Hey there - I’ve been sticking with Unreal Engine 5.6 for cinematics because of one key change made in Unreal 5.7+
When using LookAt tracking in a CineCameraActor, the camera aims to keep the target in the exact center of the image. But oftentimes, you’ll want to rotate the camera slightly up, down, left, right etc.
You were able to do this in all versions of Unreal prior by changing the CameraComponent inside of the CineCameraActor. This served as a simple offset to absolutely nail your composition and camera, but it seems like this no longer works in Unreal 5.7+. If you try to adjust the rotation of the component inside once LookAt tracking is enabled, it simply doesn’t allow you to change the rotation, locking you into center-framing on your offset.
Has anyone found a solution for this or is there a clean way to modify the engine to keep the original behavior of CineCameraActors? This is something I use in 75% of my shots so I’ve been using to Unreal 5.6 for a while. Cheers!
Hi Josh. Did you find out how to fix this problem? I bought your course and I am on the shake camera chapters. And when I track the camera to the empty actor doesn’t allow me to apply rotations. Even the shake camera templates stop working. This prblem is giving me headaches too. xD
A parent pivot actor is a good workaround—let it handle the LookAt tracking, then apply your framing offset on the child camera. If this worked in 5.6 but not 5.7+, it also looks worth reporting to Epic as a regression.
You can, but one is rotating the camera by specific rotation values, and one is moving your actor in 3D space. When you rotate the CameraComponent in Unreal 5.6 and before, you can rotate the camera without the LookAt interpolation affecting that rotation.
Now in Unreal 5.7+ you’re forced to use Relative Offset and this will always be affected by the LookAt interpolation speed.
Why this is really a problem when you’re rendering cinematics is LookAt interpolation smooths your camera differently depending on your playback speed, so it creates a lot of inconsistencies when rendering.
Essentially, one gives you specific granular control, and one is you offsetting a curve that you can’t control.