VectorVelocity

What you get

VectorVelocity is a starting point for hover racing or combat games, like Wipeout or F-Zero. The hard parts, meaning physics, online play and smoothing, are already done. Your job is the fun part: pick a car model, change numbers until it feels right, add sounds and effects, and build levels.

This guide explains every part in plain language and shows you where to click. If you are new to Unreal, read it top to bottom. If you have used Unreal before, jump to the section you need.

Here is what is in the box

• Hovering that feels real. The car floats above the ground using invisible legs that push it up. It leans on hills, soaks up bumps, and lifts itself if the ground gets too close.
• Gears. Like a real car, it has Reverse, Neutral, and forward gears 1 to 5. Each gear has its own top speed and feel. You can add or remove gears in a simple list.
• A boost (dash). Tap a button for a burst of speed that smoothly ramps up, peaks, then fades, followed by a short cooldown.
• Health and crash damage. Hit a wall fast and you take damage. Hit it very fast and the car is destroyed. You can heal or repair from Blueprint.
• A cinematic camera. The view pulls back and widens as you speed up, leans into turns, and can shake at high speed.
• Body lean. The car tips back when you boost and leans into corners. This is only visual, so it never messes up the driving.
• A HUD. Shows speed, gear, health and boost. You design how it looks and the template fills in the numbers.
• Effects (Niagara). Slots for thruster flames, boost trails, brake sparks, speed lines, and one-time effects for crashes and landings. You drop in your effect and the template turns it on and off at the right time.
• Enemies. A chasing enemy hover car and a guard turret that aims at you. Both are ready to drop into a level.
• One node for all stats. A single Blueprint node gives you speed, health, gear, boost and more, all at once.
• Ready controls. Keyboard, mouse and gamepad already work, so you can press Play right away.

Words you will see (quick glossary)

If a word below is new to you, come back here.

Technical details

The classes you will actually use

A class here is just a ready-made building block. Most have a demo Blueprint version that you can open and change.

Before you start

You need two things:

1. 01Unreal Engine 5.2. Install it from the Epic Games Launcher.
2. 02A C++ compiler, installed once. On Windows this is Visual Studio 2022 with the Game development with C++ option ticked during install. You do not write C++. The engine just needs the compiler to build the template code one time.

First launch, step by step

1. 01Open the project. Double-click VectorVelocity.uproject. If a window says some modules are missing and asks to rebuild, click Yes. This is the one-time build. Wait for it to finish.
2. 02The editor opens on the demo level. The level is at Content/VectorVelocity/Maps/Demo. You can see it in the Content Browser at the bottom.
3. 03Press Play. Use the big Play button in the toolbar. You will spawn inside a working hover car, with the HUD already showing.
4. 04Drive around. Use the controls in the next section.
5. 05Try multiplayer (optional). Click the small arrow next to Play to open Play settings. Set Number of Players to 2 and Net Mode to Play As Listen Server, then press Play. Two windows open, each driving its own car, fully synced.

That is the whole loop. From here you change things and press Play again to test.

The controls

These already work. You do not have to set them up.

To change the controls, open Bp_Player, select it, and in the Details panel find the Vehicle - Input section. Drop in your own Input Mapping Context and Input Action assets. Anything you set replaces the default, and anything you leave empty keeps the default.

How a vehicle is built

Open Bp_Player by double-clicking it in the Content Browser at Content/VectorVelocity/Player/. On the left you will see the Components panel. It looks like this:

Bp_Player (the car)
  ChassisCollision (a box) ............ the real physics body, everything hangs off this
    MeshPivot ......................... holds the visual lean; never affects driving
      VehicleMesh ..................... put YOUR car model here
    Hover        (HoverComponent) ..... the hovering
    Movement     (VehicleMovementComponent) .. driving and boost
    HealthComp   (VehicleHealthComponent) .... health and damage
    GearSystem   (GearSystemComponent) ....... the gears
    CameraRig    (VehicleCameraComponent) .... the camera
      SpringArm ....................... the camera pole
        Camera ........................ the actual camera

What each piece does, in plain terms

• ChassisCollision is the solid, invisible box that actually moves and bumps into things. Everything else rides on it.
• VehicleMesh is the car model you see. You will replace this with your own model. It sits under MeshPivot so it can lean without changing how the car drives.
• The components (Hover, Movement, HealthComp, GearSystem, CameraRig) are the features. Each has its own settings in the Details panel.
• SpringArm and Camera make the third-person view.

A few ideas that make this template easy

• Each feature is separate. Do not want gears? Delete the GearSystem component. Want different hovering? Replace the Hover component. You keep what you need.
• The look and the physics are kept apart. Leaning, banking and camera moves only touch the visuals. You can make them dramatic without breaking the driving.
• There is an event for almost everything. When the car lands, gets destroyed, changes gear or hits something, the template fires an event. You add your sound or effect right there in the Event Graph.

Every setting explained

To change these: open the vehicle Blueprint, click the component in the Components panel, and edit the Details panel on the right. The numbers below are the defaults that ship with the template.

Quick Tuning (on the car, easiest place to start)

Tilt (the visual lean)

These only change how the car looks while driving. Bigger numbers look more arcade-like.

• Pitch Tilt 14: how much it tips back when boosting or noses down when braking.
• Roll Tilt 38: how much it leans into turns. Raise this for a strong arcade lean.
• Yaw Rate For Full Bank 70: how sharp a turn must be to reach full lean.
• Velocity Smoothing 8 and Tilt Interp Speed 9: how smooth or snappy the lean feels.
• Vertical Tilt 12: how much it tips when climbing or dropping in height.

Layout

By default you move and rotate VehicleMesh, MeshPivot and CameraRig by hand using the move tool in the Blueprint. That is the normal way.

Hover Component (the hovering)

Vehicle Movement Component (driving and boost)

Gear System Component (the gears)

The gears live in a list called Gears. Each row is one gear with these fields:

• Gear Name: a label for you, like First.
• Display Label: the short text shown on the HUD (R, N, 1, 2 and so on).
• Max Speed: the top speed in this gear.
• Acceleration Multiplier: how strong the push is in this gear.
• Turn Multiplier: how sharp the turning is in this gear. Lower gears usually turn tighter.

Vehicle Health Component (health and crash damage)

Damage is figured out automatically from how fast you hit something. You do not wire anything up.

Vehicle Camera Component (the camera)

In plain terms: the camera sits closer and at a normal view when slow, then pulls back, widens, dips down and follows the lean as you speed up. Field of View is how wide the camera sees, and wider feels faster. The Hard Min and Hard Max numbers stop the camera from ever clipping into the car or flying too far away.

Vehicle FX Component (effects)

This holds slots for your effects. Empty slots simply do nothing, so you only fill in what you want.

• Always-on slots, where you assign a Niagara System and the template turns each on and off: Hover Thrusters System, Dash Trail System, Brake Sparks System, Speed Trails System.
• Position slots: Dash Trail Offset and Brake Sparks Offset move the rear emitters.
• One-time slots: Impact (on a crash), Landing (when you touch down), Destroyed (when health hits 0).
• Tuning: Speed Trail Threshold 0.7 for how fast before speed lines appear, Min Impact FX Speed 400, Min Landing FX Speed 250.

Blueprint nodes and events

These are the actions and signals you use in Blueprint. The names are exactly what you will see when you search in a graph. To use one, drag a wire from the car or the component and type the name.

A node does or reads something. A Pure node just reads a value, shown in green with no run order. An Event runs when something happens, and you add your logic after it. An Event Dispatcher is a signal you Bind to so you can react.

The one node to remember

Get Vehicle Stats (Pure, on the car). This gives you everything at once in a single package: Speed, Speed Alpha, Max Speed, Health, Max Health, Health Alpha, Is Destroyed, Current Gear, Gear Label, Is In Neutral, Is In Reverse, Is Dashing, Dash Available, Dash Charge Alpha, Dash Curve Alpha, Dash Speed Multiplier, Is Braking, Is Grounded, Current Hover Height, Is Auto Correcting, and the Vehicle State. It is cheap to use every frame, which makes it perfect for the HUD.

On the car

• Get Vehicle State (Pure): tells you if the car is Idle, Driving, Boosting, Braking, Airborne or Destroyed.
• Set AI Input and Get Current Input: feed or read the drive input. Used to control a car from your own scripts.
• Event On Vehicle State Changed (gives New State): great for engine pitch, lights or UI changes.
• Event On Input Gathered (gives Input): fires for the local player when input is read.

Movement

• Trigger Dash (returns true if it started), Cancel Dash, Set Dash Cooldown Remaining, which is handy for a refill boost pickup.
• Get Current Speed, Get Speed Alpha, Is Dashing, Is Dash Available, Get Dash Charge Alpha, Get Dash Curve Alpha, Get Dash Speed Multiplier, Is Braking, Get Effective Max Speed, Get Effective Acceleration. All Pure reads.
• Event Apply Additional Forces (gives Delta Time): add your own push here, like a boost pad or wind.

Hover

• Is Grounded, Get Compression Alpha, Get Average Ground Normal, Get Current Target Height, Is Auto Correcting. All Pure reads.
• Adjust Height (add or subtract), Set Target Height, Reset Height.
• Event On Grounded State Changed (gives Now Grounded): fire landing dust or a thump sound.

Gears

• Get Current Gear, Get Gear Count, Get Current Gear Settings, Is In Neutral, Is In Reverse. All Pure reads.
• Increase Gear, Decrease Gear, Set Gear.
• On Gear Changed (Event Dispatcher, gives New Gear): bind it for a shift sound or HUD flash.

Health

• Get Health, Get Max Health, Get Health Alpha, Is Destroyed. All Pure reads.
• Apply Damage, Heal, Set Health, Set Max Health (with a keep the same percentage option), Refill Health.
• On Health Changed (Dispatcher: New Health, Max Health), On Destroyed (Dispatcher), Event On Destroyed BP: spawn a wreck, start a respawn timer, update score.

Camera and effects

• Event On High Speed Shake (gives Speed Alpha): add your camera shake here.
• Play Impact FX (Location, Normal), Play Landing FX, Play Destroyed FX: fire one-time effects yourself if you want.
• Event On FX Tick (gives Speed Alpha, Grounded, Dashing, Braking): drive any custom effect from live state.

The enemies (AI)

The chasing enemy car: HoverAi

Find it in Content/VectorVelocity/Ai/. Drag it into your level and press Play. It wanders near where you placed it. The moment the player gets close, it locks on and chases, circling and strafing to keep a good distance. Once it has seen you, it never goes back to calmly wandering.

To change how it behaves, open the AI and look in the Details panel. The main groups:

• Detection: Detection Range 4000 for how close you must be, and Target Tag, explained below.
• Combat: Ideal Distance 1500 for the gap it likes to keep, Min Distance 800 where it backs off if you get too close, Dash Trigger Distance 3000 where it boosts to catch up.
• Roam: how far it wanders and how long it pauses.
• Reposition: how often and how sharply it circles you.
• Steering, Altitude, Gears: how sharp it turns, whether it matches your height, and which gears it uses.
• Event On AI State Changed: add alert sounds or UI when it spots you.

The guard turret: TurretAi

Find it in Content/VectorVelocity/Ai/. Drag it into a level. It slowly sweeps back and forth on patrol. When the player enters its range, it aims at you and tracks you, even straight up if you fly overhead. In multiplayer it looks smooth on every screen.

Tip: telling the AI who to target

Both enemies have a Target Tag setting. If you leave it empty, they target any pawn except themselves. If you set it, for example to Player, they only target actors that carry that same Actor Tag. To tag your car, open Bp_Player, select the top of the Components list, and in Details add Player under Actor - Tags. Then set the AI Target Tag to Player.

Setting up the HUD

The HUD is the on-screen display for speed, gear, health and boost. You design how it looks and the template fills in the numbers.

1. 01Use the demo or make your own. The demo HUD is WBP_VehicleHUD in Content/VectorVelocity/UI/. To make a fresh one, right-click in the Content Browser, choose User Interface, then Widget Blueprint, and when asked for the parent pick VectorVelocityHUDWidget.
2. 02Add the widgets and name them exactly. Open your HUD in the UMG Designer. Drag in SpeedText and GearText as Text widgets, and HealthBar, DashBar and SpeedBar as Progress Bars, which expect a value from 0 to 1. Any you skip are simply ignored, with no errors.
3. 03Make it look how you want. Position, colour, font and animate freely.
4. 04Tell the car to use it. Open Bp_Player, select it, and in Details find Vehicle - HUD - HUD Widget Class. Pick your HUD. It appears automatically for the local player. Leave it empty to hide the HUD.

Want full control? In your HUD Event Graph, add the On HUD Update event. It runs every frame and hands you Speed, Speed Alpha, Current Gear, Gear Name, Health, Max Health, Health Alpha, Dash Charge Alpha, and whether you are dashing. Use these to format text, change colours or play animations.

Setting up the effects (Niagara)

Niagara is the particle system for flames, sparks and trails. The template knows when to play effects and you provide what the effect looks like. You assign a finished Niagara System to each slot, and the template creates and controls the emitter for you.

1. 01Add the effects component. Open your car Blueprint, click Add Component, and choose VehicleFXComponent. Drag it under ChassisCollision in the Components list.
2. 02Fill the always-on slots. Select the VehicleFXComponent. In its Details panel, find the FX - Persistent section and drop a Niagara System into each slot you want: Hover Thrusters System, Dash Trail System, Brake Sparks System and Speed Trails System. The template builds and toggles these for you as you drive.
3. 03Set where the trails sit. In the same section, Dash Trail Offset and Brake Sparks Offset move those emitters back behind the car. Change them to fit your model.
4. 04Fill the one-time slots. Set the Impact, Landing and Destroyed slots. These fire once on a crash, on a landing, and when the car is destroyed.
5. 05Adjust the triggers (optional). Speed Trail Threshold sets how fast you must go before speed lines appear. Min Impact FX Speed and Min Landing FX Speed set how hard a hit or landing must be to show an effect.

That is all. Turning effects on and off, and syncing them in multiplayer, is automatic. Any slot you leave empty stays silent. You build the actual particle look in the Niagara editor, and there are many free Niagara packs to start from.

Multiplayer

The template is built for online play, and you do not have to manage any of it.

• The server runs the driving and players see the result. You build your car once and it works the same alone or online.
• The HUD and effects get the right info on every screen. Health, gear, boost, braking, hover height and grounded state are all shared, so effects and UI look correct for everyone, not just the local player.
• AI and turrets run on the server, and their motion is shared with smoothing built in.

To test: click the arrow next to Play, set Number of Players to 2 or more, and Net Mode to Play As Listen Server. Each window controls its own synced car.

Step-by-step guides

Put your own car model in

1. 01Open Bp_Player.
2. 02Click VehicleMesh in the Components panel.
3. 03In Details, set the Static Mesh to your model.
4. 04Use the move and rotate tools to line it up. It sits under MeshPivot.
5. 05Click the car at the top of the list and adjust Chassis Box Extent and Chassis Mass so the invisible box matches your model.
6. 06Press Play to check it.

Make it feel faster, heavier or floatier

• Faster: raise Max Speed, and each gear Max Speed. Raise the camera Max FOV for a stronger sense of speed.
• Heavier: raise Chassis Mass, then raise Hover Force to hold it up, raise Hover Damping, and lower Acceleration.
• Floatier: lower Hover Damping, lower Drag Coefficient, and raise Extra Trace Buffer.

Add or change a gear

1. 01Open Bp_Player and select GearSystem.
2. 02In Details, expand Gears.
3. 03Click the plus button to add a row, or edit an existing one.
4. 04Set the Display Label, Max Speed, Acceleration Multiplier and Turn Multiplier.
5. 05Make sure Neutral Gear Index and Reverse Gear Index still point at the right rows.

Shape the boost with a curve

1. 01In the Content Browser, right-click, choose Miscellaneous, then Curve, then Curve Float.
2. 02Open it. The bottom (X) is progress from 0 to 1, and the side (Y) is boost strength from 0 to 1. Draw the shape you want.
3. 03Open Bp_Player, select Movement, and set Dash Curve to your curve.

Make the turret actually shoot

1. 01Open TurretAi and go to the Event Graph.
2. 02Find the On Fire event. It gives you the target.
3. 03From there, Spawn Actor for your projectile aimed at the target, or do a line trace and apply damage.
4. 04Add a sound and a muzzle flash.
5. 05Set Fire Interval for how fast it fires.

React when the car is destroyed

1. 01Open Bp_Player and go to the Event Graph.
2. 02Add the Event On Destroyed BP node, or on the HealthComp, Bind to On Destroyed.
3. 03After it, spawn a wreck, hide the mesh, start a respawn timer and update the score. This is normal node wiring.

Add a boost pad (custom push)

1. 01In Bp_Player, add the Event Apply Additional Forces node.
2. 02When the car overlaps your boost-pad volume, use Add Force on ChassisCollision.
3. 03Because this is added on top, the hover and steering keep working normally.

Drive a car from Blueprint (for a cutscene or remote control)

1. 01Make a Vehicle Input State variable. It has Thrust, Turn, Vertical, Dash Held and Brake Held.
2. 02Each frame, set the values you want.
3. 03Call Set AI Input on the car. It drives exactly as if a player or the AI were controlling it.

Problems and fixes

Included content and licensing

The systems, the components, the AI, the HUD and the demo Blueprints (Bp_Player, Bp_VelocityGamemode, WBP_VehicleHUD, HoverAi, TurretAi) are part of this template and are yours to use and change in your projects.

The project also includes Epic's Starter Content and some demo art, only to show the systems working. Before you sell a game:

• Replace the placeholder art, meaning the demo car model and the level dressing, with your own, and make sure you are allowed to use anything you keep.
• If you do not use the Starter Content, you can remove it to shrink your game: delete the Content/StarterContent folder, then remove the [StartupActions] block from Config/DefaultGame.ini.

Support

If you get stuck or find a bug, contact us and include:

• Your Unreal Engine version.
• What you expected, and what actually happened.
• The Output Log if it is an error. Open it from the menu: Window, then Output Log.

Thanks for using VectorVelocity. Have fun building.