The Collision Manager is used for two main purposes. The Collision Manager handles trace hit detection for Weapon Actors without the need to add the Collision Manager directly to the actor. The second main purpose of the Collision Manager is to find a target for Gameplay Effects & Gameplay Abilities.

Gameplay Effects & Gameplay Abilities often need a target, for example an ability that locks in & magnetizes to the closest target. The Collision Manager can be used as a way to handle this type of functionality.

The Collision Manager Component is the component for managing the Ashen Collision System. Any Actor that intends to use the Ashen Collision System needs its own Collision Manager Component, or access to a Collision Manager Component owned by another actor.

Target Type and Trace Target

There are collision handler actors that the collision system uses to handle collision for other actors. Target Type is the base class for all collision handler actors. Trace Target is a child of target type that handles collision for any actors that need to have a trace collision. The trace collision can be activated through the ANS_CollisionTrace animation notify state.

Basic Requirements

The Collision Manager has no requirements other than adding the component to an actor. Once the component is added to the actor, you need to call “Add Collision Target Type” to spawn a collision handler actor and add that to the collision manager component.