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Creating a new character

This page outlines the steps involved in setting up your character in a way that is compatible with the Morpheus Platform. Note that there are some steps here that are different to native Unreal, so it is worth even experienced Unreal users looking through this page.

Setting up your Morpheus Actor

The Morpheus Actor is the class that will be responsible for networking your character. For more details on this, see Introduction to Morpheus Networking.

If you are using the Morpheus Base Project, BPM_Example_PlayerCharacter has been made for you.

We require that the Morpheus actor for your main character extends from M2M_CharacterBase at the minimum. This is a child of MorpheusPawnActor (a specialized form of MorpheusActor), that includes implementation of some of our core functionality, such as Crowd Animation, and Avatars. For other Morpheus actors in-game, you can go directly from MorpheusActor or below.

Your Morpheus Actor is responsible for spawning its "render target" (the avatar model) and tracking any replicated state. For how these are done, see the following steps:

Configuring your Render Target

What is a Render Target?

Your render target is the "physical representation" of your character. We have different "render targets", at different rendering "LOD Levels". For most casts, LOD 0 is the Actor that is used when the player is nearby, and LOD 1 is the "crowd" (see Crowd Rendering) used for distant actors.

More details on these "Render Targets" in Morpheus Render Targets

A demonstration of the difference between render targets. In this example, there are 3 characters in the world (so 3 BPM_M2Example_PlayerCharacters), but only 2 render target actors (BP_M2Example_PlayerCharacter). This because we have set the "NumInLOD0" to 1, meaning that other than yourself, only one other character will be a render target actor, and any past that point will be represented in the crowd.

The Pawn Class

Like in traditional Unreal projects, we use the Pawn class to represent most players. As mentioned above, the main difference is that for remote characters, we switch between these Render Target Actors, and a "crowd" representation.

We use the pawn class for handling game logic that requires a physical in-game body, e.g. collision or moving the actor through the game world (any networked state needs to be sent through the Morpheus Actor).

If you are using the Morpheus Base Project, BP_Example_PlayerCharacter has been made for you.

We require your main character to extend from M2_CharacterBase at the minimum (a child of Character). This is to handle some of our core functionality, such as Actor Poolingand handling custom avatars' Capsules and Mesh Transforms. If you are using making other Morpheus Actor render targets, you can go directly from Actor or below.

Some important things to note regarding using pawns on the Morpheus Platform

  • We do not advise modifying your SkeletalMeshAsset to set your character's visuals. Instead, we use an interoperable avatar system (See Avatars). To configure your character's model, see Updating your character avatar

  • The Anim Class can be modified, but has some caveats:

    • Animations require some specialized techniques to be compliant with the Animated Crowd. See Crowd Animation

    • Our custom avatar setup requires a specific skeleton to be used (SKEL_UE5Mannequin), so this should not be changed if you want to be compatible with our custom avatars.

    • For these reasons, if you do want to change your animations, we recommend duplicating ABP_M2_Human, and using it as a starting point.

Supporting montages

If you want to play montages on the animated crowd, you need to inform the crowd what montages it needs to know about ahead of time, along with the Anim Class. To do this, we have a CrowdAnimationProviderInterface on our pawn classes, which provides a GetAnimNameToSequenceMap function. This is called to inform the crowd of any animations the crowd needs to know about.

If you want to add montages, you can extend/implement this function.

For more details, see Crowd Animation

How to define your Render Targets

NOTE: The following section applies to release v40 onwards. Prior to that, you will need to configure your render targets via a pawn set. For more details, see Configuring your pawn set

In your Morpheus Actor, the MorpheusRenderTargetSettings are exposed to your Details panel:

  • If UseDefaultPawnAsRenderTargetActor is true, the Morpheus Actor will use the DefaultPawnClass in your GameMode as the LOD0 actor class

    • If it is false, the RenderTargetActorClass will be used. If this is None, no render target class will be used.

  • If CrowdEnabled is true, a crowd will be used for LOD1

    • If RaycastableCrowdEnabled is true, then the crowd will support raycasting. For details, see Raycastable Crowd

Advanced render target settings

  • CrowdDetails - this is the details object provided to define how the LOD1 crowd looks:

    • CrowdData - this can be left null, but if you want to override any of the default values, you can create your own asset, and provide it here.

      • Skeleton: If one is provided, it will change the skeleton used by the crowd. If left null, it will use the one from your LOD0 actor

      • CrowdAnimInstance: If one is provided, it will change the Anim Instance Class used by the crowd to animate the character. If left null, it will use the one from your LOD0 actor. It doesn't have to match, but generally makes the most sense to match, to ensure animations are consistent.

      • AnimNameToSequence: This is a mapping of animation montages that can run on the animated crowd. They can be triggered via e.g. JM_MontageComponent::PlayMontageByName(MontageName). If you want to add montages that you expect to play on the crowd, they will need to be added either here, or on the pawn itself (in their GetAnimaNameToSequenceMap). For more details, see Crowd Animation

      • NumCustomDataFloats/NumCustomDataFloatsPerMesh: Intended only for specialist use. We advise leaving these unchanged.

    • IsmActorType - we generally don't advise overriding this. By default (if left as None) it uses the DefaultInstancedMeshActorClass in Project Settings -> Morpheus Platform -> Animated Crowd Settings.

    • RaycastableCrowdClass - If left None, it will use the DefaultRaycastableCrowdClass in the above project settings, if RaycastableCrowdEnabled is true. If you want to use a custom raycastable crowd class, you can set it here. For more details, see Raycastable Crowd

  • ServerRenderTarget - you can specify a render target to use on the server. Typically this can be left as "No Target", to improve performance on the server, since it doesn't need to deal with actors/crowd members.

  • UseDistinctRenderTargetActorClassForNonAuthClient - if true, then the non-auth client at LOD0 will use a different render target actor to the auth client (NonAuthClientRenderTargetActorClass)

  • LODGroupId can be set if you want your actor to be in a different group (e.g. rendered in priority over other actors in its group, or handled in a separate group to others). For more details, see Morpheus Render Targets

    • If you don't specify a LODGroupId, it will default to the DefaultLODGroupId defined in Project Settings -> Morpheus Platform -> Morpheus LODs

    • If you specify a DefaultLODGroup, it will instead use that, as a custom LOD group, instead of joining the existing group with that Id.

The Player Controller

Player Controllers work basically the same in the Morpheus Platform as they do in native Unreal, on the local client. When your authoritative Render Target Actor is spawned, it will be possessed by your Player Controller.

In the Morpheus Base Project, BP_Example_PlayerController has been made for you.

Setting up your Game Mode

What's in the Game Mode?

The game mode allows use to configure some default classes for your project or map. Important ones to consider here:

  • PlayerMorpheusActorClass: sets the Morpheus Actor that will be used for your character in the level. If you made your own class in Setting up your Morpheus Actor, you will need to make sure it is defined in your active game mode for it to be used.

  • DefaultPawnClass: sets the pawn class used for player characters. If your Morpheus Actor is configured to UseDefaultPawnAsRenderTargetActor, this is what it will use.

Remember: If you are on an earlier release than v40, your DefaultPawnClass will not be used until you call ApplyPawnSet. Your PlayerMorpheusActorClass will be created, but it will not have an associated Render Target Actor.

How do I set my Game Mode?

The Game Mode used by your project can be configured either by:

  • Setting the default game mode via the project settings:

  • Overriding the game mode for your specific map, in your World Settings:

    An example of overriding the default game mode: here to BP_CombatExample_GameMode

In the Morpheus Base Project, BP_Example_GameMode is set as our default game mode, and no override is added to the ExampleMap level, meaning that the default will be what is used. It has already been configured to use the _Example_ classes outlined in the steps above.

Updating your character avatar

Instead of using regular meshes directly from Unreal, we use an interoperable avatar system, where character models are downloaded via URLs. (See Avatars). The following is some guidance on how that flow works

Creating an MML Avatar

We have documentation that outlines the process to go from a 3D model to an MML avatar that can be used in-game, and across Morpheus Platform experiences: Creating an Avatar

Setting your character in-game

Once you have created an MML character URL, or have one you want to use from elsewhere, you can set it via your CharacterAssetComponent. For details on how this works, see: Using an Avatar in-game

The BPM_M2Example_PlayerCharacter has some default behavior that sets some MML avatars for you:

  • If a player has a character URL already defined in their profile, that will be used.

  • If not, they will default to using a fallback avatar from a pool of example avatars.

The example logic in BPM_M2Example_PlayerCharacter waits for your profile to be loaded. Once it is loaded, it obtains the profile's Url field, and loads it. The example also includes some fallback behavior, to load some fallback avatars if there is no avatar tied to their profile.

  • This pool of example avatars is defined via live config (DefaultAvatar.FormatAvatarUrl), with the default of https://casual-filtered-v1.msquaredavatars.com/{0}.mml - it will select a random URL replacing {0} with a number between DefaultAvatar.MinEntry and DefaultAvatar.MaxEntry.

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