Viewport Controls

There are various controls to enable you to navigate the scene, select and manipulate Actors, and change display options while working in the viewports.

For the purposes of this document, you should assume the following abbreviations:

Navigation Controls

There are a variety of ways in which to navigate the Unreal Editor viewports. Some can be done entirely with the mouse, with the keyboard, or with a variety of combinations between the two.

Some of the controls below are configurable in the Keybindings Editor. Their default state is listed here. If you have made changes to them, they may not match.

Standard

These controls represent the default behavior when clicking and dragging in the viewports with no other keys or buttons pressed. These are also the only controls that can be used to navigate the orthographic viewports.

Control	Action
Perspective
LMB + Drag	Moves the camera forward and backward and rotates left and right.
RMB + Drag	Rotates the viewport camera.
LMB + RMB + Drag	Moves up and down.
Orthographic (Top, Front, Side)
LMB + Drag	Creates a marquee selection box.
RMB + Drag	Pans the viewport camera.
LMB + RMB + Drag	Zooms the viewport camera in and out.
Focusing
F	Focuses the camera on the selected object. This is essential to make the most out of tumbling the camera.

Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad

On a Mac, after enabling Secondary click in System Preference > Mouse for the Magic Mouse, or enabling Secondary click with two fingers in System Preference > Trackpad for the Magic Trackpad, the following controls are available.

Game-style

The WASD controls will feel natural to those who are used to playing shooter games on the PC. They are enabled by default and can be used whenever you are holding RMB. This means you will still use RMB to turn the camera while navigating in this way.

These controls are mirrored on the arrow keys and num pad to provide alternate access to them.

All of these controls are only valid in a Perspective viewport, and by default you must hold RMB to use the WASD game-style controls.

Control	Action
W / Numpad8 / Up	Moves the camera forward.
S / Numpad2 / Down	Moves the camera backward.
A / Numpad4 / Left	Moves the camera left.
D / Numpad6 / Right	Moves the camera right.
E / Numpad9 / Page Up	Moves the camera up.
Q / Numpad7 / Page Dn	Moves the camera down.
Z / Numpad1	Zooms the camera out (raises FOV).
C / Numpad3	Zooms the camera in (lowers FOV).

When zooming the camera, holding the RMB will hold the FOV, preventing it from snapping back to its default settings. The FOV will remain until the RMB is released.

When navigating with WASD while holding down the RMB, you can rotate the mouse wheel up to speed up your movement, or rotate the mouse wheel down to slow down your movement.

While using the Magic Mouse or Magic Track you will not be able to change the speed of the camera by using the RMB + Mouse Scroll Wheel, you will need to adjust it using the Viewport camera speed option.

Pan, Orbit, and Zoom

Unreal Editor supports Maya-style pan, orbit, and zoom viewport controls, making it much easier for Maya artists to jump into the tool. If you are unfamiliar, here is a breakdown of the keys:

Command	Description
Alt + LMB + Drag	Tumbles the viewport around a single pivot or point of interest.
Alt + RMB + Drag	Dollies (zooms) the camera toward and away from a single pivot or point of interest.
Alt + MMB + Drag	Tracks the camera left, right, up, and down in the direction of mouse movement.

The use of the F key is not limited to Maya-style controls. You can always press F to focus on a selected object or group of objects.

Scaled Camera Zoom and Pan

When you have one or more objects selected in the Level Viewport, the sensitivity of zoom and pan camera operations is scaled automatically with the distance between the selected objects and the camera. This makes your camera movements feel more natural, especially when you're working with objects at extreme sizes, such as tiny mechanical parts or large landscapes.

To enable scaled zoom and pan, open the Editor Preferences window. Navigate to the Level Editor > Viewports section. In the first section on the right, called Controls, click the arrow at the bottom to expand the section to display more settings.

Locate the Use distance-scaled camera speed setting. Click the box to enable. You can disable this setting by clicking the box to clear it.

Orbit Around Selection

When you have one or more objects selected in the Level Viewport, you can make the camera orbit around the pivot of the selected objects, rather than orbiting around the center of the screen.

To enable scaled zoom and pan, open the Editor Preferences window. Navigate to the Level Editor > Viewports section. In the first section on the right, called Controls, click the arrow at the bottom to expand the section to display more settings.

Selection Controls

You can select Actors in the viewport individually simply by clicking on them or in groups using a box selection in the 2D viewports:

Transform Controls

These controls relate to moving, rotating, and scaling Actors in the viewports using the transform tools:

You can see which tool is active in the viewport toolbar:

Display Controls

These controls affect how the level is displayed in the viewport.