How to Use the Camera Spline For Cinematics

This page covers how to use the features of the plugin in blueprints. The logic in C++ should be the same.

Creating the spline actor:

To start we first need to make the spline actor, the demo content comes with one but for this we will create a new one.

Creating the actor::

1. Create a new actor.

1. Add a spline component to it and a camera component as a child of the spline component.

2. Now add the AC_SplineCamera component to the actor.

3. Now that our components are added, Copy the "Component tag to use" from AC_SplineCamera to your spline component and the camera component using "Component tags"

4. Now you can drag your spline into your level and set it up as you like. We next need to go over the different tracking modes.

Using The Spline Camera Actor:

Setting the spline actor as the viewport camera:

1. In order to see the camera move on the spline, we need to set it as the viewport camera. this is used for all tracking methods.

2. To do this use the Set view target with blend node and set it up like this.

1. When you are ready to make the spline move just set the "Enable Camera Movement" boolean value. Alternatively you can pause the spline movement by setting it to false.

   

2. Thats it for making the spline move and be the active unreal engine camera. To go back to the player, you can use Set View Target with blend and instead of self use "Get Player Pawn" for the new view target.

Track an actor in the level:

1. Drag your spline into the level.

2. Click the actor and in its details panel scroll until you see the AC_SplineCamera component.

1. Set the Tracked actor in level variable to the actor or mesh in your level you want the camera to focus on.

2. Ensure the rest of your variables are set properly as well like in the screenshot below.

Do not track anything in level:

1. If you want to just move the camera forward facing along the spline then use the Track Nothing tracking method.

2. Ensure all variables are set.

3. Thats it, it should work. make sure you have told unreal to set view target to your spline.

Track a spawned actor in the world:

1. This lets you track actors that are spawned and not manually placed such as player characters.

2. To achieve this, set the tracking method to Component on Actor and set the Spawned Actor to Track to be the class you want to track.

IMPORTANT: If you set an incorrect actor, the engine might crash.

1. Then, go to the actor you want to track and add the "AdvancedCameraTracker" tag to its root component. For a third-person character, this would be the capsule collider

2. Ensure that other variables, such as animation speed, are set. It should now track whenever movement is enabled, and you set the spline camera as the viewport camera.