Before we Start

This guide continues on from the CouchLearn guide “Setting up a NavMesh in Unreal Engine 5”.

Our previous guide explains how to set up a basic NavMesh and AI character in your Unreal Engine 5 project. Follow the previous guide found here or download the project files here.

Chasing the Player

In the previous “Setting up a NavMesh in Unreal Engine 5”. guide, we finished off with these blueprint nodes to move the AI character around the level.

Firstly, delete the “Get Actor Location” and “GetRandomReachablePointInRadius” nodes from the graph.

These nodes are currently trying to find a random position around the AI. We want the AI to use the player’s location so it is safe to delete these two nodes.

Next, add a new “Get Player Character” node to the blueprint graph.

Then, connect the blue “Return Value” pin to the blue “Target Actor” pin on the “AI MoveTo” node.

This will now get our “Target Actor’s” location for the AI movement.

As our AI might fail to move, if the player isn’t reachable in the navmesh, we now connect the “On Fail” pin to the “Delay” node.

This now retries the movement if the player is unreachable or the AI fails the nav mesh movement for any reason. This step will keep the AI following the player no matter the situation.

Lastly, make sure to Compile and Save the blueprint editor. This will ensure the changes are applied when we play in the editor.

Use Cases

Even thought these steps are easy and only a few blueprint nodes are used, this basic system can enable many types of AI in modern games.

A few examples of this could be:

• Companion AI following the player around an open world like Skyrim (Using the Unreal Engine dynamic open world navigation).
• Zombie AI chasing the player (Using the Unreal Engine damage system).

Demo Video

Download the Project Files

Conclusion

Now your AI character / enemy is following and chasing the player character around the level in Unreal Engine 5!

As explained in the previous step, this basic system can be expanded to implement many modern game AI behaviours into your Unreal Engine project. To learn more about the capabilities of AI and Navigation in Unreal Engine, consider reading further using the links below.

Further Reading:
How to smoothly rotate AI characters in Unreal Engine
Open world navigation in Unreal Engine
Dynamically generated navigation in Unreal Engine
Official Unreal Engine Navigation documentation

The post AI Following the Player in Unreal Engine 5 appeared first on Couch Learn.

Smoothing the Turning

Firstly, click the top section of the character in the top left side of the editor window.

In our case this is AITestCharacter(self).

This will now show the character and actor information in the details section on the right.

In the Pawn section, Untick the “Use Controller Rotation Yaw”

Next, click the “CharacterMovement (Inherited)” section to show the character movement settings on the right.

In the top right search box type “rotation” to show the related options.

In the Character Movement Rotation Settings tab, change the Z Rotation Rate value to 180 and tick the “Orient Rotation to Movement” box.

Demonstration

In this demo we show AI smooth rotation in Unreal Engine 4 that use the Troll mesh and animations from the Troll Pack PBR asset pack found on the Unreal Marketplace by InfinityPBR.

Instant AI Rotation

Smooth AI Rotation

Conclusion

Your AI characters now rotation smoothly and can be customised based on the agility of your game characters!

Let us know in the comments or contact us directly if you have any problems or want to request new Unreal Engine 4 topics.

Further Reading:

To enable your AI characters to roam large open worlds, check out our guide on enabling dynamic nav mesh generation.

To read more about AI in Unreal Engine, click here to read the official documentation on Behaviour Trees.

The post How to Smoothly Rotate AI Characters in Unreal Engine 4 appeared first on Couch Learn.