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Lesson 319 of 8805. Animation and Character RiggingFree lesson

Applying Aim Offsets for Character Look Direction

Learners will configure aim offsets to adjust the character's upper body pose dynamically based on the player's camera pitch.

In this lesson, you will learn how to use Aim Offsets to make your character’s upper body dynamically track the player's camera pitch.

Why Aim Offsets?

When a character moves, their legs might be locked into a walking animation, but their torso should naturally tilt up or down to "look" where the player is aiming. We achieve this by creating an Aim Offset, which is a specialized type of Blend Space that stores poses for looking at different angles. Instead of animating every possible degree, we create a few "key" poses (like looking straight, looking fully up, and looking fully down) and let Unreal interpolate between them.

Setting Up the Asset

  1. Create the Asset: Right-click in your Content Browser, go to Animation > Aim Offset, and select your character's skeleton.
  2. Configure the Axis: Inside the Aim Offset editor, set your horizontal axis (Yaw) from -90 to 90 and your vertical axis (Pitch) from -90 to 90.
  3. Add Poses: Drag your pre-made additive animations (which contain only the torso rotation data) into the grid. You need a "Center" (0,0), "Look Up" (0, 90), "Look Down" (0, -90), and side-to-side variations.

Implementing in the AnimGraph

To make this work in your AnimGraph, you must use the Apply Aim Offset node. This node takes your base locomotion pose and applies the aim rotation on top of it.

// Logic inside your Animation Blueprint
// 1. Get the current camera pitch from the character controller
// 2. Pass that value into the Aim Offset Blend Space
// 3. Connect the result to the "Apply Aim Offset" node

By linking your Control Rotation (specifically the Pitch) to these axis values, the character’s spine will naturally bend to match the camera. Because these are additive, the character will remain in their correct locomotion state (running or idle) while simply adjusting their posture to track the target. This creates a much more immersive experience than having a static upper body regardless of where the player is looking.

Key Takeaway: Aim Offsets allow you to blend multiple additive poses based on camera pitch, ensuring your character’s upper body movement feels reactive and grounded in the player's perspective.