VBL FootSteps
UE5 Plugin
Footstep System for UE5
VBL Footsteps is a comprehensive, optimized, and scalable footstep system designed for Unreal Engine 5.4+. It offers all the standard features you’d expect—like audio, visual effects, and footprints—enhanced with advanced capabilities such as dirty foot tracking, object pooling, LOD management, and surface-specific interactions. This plugin is written in C++ but easily extendable with blueprints for best performance and flexibility.
A high-quality footstep system often goes unnoticed in a polished product, but its absence is immediately apparent. It plays a vital role in grounding characters within their world, enhancing immersion and realism. VBL Footsteps achieves all this while maintaining efficient CPU usage, delivering a well-optimized and highly customizable solution tailored to your project’s needs.
Media
Core Features
VBL Footsteps is packed with features. These are the core features of the plugin that defines its value. Please feel free to try these features out in the Standalone Demo.
Audio & VFX Response
Configure animations and surfaces to trigger accurately footsteps giving audio, VFX responses. Responses can be customized based on the type of step, the intensity of the step and the surface itself.
Dynamic Footprint Decals
Leave footprints appropriate for the ground surface. Footprints are dynamically created using the character's footprint shape and pattern. VBL Footsteps comes with 7 template footprint materials to help you get you started.
Dirty Foot Tracking
Track mud, water, snow or any other dirt over other surfaces with realistic fading and dirt lifetime tracking. You have complete control over the behavior of each surface and how it responds to dirty feet.
Customisation
Footprint actors can be customized to create interesting effects. Additionally the system contains event hooks to further control behaviour in project specific edge cases.
Object Pooling
VBL Footsteps uses Object pooling to minimize the number of footprints spawned during critical gameplay. The same system is used to efficiently fade and reclaim footstep actors if configured maximum values are reached.
Built In LOD
The built in LOD system allows users to define 'LOD linked' settings which can be either tied to the skeletal mesh LOD or controlled manually. There's no need to waste precious frames on footprints that nobody here's or sees.
And more...
The above are features are just the keystone features of VBL Footsteps. Other minor features include:
- Supports any to 8 feet per character
- Replication (multiplayer)
- Built in footstep animation notifies
- Footstep lifetime management and budget limits
- Zero (0) actor or component ticks in a shipping build
- Debug visualization
- Compatible with landscapes
Please see the documentation for complete details on all VBLFootStep systems.