting
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1

Hello everyone,

I’ve been encountering a persistent issue in my Unreal Engine 5 project related to the initialization of pawn owners, particularly when transitioning from one game mode to another. I would greatly appreciate any insights or suggestions from the community on how to resolve this. I had Chat GPT help me try to get a better understanding of what is going on and no matter what I try it seems the PawnOwner for some reason gets set to null within the animinstance? I feel like there is something I’m not understanding from a fundamental perspective on how unreal handles the pawnowner…

Weird part is that anim class is used for movements which all work ingame… another thing I noticed is when triyng to compile the blueprint utilizing the animinstance I created it spams the screen with the debug message stating No Pawn Owner found! which is what I set for when it can’t find the pawn owner…I’ve tried googling, chat gpt, reading through unreal documentation, and just trying to set the pawn owner anywhere before it needs to be called. I know this is a terribly long post, but It requires a good amount of background info in order to fully understand I felt.

Project Setup:

  • Game Modes: I have two custom game modes: MainMenuGameMode and CoopAdventureGameMode.
  • Character Class: ACoopAdventureCharacter, which is spawned when transitioning from the main menu to the gameplay.
  • Animation Class: UCharacterAnimInstance, used for handling animations of the ACoopAdventureCharacter.

Issue Description:

When the game transitions from the main menu to the gameplay, sometimes the animation instance (UCharacterAnimInstance) fails to find and cast the pawn owner correctly. This results in logs showing “No Pawn Owner found!” even though the pawn should have been initialized and assigned by this point.

Code Implementation:

  1. CoopAdventureGameMode.cpp - Responsible for setting the default pawn class and transitioning game states:
ACoopAdventureGameMode::ACoopAdventureGameMode()
{
    // Set default pawn class from a Blueprint reference
    static ConstructorHelpers::FClassFinder<APawn> PlayerPawnBPClass(TEXT("/Game/Characters/Blueprints/BP_ThirdPersonCharacter"));
    if (PlayerPawnBPClass.Class != NULL)
    {
        DefaultPawnClass = PlayerPawnBPClass.Class;
    }
}
  1. CoopAdventureCharacter.cpp - Handles character-specific logic and checks the validity of the PlayerController:
void ACoopAdventureCharacter::BeginPlay()
{
    Super::BeginPlay();
    if (APlayerController* PC = Cast<APlayerController>(Controller))
    {
        if (!PC->GetPawn())
        {
            UE_LOG(LogTemp, Warning, TEXT("No pawn is currently possessed"));
        }
    }
    else
    {
        UE_LOG(LogTemp, Warning, TEXT("PlayerController is not valid at BeginPlay"));
    }
}
  1. CharacterAnimInstance.cpp - Where the pawn owner should be obtained and used:
{
void UCharacterAnimInstance::NativeInitializeAnimation()
{
    Super::NativeInitializeAnimation();

    AActor* PawnOwner = TryGetPawnOwner();
    if (!PawnOwner)
    {
        UE_LOG(LogTemp, Error, TEXT("CharacterAnimInstance: No Pawn Owner found!"));
        return;
    }
    UE_LOG(LogTemp, Warning, TEXT("Pawn Owner is: %s"), *PawnOwner->GetName());

    // Cast to ACoopAdventureCharacter and ensure it's valid
    CoopAdventureCharacter = Cast<ACoopAdventureCharacter>(PawnOwner);
    if (!CoopAdventureCharacter)
    {
        UE_LOG(LogTemp, Error, TEXT("CharacterAnimInstance: Failed to cast Pawn Owner to >ACoopAdventureCharacter!"));
        return;
    }

    // Log success and attempt to fetch components
    UE_LOG(LogTemp, Warning, TEXT("CharacterAnimInstance: CoopAdventureCharacter is valid, >proceeding to fetch components."));
    ClimbingMovementComponent = CoopAdventureCharacter- 
 GetClimbingMovementComponent();
    if (!ClimbingMovementComponent)
    {
        UE_LOG(LogTemp, Error, TEXT("CharacterAnimInstance: ClimbingMovementComponent not found!"));
    }
}

What I’ve Tried:

  • Ensured that the DefaultPawnClass is correctly assigned in the game mode.
  • Added extensive logging throughout the game mode transition, pawn spawning, and animation initialization phases to track where the failure occurs.
  • Checked the timing of when the pawn is spawned and when the animation instance tries to access it, suspecting a race condition or initialization order issue.
  • Also tried to adding it to the updatenaimation method as well
void UCharacterAnimInstance::NativeUpdateAnimation(float DeltaSeconds)
{
    Super::NativeUpdateAnimation(DeltaSeconds);

    if (!CoopAdventureCharacter)
    {
        CoopAdventureCharacter = Cast<ACoopAdventureCharacter>(TryGetPawnOwner());
        if (!CoopAdventureCharacter)
        {
            return;  // Still no valid pawn owner, skip this frame
        }

        // Successfully got the CoopAdventureCharacter, can now safely access components
        ClimbingMovementComponent = CoopAdventureCharacter->GetClimbingMovementComponent();
    }

Despite these efforts, the problem persists , indicating that under certain conditions, the pawn owner either isn’t set correctly or is temporarily unset during crucial initialization phases.

Questions for the Community:

  1. Has anyone experienced similar issues with pawn initialization in UE5, especially when involving custom game modes and character classes?
  2. Could this be related to how I’m handling transitions between game modes or the specific order in which Unreal Engine processes these transitions?
  3. Are there known pitfalls or best practices in Unreal Engine that I might be overlooking that could affect pawn ownership and initialization?

Logs from Output when trying to compile the Animation Blue Print it uses:

LogTemp: Warning: NativeInitializeAnimation called in UCharacterAnimInstance
LogTemp: Error: No Pawn Owner found in NativeInitializeAnimation
LogTemp: Warning: NativeInitializeAnimation called in UCharacterAnimInstance
LogTemp: Error: No Pawn Owner found in NativeInitializeAnimation
LogTemp: Warning: NativeInitializeAnimation called in UCharacterAnimInstance
LogTemp: Error: No Pawn Owner found in NativeInitializeAnimation

Logs from Ouput when starting the game within editor and entering the CoopAdventureGamemode:

LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: Constructor of ACoopAdventureCharacter called
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: ClimbingMovementComponent initialized successfully
LogTemp: Warning: NativeInitializeAnimation called in UCharacterAnimInstance
LogTemp: Warning: Pawn Owner found: BP_ThirdPersonCharacter_C_0
LogTemp: Warning: CoopAdventureCharacter is valid, proceeding to fetch components
LogTemp: Warning: ClimbingMovementComponent successfully retrieved
LogTemp: Warning: ACoopAdventureGameMode::BeginPlay - Execution started
LogTemp: Warning: PlayerController found: PlayerController_0
LogTemp: Warning: Player already possesses a pawn: BP_ThirdPersonCharacter_C_0
LogViewport: Display: Viewport MouseLockMode Changed, DoNotLock → LockOnCapture
LogViewport: Display: Viewport MouseCaptureMode Changed, NoCapture → CapturePermanently
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: BeginPlay of ACoopAdventureCharacter called
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: Pawn Owner is currently: AIControllerBueprint_C_0
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: PlayerController is not valid at BeginPlay
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: BeginPlay of ACoopAdventureCharacter called
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: Pawn Owner is currently: AIControllerBueprint_C_1
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: PlayerController is not valid at BeginPlay
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: BeginPlay of ACoopAdventureCharacter called
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: Pawn Owner is currently: AIControllerBueprint_C_2
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: PlayerController is not valid at BeginPlay
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: BeginPlay of ACoopAdventureCharacter called
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: Pawn Owner is currently: AIControllerBueprint_C_3
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: PlayerController is not valid at BeginPlay
LogBlueprintUserMessages: [WBPPlayerHUD_C_0] Player joined!
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: BeginPlay of ACoopAdventureCharacter called
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: Pawn Owner is currently: PlayerController_0
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: PlayerController is valid: PlayerController_0
LogTemplateCharacter: Warning: Input mapping context added successfully
LogLoad: Took 0.865214 seconds to
LogTemp: Warning: NativeInitializeAnimation called in UCharacterAnimInstance
LogTemp: Error: No Pawn Owner found in NativeInitializeAnimation
LogTemp: Warning: NativeInitializeAnimation called in UCharacterAnimInstance
LogTemp: Error: No Pawn Owner found in NativeInitializeAnimation

Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated, as this issue has become a significant blocker in progressing with my project. Thank you in advance for your time and help!

Best Regards,

Nick

2

Did you ever get a resolution on this? I’m running into this issue currently, where TryGetPawnOwner() always returns null in my AnimInstance…