Create a Player Character With Input Actions

Before You Begin

Ensure you've completed these objectives from the previous section,  Set Up and Compile Your Project:

• Created a project based on the First Person template with a custom Game Mode C++ class.

• Verified your project is using the Enhanced Input system.

Set Up a New Character

You’ve set up a new C++ project with a custom Game Mode. Now, you’ll add a new Character class, extend it to Blueprints, and set it as the default player pawn in your Game Mode.

Create a C++ Character Class

Actor assets are any object that can be placed in a level. Pawns are Actors that can be controlled by players or AI, and Characters are a special type of Pawn that are used as player characters. To learn more about these Actor classes, see the Actors, Pawns, and Characters class information in UE’s Gameplay Framework documentation. 

To create a new Character class and add C++ to your project, follow these steps:

1. In the editor’s main menu, go to Tools > New C++ Class.

2. In the Choose Parent Class window, select Character, and click Next.

   

3. Enter a name for the new class (this tutorial uses AdventureCharacter), select Public, then click Create Class.

   

4. Unreal Engine automatically opens the new class files in Visual Studio (VS). Return to VS to find your new files. 

   If VS doesn’t automatically prompt you to refresh your project, in Unreal Editor, go to Tools > Refresh Visual Studio.  

Extend Your C++ Character to Blueprints

Just like you did with your Game Mode, derive a blueprint from the AdventureCharacter C++ class:  to create a Blueprint for that character in the Blueprints folder.

1. In the Content Browser, in the C++ Classes folder, right-click your Character class and select Create Blueprint class based on <CharacterName>.

   

2. Name the Blueprint. This tutorial uses BP_AdventureCharacter. 

3. For the Path, select Content > FirstPerson > Blueprints, and click Create Adventure Character.

4. In the Blueprint's tab, click Save.

Change the Default Player Character

To use your new character in-game, set it as the Default Pawn Class used in your project's Game Mode.

To set your Character as the default player character, follow these steps:

1. If your Game Mode Blueprint isn’t already open, in the Content Browser, double-click your GameMode Blueprint to open it in the Blueprint Editor.  

2. In the Blueprint’s Details panel, expand Classes. This is where you can set different default classes for this Game Mode to use.

3. Change Default Pawn Class to your Character Blueprint (BP_AdventureCharacter).

   

   If your Blueprint isn't in the list, go back to the Content Browser, select your Character Blueprint, then in the Game Mode Blueprint, click Use Selected Asset in Content Browser next to Default Pawn Class.

   

4. In the top-left corner of the window, click Compile, and click Save.

   

If you return to the level editor and play the game, you won't be able to move or look around. This is because your new character doesn't have a body, camera, or actions yet. You'll use C++ to add these features in the following sections of this tutorial series.

Exploring Input Actions

The default character in the First Person template uses a set of preexisting Input Actions that combine with Blueprints to make the character move, jump, and look around.

Open up and explore these Input Actions to learn how they power this character’s movements. 

In the Content Browser asset tree, go to the Content > Input > Actions folder. You’ll see three Input Actions named IA_Jump, IA_Look, and IA_Move that correspond to jumping, looking, and moving around, respectively. 

Double-click IA_Jump to open it and see its Details panel. 

The character’s Input Actions use the following properties to define what type of action it is and what it does:

Exploring Input Mapping Contexts

Input actions don’t work alone; they need an Input Mapping Context to know what button should trigger them and in what context. This is a collection of mappings that describe the rules for triggering an Input Action. You can create and customize multiple Input Mapping Contexts and turn them on and off dynamically to suit the needs of your game. 

The default character already has an Input Mapping Context that you can find in the Content Browser in Content > Input. Double-click IMC_Default to open it and view its Details panel.

IMC_Default contains three Mappings that map each of the three Input Actions to user inputs. Each mapping pulls in the Input Action’s triggers and modifiers. 

Mapping a Jump Action

Expand the IA_Jump mapping. You’ll see it has two control bindings: Space Bar and Gamepad Face Button Bottom. If you press either of these buttons in-game, IA_Jump is triggered. 

Mapping 2D Movement with Keyboard Keys

Next, expand IA_Move to view its nine bindings corresponding to the WASD keys, arrow keys, and gamepad left thumbstick. 

Creating two-dimensional movement from several individual keys requires a bit more setup than the simple boolean jump. 

A key press is one-dimensional, returning a value of 0 when not pressed or 1 when pressed. This works perfectly for the D or Right arrow keys because they should move our character in a positive direction along the X axis (in other words, to the right). However, we need our character to move forward, left, and backwards as well. In other words, we want values 0 to 1 and 0 to -1 on both the X axis and Y axis.

So, to get values that create movement in all directions, the Input Actions use Modifiers to transform the input value to a different axis or to a negative value.

For example, expand the A control binding and its Modifiers to see how it’s configured. You’ll see it has the Negate modifier. This means that when the key is pressed, the value of 1.0 gets negated to -1.0, which moves your character down the X axis, or to the left.  

Expanding the Negate modifier lets you specify whether you want to negate X, Y, or Z axis values. These are all enabled by default, but you can restrict negation to specific axes depending on your needs.

Now, expand the S control binding. To create backwards movement on the Y axis, this binding has two modifiers: a Swizzle Input Axis Values that changes the input from X to Y axis, and a Negate.

Expand the Swizzle Input Axis Values modifier. The Order option specifies how axis values should be reordered. In this case, the Input Action is using YXZ, so the X and Y axis are swapped from the default XYZ ordering.

Mapping 2D Movement on a Gamepad

The gamepad thumbstick uses a 2D-axis for input rather than a 1D button press, so this mapping only needs one control binding to handle thumbstick movement. 

If you expand the Modifiers for Gamepad Left Thumbstick 2D-Axis, you’ll see the Dead Zone and Scalar modifiers. 

Dead Zone specifies the thresholds above and below which input is ignored. Use it to filter out small input values near the center of the thumbstick that are often unintentional due to the stick not centering perfectly or slight finger pressure.

Scalar specifies how much to multiply each of the X, Y, and Z axis values by so you can control how fast your character moves in each direction.

Mapping Look Controls on Gamepad and Mouse

Expand the IA_Look action mapping. This Input Action is bound to the Gamepad Right Thumbstick 2D-Axis control. 

It only needs a Dead Zone modifier to filter out errors.

The default character has a separate mapping context for mouse-based camera controls. Go back to the Content Browser and open IMC_MouseLook. This IMC creates bindings for the IA_MouseLook Input Action which is identical to IA_Look. 

By using separate thumbstick and mouse Input Actions, you can have different modifiers for each input and treat them as separate input paths. However, in this tutorial, you’ll combine everything into one Input Mapping Context.

Expand the IA_MouseLook action mapping. This Input Action is bound to the Mouse XY 2D-Axis control. 

The mouse control binding already uses a 2D axis, so the only modifier it needs is a Y-axis Negate to make the character look down when you move the mouse up. This is traditional for first-person games, but you can delete this modifier to invert your look controls.

Modify an Input Mapping Context

Since you’re just starting out in a new project, combine all input mappings into one Input Mapping Context. 

To create your own IMC based on the default player’s mapping contexts, follow these steps:

1. In the Content Browser, in the Content > Input folder, right-click IMC_Default and select Duplicate.

2. Name the mapping context IMC_Adventure, then double-click it to open it.

3. Under Mappings, expand the IA_Look mapping.

4. Click the plus (+)  button next to IA_Look to add a new control binding.

   

5. Click None to open the key value dropdown list, expand Mouse, and select Mouse XY 2D-Axis.

   

6. In the mouse control binding, click the + button next to Modifiers, and change None to Negate.

7. Expand the Index [0] modifier and deselect X and Z. This modifier should only negate the Y axis.

8. Click Save and close the mapping context.

Next Up

In the next section, you’ll learn how the default character's Blueprint connects player input to character movement and start to recreate this in code.

Configure Character Movement

Learn how to bind player input to character movement in C++.