Advanced Third Person Shooter Project

The Advanced Third Person Shooter Project for Unreal Engine has grown well beyond a standard third-person camera and fire-control setup. The most recent releases bring sliding, motion matching, and a reworked ProPose system into a template that already handles cover shooting, weapon pickup, reload timing, and multiplayer replication. The v1.5.4 update targets UE5.5 through UE5.8, and the project remains in active development with frequent version-specific fixes.

Sliding, Motion Matching, and the Updated ProPose System

The v1.5.4 update is the current release line. Sliding is now fully compatible with the existing Advanced Third Person Shooter mechanics, and the ProPose system has been updated to allow full body control. A new demo shows motion matching integration working alongside ProPose, which is described as a data table driven animation adjustment system. That means pose changes can be tuned from data rather than by hand-placing every keyframe.

Before that, v1.5.3 introduced motion matching fully integrated and customized for the project. The same update added ProPose as a procedural pose adjustment feature, useful for making small corrections quickly. The developer positions it as a practical fix for inaccurate retargeting results, so if a character's hands drift off a weapon or feet misalign with a surface, ProPose can nudge the pose into place without breaking the original animation.

Enemy AI received matching upgrades in v1.5.3. The updated AI can use cover and motion matching traversal, plus new combat behaviors. A full set of new aim offsets were added to pair with motion matching, and there are new in-cover actions for corner traversal. These changes tie the animation system to gameplay rather than leaving it as a visual overlay.

BP_SCSComponent and the Cover Shooter Rework

The cover system is the biggest single feature added in the v1.5 line. The project introduced BP_SCSComponent, a component that houses the majority of the cover logic. That design keeps the underlying character blueprint cleaner and makes the system easier to reuse in different projects.

The cover system supports multiple cover heights dynamically. You do not need a custom actor type or special collision object type. Any flat or reasonably curved mesh placed in the level will work as cover as long as it blocks the visibility channel. That lowers the barrier for level design significantly. The template also includes an automated clipping fix that reduces character mesh clipping into cover, a modified camera system for better in-cover view, and adjustable in-cover exposure so players can control how much of their character is visible.

Cover-to-cover movement is available from left to right, with more moves promised later. The system is also multiplayer ready, which is a core requirement for a shooter template. Subsequent updates refined the cover behavior. V1.5.1 fixed taking cover toward stairs and the IK overlap that happened when taking cover on stairs. It added a layer for foot IK and cover IK that you can link into your main anim instance, which stops turn-in-cover montages from overriding IK adjustments. The same update added cover UIs and a block fire icon when the player is in cover.

Weapon Handling From Pickup to Custom Creation

Weapon handling is the backbone of the project. Players can pick up weapons, equip or holster them, switch between loadouts, quickly switch to a sidearm, or throw the current weapon away to replace it with a more desirable one. Dual-wielding pistols and a shield is supported, and v1.4.3 added dual-wielding for two-handed compact weapons. In the v1.5 update, two-handed weapons and bows can be wielded and operated in the offhand, with a batch of new animations added for those long weapons.

Reload animations list include assault rifles, bolt-action rifles, pump-action shotguns, machine pistols, revolvers, sawed-off shotguns, and bows. Ammo management is realistic, and fire mode can be toggled between auto, burst, and semi-auto per weapon. The aim-down-sight animation adjusts automatically to fit weapons with different aiming baselines, and multiple right-hand and left-hand grip poses are included to fit the weapon in the character's hands.

Creating a new weapon does not require deep animation work. The weapon logic supports automatic, burst-fire, semi-auto, and single-shot behavior, including pump-action, lever-action, bolt-action, and bow. You give it basic parameters, a skeletal mesh, and some beginner-level animations, and the project handles the rest. Bullet-counted reload is available for classic shotguns, lever-action rifles, and revolvers. You can load one round or several at a time, and the logic supports revolver speed loaders and shotgun double or quad loading, with animations expected later.

A wide range of customizable parameters is exposed, including muzzle velocity, RPM, chamber size, magazine size, fire mode, ammo type, rounds per load, and recoil. There is also a third-person shooter parallax compensation system that automatically adjusts for the over-the-shoulder camera offset, which keeps shots on target when the camera is not perfectly aligned with the barrel.

Demo Level, Enemy AI, and Multiplayer Replication

The project includes a customizable demo level set up as a close-quarters battle course. It tracks the player's best score, so it works both as a weapon test range and as a skill-sharpening tool after a long session of development. The level also supports battle against endlessly spawning enemy AI. The odds are deliberately stacked against the player, but the arena provides an endless supply of weapons and ammo.

Enemy AI has become more robust over the update cycle. V1.5.3 added cover and motion matching traversal capabilities to the AI, plus new combat behaviors. Earlier versions also saw fixes such as the v1.4.2 patch that prevented AI from shooting a bow. The project has been multiplayer ready since v1.3, and replication accuracy has been a focus. V1.5.1 fixed sprinting not replicating in some situations and applied a simple fix for client-side weapon attaching, with the developer noting that extra updates may follow.

Version-Specific Fixes and Future Additions

The update log is dense with incremental fixes. V1.5.2 addressed two small issues discovered after v1.5.1, and the changes are easy to integrate manually by searching for the version number in BP_TPSBaseChar, CR_FullBodyIK_UE4, and CR_Mannequin_BasicFootIK. V1.4.3 reworked the Animation Blueprint, remade animations for both UE4 and UE5 mannequins, fixed the bow's three-pin reticle so it indicates the correct distance across different screen sizes, and made arrows stick to surfaces or characters when they hit.

The developer has laid out a roadmap for future updates. Planned additions include weapon and character perks or skills, more weapon types such as crossbows, flamethrowers, and lasers, an attachment system for grips, sights, muzzles, and stocks, throwable weapons like grenades and throwing knives, tactical gear like riot shields and combat knives, a full dual-wield system, full-height and half-height cover, and the ability to switch shoulder and firing hand. Network replication remains part of the plan, though it has already been present in some form since the multiplayer update.

The Advanced Third Person Shooter Project is set up to handle a wide range of third-person shooter mechanics out of the box. Between the cover component, motion matching support, ProPose adjustments, sliding, and the weapon creation pipeline, it offers a practical starting point for developers who want to focus on level design, enemy behavior, or custom weapons without rebuilding core shooter systems from scratch.

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