Road To Unreal 6 - State Trees And Enhanced Input

In this episode of the "Road to Unreal 6" series, we explore the modern way to manage input in Unreal Engine 5: using State Trees to control Enhanced Input Mapping Contexts. This approach provides clean, visual state management for your input system and is far superior to traditional input handling methods.

What you'll learn:

• Enhanced Input Fundamentals: Understand Input Mapping Contexts and Input Actions, the building blocks of modern input management in UE5.

• State Tree Setup: Create a Gameplay State Tree that visually manages your input states—Main Menu, Gameplay, and Pause—with automatic context switching.

• Input Mapping Configuration: Map keyboard and controller inputs to actions, including advanced techniques like modifiers (Negate, Swizzle) to create complex input vectors from simple button presses.

• State Transitions: Set up event-driven transitions between states using Gameplay Tags, ensuring the correct input context is active at all times.

• Local Player Replication: Implement proper client-side-only logic using RPC calls to ensure the State Tree runs only on the owning client.

• Debugging & Visualization: Leverage the Enhanced Input debug system and the Rewind Debugger to inspect and troubleshoot your input state in real-time.

Why this matters: Using State Trees for input management ensures that only the inputs relevant to your current game state are active. No more accidentally accepting pause inputs during menus or movement inputs during cutscenes.

Perfect for: Novice developers building modern gameplay systems in Unreal Engine 5, or anyone looking to move beyond legacy input handling methods.

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