AAIController::UpdateControlRotation

function AIModule Since 4.0

#include "AIController.h"

Access: public Specifiers: virtual

Description

Updates the controller's control rotation each tick to face the current focal point. Called automatically from Tick — override to implement custom rotation behaviour such as smooth turning or ignoring pitch.

Caveats & Gotchas

• The rotation snaps instantly to the focal point by default — there is no built-in interpolation. Implement your own lerp or use a rotation rate in your override if smooth turning is needed.
• bSetControlRotationFromPawnOrientation (a UPROPERTY on AAIController) controls fallback behavior when no focus is set. When true, the pawn's own forward direction is used. Understand this flag before overriding UpdateControlRotation.
• Called from Tick, so any expensive work inside the override adds to per-frame cost for every AI in the scene.

Signature

virtual void UpdateControlRotation(float DeltaTime, bool bUpdatePawn = true)

Parameters

Name	Type	Description	Default
DeltaTime	float	Time in seconds since the last tick.	—
bUpdatePawn	bool	When true, applies the computed control rotation to the possessed pawn immediately.	true

Return Type

void

Example

Override to smoothly interpolate rotation toward the focal point C++

void AMyAIController::UpdateControlRotation(float DeltaTime, bool bUpdatePawn)
{
	APawn* const Pawn = GetPawn();
	if (!Pawn) { return; }

	FVector FocalPt = GetFocalPoint();
	if (FAISystem::IsValidLocation(FocalPt))
	{
		FRotator DesiredRot = (FocalPt - Pawn->GetActorLocation()).Rotation();
		FRotator CurrentRot = GetControlRotation();
		FRotator NewRot = FMath::RInterpTo(CurrentRot, DesiredRot, DeltaTime, 5.f);
		SetControlRotation(NewRot);
		if (bUpdatePawn)
		{
			Pawn->FaceRotation(NewRot, DeltaTime);
		}
	}
}

Version History

Introduced in: 4.0

Version	Status	Notes
5.6	stable	—

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