Issue with Bow and Arrow not working correctly in Third Person Controller

[Joan Sabé]

Hello Opsive team,

I’m currently working with the Third Person Controller and I’m having trouble setting up a bow and arrow item correctly.

I followed your "Third Person Item Creation" tutorials, and I was able to successfully create a custom item (My_Hammer) by replicating the sword tutorial. However, I’m running into issues when trying to implement a bow.

The problem is the following:

• The player is able to shoot only once, and then gets stuck.
• After the first shot, the bow no longer responds.
• In the Player Inventory, it have 1 Bow and 100 BowArrows (seems correctly).
• No arrow is visually spawned or fired.
• There is no impact or collision happening.

At the end of the attached video, you can clearly see that the player shoots once and then becomes blocked.

I’ve tried to follow the setup as closely as possible to the tutorials, but I suspect I may be missing something specific to ranged weapons.

Could you please guide me on what might be causing this issue or what I should check?

Thank you very much for your support.

Best regards,
Joan

 

[Justin]

Have you tried comparing all of the item modules with your bow compared to the demo bow?

 

[Joan Sabé]

Hi Justin,
I copied and pasted all the item module values from the demo bow into mine.
The issue is still happening, and I was able to narrow it down further:

• The first shot works correctly
• On the second attempt, the character gets stuck in Attack Pull Back
• The Use (Slot 1) ability stays active and never stops
• Because of that, the bow keeps “tensed” and never fires again

It seems like the ability is not receiving the stop/release event after the first shot.
Do you have any idea what could cause the Use ability to remain active like this on a custom character?

Thanks!

 

[Justin]

Did you replace the animations? This sounds like an animation event isn't firing. If you haven't replaced the animations check the use events to ensure that and the use complete event is the same as the demo scene.

 

[Joan Sabé]

Hi Justin,

I’ve managed to fix the first issue (bow getting stuck after the first shot). The Fire Point Location ID (50004101) wasn’t working in my setup, so I manually assigned the transform from my My_Bow (firePointLocation). Now it fires repeatedly, although not fully clean yet.

I also noticed differences with the demo setup:

• Demo: Player → Items → BowParent → ThirdPersonBow
• Mine: Player → Items → ThirdPersonBow (no BowParent). I see BowParent uses Object Identifier (50004001). How should I set this up like in the demo?

Also regarding the projectile setup:

• Demo: Attachments → BowArrow (ID 50004101) → ArrowProjectile(Clone)
• Mine: I placed it under Items → TPMyBow → FirePointLocation just to make it work, but there is no ID there.

I’ve attached a video for reference.

Thanks!
Joan

 

[Justin]

The demo scene parents the items with the Object Identifier component so it can easily be positioned beforehand. This is not required though, and if you directly attach the item with a custom position then that is effectively the same thing.

 

[Joan Sabé]

Hi Justin,

Thanks, that makes sense.

I added a BowParent (with the Object Identifier) and a BowArrow (with its ID) to my player, and now it works correctly.

However, I’m seeing another issue (video attached):

When I use the bow on my player, aiming up or down doesn’t affect the bow — it stays in the same position, and the arrow always shoots at the same height.

In the UCC demo (Atlas), when aiming up/down, the bow follows the camera direction, allowing the arrow to be shot higher or lower.

What could I be doing wrong?

Thanks!
Joan

 

[Justin]

Check the CharacterIK component - there is a separate bow state when the character has the bow.

 

[Joan Sabé]

Thank you Justin,

I checked the CharacterIK component as you mentioned. I can see the separate BowCharacterIKPreset state, but it is not activating when the bow is equipped in my setup.

In the demo it activates automatically when the bow is equipped, so I’m not sure what is missing in my configuration.

I’ve attached a screenshot/video for reference.

Thanks,
Joan

 

[Justin]

You can set the state on the Item Set for the bow. How are you loading your Item Sets? This is set on the Item Set Manager.