PlayerStart rotation around Y has no effect, X and Z work OK

Development Programming & Scripting
1

I hope this is a simple thing to fix but it’s driving me mad and can’t find anyone else with the same issue. I’ve just started making a 2D top-down game. Think Asteroids for the sake of simplicity. Here’s what I have so far:

  • Create a Pawn-derived blueprint. Its only component is a PaperSprite. All class defaults are left to default.
  • Create a camera actor, set to orthographic, looking along the -Y direction.
  • Use Set View Target With Blend in the Level Blueprint to switch to this camera on EventBeginPlay.
  • Create a PlayerStart at the origin.
  • Set the required default pawn etc in a GameMode.

Now, running this results in a simple view of my sprite, facing to the right, essentially appearing exactly as it came out of Photoshop.

I want to be able to set the initial orientation of this sprite though - it will be different for different levels or spawn points. From what I’ve read, rotating the PlayerStart should have the desired effect, but when I change its Y rotation there is no effect on the start orientation at all. (The change to the PlayerStart is shown in the editor - the ‘forward’ arrow points where I want it to, it just isn’t applied to the sprite.)

If I try rotations around other axes, these DO modify the start orientation, but of course they cause a rotation out of the y=0 plane where my action takes place. The only rotation that doesn’t work is the one that I need.

Any ideas gladly received.

2

An additional note: I’ve tried replacing the Paper2D sprite with a cone mesh and the same issue arises, so it’s not to do with the ‘experimental’ sprite.

3

Well I figured since rotations around X and Z seem to work I’d just rotate my camera around so I’m looking down the X axis, make my sprite component a child of a scene component so I can apply an equivalent rotation, and then rotate around X instead. But now only rotations around Z and Y work and I can’t rotate around X. The result is exactly the same as if I hadn’t rotated anything at all.

Incidentally, rotating the actor after it’s been spawned using Add Actor World Rotation, called from Event Tick, works fine for rotations around any axis. It’s only the rotation applied when spawning at the PlayerStart that doesn’t work, and only rotations around the camera view direction.

This really shouldn’t be difficult but I just can’t see what to do to achieve this totally simple basic functionality. Clues?