Movement Component

Last modified: 27 April 2025

Certain features in the Combat System may affect the character movement. For that integration, Ninja Combat provides its own optional version of the Character Movement Component.

Combat Movement Component

The Combat Movement Component is an optional Movement Component that extends CharacterMovementComponent.

This component implements the ICombatMovementManagerInterface, adding the following functionalities:

  1. Handling important events in the Combat System that may affect movement settings. Currently, this means setting the "walk speed" when the character is blocking, and setting "strafing" or "input direction" movement modes when the character is locked on a target.

  2. Exposing appropriate setters for properties that might need to be changed during runtime.

As detailed in the Setup page, you can add the Combat Component to your Character using Blueprints or C++.

Other Movement Systems

Even though the Movement Component is only accessed via its interface, the Combat System still indirectly relies on an implementation of the Character Movement Component, since the Gameplay Ability System and the Contextual Animation System are directly integrated with it.

Gameplay Ability System

This module is the foundation of the Combat System. Its core component manages predicted Root Motion from Gameplay Abilities and this is done in conjunction with the Character Movement Component.

This functionality is deep inside the Ability System Component in a method that is not marked as virtual. Even though this framework is production ready, it might see changes to this behavior (or this behavior may not be necessary), when the new Movement Framework in Unreal engine, Mover 2.0 becomes more popular.

Contextual Animation System

This module is used by the Opportunity Attacks to execute Paired Animations. Its core component integrates with the Character Movement Component to modify certain settings and then to revert them later.

For now, the methods doing that are not virtual so there's no way to modify that behavior, so it can use a different type of Movement Framework. However, the component always checks for a valid Movement Component, so you can still transfer that functionality to another location.

It is important to mention that the system is still new and marked as experimental so that will hopefully change in the future, especially with the new Movement Framework in Unreal Engine, Mover 2.0.