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Recoil Animation

This Actor Component generates smooth weapon‑firing animation at runtime: It is typically added to the character Blueprint, but you can also add it to the weapon. Call its methods as described below.

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Init

Use this function to update active recoil settings. It requires a Recoil Data Asset and Fire Rate (rounds per minute).

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Play/Stop

Call Play whenever a shot is fired, and Stop when the fire input is released.

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Set Aiming

Use this method to update the current aiming state:

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Set Fire Mode

Use this method to update the current fire mode: Three fire modes are supported:
  • Semi
  • Burst
  • Auto
Note: For Recoil Animation, there is no technical difference between Burst and Auto.

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Recoil Animation Data

This Data Asset contains recoil properties, from simple inputs to complex layers such as Sway and Pushback.

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Input values

Hip and Aim properties define recoil ranges. For Yaw and Roll, a FVector4 avoids values too close to zero. Final value is computed as:

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Controller Recoil

Adds pitch and yaw to the controller rotation:
  • Horizontal Recoil Step: Value range for the yaw input.
  • Vertical Recoil Step: Value range for the pitch input.
  • Interp Speed: Recoil smoothing speed.
  • Damping: How fast recoil should recover.
  • Compensation: How much player input is used for compensation. 1 uses all input; 0 uses none (the weapon settles after firing).

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Recoil Noise

Random Y-Z (right/up) movement that adds translation noise when firing:
  • Target: Left and Up target values - these will be added every shot.
  • Interp Speed: Smoothing speed.
  • Damping: How fast noise should go to zero.
  • Aim Scalar: Multiplier applied when aiming.

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Pushback

This layer is applied on the second shot of a burst and auto sequence:
  • Amount: How much backward translation to apply.
  • Damping: How fast the value should go to zero.
  • Interp Speed: General smoothing speed.

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Progress

Accumulates pitch and upward translation with every shot:
  • Pitch Interp Speed: Smoothing pitch speed.
  • Pitch Damping: How fast pitch should go to zero.
  • Pitch Amount: How much pitch to add with each shot.
  • Up Interp Speed: Smoothing up speed.
  • Up Damping: How fast the up translation should go to zero.
  • Up Amount: How much up translation to add with each shot.
  • Ads Scale: Multiplier applied when aiming.

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Sway

Recoil Sway simulates arm offset when firing:
  • Pitch Sway: A value from this range will be added to the pitch sway.
  • Yaw Sway: A value from this range will be added to the yaw sway.
  • Roll Sway Multiplier: Roll will be computed by multiplying the pitch sway with this value.
  • Damping: How fast the sway should go to zero.
  • Interp Speed: Sway smoothing speed.
  • Ads Scale: Multiplier applied when aiming.
  • Pivot Offset: Virtual pivot to add translation. Recommended X = 30-40 units so the pivot is near the character’s shoulder.

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General

Tip: Pivot Offsets apply recoil as if the weapon rotates around a point in world space. For example, with (-30, 0, 0), recoil appears to pivot around the gun offset by that amount.
  • Space Rotation: Use only if animations have a different root orientation.
  • Play rate: Playback speed multiplier.
Playback Offset applies only to burst or auto fire modes. In these modes, recoil animation length equals the fire delay (60 / FireRate). Playback Offset adjusts that length to make the sequence longer or shorter.

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Curves

Recoil animation is curve‑driven. The solver uses Vector Curves for single and auto/burst fire modes:
Tip: For single‑fire‑only weapons, set AutoRot and AutoLoc to None.How to get recoil values
To get recoil values, access the FTransform RecoilAnimation property:
Tip: For example, plug this value into a Transform (Modify) Bone node in the Animation Blueprint.