Broken AI Perception System

Hello Unreal community,

Currently, the AI Sight system in Unreal Engine traces from the AI’s eye position to the origin of the perceived actor — typically at the hip or root component. This causes a problem where an enemy can be looking directly at the visible head or torso of a player character, but won’t detect them because the trace doesn’t hit that point.

Since there’s no built-in way in Blueprints to change the target location or socket for sight tracing, it limits control. This has been a known limitation for years, and it still hasn’t been addressed in Blueprint-accessible ways. I’m not sure if it’s still worth relying on Unreal’s perception system, or if this functionality has just been left behind and I should use other methods.

Sorry if I made any mistake—this is my first time posting in the forum, so please let me know if I missed something.

See here for Blueprint fix/workaround:

How to set the AI perception “eyes” location? - Programming & Scripting / Blueprint - Epic Developer Community Forums

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If I’m not mistaken that only changes the origin of the line not the destination. The Enemy still detects and looks at the player’s capsule midpoint.

True. If you’re comfortable with a bit of C++, another solution can be found here (via a youtube tutorial):