Learning 2D development with PaperZD - Part 1: Basics - Unreal Engine 5

[@ChrisRosario117]

A little helpful tip for everyone that's making 2d games in unreal. If your colors look washed out or whiter than normal go to the camera you will use on the scene and search for "Tone Curve Amount" and set that from 1 to 0, also make sure you don't have auto exposure on in the project settings(These settings will make it look like unlit mode). This is something I learned after years of making 2d games in unreal hope this helps someone.

[@LeafBranchGames]

Thank you for sharing. :)

[@StraightUpProductionOfficial]

It sure does help

[@stefans3780]

lovely! hope you continue the series! very useful for all of us who want to get into 2d making with UE. pls don't stop !

[@LeafBranchGames]

Nothing to worry about. I have many more planned, just need to make the time for them. :)

[@thinginthenorth]

This was my first look into Unreal Engine and PaperZd and have to say it is awesome. Great explanation, thanks!

[@LeafBranchGames]

Thank you very much, appreciate that. Glad to hear you had a positive first experience. :)

[@wniawnia]

Just starting to learn UE and this is such a cool vid! I had lots of fun creating my own sprite and making it move with help from this video😎 Gonna go through everything

[@LeafBranchGames]

Glad to hear it! Welcome to Unreal!

[@illDefine1]

I'm so thankful for this :)

[@LeafBranchGames]

Happy to hear it. :)

[@jkazulyblanco]

Amazing tutorial, excellent explanation, thanks 🙏👍

[@LeafBranchGames]

Thank you, appreciate that. :)

[@fazums]

Begginer. So much stuff to remember

[@LeafBranchGames]

You can always come back to the video if you forget. It will get stuck in your memory in time.

[@sammermusa5124]

thank you for this

[@LeafBranchGames]

My pleasure!

[@geoffrey3668]

Thank you very much for this tutorial!

[@LeafBranchGames]

My pleasure Geoffrey. :)

[@Ilaijo]

Bro you are awesome,thanks for this videos

[@LeafBranchGames]

Thank you, appreciate the kind words!

[@CreativeGamestv1]

Looking forward to the other parts

[@LeafBranchGames]

Glad to hear it, I will try to get them out as quickly as time allows me. :)

[@CreativeGamestv1]

@@LeafBranchGames Will you bring more advanced tutorials to PaperZD? I really want to know how to put the sprite from the front during the character's direction rotation, as well as sprites to brake, jump while running and etc.

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@CreativeGamestv1 I will be doing a bunch of tutorials on PaperZD, yes. Next one should be out any day. Stay tuned!

[@dionkemp]

👏👏 I like your channel more and more 👍 Keep up

[@LeafBranchGames]

Glad to hear it, thank you. :)

[@evaisotalo3386]

Great tutorial. Thank you for sharing. :)

[@LeafBranchGames]

Glad to hear you like it Eva. :)

[@andreadiazcasabuenas1039]

Me salvaste para mi clase de producción de interactivos

[@LeafBranchGames]

Glad to hear it was helpful for you. :)

[@TorQueMoD]

You should NOT scale your capsule down. You should scale the sprite UP. If you scale the capsule down you'll run into issues with step height and physics simulating properly. ALWAYS scale the sprite up to fit. Ideally you can adjust the size of the pixel to Unreal unit scale to make your sprites all render larger. Setting it to 0.25 will make the sprites 4X larger by default.

[@LeafBranchGames]

That is of course if physics and step height is something you are looking to make use of.

[@Yujitsuz]

Awesome tutorial I'm struggling with openning the animation sequence, evertime I try to open it my engine just crashes

[@LeafBranchGames]

You could try the PaperZD discord and see if that is something they have run across before.

[@ronsronshirt4177]

for anyone using this, remember that you will likely need to use conduits and that conduits themselves have a boolean transition condition inside them when you double click.

[@LeafBranchGames]

Conduits are very niche, so I seldom find the use for them. This very basic first episode should not require any such element. But thank you for sharing about conduits!

[@JoseManuelRodenes]

Nice, thx!!

[@LeafBranchGames]

My pleasure. :)

[@nexus1g]

Can I access owning instance variables within the state machine? I want two blueprints to be able to communicate states between each other through event dispatchers to set flags and then change animation states based on those bool flags. However, even making the class variable public doesn't make it visible to the animation blueprint for PaperZD. Am I just barking up the wrong tree to do what I'm trying to do?

[@carlosrivadulla8903]

I think u can make the character flip by scaling the sprite to -1 on x axis

[@LeafBranchGames]

There are usually several ways to achieve the same or similar results. You could scale the sprite if you want to. But you could run into other issues later. One such is that since the actual character blueprint is now not facing the other direction, getting its forward vector would give a wrong direction for example.

[@carlosrivadulla8903]

@@LeafBranchGames that's a nice plot, ty for the extra tip!

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@carlosrivadulla8903 No problem.

[@noshinraisa6317]

Hello, this video is very heplful, but what if I want to bring in another character into the world with the same functionality and stuff as my first character, the only difference is that its a different sprite/character. What would I do? Do I create a whole different animation source, paper ZD animBP, and etc all over again or do I just create a new blueprint class character?

[@TDF56]

Hi so following the instructions I added forward and backward inputs but ran into an issue where the input keeps of changing like for once with pressing W it goes upwards and then the next minute pressing S moves the character forwards, any help to fix this and really appreciate your tutorials genuinely learning something very useful.

[@LeafBranchGames]

Not entirely sure I am following what is happening with your inputs. But it does sound like you missed some part of the setup or are trying to do something different.

[@TDF56]

@@LeafBranchGames First of all thanks for replying even tho its a year old video, now I kinda solved the issue so in simple terms I wanted my character to go upwards and downwards as in strafe not jump, and putting the scale value as -1 in the inputs solved that issue but now am stuck at Running to Idle transition in state machine, and my character just stutter when moving in the Y-axis but moves smoothly in the X-axis. I am joining the discord and will share this issue there too, would really appreciate ur take on it. Earned my SUB deffo.

[@coreybrown556]

I'm running in to an issue when adding the Spring Arm. My camera is perfectly centered when using the base camera, but after I add the Spring Arm the sprite is oriented to the left side of the player window. I'm not sure what would cause that by adding the Spring Arm?

[@LeafBranchGames]

Make sure all your rotations, locationd and hierarchical component orders are the same as shown in the video.

[@luke-wu6hq]

If anyone has their camera go out into the sky/into space, just try moving the camera a bit in the capsule settings. It was annoying

[@Deedrio]

How do you get rid of the Capsule in play mode?

[@おおみみず]

We become indebted to. AnimationSource is specified at 9:49 in the video, but can this specification be changed later? When adding a character, it is quite difficult to set the animation branching conditions from the beginning.

[@LeafBranchGames]

The only limitations that exist as far as I know are what I mention in the tutorial. So as long as you adhere to that you should be ok.

[@おおみみず]

@@LeafBranchGames For example, you can't change where Class Settings >PaperZD >SupportedAnimationSource for PaperZDAnimBP belongs, right? It's greyed out and you can't change it. I haven't seen anywhere in the video that mentions this.

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@おおみみず In blueprint yes. If you use c++ you have more freedom. The creator of PaperZD have a discord where you can discuss with him in detail what issues you have and if you feel the plugin has any shortcomings. He will be very interested to improve it.

[@おおみみず]

@@LeafBranchGames Understood. thank you.

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@おおみみず No problem.

[@nobodyimportant4778]

What's the concensus? Is it better to set the transition states manually in the state machine or to set the desired animation inside an enumerator using a long chain of boolean logic in a seperate function?

[@LeafBranchGames]

Whichever you feels is the easiest to maintain, easiest to read and understand after not having worked on it for a while - is likely the approach that i the best.

[@Frazer213]

What if we are doing a top-down 2D game like the Legend of Zelda where our character has animations for all 4 directions? What is the best way to do it? I don't see a way to access variables inside the Animation graph.

[@LeafBranchGames]

For directional animations like that, you want to setup multidirectional sequences. So that the sprite changes which flipbook/sequence to play depending on direction. Concerning accessing variables, what exactly do you mean?

[@Frazer213]

​@@LeafBranchGames I'm not super skilled with the plugin yet, but to do this without the plugin, I have a function that sets a variable to which direction my character is facing, so my flipbooks can be updated and have the correct flipbook played. So i was trying to see if i could just do it the same way by accessing a variable to tell the state machine which flipbook to play based off of the variable.

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@Frazer213 You can find the paperzd documentation here: www.criticalfailure-studio.com/paperzd-documentation/ The section of interest to you for multidirectional sprites is 13.

[@Kopikyatto]

Hello! awesome tutorial so far, really got excited when you mentioned state machines and will be following closely. I have a quick question if I may, in my game im trying to make it a hybrid 2D/3D and the character is able to move on the Y axis not just the X axis, however following your tutorial i came across the problem that when I move on the Y axis the character sprite rotates to a perfect 90degrees making them invisible since the sprite is flat of course. Is there anyway where I can stop the character from rotating on the Y axis and only rotate on the X axis? ive tried to find a constraint somewhere in settings but haven't found anything so far. Thank you for your help

[@LeafBranchGames]

Not entirely sure I follow. We rotate around the Z-axis in this tutorial. So don't really know what you mean with rotating around X and Y axis for your game.

[@Kopikyatto]

@@LeafBranchGames I understand how it might be a bit confusing, the easiest way I can put it is when you showed the sprite rotating left and right with the Yaw value being at 360 the sprite would physically flip from one side to the other on the x axis (inverting the image) if you were to add movement component on the Y axis the image would flip "upward" or on the Y axis making it invisible since the camera is only displaying "left and right" or the X axis. Is there a fix to this? or a type of constraint to not have the image physically flip when we change direction?

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@Kopikyatto Well, in this tutorial we set the pawns rotation to follow the movement through a setting. So since you will be moving in depth, that is the movement and that is the rotation it will then take. So that is not a setting you should be using in that case I would say. You may want to aim at having the rotation of the actor be determined by your X input rather than its movement overall.

[@Derpwigglies]

I'm doing the same thing, in a 2D/3D hybrid game. There's another tutorial that teaches you how to do it, but some other logic breaks down. Such as attacking. If you figure it out I would love to know.

[@ryanchiu9096]

Hi, Sorry for bothering you, I am currently working on a 2d top-down project and run into a problem, when my character is getting hit, it will keep looping the getting hit animation even tho it is not getting hit anymore, I've upload a short 1 min video in my channel including the animation state machine and blueprints, is it possible that you could take a quick look if you have time and point out what did I do wrong? I don't know if I sharing the video link in your comment section is ok. Really appriciate the help!

[@LeafBranchGames]

You have a setting you can enable to just play the animation once instead of loop it.

[@maiworld_]

would it be possible to follow all of these steps and then change the sprite? curious if i could work on all the mechanics and then focus on the artwork after?

[@LeafBranchGames]

Yes, of course.

[@D1A13LO]

After Setting up input And going back to Event Graph when I right click and search for right movement its nowwhere to found

[@LeafBranchGames]

Make sure you are typing the name correctly as you named it in your project input settings.

[@D1A13LO]

@@LeafBranchGames Thanks Worked

[@ronsronshirt4177]

my state machine seems to get stuck with this method, hanging on certain states even when their transition conditions are no longer met. for a character with 4 directions of movement, i have to come to a complete stop in order to change out of the animation for the direction i was originally moving in.

[@LeafBranchGames]

The PaperZD documentation has a section that covers multidirectional movement, that would probably be the first place to get some insight into it. Other than that, think about what you want your logic to do. Should the direction be determined by what key is pressed to drive it in a direction? Then have direction determine your animation. Do you want the movement to instead determine direction? Then use velocity vector.

[@ronsronshirt4177]

@@LeafBranchGames my issue was solved by requiring the desired direction's velocity absolute value to be higher than the absolute value of the character's perpendicular movement in order to transition, thus making perpendicular direction animations mutually exclusive with each other, same as opposite directions are mutually exclusive. I still never figured out why changing directions too quickly prevented a state change when i was using velocity > 0 AND perpendicular velocity == 0 though. My guess is that some tiny, tiny momentum is preserved in the perpendicular direction no matter what you do. even with a super super high friction/braking on your character's movement component.

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@ronsronshirt4177 Glad to hear you sorted it out. :)

[@rusholate513]

Hi I ran into an issue at 8:35, when I open PaperZetaD I do not have Animation Source :(

[@LeafBranchGames]

What do you have?

[@rusholate513]

Turns out I had been using UE4, I was able to find it after I updated it hahah! :')@@LeafBranchGames

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@rusholate513 Glad you figured it out.

[@Another_youtube_animator]

Is it possible to download onto unreal on steam deck?

[@LeafBranchGames]

Yes

[@galberger3937]

Hi. I wanna learne to do this as well but i can't find free 2d characters to use where can i find good ones?

[@LeafBranchGames]

In the description below the video.

[@brandonharper3060]

My character keeps rotating the wrong way for some reason

[@LeafBranchGames]

Make sure that it by default is looking along the positive X axis, as that is forward.

[@legoman300]

Can you show how to make and rpg-esk style with this?

[@LeafBranchGames]

Are there some specific RPG elements you had in mind?

[@legoman300]

@@LeafBranchGames maybe character customize?

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@legoman300 If you mean visually customize, that will be difficult as we are using free assets as our learning material and the assets don't have multiple visuals.

[@Anirudhji2001]

@@LeafBranchGames I think he might’ve meant character customise such as having players choose a specific colour set when in game, or maybe differing armour sets, which is difficult on 2D sprites.

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@Anirudhji2001 Could be, yes.

[@ThatRielyKid]

Hey my character moves forward, but will not move backwards. I've double checked and everything is how you've set it up. Any fixes for this? Cheers

[@LeafBranchGames]

Hello Bronze, I think you must have missed some step of what I did. Maybe you don't have a negative multiplier value for the key to move back in the input possibly.

[@ThatRielyKid]

@@LeafBranchGames I have -1.0 set for MoveLeft "A" key. I've just been over it again, can't seem to find anything wrong :(

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@ThatRielyKid I would suggest debugging. Start from the beginning and don't assume things work. Check that your input values are correct from your key presses, put out reference points in the world, check that your camera is correct in location and rotation. Check all of the things, because it could be any kind of detail you could have missed.

[@ThatRielyKid]

@@LeafBranchGames Thanks for your fast replies! I found a work around: I used the "Split Struct Pin" and added my "Axis Value" to "World Direction X" Then just added my "InputAxis MoveLeft" separate and did the same thing. It works, but I was wondering if this is an okay way to do it?

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@ThatRielyKid Your axis value should be 1 if moving right and -1 if moving left. So it should already be correct to just plug it in directly into X like in the tutorial. Are you saying you have created two separate inputs for left and right instead of two keys for just the MoveRight axis?

[@punchline1729]

so this plugin makes the sprite component of the paper character useless!

[@LeafBranchGames]

Not sure I would put it like that.

[@mattice9083]

no matter what i do my character will not rotate to the left. any ideas?

[@LeafBranchGames]

Sounds like either the capsule is not rotating or that you have not changed the settings in regard to rotation that we go through in the video.

[@mattice9083]

@@LeafBranchGames settings are the same. However I'm using the enhanced input system so I don't know if the negate is causing problems. Usually he just spins around infinitly pushing left or not at all

[@mattice9083]

@@LeafBranchGames but ultimately yeah I don't think something is rotating.

[@LeafBranchGames]

​@@mattice9083 Click the capsule component and remove the flag that says hidden when playing. Then you might see clearer if it is rotating or not. The input has no bearing on the rotation.

[@mattice9083]

@@LeafBranchGames i posted my solution in the discord. no idea if its bad practice or not ;P

[@Take22952]

Will this work in ue4?

[@LeafBranchGames]

Any version of Unreal Engine that PaperZD has support for, it will work for yes. Exactly which versions that is, you can see on the PaperZD marketplace page.

[@Take22952]

@@LeafBranchGames These are the reasons why I love Unreal Engine

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@Take22952 👍

[@TheBossnia]

I know you don´t care but it is VERY disturbing to look at 2D development in a 3D environment. You should had set a 2D background and ground so the character can stand in before any other thing.

[@LeafBranchGames]

There are several 2D games that take place in a sort of 3D environment. Like octopath traveler. It is a growing occurrence for 2D style games. There are also other reasons to display things in 3D, because there are aspects to consider and remember it takes place in a 3D environment, even if everything looks 2D.

[@TheBossnia]

@@LeafBranchGames octopath was not presented with no background…

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@TheBossnia No, it had a 3D background. Just like this tutorial has a 3D background.

[@TheBossnia]

@@LeafBranchGames yeah… sure… exactly the same visuals… I must be blind… sorry for my comment on your AAA tutorial. As I told in the first comment, it’s clear that you don’t care about the impression the background does to your tutorial… I still find it very important. Your content is very good. But the background is very distracting. It’s just my opinion that 2D charcaters must fit in the environment… octopath did it, this tutorial didn’t…

[@LeafBranchGames]

@@TheBossnia If you need a 2D background then you can look at this tutorial instead: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aHiapmWmfNymeas