MetaHuman character snaps to ground / stands on objects on Play, won't stay at its placed coordinate (UE 5.6.1, plugin 4.0.0-beta.24)

Integrations Unreal Engine Plugin
1

What do you need help with?

Bug report

Installation method

Not sure

Issue area

Character Setup

Impact

Major - a core flow is broken

Unreal Engine version

5.6.1

Convai Unreal Engine Plugin version

4.0.0-beta.24

Character ID

151e8062-7518-11f1-941e-42010a7be02f

Project setup

Blueprint

Target platform

Unreal Editor

Where does it happen?

Custom project

Short summary

MetaHuman character snaps to ground / stands on objects on Play, won’t stay at its placed coordinate

What happened?

My Convai MetaHuman character will not stay at its placed coordinate. On Play it immediately snaps down to the ground, and if there are other objects nearby it stands on top of them instead of staying put. The problem gets worse at large scale.

I disabled physics, gravity, and collision entirely, but it still happens. I also tested in an empty level with only the character and nothing else — it STILL snaps to the ground. So it seems to come from the Convai component itself, not from my scene.

Already tried, none of them fixed it:

  • Physics Asset bodies set to Kinematic
  • Simulate Physics off
  • NoCollision on Body and Face
  • Anim Class set to None
  • Actions off
  • No movement component on the actor
  • Disabled all BeginPlay logic
  • Empty level test (character alone) — still snaps to ground

Setup:

  • UE 5.6.1
  • Convai plugin 4.0.0-beta.24
  • In-engine MetaHuman (5.6)
  • Character parent class: Actor, with BP_ConvaiChatbotComponent + ConvaiFaceSync
  • Character ID: 151e8062-7518-11f1-941e-42010a7be02f

Questions:

  1. Is there a way to disable Convai’s automatic ground-snapping so the character stays fixed at its placed transform?
  2. Is this a known issue in 4.0.0-beta.24? Is there a stable release you’d recommend?

What did you expect?

The character should stay exactly at the transform where I placed it in the level, unaffected by other actors, while conversation still works normally.

This is for an art installation: the surrounding sun/planet objects are meant to fly around via physics and gravity, but the character itself must stay perfectly still at its coordinate.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Create a MetaHuman (in-engine 5.6), Blueprint parent class Actor
  2. Add BP_ConvaiChatbotComponent and ConvaiFaceSync
  3. Disable Simulate Physics, set collision to NoCollision, set Physics Asset bodies to Kinematic, Anim Class = None
  4. Place the character at a coordinate above the ground
  5. Press Play — the character snaps down to the ground / stands on nearby objects instead of staying at its coordinate

Screenshots, recording, logs, or minimal repro

I checked the relevant documentation, resources, and similar forum posts before posting.

on

I confirm that I did not include API keys, tokens, passwords, secrets, private character data, private conversation logs, or customer data.

on

2

Could you please share a video that clearly demonstrates the issue?

You can upload it as an unlisted video on YouTube or upload it to Google Drive and share the link.

3

Sure, here’s a video demonstrating the issue:

https://youtu.be/4S4_ITOkHuE

As you can see, the moment I press Play the character immediately drops down and ends up standing on the objects below it, instead of staying at the coordinate where I placed it.

At this point Simulate Physics is off, Enable Gravity is off, collision is set to NoCollision on both Body and Face, and the Physics Asset bodies are all Kinematic. It still happens.

It also happens in a completely empty level with only the character in it, so it doesn’t seem to be caused by anything else in my scene.

Let me know if you need any other footage or settings screenshots.

Thanks!

2026년 7월 12일 (일) 오전 8:22, Kaan <notifications@convai.discoursemail.com>님이 작성:

4

Do you want the character to stay inside the cube?

5

Yes, exactly. Here’s a video showing what I want:

I want the character to stay exactly where I placed it — floating in the air among those objects — completely unaffected by anything else, while conversation still works.

The surrounding objects (the sun and planets) flying around with physics and gravity is intentional. But the character itself should just stay locked at its placed transform.

Right now, the moment I press Play, the character drops down and ends up standing on top of whatever is below it.

6

Inside BP_ConvaiChatbotComponent, there is a function named FSnapToGround. This function is called every tick to ensure the character stays on the ground. Remove the function call, and your character will remain in its current position.