How To Pause Game But Not Camera Unreal Engine 5

Rose

3 min read

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15-02-2025

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Ever needed to pause your Unreal Engine 5 game for a cutscene or UI interaction, but keep your camera smoothly moving or rotating? This tutorial will guide you through several methods to achieve that cinematic effect, enhancing your game's presentation and player experience. We'll cover pausing gameplay mechanics while maintaining camera animation, offering solutions for various project complexities.

Understanding the Challenge

The core issue lies in separating gameplay logic from camera control. By default, pausing the game typically freezes everything, including your camera animations. To keep the camera active during a pause, we need to decouple its movement from the game's overall pause state.

Method 1: Using a Separate Timeline

This is perhaps the cleanest and most straightforward method. It relies on Unreal Engine's built-in Timeline asset for precise animation control:

Steps:

1. Create a Timeline: In your Level Blueprint or a dedicated Blueprint for your camera, add a Timeline asset. This will hold the camera's animation data.
2. Animate Camera Movement: Keyframe your camera's position, rotation, and any other relevant properties within the Timeline. This lets you create complex camera movements.
3. Play Timeline Independently: Create a boolean variable (e.g., bGamePaused). When you pause the game, set bGamePaused to true. However, play the Timeline regardless of the bGamePaused variable's state. Use a branch node to check the play state of your timeline. If it isn't playing, play it.
4. Control Playback: You can add extra logic to control the Timeline's playback speed or looping. This allows for even more creative camera control.

Advantages: Precise control, clean separation of concerns, suitable for complex animations. Disadvantages: Requires some familiarity with Unreal Engine's Timeline system.

Method 2: Utilizing Tick Events (Less Recommended)

This method uses the Tick event to update camera position and rotation. While simpler to implement for basic movements, it's generally less efficient and harder to maintain for complex animations compared to Timelines:

Steps:

1. Get Delta Time: In your camera's Blueprint, use the Get Delta Time node within the Tick event.
2. Calculate Movement: Based on your desired camera movement, calculate the changes to position and rotation using the Delta Time. This ensures consistent movement speed regardless of frame rate.
3. Apply Transformations: Use Set Relative Location and Set Relative Rotation nodes to apply the calculated movement to your camera.
4. Conditional Logic: Use a boolean variable (like in Method 1) to control whether the camera moves. Only update the camera's position and rotation if bGamePaused is false.

Advantages: Relatively simple to implement for basic movements. Disadvantages: Less efficient than Timelines, harder to manage for complex animations, can lead to frame rate inconsistencies if not carefully managed.

Method 3: Level Sequencing (Advanced Technique)

For highly cinematic sequences, consider using Unreal Engine's Level Sequencing system. This is particularly effective for complex camera work combined with other game elements such as audio and visual effects.

Steps:

1. Create a Level Sequence: Create a Level Sequence and animate your camera within it.
2. Control Playback: Trigger the Level Sequence's playback independently of the game's pause state. Similar to the previous methods, ensure that the sequence runs even when the game is paused.
3. Integrate with Game Logic: Use events within the Level Sequence to trigger gameplay events or changes in the UI, syncing cinematic moments with your game's narrative.

Advantages: Powerful tool for cinematic sequences, allows precise control and coordination of multiple elements. Disadvantages: More complex to set up than the previous methods, requires understanding of the Level Sequencing system.

Choosing the Right Method

The best approach depends on your project's requirements:

• Simple camera movements: Method 2 (Tick event) might suffice, but be mindful of its limitations.
• Complex or precise animations: Method 1 (Timeline) offers superior control and maintainability.
• Cinematic sequences with intricate coordination: Method 3 (Level Sequencing) is the most robust solution.

Remember to experiment and find the workflow that best suits your skills and project complexity. By carefully separating camera control from game logic, you can achieve stunning cinematic effects in your Unreal Engine 5 games.