Spring Arm Problem

[Nate1232]

Good Morning! apologies if this has been answered, but i have had no luck looking on the internet for an answer…i am wanting to do a true first person camera view where the player can look down and see their body. If i just use the player camera, it works but its really jittery and snappy, so i have tried using a spring arm to add rotation lag, which works great, but if i look down i am able to look inside my character mesh…any ideas how to fix this? thanks for your time!

[AustrianMunzter]

hi,
here are some quick videos showing the process

True First Person Camera - Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial

or adjusting the near clip plane

Adjusting Near Clip Plane in UE4

How to Fix Unreal Engine Near Clip Plane

hope this will help you

cheers

[Nate1232]

hey buddy, thank you soo much for the reply! sadly it doesnt fix my issue

[AustrianMunzter]

hi,
hmm one other way i could think of would be rotation the head with camera attached in eye position, then it should correctly align and be more natural in animation.

another way could be adding a forward offset the more you look down

something like clamp(currentAngle/maxAngle,0,1) * forwardOffset if that makes sense

excuse the guerilla style image

cheers

[Nate1232]

no matter where i attach the spring arm if i look down, i am able to see inside my character its ok dude, thank you so much for your help

[AustrianMunzter]

np,
when i am home i will try out if i can find a simple solution which does not need a head rotation. i made mine with aim offset so when i look around my head actually rotates and the camera is parented to the head bone / socket.

write you later

[AustrianMunzter]

hi,
here is what i came up with

first create your socket

then parent camera boom or whatever to mesh and select the socket you made and play with arm distance

set near clip plane to your liking

and here is the result

this is using the standard third person blueprint
you can also jump, run,… np, i can make you a video later, must go shopping now
hope this helps you

cheers

[RecourseDesign]

@Nate1232

but if i look down i am able to look inside my character mesh

You’ll probably also need to “HideBoneByName” your Head - and then add a separate head mesh that is owner no-see, but still receives shadows. Otherwise you’ll get some animations that poke through it and are unsightly.

Also, limit your spring arm movement to around 14 (well, it’s 14 for my character anyway).

That wasn’t enough - I ended up having to also change my walking and strafing animations to straighten the spine and remove up/down movement. Once I had done that it worked really well…

[Nate1232]

awesome, thanks so much buddy!

[Nate1232]

ahh mate thank you! have a great time shopping!

[AustrianMunzter]

hi,
i will make the same with spring arm later, will post it in a few hours… (don´t now why i did that yesterday )

later

[AustrianMunzter]

hi,
here is the same setup with spring arm

i have no clipping issues see here

hope this helps you

cheers

[EliasWick]

One way to achieve a true first-person camera view where the player can look down and see their body is to use a combination of a player camera and a spring arm component in your Unreal Engine project.

To fix the jittery and snappy movement of the player camera, you can adjust the spring arm’s properties, such as the “Camera Lag Speed” and “Camera Rotation Lag Speed” to add rotation lag to the camera movement. This will make the camera movement smoother and more realistic.

To prevent the player from being able to look inside the character mesh when looking down, you can use a “No Visibility” collision component on the bottom of the character mesh. This will prevent the camera from rendering the inside of the mesh when the player looks down.

Another way to achieve this is to use a “First Person Mesh” component, this component allows you to assign a different mesh to be rendered when the camera is in first person view, this way you can have a different mesh that doesn’t have holes in it.

You can also consider using the “First Person Camera Component” , this component is specifically designed to be used in first-person games, it provides a smooth and stable first-person camera that allows you to look down and see the body.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Nate1232]

oh wicked no way, thanks so much man

[Nate1232]

sorry, how do i get the first person camera component? it doesnt show on a list when trying to add to my characte bp ( unless im in the wrong area :D)

[EliasWick]

No my mistake, I was referring to reuse the first person template camera setup. There is no actual First Person Camera Component, not as far as I am aware. I think this may be of interest to you: How to Switch between Third Person and First Person in Unreal Engine 5 - In 3 mins! - YouTube
Watch this one if it’s for multiplayer: UE5 Lyra Switch To First Person View Tutorial - YouTube

[Nate1232]

thanks buddy!

[JPaulGarrett72]

If you are using first person only (in a first person template), In the player character blueprint, under the CharacterMovement component, uncheck the “Orient Rotation to Movement” option. If you added a first person camera to a third person template, you will need to add the following to your third person character blueprint after to restore third person camera functions:

[Nate1232]

thanks mate!