Paper ZD - How to create a 2D Character in Unreal Engine 5

[@MsJojoDangerMusic]

Thanks! After setting up the character blueprint I had to go to project settings and go to maps and modes and select the default pawn class, controller and game mode to the newly created blueprints.

[@ouvio]

Oh god... one of the really important things that I totally spaced out on including. Thank you for putting it in writing here.

[@MsJojoDangerMusic]

@@ouvio totally! :D

[@adelaidedacunha]

How did you setup it? I am trying to add the new Controller but it doesn't let me select it on Maps & Nodes

[@ouvio]

@@adelaidedacunha Did you create a blueprint for the player controller? If so, it should be possible to select it in the player controller class drop down, you just have to look for it. If it doesn't, maybe try creating a new game mode blueprint. Select that new game mode as your default, before looking for the player controller blueprint. That should work.

[@haven_art]

Holy mother of- thank you for this comment!

[@SkyrishCrusader-j9x]

this has been the most informative video ive watched today. thank you for your incite sir.

[@MrMapples]

Thank you so much! I was going through other PaperZD tutorials to flip the character but none of them had Enhanced Input. You told me exactly what I needed.

[@ouvio]

I am happy the video was able to help you with that. 😀

[@anonimo32094]

You ara my savior!! I was looking for a video about it and couldn't find it until now.

[@ouvio]

Glad my way too speedy tutorial could help :)

[@not227]

I had to comment because dude you go TOO FAST and skip too much in order to call these vids for beginners.

[@Scarab381]

Lmao right and its like a 100 steps too, but its on point and thats what i was looking for

[@ouvio]

Haha yeah, I do realize that it's a million miles and hour. There is the pause button, but I know that gets annoying after a while. Next one will be better, if I make another one.

[@Varrbariouss]

I agree I could even read the captions😂

[@CraZyAlex22]

Wow, this was a great video. I was wondering how you did this, and this explained it perfectly. Great editing.!!

[@ouvio]

Thank you!

[@itson230]

Absolutely love you king... this is exactly what I have been searching all over....

[@ouvio]

Give Cobra Code a watch as well. He does so much 2D content in Unreal, that's the guru I'm learning from :D

[@itson230]

@@ouvio thanks... I will check that out😌

[@kudrybca]

素晴らしく簡潔でわかりやすいZDの入り方動画！

[@Gametime05577]

Thank you so much ❤for making this awesome tutorial

[@ouvio]

Thank you!!! I'm glad you like it :D

[@JoeRowland90]

0:44 holy shit that's exactly me every time I try to start some new project to learn something.

[@ouvio]

xD

[@chizyapochiponda1602]

I've been intimidated by UE even though I love it. Have it sitting on my laptop because my machine isn't powerful enough lol. Thought of doing 2d with it because of that but never knew how to since there isn't a 2d scene/project like in Godot or Unity. This is why I love this video! Thank you very much!!! I'm definitely gonna come back to this video time and time again until I learn the plug-in.

[@ouvio]

Thank you so much for sharing your story and I am happy my video can help you a bit. KZbin is an amazing resource for this and while there aren't as many videos about 2D as there are for Unity or some other engines, there are definitely some useful videos out there. Thank you again. This comment made my day 😀

[@chizyapochiponda1602]

@@ouvio you're very welcome!! I also look forward to watching your journey! Its actually funny because your video just showed up randomly and I'm glad KZbin recommended it to me. I love watching devs share their accomplishments and struggles, helps keep me motivated for when I start my own game. Keep going, amazing work so far🔥🔥🔥 we'll be here waiting and rooting for you.

[@ouvio]

@Chizyapo Chiponda thank you!!! :) that’s great to hear, and I'm glad you find it motivating. I am rooting for you as well, and hope you will enjoy the journey. Making games is a lot of fun and the more people make them, the merrier. Keep going, and if there's anything that is unclear in the video, let me know and I'll try to help :)

[@itsnunya9460]

Thanks a ton for this! 🎉 Can’t wait to make something awesome.

[@ApeirogonGames]

Great video! You should use "Nearly Zero" and "greater than 0.1" instead of hard coding the transitions to 1 and 0 just incase someone's got a slightly wonky gamepad or keyboard :P

[@ouvio]

That's a good point! Thank you for that. I'm still learning myself.

[@king_kai28]

Thank you so much for the awesome tutorial. How do I get good at understanding how to connect/write animation states transitions?

[@ouvio]

Honestly, just play around with it. Try things out, look up tutorials for things you want to do, and recreate them. You learn more about the logic of how all of it works and once you understand the basic part of it, how to logically make what you want, it becomes easier.

[@thegameseriesop1300]

Thanks a lot for this! Can't wait to try this out

[@wdoodoo1]

Thanks for the video! Would you let us know the canvas setting when you make the stick man in photoshop? Thanks again!

[@tumucin0]

The video is very informative, thank you very much, I also accidentally closed the asset details section at 4:53 minutes and I don't know how to open it and I couldn't find any information about it. How can I get that part back?

[@ananths1122]

Finally, a tutorial which respects the time of students, (I've been stuck on an UE course for months now, where the instructor didn't give a damn about editing, still haven't covered even 50%, although its the only course on udemy with detailed explanation) I like that you fast forwarded, I always pause and rewind while practicing. The shorter time feels more inviting to try and complete this. Thanks for the good video. You have any course on udemy or skillshare ?

[@ouvio]

I'm glad to hear that. I was worried the video would be way too fast. I realized that I am just piling on the amount of stuff that I do without even really taking a breather. I don't have a Udemy or Skillshare course. I was considering making Skillshare videos in the future, but at the moment I am focusing my efforts on KZbin stuff. :)

[@bythecandlelight]

This is interesting! I’ve been following a course by CobraCode which does something similar, but it’s all with pixel art. I find your style quite clean and appealing, and I’d like to achieve something similar with my own games. May I ask what size canvas you use for your assets and if you have to do anything special when importing them into Unreal?

[@ouvio]

Thank you! Honestly, not really anything special. Everything you need to do with importing the animation is the same as in CobraCode's videos or this tutorial. Pmg sequence, drag and drop and then a couple clicks inside Unreal. I generally tend to do any animation at 1920x1080, but when you make animations for a character, you don't need all that extra space that you need for film / TV.

[@mechamechs]

7:35 How does the "Character Movement -> Targer Velocity" magically appear. How did you make them appear? The video just cuts and they are there.

[@ouvio]

I added the 1. , 2. , 3. Bullet points to point the way, but Iesson learned. I need to make things more clear. Search "get character movement", drag out from that node and search for "get velocity" and then you right click on the pin on then right side and select " struct pin". Hope that helps :)

[@audrey7504]

I Cannot Find the MakedUnlitSpriteMaterial anywhere in my project, how can i find it?

[@ouvio]

You will need to check if "show engine content" is enabled in the content browser and then look for the Paper 2D folder. This video from Cobra Code shows it quite nicely :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/rHqliGOgbK93iLM&ab_channel=CobraCode

[@CarlosVGMEspresso]

Hey, pretty cool tutorial. Keep at it

[@pinoupinou4415]

Thank you so much

[@Whetzell]

If I animate the character and he moves (like with an attack or ledge hang and climb) off of his 0,0 pivot how do I get him back in place for his idle? For example for running he is just running in place so it transitions to idle just fine but for ledge hang and climb I wanted it to be precisely animated so in the sprite he is moving through the action and not doing it in place. Hope this makes sense!

[@ouvio]

You always want to make sure to animate your character in the same spot. Like for a run cycle it would be running in the same spot, just like on a treadmill. If you animate the character walking away or doing anything else away from the pivot, you have to make sure to return the character back to the pivot in the animation, otherwise you'll definitely end up with the character not being in the centre anymore.

[@vincy0404]

thank you for such nice tutorial ! But I couldn’t find that input blueprints anywhere, is it because of the ue has changed? How to do it now?

[@ouvio]

Input action blueprints is something that was introduced in Unreal Engine with 5.2, I believe. If you upgrade to the latest version of Unreal, you should be able to find the input actions. If you want to keep the version you currently have, you should search the project settings for "input" that should show you the section that allows you to set up input mappings for axis based controllers and button based controllers.

[@StoneColdSolidus]

Thank you

[@OnionCurry]

Awesome video!

[@ouvio]

Thank you! I am glad you think so. Am a bit worried about it being too fast.

[@robob5544]

Great video 🤝🏾🔥

[@ouvio]

Thanks buddy! Glad you like it.

[@food7479]

You were a bit slow there, could you make the next tutorial twice as fast so us beginners can more easily follow :D

[@ouvio]

Thank you for the laugh!!

[@PostrakCDP]

Great tutorial but could you please make one for Jumping??

[@ouvio]

I'll look into it.

[@PostrakCDP]

@@ouvio thanks, but I already figured it out, I just had to use the jump function, it was that easy, then I could change the sprite when the y position changed

[@plasma8321]

Old input mapping is deprecated

[@vincy0404]

So how to do it now?

[@plasma8321]

@@vincy0404 I used this kzbin.info/www/bejne/kGrddniPbMl6l68feature=shared

[@RyanArden-qm5zn]

The answer im looking for is what software do you use to create and edit 2D characters, and i didnt get that in this video

[@ouvio]

I deliberately didn't tell what I was using because I made a point of telling you / the audience what to look for in a drawing tool. I use Toon Boom Harmony for my game and will try to switch to Animate or Blender. Not everyone has the financial means to grab the tools I use and in the end it isn't about one software vs another. You can go with whatever is within your budget, as long as it has the things I talk about.

[@jonwarner6168]

Nice one :)

[@Ellamhm]

Hello, at the end of 4:49 my character doesn't appear. I thought I followed everything to a T, so I'm not sure what to check for. Help?

[@ouvio]

It's hard to say without seeing things. Mind sharing some screenshots on my discord server?

[@Ellamhm]

@@ouvio sure, I'll join in soon. Makes things way easier. Thank you.

[@yametetakiro5914]

Question : Can we make a character creation system, than allowed the player to create and customize the character with paper ZD ?

[@ouvio]

No idea. That sounds cool though

[@JakeBone]

i have done everything in the "setting up the character blueprint" chapter and my character doesn't show up

[@ouvio]

Hmmmm, hard to trouble shoot without seeing it. You could hop into discord share some screenshots. Often times, when I run into the issue it's either the animation blueprint not being connected or the camera / spring arm not looking at the character from the side

[@Navity_]

Come to the "setting up character blueprint" and i set source flipbook, castr shadow, add spring arm and make the camera adjust it accordingly. But when i try and test it, after compiling and saving, my character is not on the map at all. I can move the camera around in ts basic "noclip" mode. What am i missing / doing wrong?

[@ouvio]

Hmmm that is weird. You made sure the spring arm is rotated 90 degrees and the camera is a child of the spring arm? If you can, maybe jump into my discord and share some screenshots there or so, it is hard to troubleshoot these things without seeing what's going on.

[@buttermilkcoffeve]

Was this ever resolved because I have the same issue

[@Logandium]

The same thing happened to me, are there any updates about this issue?

[@bfodoesstuff]

I found a solution for anyone who needs it, go to Edit > Project Settings > Maps & Modes, Set default gamemode to "BP_MainGameMode" and set default pawn class to "BP_PlayerCharacter"

[@Sl3th03r]

@@bfodoesstuff Thanks for this!

[@umaiman7752]

I did everything in the video and the pinned comment, but the character won't move, it also says the returnvalue is already a player controller, so I don't need the cast to player controller. Is there anything I missed? I figure Issue, I was again stupid, but the camera, if not going left, goes 180 degrees on the Z axis and doesn't show the character

[@ouvio]

I am glad you figured out the issue :)

[@AvanesShumeikyan]

Could you please tell me what you did wrong? Cause I have the same issue: everything in the video and pinned comment is done, still character not moving((

[@JJ-vo5tu]

what software u used to draw the character

[@ouvio]

Photoshop

[@xaint5298]

Can i use UE5 paper2d on a midrange computer?

[@ouvio]

I don't know. What do you define as mid range?

[@xaint5298]

@@ouvio a computer with a ryzen 7 5600,16 gbs of Ram, and a Rtx 3060 ti

[@conan115]

my character wont flip do you know what could be causing that

[@ouvio]

Hmmm. Tough to say without seeing the blueprints, but it could have to do with the control rotation, if a value isn't set properly.

[@sSnaiils]

Im not seeing the Animation Component in the PaperCharacter BP. any help?

[@sSnaiils]

Found it. Sure If i missed it in the video, but you have to add the Animation Component to the BP like you would the spring arm and camera. Thanks anyways

[@sSnaiils]

Ugh..... a few important steps are missing from this tutorial. Following it to the end with my own troubleshooting, leaves me with a character unable to walk. GG 👎

[@ouvio]

Sorry, it's a bit confusing in Unreal. Ue natively has a "Paper Character" blueprint. You want to use the Paper ZD Character Bluepring though. That one comes with the appropriate animation component.

[@Agent_OB]

There is no Get Character Movement

[@edwinmichaelalonsabe8066]

what if I want it to be a sprite and not a drawing? can you tell me how?

[@ouvio]

In order to make anything 2D animation related into a game character, you will need to turn it into a sprite. So, even a normal drawing has to be turned into a sprite in engine. If you are talking about pixel art vs a normal drawing, the process is the same. If you have a sprite sheet, you can chop it up inside the engine.

[@deuce222x]

I followed everything you’ve done but somehow it’s not working. The main issue I’m running into is that my character is not connecting somehow to the animation graph stuff. It’s like nothing I change will even relate to my character. I can even plug in my Play_Running without any condition just straight in and my character still shows an idle animation.

[@ouvio]

And you are using a PaperZD Character Blueprint that has the animation component? Did you hook the animation component up to the Anim BP?

[@deuce222x]

@@ouvio It was a chrckmark box somewhere in all the settings that isn’t shown in the video. I forgot what it’s called

[@karm707]

@@deuce222x I am having the same problem, I can't find the checkmark!

[@EphyMusicOfficial]

Soooooo... *don't* use Paper2D?

[@ouvio]

You can, but I personally think Paper ZD is the way to go.

[@Parwitch69]

Why so fast. Even with 0.25 speed I still cannot see what you click. It's impossible to follow along.

[@ouvio]

Sorry, I realized after uploading that I went too fast. First time tutorial mistake.

[@tassarone]

Love ya bro. It was very helpful tho ​@@ouvio

[@GangMilk222]

Could you please do a tutorial on how to do this but with a 4 directional movement animated sprite or 8? It's virtually no tutorials on youtube on how to do this in UE5, I can make the free range movement with left right animated sprites but I want that more dynamic movement animation and I can't figure out how to make the input blueprints trigger additional flipbook animations with this set up and others I've seen in similar tutorials. Please help me man.

[@ouvio]

I have seen one out there that I think talks about what you are looking for. Might have been Cobra Code on YT that has that tutorial.