In the 3rd Person template, what actually causes the camera on the springarm to work?

In the 3rd Person template, what actually causes the camera on the springarm to work? I found a lot of articles saying to use BeginPlay to set the view target, but I’m not seeing that anywhere in the template. I want to learn this by creating a blank game, and making a camera and springarm then have it use that camera, but to understand it I think I need to know how it’s working in the template. Can someone please help?

1 Like

tl;dr: the springarm is using control rotation


  • the Player Controller has a Control Rotation rotator attribute other actors can utilise. In short: tell the controller a rotation value and any other entity can query it.

    [This rotation scheme meshes well with Pawn and Character classes and can be automatically inherited, too.]

  • the Character in the template is instantiated by the Game Mode and possessed, making calling Set View Target with Blend redundant. Possession already tells the controller which view target to look through.

  • the character’s Springarm (here renamed to CameraBoom) takes advantage of Control Rotation and the mouse input in the character adjusts it:


I want to learn this by creating a blank game, and making a camera and springarm then have it use that camera

Do note that this is a neat way to handle camera / character rotation but your mileage may vary as you may simply have other needs / requirements.

1 Like

Completely awesome repy, thank you!

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.