The Art of Combat - Melee Combat System for the Unreal Engine

Distribution UE Marketplace
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Hey guys. Just mentioning again - you can reach me on Skype if you have questions or suggestions, or just wanna brainstorm ideas for your game or something else. :smiley:

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Made some minor changes to the 4.13 version.
Changes made:

  1. Added Documentation
  2. Added a validity check in the ‘Enable AI Cone’ section under the ‘Lock-On Mechanics’ section of the Manne_BP Blueprint.

Thanks.

Feel free to leave comments or ask questions if you have any. :smiley:

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Hi guys! Any questions for me?

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Hi guys! The Art of Combat is going on sale for 21 days from today the 4th of October.
Very big thanks to everyone who’s supported me thus far, you guys are incredible!

Side note: Adrayvia will be available for early access play come December, so look forward to it. :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks!

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Nice!!! I might be able to get this now :smiley:

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Hi guys! Check out my new video showcase for Adrayvia, my personal game project: Adrayvia: Ranger and Vorhut Showcase (Attack on

For viewers in the US, Mexico, New Zealand and Australia (and anyone who wants to download the video), use this link:

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Nice work… sound track copyright issues in these other countries?

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Yep, that’s right :).

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Hi guys!
I’m thinking of adding some of my compositions into The Art of Combat (for free of course :)) as an addon, but I wanna know if this is something you’d be interested in.
Check out my profile here: Stream Ibmax - The Blurr music | Listen to songs, albums, playlists for free on SoundCloud and let me know what you think, or just leave a comment there on the profile.

Thanks!

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Remember to reach me on Skype if you have questions :).

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What would you like to see in The Art of Combat?

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Hi, like to see an easier way to change characaters/animations. Also, I don’t know if it now supports locomotion.

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Hi, @overreal.
To change characters (meshes), simply select your character’s mesh in the content browser and click on the assign button in the character blueprint. If you mean to change characters (blueprints), you can create children of the parent character blueprint to hold unique designs for each child, or duplicate the parent and change the corresponding cast nodes that refer to the character blueprint to match the new blueprint.

As for changing animations, it’s really easy to change animations. I included a Moveset Control Component which is active by default. You can use it to switch movesets depending on the weapon type in use. This is the default configuration. If you are okay with this, simply navigate to the:

TheArtOfCombat>CombatSystem>Blueprints>Structs folder.

In there, you’ll find AIPossession and PlayerPossession folders.
Inside the PlayerPossession folder, a folder named _StructKing which houses a struct called StructKing_PlayerPossession_Struct exists.
This struct holds all the montages for the Manne_BP (player character blueprint), and you can assign the montages here.
Manne_BP by default uses the Sword One Handed style (_Sword_OH suffix), so to assign the evades for it, for example, click on the Evades_Sword_OH dropdown and assign the montages there. For its Light Attacks, click on Light_Attacks_Sword_OH and assign the montages. And so on.

The same thing applies to the AIPossession’s StructQueen struct.

Of course if you want to change the class of character blueprints, (from Sword One Handed to something else, perhaps Dagger Double Wield, for example) open up the respective character blueprint (Manne_BP or AI_Guard_BP). Under the Components tab, scroll down to the Moveset_Control_Component. Click on it and navigate to the details tab. Scroll down to the Weapons>Types category, and you can easily set Char’s Current Weapon Type to what ever you wish. The Weapon Type Enum can be modified according to your design as well. Open up the Moveset Control Component to see how it works.

If, however, you do not wish to use the Moveset Control Component, simply open up the character blueprint and search for ‘SMBWT On Char’. Disconnect the pins that go in to this function, and make sure to continue the execution flow (connect the disconnected pin(s) into the node(s) that the SMBWT on Char’s output is connected to). Now you can simply assign the montages right here in the character blueprint, and/or on instances of the character blueprint.

For instance, to assign the Evade_Forward montage, simply select your montage in the Content Browser and assign it to the Evade_Forward variable in the character blueprint, or its instance.

As for the ‘I don’t know if it now supports locomotion’, what do you mean by ‘locomotion’? Both The Art of Combat’s player and AI character blueprints support translocation by movement (if this is what you mean by locomotion), and both have animation blueprints with state machines.

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thanks for detailed explanation.

Because some of the animations in your sample character has locomotion, some don’t. translocation by moment is not locomotion, locmotion is forward movement defined by animation, for creatures that walk slowly like zombies, it will look correct and not footskate.

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Hi @overreal,
‘Because some of the animations in your sample character has locomotion, some don’t’ - I believe you’re referring to In-Place and Root Motion animations. The movement animations are the default Epic animations for the SK Mannequin. So they work out of the box. For the animations I included, some have root motion and some are in-place anims. You can toggle the Root Motion option on or off in the animation’s Anim Asset Details panel. The animations I included are simply examples, and you can always import your animations. In fact, you’re supposed to. That way, you have total control over your combat animations.

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@Maxx_Rexx

I’ve noticed in a few of your youtube videos that the framerate dips a LOT during combat, is this something that all users will have to contest with? Or is there a specific reason for the dips in your case (it was most noticeable during the multiplayer showcase).

Also, I wanted to know what the enemy tracking system is like, can it be adjusted so that melee attacks “follow” the target until they hit?

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Hi @Aumaan,
The framerate reduction in the multiplayer showcase (from 60 to 11 for example) mostly occurred whenever I pressed the Windows Key on my keyboard to switch between the two viewports. Which is normal. In other videos, it was due to poor recording software/settings. There is no framerate drop when you actually jump right in to test stuff out in The Art of Combat out of the box.

You’ll have to elaborate on what you mean by ‘follow the target’, but yes, of course both the AI and the player targeting systems can be adjusted however you see fit. I just overhauled the system in Adrayvia (my personal project based on The Art of Combat) myself. But still, and this is why I need you to elaborate, how does redesigning the AI targeting system affect the ‘path’ of the melee attacks? And ‘until they hit’? What does that mean? The melee attack, a punch for example, will be in the direction the AI is facing. And if the AI has a target, its direction will be facing that target. Which means the punch animation occurs in the relative direction that faces the target. By default, the animation is not set to loop forever, so it will stop when it reaches its end, and the AI can decide if it wants to attack again.

If this is not what you mean, kindly explain. :slight_smile:

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@Maxx_Rexx
Sorry for not being clear.

Here is what I mean:

When Batman attacks an enemy, he tracks all the way to where they are and hits them, he travels that distance automatically when the attack button is hit and the target is selected. (target is based on who the player points towards with the left analog stick)

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Hi @Aumaan,
Now I see clearly what you mean. Yes, you can adjust/edit/re-design the existing targeting systems in The Art of Combat to do this. Off the top of my head, for simple functionality, the Move to Actor node can implement this. Another is the Teleport functionality. For something fancier, you’d need to incorporate notifies into your attack anims to call for a transitional anim, such as the leap which occurs in the target’s direction (plus slomo if desired). Like I said, you can do anything even without The Art of Combat as long as you can think it, design it, and implement it. The difficulty of the actual implementation process does depend on the designer’s aptitude however (I think :)).

Thanks for showing me this though. It just gave me some crazy new ideas.
Hmmmm…
Hehehehe…
Mwahahaha…

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@Maxx_Rexx

this is good to know, it sounds like there is alot that a user can customize and tweak. I’m currently waiting for a check to arrive, then I’ll be able to make the jump

What have I done O_O

lol

Oh, if you want more info about how the batman games attack system works, I’ve written a break down on how Batman prioritizes his enemies when doing specific attacks in the Arkham Origins game:
Arkham origins was really buggy and the combat system in that game wasn’t as polished as the previous games so I made a list of bugs in their system, and wrote an explanation on how it worked in the previous games.

It’s somewhat extensive, but I think you’ll enjoy the read, hopefully you’ll play the game as well (to better contextualize the breakdown)
http://community.wbgames.com/t5/Arkham-Knight-Support/Combat-Attack-Target-Priorities-broken/m-p/38833#M7474

Here is an excerpt that’s related to my next question.

You said that we can re-design the targeting system too correct? Does this mean that I could implement such a priority system as illustrated above to be influenced by player directional input? (I believe Batman uses an 8 direction segment radius to highlight potential targets, they uses the above described “per-attack” priority system to decide who to hit).

Once I purchase the system, will you show me where in the blueprint I should add these features?