Turning a rolling ball into character-class

Hi, i was wondering if it’s possible to turn the default rolling ball template pawn into a character?

I tried simply changing the class settings, but that seemed to totally freak it out, ad it simply fellthrough the map.

It seems strange to me that it is not a character by default, as so much of the blueprinting needs a character reference?

If there is any way around this or preferrably a way to convert it, then please help me out :slight_smile:

welcome @Niku-zan :slight_smile: as you may have figured out by now, UE4’s character class is special. It has many extras that make it very useful and performance-efficient for certain functions but… for this very reason… it can be inflexible.

You’d need to start with a blank character and transfer the ball pawn’s functionality to it. Depending on how the ball pawn moves (I think it uses torque?) there might be a complexity with locomotion. The character pawn is normally moved using specific movement modes: walking, flying, swimming. Though I think you can add your own custom ‘rolling’ mode if you have the skills.

If it was me, and I wanted to use a Character for performance and features… I’d use the Walk mode and simulate the physics and ball rolling motion. Done right, this would work really well…

yes. Launch and Jump only work on a Character Movement Component… for a Pawn, I’d use AddImpulse

Characters are:

  • well set up for networking
  • default movement modes are very performance efficient

Hi, and thanks!

Yeah i noticed that there were some seeming restrictions on using a non-character setup in the blueprinting, but it seems like most of these have a work-around of sorts!

I alrealdy have some adjustments made to my ball blueprint, so it seems like to much of a hassle to redo the whole thing (with potential issues along the way)

And as a heads-up to anyone reading this in the future: Do NOT change the class settings to character and hope that that will solve things, major ■■■■■■■ will follow!

But now that i have you here, i am guessing that for nodes like “launch character” you will have to create an impulse (or similar) targeting the component instead?

And do you know of any limitations to not working with a “character”.character (if you know what i mean) that i should be aware of here?

Thanks a lot :slight_smile: