The story:

The goal for this project was to recreate my shooting system from Project Relic, but coded better - Project Relic was my first time creating a game in Unreal C++, therefore, was very rough around the ages. For instance, there was a lot of unnecessary code in the event tick and a lot of extra variables that were not needed. This project is my small attempt to fix that and may even be implemented back into Project Relic.

I started by creating a simple shooting system using raycast lines for hit detection. I then implemented a basic health component system that can be used by players. This allows the characters to take damage. The player also has a UI health bar to visualise their current health. Furthermore, when the player loses their health, they have a death screen allowing them to respawn and such.

Next, I created an automatic rifle and single-shot rifle. The player can hold down the shooting button to fire the automatic rifle continuously, whereas the single-shot rifle can only shoot one bullet at a time. I then created a weapon-switching system that allows you to change between the weapons.

I then created an ammunition system. Each weapon has its own ammunition counter, including a respective reserve tank. The data is held within an InventorySystem class. The ammunition counter for each weapon is contained within a hashmap that allows the data to be accessed by providing the ammunition type. The ammunition type is an enum that is set for each weapon.

Then, I implemented UI for the player to visualise their ammunition counter on screen. It displays their current ammo and their reserve tank. Along with this, I Implemented reloading, including all animations, background logic and timers. The player also has a reload button which allows them to reload at any time.

Continuing on, I’ve added Input for aiming down sights. Firstly, I set up the animation graph so the player could aim in and fire. I then implemented a timeline that moves the gun and arms in position when it is played, and moves everything back in position when the player aims out. I implemented this by linear interpolating the weapon’s normal and ADS position using the alpha value of the animation timeline.