I am working on an on-rails movement blueprint and right now I am using a timeline (4 for each keyboard input) to move an actor around the screen. I want to know if there are other ways/methods to constantly move an actor’s location without using Timelines or Event Tick.
The reason why I am asking is that I am not a fan of using a timeline to constantly move an actor around since there is a “length” to the timeline. If the movement wasn’t constantly updated (point and click) the I don’t mind using timelines.
The reason for not wanting to use Event Tick is shallow but it is because I want to remove as much as I can from Event Tick in case of performance issues.
Hmm…
You could use the move to for components node and have the component it moves be the the root of the actor. (I think the node is called “move component to,” but I might be wrong there).
Also, I think there is a way to make animations move a character, but if you were using a character-type actor you would have access to the character movement component. I’m assuming you don’t have that you are using timelines in the first place. 
Can you give an example of how you want the object to move?
Apart from tick and timelines, of course you have physics, but that may not be good for something on rails.
You might consider using something like AddLocalOffset or AddWorldOffset… driven by your key event (with a FlipFlop) or like here in my screenshot with key axis (using input axis). I don’t think either approach would use Tick at all.
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All I am looking to do is move the pawn across the screen. I am not worried about screen bounds at the moment.
Here is a video link of what inspired me to attempt this. link text
I have tried that but that seems more suited to a “point and click” style of movement, or opening and closing doors instead of constantly adding a vector to the pawn’s location when a button is pressed. If there is a way to do so with Move Component To then I am all ears.
My Pawn BP is just a spring arm with a camera attached and a child actor component. The child actor component is what is being moved around.
yes, what you have shown is quite achievable… but is the pawn controlled (stop/start/ rotate) by your player… or is it autonomous, and is the player essentially the camera?
have you considered using Matinee or a camera or pawn following a spline?
sorry, but I’m not quite clear whether you are moving the camera or the child mesh…
I am moving the child actor. The idea is to have the camera follow a spline and the child actor (the ship) moves around the screen as the camera follows the spline.
I have accomplished getting this blueprint to follow a spline and to move the child actor (the ship) across the screen. I am just wanting to know if there are alternative ways to move the ship across the screen that doesn’t use timelines or Event Tick.
you could apply either of the two approaches I suggested… also, you could make the spaceship a child of a spring arm facing forwards and set inherit roll/pitch/yaw, and enable position and rotation lag on the spring arm (maybe start at around 3 units each one). This would work automatically, with the right settings this would keep the ship onscreen and look very smooth… however, you would lose control over the exact position of the ship
it might look cooler though, if the ship followed the spline… and the camera followed behind on a backwards spring arm, which is a more usual setup. Bacause our eyes are used to a camera following an object, rather than a camera anticipating where an object will head towards
I haven’t tried putting the ship on the spline as I am worried that trying to move the ship across the screen would affect how it will follow the spline. I can try to modify the relative location and see how that affects it.
Spring arm forward technique - use your control inputs (smoothed with Finterp or Vinterp) to SetSocketOffset (relative) and SetTargetOffset (world) to move your ship around relative to the camera… with Clamp so it would stay onscreen.
Another option to experiment with… attach the ship to the spline with another spring arm (with position and rotation lag on), use Socket and Targets offsets to move it about (smoothed with Vinterp and Rinterp) and… use another spring arm to connect the camera to ship (to give you smoothing lag)… this would look best overall, but you’d lose direct control of the camera and it wouldn’t be quite like your reference video.
All of these options would work without tick
