Welcome to my fifth blog. This week was tricky because I had to set up the 2d character movement component and camera. Something that unreal engine does specialise in.

I was surprised with how engaging to could make the camera and the basic movement polishing it quite early on. I worked on implementing things that make a 2d platforming game great. This game is looking to be a combat focused game however working on the platforming and movement elements first would be very helpful to make the players feel more in control of their combat actions.

I focused on implementing a singular run speed with no acceleration or deceleration because I want the player to be able to control the movement of the character easily like Hollow Knight. To build up on the movement fluidity and responsiveness I tried incorporating a varied jump height however, I was constantly facing the problem of it feeling too floaty or too sharp and it changed with the different place holder sprite sheets I used. Because I haven’t finalised any sprite sheets of my own I didn’t want to waste any more time configuring rating the jump ability. So I made the variables that effect the feel of it instance editable in the blueprint so that I can easily come back to it at a later date and adjust it accordingly. 

I’m happy with the progress and solutions I found for the jump problem this week however I want to focus on the fluidity of the animations by incorporating animation frames that play before or after an animation is played to give the character a little bit of extra realism. This was easy for the most part using paper ZD the software I initially plugged in. However, there was no way of adding an extra animation for the player whilst turning left and right to show the player turning instead of snapping him to face the other side. This problem will need to be explored further next week.