Ryan Laley

Unreal Engine 5 Tutorial - Commanding AI Part 3: Recognising Enemies

The video walks developers through adding enemy‑recognition logic to a UE5 AI system, extending a Pikmin‑style tutorial series. It shows how to attach an AI Perception component, configure sight sense, and enable detection of actors based on affiliation. Key steps include retrieving each actor’s team tag via a custom interface, comparing it against the controlled pawn’s tag, and using the OnTargetPerceptionUpdated event to push the detected enemy into a blackboard entry called “TargetActor.” A new behavior‑tree task (BT_Task_AttackTarget) calls an “Attack” function on the pawn, allowing the AI to switch from idle or move commands to an aggressive attack routine. The presenter demonstrates the setup by coloring enemy units, duplicating move commands into a “Command Attack” node, and wiring the blackboard check to trigger the attack task only when the stimulus is successfully sensed. He notes that idle AI must first run an empty behavior to initialize the blackboard, preventing runtime errors. For developers, this tutorial provides a ready‑made pattern for aggressive AI that reacts instantly to hostile sighting, laying groundwork for more nuanced passive or defensive behaviors in future episodes. The approach streamlines team‑based perception handling and can be adapted to a wide range of UE5 projects.