Why is the Break/Make Rotator Setup Required for 3rd Person Movement?

Development Character & Animation
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1

Hello,

I’m very much a beginner and have just finished the “Blueprint 3rd Person Game” tutorial video set. I had to troubleshoot an issue, and found the solution, but it makes me wonder about something, and I’d like to confirm I’m thinking about it properly.

Problem I was having:
My character wasn’t moving relative to the camera angle, but instead was moving relative to the world. Which made controlling them all but impossible if I was looking around.

Solution:
I dug in and realized that I had hooked up only the Y/Pitch wiring in the Break/Make Rotator Links I’d set up. When I hooked it up to Z/Yaw, all was corrected. And, I think I understand why.

New Question though:
Why is this Break/Make step needed? In search of an answer, I tried a few different hookups:

  • If I wired all three axes in the Break/Make Rotators, the controls still functioned properly:

224787-allaxeswired.jpg
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  • If I disconnected them completely, it still functioned properly:

224788-unhookedcompletely.jpg
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The only difference I noted was that if I pitched the camera down toward the ground and tried to run forward, it wouldn’t run until I pitched back up; then it would gradually pick up speed as the ground moved out of the way. I understand why this happens, since doing the Break/Make Rotator locks things to Z only (thus ignoring the other directions).

Is this the only reason to use the Break/Make Rotator links? Or is there another advantage to doing so?

Thanks for reading this very basic question!

2

Hey there, doing a break and a make with the exact same values (Pitch to Pitch, Roll to Roll, Yaw to Yaw) doesn’t make any difference. The only eventual explanation would be maybe some angle clamping that the make might do, but that doesn’t make much sense. It is weird you are experiencing diferences with and without the make and break.

3

Thanks for the response!

I think what it’s doing is isolating the Z/Yaw, and essentially discarding the X and Y values.

My main question is whether this is required for some other reason than just for cleanliness. I can see that it’s the standard set up for the Unreal Staff and Example Projects for 3rd Person Movement. I’m betting that once you start doing more than just running around on a flat surface, this isolation will be a good thing to have.

Thinking about it more, I’d imagine if you were running up an incline, without the isolation, it’d slow you down in ways that you wouldn’t want.

I think I’ve answered this question myself after thinking about it more. So, I’m gonna call it good.