animation

[viscid willow]

Yes, here. Is it the first bone in the hierarchy?

[worldly anvil]

Nope, that's one of the final ones

[viscid willow]

Ah okay, if you select the first bone in the list and look at the details. What does it say the scale value is?

[worldly anvil]

It's 100, 100, 100

Setting it to 1,1,1, rotates the mesh around Y axis, and makes it bigger. The relative scale is still the same -- the bones are huge

[viscid willow]

Classic. This one has been linked a few times as a resource for fixing the bone scale issues: https://youtu.be/YbWfoyf4MqI?si=P3T1B9sK7qUwbtqR

[worldly anvil]

Alright, I'll try to use this, hopefully it helps 😄

[viscid willow]

Goodluck

[modest void]

hey, are there any of you who have any good introductions to making animations for a first person elder scrolls type character? Like when they have a weapon equipped they hold their arms so the weapon is just in view of the camera. I have the ability to attach the weapon mesh to the character whenvever something is equipped I'm more looking for specifically the animations because, I haven't done anything with animation before so, I'm a bit out of my depth

[worldly anvil]

Yeap, it worked like a charm, thank you

[kindred wedge]

What is the best place to store animation asset references? Context: I have characters, whose animations and blend spaces for basic actions and locomotion are obviously stored in the animation blueprint (so creating a child blueprint allows me to easily replace them). However, I also have abilities (eventually dozens) each with their own animation montage, and those are stored in the ability class so the montage can be played on cast. Hit stagger animations are stored in the character class so they can be fetched and played by the Hit Reactions component.

Having very similar data in 3 different places bothers me. When I make a new character, I have to change animations in the animation blueprint AND the character class itself, and add some sort of class/montage map in the ability so it can play the right animation montage depending on your class.

Am I doing this right?

[old falcon]

Basically yes, each animation "type" has a different use case, requires different levels of flexibility and should be "stored" in a different place.
You can create a custom DataAsset to alleviate some of that pain though. Instead of referencing the animations directly, animBP, character BP etc. would just reference the data asset instead.

[kindred wedge]

Thanks. 🙂 Usually when something feels overly complicated in UE5 I'm doing it wrong, glad to know that is not the case.

[old falcon]

I'm sure other people have different opinions on this, but seems the most straightforward answer to me.

[old falcon]

Another way is to make use of "Asset actions -> Edit selection in property matrix" which can be very powerful if you also have set up some smart content browser filters
At least that way you will see all relevant properties in a single table

[nimble torrent]

I think your answer's a good one. Put things where they're needed, but consider extracting them to data assets when you start getting a lot of them.

A lot of game development involves mapping one set of things to another set of things - like, 'each character has custom animations for each weapon category' kind of deal.

I've found, putting the connection into a third thing is usually the cleanest option.

So - you have a goblin and a sword. You don't put the sword animations in the goblin object, or the goblin animations in the sword object - you create a 'GoblinSwordAttackAnimationAsset' and put them in there.

This means you don't have to load the goblin sword animations in a scene without goblins, and if you suddenly need spear animations for goblins, you don't actually need to fundamentally change your goblin class. You can just create a 'GoblinSpearAttackAnimationAsset' and add the new animations there.

[old falcon]

Yeah, the newer proxy assets and chooser tables are really nice for exactly the use case you described I feel, but as of now the plugin is a bit undercooked.

[nimble torrent]

I haven't heard of those. I'll have to look them up.

[old falcon]

It's surprisingly hidden for some reason, I think this deserves more attention
https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-en/unreal-engine/dynamic-asset-selection-in-unreal-engine

[nimble torrent]

Huh

OK. Yeah... yeah, I can see uses for these!

[soft prawn]

any fix?

[bleak egret]

my bad, had to head to bed, it was late for me 😐
ue 5.4 and blender 3.5.
Still have to check out the vids tho, maybe I messed up some option or whatever

[remote phoenix]

hey,
Is there a way to adjust a sword attack animation to a certain location of the enemy like the head?
Because from my understanding, the line trace of the weapon is driven by the Start and End sockets on the weapon itself. So I cannot like adjust the animation attack trajectory

[nimble torrent]

You can use IK to modify the position of the arm during an attack animation, but constructing the target position for the IK could be challenging. It's doable - but certainly a task.

[remote phoenix]

I thought of getting th position of the target, like the head from the head bone. But yeah it is a challenge and I didnt think of IK for this

[nimble torrent]

It might be easier to do an additive blend on the spine - if you don't need it to be super exact.

Like, just bending the spine up and down a bit can change the impact point of the strike.

But again - you need to figure out how to map the height to the spine movement.

[terse forum]

Hey guys. Does motion matching in 5.4 recognise turn in place animations? I guess not without extra coding, or am I wrong?

[tawny veldt]

So I tried to use 5.4 to retarget some animations and then imported them into 5.3.2. The animations work, but I get warnings when I try to package saying "*.uasset is too new. Engine Version: 1009 Package Version: 1012" on all my retargetted animations. Is there any way to fix this, or can I just ignore these warnings?

[nimble torrent]

If they work (which is surprising, version changes are seldom backwards compatible) then you should be able to re-save them and they should be fine.

[tawny veldt]

By re-save, do you mean reimport? I did that already and it didn't fix the warnings.

[nimble torrent]

Not reimport, no. I mean save from within unreal.

You're doing something that, by all rights, should not work. The fact that it even appears to be working is unusual.

A way of doing this in the future - you can export your sequences as FBX files, and then reimport those.

That should avoid any future backwards compatibility issues.

[gleaming pier]

Does anyone know why when I import an animation into UE and enable RootMotion, it changes its Z axis by 90?

[nimble torrent]

It's likely that your animation has a rotation offset because unreal and your dcc (like blender) disagree about which directions things are.

If you solved that problem, but you're working with Manny or Quinn - know that they were imported facing left.

[gleaming pier]

Sure, I tried that setting. I thought convert scene might fix it as well but evidently not.

ah, X forward, Z Up may fix that

[nimble torrent]

You have to look at the results in Unreal as well, and see what you have there.

And then test, and make sure you record your export settings.

[gleaming pier]

Well maybe changing the forward/up directions to match UEs should work then.

[nimble torrent]

It might!

It depends on the skeleton and character you're working with.

Like I said - Manny and Quinn are exported facing left.

So animations made for them, that use Root Motion, won't work with characters exported facing forward.

[gleaming pier]

Pretty sure the model is facing on the X plane. But of course blender treats the up direction as Y

[nimble torrent]

You can confirm it by using the direction viewpoints in unreal!

[gleaming pier]

I will do. Mind you this is about my 10th attempt.

[nimble torrent]

You'll get it eventually! These things are annoying as hell, but it's just a matter of sticking with it until it all lines up properly.

And then making you save how you did it!

[gleaming pier]

Yeeep

[gleaming pier]

Yeah still not working. Not sure why it is ONLY when rootmotions on.

[ashen aurora]

Hi all, Squishy has been nice enough to help me but I am broadcasting in case others might have ideas too:

I have an issue where one C++ parent Character class has two separate child BP. Each child BP has its own individual blender pipeline (separate mesh, skeleton, etc, but the skeletons have the same bone names).

My problem is that the C++ logic flows down perfectly into my original pipeline, I call it mesh/skeleton A. I took a step away for a few weeks, came back, created mesh/skeleton B in blender, but now my C++ logic doesn't flow down to B properly. For whatever reason, my aim at logic is getting "mistranslated" between the parent C++ data and the control rig/animBP

I can drag around the control point in either control rig and the preview animation looks perfectly fine... but once I apply it in game, all bets are off

doubt anyone is going to steal my game or whatever, so here is an example of it working and an example of it not working:

maybe the way I am exporting from blender is effed up?

[gleaming pier]

Yeah I'm pretty certain I've tried every combination of axes possible now.

[nimble torrent]

Awkward position to be in! You get close?

Also - I can't remember if you said, but are you trying to match the characters from Unreal?

Like - are you using Manny?

[gleaming pier]

No. It's its own model. Using Sephiroth as a placeholder for a sword boss at the minute.

Waiiiit

need to disable convert scene in this case I think

[limpid oak]

I have an animation question but it is related to ReadyPlayerMe models not working with Motion Matching in 5.4. Is it ok to ask here or is there a better spot? I have also asked in the RPM forums but no responses yet. Hoping to find some luck here

[nimble torrent]

I've never of it, but unless Ready Player Me's animations were specifically designed for Motion Matching, it's unlikely that you'll get good results from them.

Motion Matching typically requires custom animations built or recorded specifically for Motion Matching.

[gleaming pier]

@nimble torrent I got there. Just needed to add another 90 when importing. Can't remember if Convert Scene was enabled or not - but at least thats a 1 in 2 chance of getting it right now.

[nimble torrent]

Nice!

[gleaming pier]

except somehow I've broken all root motion movement itself now but I think I can fix that.

[ashen aurora]

For anyone coming behind me, I'm 99% sure this is an esoteric engine bug that I found based on how I programmed my target tracking logic in my C++ class.

[solar totem]

What's the cleanest way to create sword animations for Manny/Quinn?
Here's some options I can think of:

1. In Blender, rig to have a weapon bone on your hand.
   Animate as usual with weapon bone
   Export animation from Blender
   Import animation to UE, choose Manny skeleton, which will not have the weapon bone
   Add a weapon socket in the Manny skeleton for the weapon

2. In Blender, don't have a weapon bone
   Rig pretending you have a weapon (?)
   Export animation from Blender
   Import animation to UE, add weapon socket in Manny skeleton

I think those two options?
What do you guys do?

[viscid willow]

I have seen turn in place be achieved here: https://youtu.be/20BbDaFYN_o?si=AW1kHa2Q0-Sd1nhV

[icy lark]

im a newbie to unreal and im trying to understand how the animation in the default third person character works

values like ground speed and should move is being set in the ABP_Manny blueprint

but im confused on where exactly those values are being read and the decision is being made to apply which animation state to the character?

[plucky fjord]

@potent fern are you having the same problem?

[red tartan]

How do you adjust the camera angle?

[potent fern]

Not quite.. The issue I'm having is that on the listen server's viewport, all clients stutter/jitter/slow-ish.. While server to client and client to client looks butter smooth..
It's a bit strange, since it works perfectly client to client. 🤔

[plucky fjord]

thats strange

its the opposite for me i am having issues with server to client

[potent fern]

How do you replicate it?
We might be doing it differently, and if we look at how we both has done it, maybe we can figure out how to make it function properly 🤔

This is how I've done it

[remote phoenix]

so yeah I don't need to it to be too precise actually. I will even go as far as to say that all models will have the same height so the head will be at athe same location. Problem is that my animations are premade for me (got it from the marketplace) and I don't know how to fix all of them to strike at the right angle. No knowledge of animations 😦

[placid ermine]

Hi thank You for relying.. Unfortunately ni it diesnt have any event on the anim sequence only a lot of curves..

[nimble torrent]

Is there a specific reason they have to actually impact the head? Perfect impacts tend to be pretty rare in video games.

[nimble torrent]

Do the curves correspond to your facial mocap morph targets?

[old falcon]

I remembered your post, you can mirror keyframes in sequencer using a few relatively simple control rig nodes and a proxy control. Let me know if you still need it

[remote phoenix]

Yeah I know what you mean, but since the game has weak points like the head of the character, I wanted the animations to reflect that. And it doesnt need to me perfect hits on the head, but in the general vacinity. Anything above the chest would be enough

[nimble torrent]

All right. Tricky to know what to suggest then. I'd probably use the spine additive method then, rather than IK.

[nimble torrent]

Yeah! That's so cool!

[nimble torrent]

You're looking looking at the code in that screenshot? That's how the decision making is done.

They get the ground speed from the velocity of the character on the XY plane, and the 'Should Move' flag checks both ground speed and current acceleration to determine if the character should count as moving.

[nimble torrent]

Quinn and Manny have two different skeletons, there's one called 'simple' and one called... can't remember, it might just be their names. The non-simple ones have weapon bones! So, use those!

That said, I would animate using the Control Rig in Unreal. They already have pretty good control rigs, and you don't have to import or export anything, or deal with scale or rotation issues.

[old falcon]

I'll just post it, might be useful

Graph coming in a sec..

Might be more than a sec, editor keeps crashing when I try to expand nodes...

[nimble torrent]

Oh no!

[old falcon]

Property bindings are really buggy

[old falcon]

Finally..

Sadly it doesn't auto-key the mirrored controls, so have to remember manually keying them

[nimble torrent]

Nice!

[hoary tusk]

So I am making my own skeleton for my game, and I figured I would make my own mannequin too for shits and giggles. But maybe it isnt such a good idea? I mean it works, but what are some thing sI should think about if I want to use the same skeleton for humanoids?

[ashen junco]

You can get away with basic joints on the mannequin, but on the humanoid targets, consider adding twist bones to help the linear deformations
Other than that, UE5's retargeting is much more easier to deal with, so feel free to roll out your own rig

[hoary tusk]

I can always ADD bones right? As well as move pre existing ones when it comes to different proportions?

[ashen junco]

If you want to use one skeleton for multiple skelmesh, yes, as long as existing bone hierarchy stays intact

[hoary tusk]

okay, great thank you. I think I will continue with my skeleton now then!

[ashen junco]

Although do keep in mind that rigs from Blender can be problematic with Unreal's animation system, specifically when it comes to bone axis/orientation. Unreal copies and by default expects Maya's joint orientations

[hoary tusk]

oh so just to clarify. if in the future I figure I need more spine bones. I cannot add one because it will disrupt the heirarchy?

[hoary tusk]

yeah I have noticed that with the standard mannequin. its a problem I have accepted lol

[ashen junco]

Only if you're going to merge it to one skeleton asset
Making it a separate skeleton asset and do retargeting (either in editor or runtime) won't present the same issue

Especially UE5's IK retargeter making it much more easier than old UE4 days

[hoary tusk]

true. I can always do that, but it seems like it would cost performance for the game to constantly be checking the original skelelton, unless I just misunderstand how it works lol

[ashen junco]

Retarget Pose From Mesh isn't that more expensive compared to Copy Pose From Mesh, but you can also retarget the animation assets ahead of time and use them in lieu of the source skeleton's animations

For the latter, the process is just much easier and adjustable in UE5, compared to old UE4 methods

[hoary tusk]

Alrighty. thank you for the info and advice!

[nimble torrent]

(Oh! While you don't technically want to add new bones into the spine, you can add a second spine with more bones, and drive it with the version with fewer bones. This is expensive, and the only time I've had to do that was when we were doing a weird shirt rig, but it's technically possible!)

[cunning locust]

still need it 😄 no idea what you talking about

[old falcon]

Throw that in your control rig and you can toggle mirroring by setting the proxy control to 0 or 1

[barren fiber]

to be able to achieve such you need to limit the selction of poses using chooser tables, if your ground speed is = 0 , for that scenario you just want to have your looping idle or multiple depends and your turn in place. so on with starts, stops, and cycles.

if you dont know how to use chooser you can make your own system using bools and references to the databases inside your anim bp

[barren fiber]

dont follow this tho

[cunning locust]

thanks i willtry it!

[solar totem]

You're right! It's in a strange position (at the wrist) but it's there
I've been learning to create animations via Blender+Auto-Rig Pro then importing it to UE. I notice that the weapon bones on mannequin don't show up in ARP though... you don't happen to have experience in ARP do you?
Regardless, I'll definitely check out making animations with Control Rig

[nimble torrent]

I do not, sorry. Don't know Auto Rig at all!

[solar totem]

No problem
Just curious, what tools do you use to animate?

[nimble torrent]

Depends on the project. I've used Max, Maya, Motionbuilder - a lot of motionbuilder.

These days - I'm very impressed with Control Rig in Unreal.

Blender is great too, I've just never used it on a full project.

Just while noodling around.

[solar totem]

👀

Haha, but I'll definitely try out Control Rig
Thanks

[nimble torrent]

I wouldn't recommend motionbuilder these days. They mostly stopped updating it, and there are other software that do what they used to do just as well.

Like Control Rig!

[old falcon]

Is there some technique to "modularize" animations? I don't know what else to call it
E.g. if you have a combat pose and you go and animate 10 attack animations starting from that combat pose. If your combat pose changes, do you really have to go through all 10 animations and copy/paste the first keyframe? Or is there some way to refer to that combat pose and it auto-adjusts?

Pretty sure DCCs have tooling for something like this, but I doubt sequencer has it...

[nimble torrent]

The best way of handling that is what is called, a little ambiguously, an 'adjustment blend'. The problem with procedural solutions to pose changes like that is that they often cause foot sliding.

If you layer a pose over top of an existing animation, even if you blend it out, the blend out causes the effect of the pose to smear into the original animation data creating odd movements that are especially noticeable on things that should be stationary (like feet).

An 'adjustment blend' involves pasting poses on a layer, measuring both the pose delta and the overall magnitude of movement along each fcurve and applying the pose delta during during periods of movement.

I'm planning on making a plugin for this, as the layered control rigs make this possible to do in Unreal now, and the algorithm is really simple.

It's a handy tool to have in your tool belt, as it makes working with mocap data way easier.

[old falcon]

https://tenor.com/view/headache-psyduck-pokemon-cute-what-gif-15770283

In short, wait for Squishy's plugin, until then adjust all poses by hand, gotcha 👍

[past marsh]

https://streamable.com/mhcoe9
I just downloaded MLdeformersample and my control rig is all wonky... SOS

[heady pulsar]

Is Global space in control rig the same as relative space in blueprint programming? Thanks for your help

[nimble torrent]

No, it should be actual global space.

[heady pulsar]

How is global vs world space different?

[nimble torrent]

They should be the same thing.

[heady pulsar]

It's different, if I didn't use this node, my bones would have a very different effect

[nimble torrent]

Interesting. All right. I sit corrected.

[heady pulsar]

Can we ignore that for a moment?
I am wanting to set elements in array but after "SetAt", my Array is still default values

Why is my array always the default value?

[nimble torrent]

You're... printing the input value?

You know - I don't know enough about the virtual machine for control rig to be able to say.

[heady pulsar]

Even in the actual value when running the game, it is still 0.

functions that use the value of that array still show it to be 0

[full mirage]

Godzilla rig done in Unreal engine.

[old falcon]

Global space in CR is actually mesh space, local space is bone space
World space is not really used there, but theres a node to convert from world to global

Oh, you're using the node, nevermind :p

[old falcon]

Set at might be returning a new array? Try using that

Might also be good to check whether delta time is actually >0

[heady pulsar]

I wonder why all the editing functions (like: Add, SetAt) for float arrays don't work like other variable types In Control Rig.

[old falcon]

I just checked, it says "modifies the input array" so what I said was wrong

[heady pulsar]

Can you try testing whether the float array works with the Modifies the input array functions? I am using ue 5.3.2

[old falcon]

This works, but kinda bonkers

The doc on the SetAt might be wrong

[heady pulsar]

Yep, I found on YouTube that many user also had same error with the Float Array

Thank for your help

[south badge]

hiii sorry but do yk how to fix this ?

[plucky fjord]

@potent fern Hey I dont think replicating the trajectory is the correct way to do it, we would probably need to modify the UpdateHistory_TransformHistory and UpdatePrediction_SimulateCharacterMovement in c++(MotionTrajectoryLibrary.h)

i have checked by implanting as per your screenshots and checked it with network profiler, bandwidth used is around 14 times more than similar implementations with state machines

[old falcon]

I've got an animation montage where I want the blend out to pretty much ignore a single bone (or a set of bones) and just not blend those, I'm okay if they snap once the montage ends but the rest of the pose should blend.
I don't see however that you can use blend masks in the "Blend Out Profile" drop down in montages. Any ideas?

[old falcon]

Seems there really is no way to use blend masks for the blend out. Time and weight profiles only make things blend faster rather than slower or not at all.

[midnight hull]

Hi, has anyone experienced runtime Sequencer blend out sometimes running twice at the ending?

[nimble torrent]

Very weird choice for epic to name them that way!!

[latent swift]

Hello, new to UE5, I use same anim class in these 3 AI charactors, but only one of AI copy from the starter content BP walk correctly, the other two create manually, help please.

[nimble torrent]

Did you... add the animation BP?

That's an odd one!

[rich bane]

Hey friends 🙂 I use Motion Matching. But when I changed my character movement speed to 450 instead of 800, the walk animation plays way too long and the jog animation doesn't start. With Blend Spaces I could define at which speed I want the character to have a run animation. Do you know how I can do that with Motion Matching ? Thanks 🙂

[nimble torrent]

Rerecord your animations.

Motion matching's whole deal is accurate matching of velocity, so if you make your character move slower, you have to animate them moving slower.

[ivory bear]

Anyone know why rigs made with AutoRigPro in blender behave like this when attempting to rig them with the modules?

(I only put modules on one side)

idk why the foot does that when I add the foot module

im not sure if these are the wrong bones or something?

[rose kraken]

Hey 👋 ive been getting into character creation and messing about with things like CC, Daz and VRoid. I’m looking for some direction and help understanding what exactly controls the physics of things like hair and bust for a playable character. For example importing characters from VRoid I always get busts that are WAY too bouncy, I want to figure out how to reduce this in UE5 or blender. I’m just not sure what dictates what makes things bounce eg when you jump or run so I can fine tune them more. Sorry for the vague question I’m just looking for some general direction. Thanks!

[nimble torrent]

This is not an uncommon issue with the new modular rigs. They appear to only work correctly with a particular arrangement of bones, which many systems like auto-rig pro do not follow.

[nimble torrent]

That kind of thing can be done a variety of ways, and it will depend on the specific setup.

Like, just off the top of my head, they could be:

• cloth simulations
• flesh simulations
• ragdolls
• animation dynamics
• springs
• springs (but in control rig this time)
• hair grooms

There's lots of ways of doing that stuff.

Oh! There's also:

• ml deformers

[ivory bear]

do you know of any ways to go about solving this? have other people found a solution?

[nimble torrent]

So far, nobody has a simple procedure or plug-and-play solution.

I can suggest something that might work, based on my understanding of how things are setup in the control rig, but my expectation would be that this would probably break the rig inside of blender.

[ivory bear]

aah

well, if it's a predefined set of actions, I could always make a python script for blender

[nimble torrent]

Well, I don't have a set of actions, no. You might be able to get away with using a modified skeleton constrained to your autorig with corrected rotations.

Because I think that's what the problem is, the wrong axis is forward on your leg.

You can check this by comparing the mannequin skeletons in unreal's leg joint orientations to yours.

I think, for them, they have both of the legs with the same vector pointing forwards, but I believe autorig probably uses an inverted martix to produce it's mirrors, so the complementary matrices are flipped backwards.

So if you have 'x' forwards on the left leg, x becomes backwards on the right leg.

I think that's what's causing the issue.

Hypothetically, once you've confirmed what the orientations of the bones need to be, you could construct a skeleton with the correct orientations, and use that.

[ivory bear]

aaah

I've gone and reimported the model and eventually got it to work (I think)

tho, idk if it's just me, but the modular ctrl rig editor seems kinda buggy AF

cuz I had to keep deleting the ctrl rig cuz it would keep glitching out and hiding the sockets

[nimble torrent]

It is. It doesn't appear to be fully stress tested.

[ivory bear]

man

for this one to work, I had to compile after every single module placement

otherwise it would bug out

Well, I guess i've finally done it tho, I've finally made a control rig!

...

[nimble torrent]

Good job!

[ivory bear]

idk how to maniuplate any of it in blueprint tho

:O

[nimble torrent]

What do you need to manipulate it for?

[ivory bear]

I ultimately want to use it to make procedural FPS weapon animations

cuz my game will have a lot of weapon attachments grips that will change how the hands hold the gun, and multiple scopes per gun

[nimble torrent]

OK, well - the modular control rigs aren't really setup for that kind of controls, so you may have to make your own.

[ivory bear]

Is an IK rig better?

[nimble torrent]

And also - you can get a lot of that without needing a control rig simply by creating hand pose animations, and blending those using a layered blend per bone.

[nimble torrent]

Definitely not for hand poses.

[ivory bear]

Ive done this before, but it always lead to some drift, where the hands dont line up with the weapon when applying additive weapon sway (via blendspaces)

plus I want the ability to change which attachments you're using mid match, and I dont wanna need to make a pose for every scope/weapon combination

+leaning

without needing to make a left/right leaned variation for every reload animation I'd like to import

Im just not sure how to go about handling all of that

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, that sounds like a lot.

[ivory bear]

+there will be akimbo

[ivory bear]

yea, but it's been on my backburner forever, and I feel like i need to bite the bullet and just try and approach it

If I could get a good, modular groundwork to start from, it should make the future easier in terms of reusability

[nimble torrent]

Sometimes that's true, but complexity creates its own overhead.

[ivory bear]

tru tru

honestly, im just trying to reach this level of modularity

[rose kraken]

Thank you for the explanation

[nimble torrent]

That is impressive!

[ivory bear]

(NOT MINE BTW 😁)

[pliant zodiac]

It does have some unresolvable bugs yeah can agree, that's why I make my custom modular rig modules that are hardened and don't glitch out when the model isn't the original UE5 rig. So far I have done eye modular rig and head modular rig.

[ivory bear]

(it's from Out Of Action)

[old falcon]

You can alleviate swimming from additive animations using virtual bones!

[ivory bear]

what are those?!

[old falcon]

https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/virtual-bones-in-unreal-engine?application_version=5.4

[nimble torrent]

Nice! Please share how you made those some time.

[ivory bear]

hmm!

I promise Ill read the whole thing in a bit, but is this a thing seperate from ctrl rig?

cuz I keep hearing about a lot of the animation tools in UE, but I have a hard time understanding when to use what?

[old falcon]

That's everyone 😄

[ivory bear]

lol

[old falcon]

You can use VBs within control rig too

[ivory bear]

i just dont wanna be using a deprecated approach or anything

(plus it'd be really cool if I could still use all the manequin animations unreal has from the marketplace, but wouldnt they not work with my custom rigs if I dont use control rig?)

[old falcon]

Well swimming comes from having the IK target be affected by secondary additive animations on the upper body, right?
So you just create a VB as the IK target in a different bone space, then mask it out when layering your anims. That way your IK target is "filtered out" from additive animations

[ivory bear]

the "different bone space" being like, an additive space?

[old falcon]

No, literally as if the bone was parented to a different bone than it really is, but following a target bone

This guy explains it really well (but slowly :D)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqCctEGg7hA

[ivory bear]

nothing 3x speed cant fix

im watchin this rn

[ivory bear]

is there some sort of guide that explains what unreal animation systems are best suited towards what?

[old falcon]

I think there is one, let me remember the name...

Ah right!

It's called "Ask Squishy" :^)

[ivory bear]

he he he

[old falcon]

Also mostly just experience

Sometimes there's a clear cut answer, most of the time it heavily depends on what you want to do

[ivory bear]

well, Ill keep watching this vid about virtual bones, but would you recommend it for if the player's arms needed to grab at a certain locations in worldspace?

esp if there's a lot of akimbo involved?

[old falcon]

World space is troublesome!

By the time you're moving your hand to that world space position the actual world space position has updated

[ivory bear]

it'd be constantly tracked towards it

like, imagine holding hands with another character

[old falcon]

Nah, doesn't work

You'll have to do bone space or something similar

Some relative offset

[ivory bear]

Ive still never done any ik in unreal

ive been waiting for ctrl rig to get easier

since I dont wanna manually re-setup ik in engine for legs and stuff

[pliant zodiac]

I can definitely. I can show a video how they work really quick just drag onto any bone they do the rest. So far only head and eyes.

[old falcon]

So you have a few options there, use the IK nodes in AnimGraph or use IK with control rig. Not sure if modular CR works for this use case.

[ivory bear]

are modular and regular rigs different in any way besides the window you assemble it in?

[old falcon]

I haven't played around with modular yet, but as far as I know modular CR is meant for animating in sequencer by hand I think? I doubt their "hand modules" are set up in a way that allows you to do hand IK at runtime. Not too sure!

[ivory bear]

aah

[pliant zodiac]

You can use them for advanced head and tracking too.

[ivory bear]

so can IK basically do most of what CR does? just not able to be animated in sequence?

[old falcon]

CR is a big umbrella tool that can do a lot

[nimble torrent]

Kind of! Both Control Rig and the animation BP can use IK.

They're for different things though. If you're using a control rig live you're probably either doing something very procedural, very complicated, or something that references the skeleton.

[ivory bear]

yea, what i'm doing is very complicated

[nimble torrent]

Because if you try to use a blueprint to 'Get Bone Transform' it will get the previous frame's data, while inside the Control Rig, you have access to the current frame's data.

[old falcon]

But no access to anything else! 😄

[ivory bear]

🤔

rly?

[old falcon]

Unless it's passed in

[ivory bear]

oh, that's fine

[old falcon]

Actors also don't work in CR, actually I think you can only pass in primitive types?

And some CR specific things

[ivory bear]

are virutal bones and IK bones the same?

[old falcon]

If you constrain your IK bone in its translation to another bone, then it behaves exactly as a virtual bone would

[ivory bear]

what would yall recommend if the arms needed to visibly reach to pick up new guns in the world (from arbitrary locations), interact with turrets/doors, and point at locations in the world?

in terms of systems?

[old falcon]

I think that's motion warping if you want to do it procedurally?

But I know squat about procedural animation so don't quote me on that

[ivory bear]

is that like, sliding the root of your model to match up with the root of another model so the animation lines up?

[old falcon]

Kinda, but with less foot sliding I'd think! :p

I'm not even sure you really need fully procedural work to achieve what you intend to do
I think maybe even some smart IK and blending can get you pretty close

Smoke & mirrors

[pliant zodiac]

These are my selfmade Modular Rig modules I even found a bug, that when I activate both debug sphere views that somehow things mess up but one at a time is fine. I am still working them

[old falcon]

I don't know, I think the "Pepe the Frog" debug mode is pretty rad 🐸

[ivory bear]

wooa!

[old falcon]

But that's really cool

[ivory bear]

that eye tracking is nice!

I didnt know you could make your own modules!

[pliant zodiac]

I have to expose more controls.

I just started with them today

[ivory bear]

woah really?!

have you ever used ctrl rig before?

[pliant zodiac]

No

[ivory bear]

waat

[pliant zodiac]

I actually avoided control rig

Today is first time

[ivory bear]

can you send me whatever learnin' resources u got?

that's impressive!

[pliant zodiac]

I watched one video, over and over til I understood but sure I will send you

I will dm

[brazen wharf]

i wasn't aware of the modules either... they work at runtime, too? oh seems to be a 5.4 feature...

[sharp linden]

Anyone encountered this issue with a new version of metahumans? I didn't have such problems with previous ones, but over here when head inherits movements from body's ControlRig... it is completely messed up

I reimported my metahuman and now apparently you cannot bake to default face ControlRig because it's not in the list, although it gets added to Sequencer... Wtf. Is this 5.4 gimmick?

[last plume]

How do you fix UE5 animations that are floating?

[latent swift]

Hello, I found the setting can fix the problem, it "fixed path braking distance", the BP create manually did not open by default, and I still don't understand why it cause the animation error.
I asked "Gemini" and I got this response.
"Fixed path braking distance" in Unreal Engine's character movement system is unlikely to be the direct cause of one character's leg not moving in your animation. "
Can someone explain?

[nimble torrent]

Hmm, that is pretty strange.

"Fixed Path Breaking" is part of the "Acceleration for Paths" functionality, which causes AI characters to accelerate and deccelerate following AI paths.

Like Gemini, I have no idea why using that would prevent animations from playing.

[latent swift]

Sorry, I'm wrong, It not "fixed path braking distance", the right setting is "use acceleration for paths".

[nimble torrent]

OK, still not illuminating.

That setting just causes the enemies to accelerate onto AI paths.

So I'm not sure how it could cause the effect you saw.

[latent swift]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soyBFtFFsNE

[latent swift]

he said AI needs to use its acceleration to determine how the animation is supposed to be played

[nimble torrent]

So the problem was you had the setting off?

Not that you had the setting on?

[final orchid]

help plz

not showing preview

5.4.1

[latent swift]

default BP is off, you have to turn on "use acceleration for paths"

[final orchid]

not with root motion enabled also

[nimble torrent]

OK, so the problem is that it was off and you needed it on. OK! Cool! Good to know.

[nimble torrent]

Does it display without root motion enabled?

[final orchid]

nope

[nimble torrent]

So why mention Root Motion?

[final orchid]

i can do a screen share if u want

[final orchid]

i mean even if i enable root motion it doesnot work

[nimble torrent]

OK, what about other animation sequences?

Do they show up in the preview?

[final orchid]

none

nope

[nimble torrent]

Do they work in the game?

Like - if you put them on a character, do they work?

[final orchid]

i tried reinstalling the engine also

yes

[nimble torrent]

Interesting choice.

OK, so it's just the previewer of individual sequences, or do all the previewers not work?

Like the preview window in the animation bp?

[final orchid]

not even the template animations are working

[nimble torrent]

You've moved the camera around, you've hit the 'frame character' button etc.?

You've confirmed that, for sure, there's no mesh there?

[final orchid]

here

[nimble torrent]

What mesh did you put in the preview scene skeletal mesh option?

[nimble torrent]

That doesn't tell me anything, sorry.

What about the "Preview Scene" tab?

What's in there?

[final orchid]

here look

[final orchid]

yes i yhave

dont know about the button tho

[nimble torrent]

It's 'F' on the keyboard.

OK, so this is a bit unusual. What about the animation blueprint, the skeletal mesh viewer, or the control viewer?

Do they work?

[final orchid]

oo i did something

i have changed the pose search mode

though all of them works

rn

idk why its not working then

[nimble torrent]

When you say, 'all of them work' you mean the other previewers? It's exclusively the animation sequence preview window? You've arranged things quite oddly in your workspace, so I'm not entirely sure that this is the sequence viewer.

[final orchid]

yes

[nimble torrent]

That certainly looks like the character to me.

Problem solved!

[final orchid]

yep

[final orchid]

its the new motion matching window

i was just playing with new features

[nimble torrent]

Ah! That makes sense!

[versed slate]

in terms of creating any first person animations example swinging a melee weapon. Do you guys prefer using control rig or another software like blender?
and why

[misty dagger]

this is the new animation thing, is it good and easy to use? would you recommend it to me?

[sharp linden]

Uuuh, does anyone have Metahuman Animator working in UE5.4? I don't even have that option

[pliant zodiac]

Weird question that came into my mind, but does motion matching work for the sequencer?

[final orchid]

Depends but there is not much tutorials on uthbe so think I'm still researching and as far as I think it is easy if u have animations and tough if u don't

[final orchid]

Yes

Probabily

[old falcon]

Whatever you prefer. The animation tools in UE are a bit undercooked right now compared to dedicated tools like blender.
I still use UE though because I think it's nice not having to deal with blender -> UE shenanigans

[modest void]

hey so I'm messing around in control rig, I'm trying to make first person hands that are closed so I can put weapons in them and have a proper first person view, I imported the control rig from the third person template, put a camera in the head, and I'm messing around with the control rig settings to try and replicate the skyrim style view, but no matter how I edit the various parts it seems to look like absolute ass.... Are there any guides on the positions for this stuff? I have a hard time positioning things by eye.. generally I tend to do everything by numbers (also why I'm terrible at making anything organic in 3d model software XD)

[jolly hatch]

Am I kidding myself that I can retarget a full characters hand pose to a stand alone hand , its ties to work but the fingers are wonky. I just want a method to apply the character Hand poses to a hand skeleton.

[autumn cipher]

What's the secret to a blend space that doesnt struggle with small adjustments between animations? surely I dont have to make animations for 112 degrees etc. Im trying to avoid strafing since it doesnt look so good with this style of characters short legs.

[rotund musk]

https://youtu.be/OSWX3vEgRcE?si=cHxQuOVpdxvGCdvg

Hope this helps with blendspace, helped me understand it way better

At least where to put the animations like in picture 2 of yours

[autumn cipher]

mmm. Ill give it another go but the basics seem to only work for strafing

[barren fiber]

Is there a conversion guide of all the spaces?
Rig Space, World Space, Local Space, Bone Space and so on

[barren fiber]

the reason im asking is cause im trying to get the location of any socket attached to the bone and send its transform over to control rig

[old falcon]

Uh, in which space are you trying to send it over? Because getting the relative transform of any socket is really easy

[nimble torrent]

Given the perspective your game works in (looks great btw!), one option is to just rotate the character and avoid strafing entirely. So you just have one run animation, and you have the whole character rotate (and you do the head and upper body look-at separately).

[autumn cipher]

@nimble torrent haha thanks, havent scratched the surface of how i want it to look so im looking forward to the future of it. To have him look at the mouse for aiming i need to be able to move different directions but face different ways. The way i have it is ideal except those small angles where it cant figure out what to do. Then theres the issue of overlaying a recoil animation with different arm positions and aiming look offsets or blend spaces alongside this. The basics dont cover this kind of specific case. It also could be a rigging issue which is never mentioned since tutorials always use the default mannequin. Im not a beginner but things like this can slip through my knowledge if i havent dealt with it in detail

[nimble torrent]

There are runtime versions of retargeting.

[nimble torrent]

OK, but even if you just rotate the character, you can still have the character look in whatever direction you want.

Your layers would be:

• rotation (rotates the character into the direction of movement
• 1d run blendspace (animates the character running at the correct speed)
• lookat overlay (using either a control rig, or a time controlled animation, blend the upper body of the character to look towards the mouse)

And yeah, most tutorials tend to not necessarily provide a thorough treatment of the subject, and typically target beginners.

[autumn cipher]

@nimble torrent You mean rotate the character like im doing here already?

and the Lookat using offset I imagine?

[nimble torrent]

I don't, no. I mean rotate the mesh inside the character, so that they can turn without turning the pawn.

The advantage to this is that they still count as 'facing' towards the enemy for things like weapons etc.

You can do this with animation, or you could rotate the mesh itself.

I would probably do it in animations personally.

[autumn cipher]

Ah right so like rotate the full animation so running backwards is actually turned 180 degrees. Then the capsule essentially doesnt face any direction except the 1.

So the blendspace would need to have the runnning in more than 1d right?

[nimble torrent]

Why?

Rotate the character, change their rotation on their root, this means that 'running forward' is now rotated into the direction you want it to be.

So there's no need for a 2D blendspace.

You're not using the blendspace to rotate the character.

[autumn cipher]

so in terms of animation in modelling software, I would need the animation just idle, walk run. then in UE I would rotate the mesh. Not make like 20 different run angles 😓

[nimble torrent]

Yeah.

[last plume]

When your making an IK for the Retargeter, should the foot and the leg have their own Chains? And their own goals?

I think, I want the foot to have its own Chain and Goal so I can adjust it to touch the ground... Thoughts?

Version 5.3

[nimble torrent]

Little confused by this. What do you mean by 'foot and left'?

[last plume]

Sorry, leg

[nimble torrent]

And theoretically, the foot ik goal would be the ik goal for the leg, and the leg being correctly placed would have the foot on the ground.

[last plume]

I watched this video and it seems the foot needs a goal in order to adjust it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwLHfl_XHsE

Because when I click the Foot IK, the option is NOT available. [23 sec mark in video]

[nimble torrent]

That might be a new option in 5.4.

That video is only eight days old.

He seems to imply that it is.

[last plume]

I guess I thought it was 5.3.

[nimble torrent]

I could easily be wrong!

But I think most tutorials made in the last few weeks will be focused on 5.4

[last plume]

I'll go experiment and get something to eat...

[autumn cipher]

@nimble torrent You mean like this kind of rotation, then add the offset for the gun aim?

[nimble torrent]

I think so, yeah!

[autumn cipher]

And dealing with the behind angles may just mean turning the character around for that half of the radius I suppose.

[nimble torrent]

Yeah you could have a switch to have them start walking backwards if you wanted.

Like - if you're looking directly behind you.

(that's always a tricky thing to make look natural however you decide to solve it)

[autumn cipher]

I will experiment a bit and see how it goes. This is a new method for me so heres hoping XD

Thanks for the pointers though so far!

[nimble torrent]

Good luck!

[barren fiber]

its really wierd

anyone noticed that control rig has a delay aswell, for example if we were to do ik using a control rig

[old falcon]

It's not due to control rig

You're probably using world space for your IK effector target, right?

World space will always leave you at 1 frame delay

Regardless of whether you use CR or IK nodes in the anim BP

[barren fiber]

should i change it to local Space?

[old falcon]

What you do within CR is different from what you do outside of it

global vs local in CR depends on your use case

[barren fiber]

so where is the delay coming from then?

[old falcon]

The transform variables you pass in

They're calculated in what space?

[old falcon]

So bone relative right?

[barren fiber]

no

[old falcon]

Oh these are SM sockets?

[barren fiber]

component space transform

skeletal mesh sockets for debuggin yea

[old falcon]

And I assume they're on weapons that you attach to your character?

[barren fiber]

no

on the character for now

to test it

i will do them on the weapons once i understand the system

the lh socket is moving with the right hand socket

its parented

[old falcon]

Then you get a delay when moving on the left hand? Right hand is locked?

[barren fiber]

i dont know, since the weapon is connected to the right hand

[modern crystal]

Hey all, I'm wondering if I can play an animation from within the blueprint of an actor, with the starting frame and playback speed exposed?

[barren fiber]

i think you should be able to dragging in a sequence and exposing pins

[barren fiber]

you actually did a control rig hand ik yet?

[old falcon]

Yep, trying to understand your setup

[barren fiber]

i can share my screen and walk you through it

its nothing big

[old falcon]

I'm in bed lmao

But I can quickly describe the problem to you

[modern crystal]

hmm doesnt work it looks like

I'm in the actor blueprint btw, not an animation bp

I found these two nodes. I'd rather not use the montage node to save on how many assets I need to make. The regular play node doesn't have the play rate and starting pos exposed

[barren fiber]

well convert the sequence into a montage

[old falcon]

By the time you calculate your transforms and reach into CR, the AnimBP will have updated your character's pose. So the transforms that you're passing into CR are off by one frame.

You can either do everything in CR, this ensures you always have the up-to-date pose, but often this isn't possible without some blueprint info from outside.

Or you can pass in a "reference" bone. All transforms that are passed into the CR node will act as relative transforms to that bone. So when you do your calculations, you can get the up-to-date transform of your ref bone and apply the transforms as necessary.

[barren fiber]

i dont understand your second solution

first one wouldnt work with a dynamic hand ik, would it

[old falcon]

You can make it work, but I think you would need extra bones specifically to support it.

The second one is easier I think. If you pass in a ref bone, your CR can get the up-to-date tranform of that bone right?
That also means any additonal tranforms you compose with that bone transform will automatically be in the correct, up-to-date position too. Think of the transforms as offsets from a bone.

[barren fiber]

if i get world space how do i convert that to be used by control rig?

[old falcon]

You can convert transforms, or with SM sockets I think you can get the relative transform directly? ParentToBoneSpace it's called on the node I think

[old falcon]

Those yellow dots are your sockets?

And they're both on your skelmesh?

[barren fiber]

yea

[old falcon]

Why not use a socket on the gun instead to place your offhand? That's usually how it's done.
Weapon attaches to mainhand socket on the skelmesh, and the offhand gets IK'd to a socket on the gun mesh

[barren fiber]

right

i can do this now

but i think same issue going to occur

[old falcon]

Yeah, as long as you're not using a relative transform off of a bone in CR you'll have that kind of 1 frame lag.

Another source of delay can be the skelmesh component ticking after movement component. If you use a post process blueprint that will be fixed too

[barren fiber]

i have a post process animation bp

i tried various aswell pre physics post update

[old falcon]

That's different from PP animBP but works, too

I think you might also be suffering from swimming due to your left hand socket being parented to the right. So the left hand receives all kinds of secondary motion from the right hand

[barren fiber]

its on the gun now

this all should be happening for you aswell unless your using normal ik

[old falcon]

No I use CR but zero swimming and no delay

I pass a ref bone to my CR and calculate all transforms as offsets from that bone

If you used your right hand bone as ref bone and passed in the left hands target transform as offset from that it would work too

Make sure to check at low framerates too, those 1 frame delays can be hard to see otherwise

[barren fiber]

but you need to pass information to it from a blueprint

[viscid willow]

Just reading through, have you assigned your IK setup as a post process ABP on your skeletal mesh?

Also, out of curiosity, is the slope animation of your character achieved through motion matching alone? Or are you running a Slope Warping solution?

[last plume]

IK Question... I created a Full Body Solver and Goal on the Foot (L & R)... I lowered to transformed the Root and the L & R Arm IK's down by 40... But the Hand stayed in the Air?

Moved the hand IK down ant they seem to match now...

[barren fiber]

no actually i havent, would be kinda dumb wouldnt it?

[barren fiber]

no voodoo no motion matching, foot ik

TBH i dont recommend using motion matching for serious personal projects.

if fn around go for it, its interesting.

[viscid willow]

Okay, i ask because you mentioned a post process animation bp.

[viscid willow]

okay, good to know.

What makes you say you dont recommend it for "serious personal projects"?

[elfin axle]

Hey guys, anyone know how to add a overlay state in als refactored from sizxe?

[barren fiber]

Budget, Time Investment, Complexity, Optimization etc.

each frame in each sequence = one pose which stores all the data set by the PS Schema, and the more you sample the more data is being stored etc.
it really gets complex and a nice balance inbetween has to be found, id recommend Distance Matching, Motion Warping, and for vaults etc, you use root motion and itle look really good already.
If one properly wants to get use of motion matching youll need aprox 300 animations per state.
You could get away with less but then you would have to come up with different solutions aswell.

[viscid willow]

I get what you mean where you can get very complex and yeah it seems like you need to break your animation sets into various Schemas to have minimal overhead, in the same way that epic has done so to have mm run on fortnite characters.

I do think 300 animations per state is quite excessive. I would imagine anything of that size could be encapsulated in multiple schemas and selected with choosers.

[barren fiber]

Fortnite is partially running on Motion Matching since they reverted the changes, they use blendspaces on top still

im using chooser, 300 per gait is realistic

and sorry it was gait

so a full cycle

walk for example

[viscid willow]

300 animations per gait?

[barren fiber]

yea

Walk, Jog, Running

[viscid willow]

I believe they reverted the movement speed changes, which required changes to the animation assets, not the changes to the animation setup. Based on their live talks, it seems like their still running full MM.

[viscid willow]

so for walk + jog + run you have 900 animation assets?

[barren fiber]

when you check the graph you see it

[viscid willow]

which graph?

[barren fiber]

not including transitions to each gait

[barren fiber]

in the GDC animation

[viscid willow]

that seems like way more than you would need, but sure.

[barren fiber]

how you come to that evaluation?

We are not using any blendspaces, so what happens if we dont

we miss coverage

think of all the possible ways your character can move atm,

including rotation aswell as direction

[viscid willow]

I'm not sure I see it

[viscid willow]

300 animation assets for walking alone, just seems like a lot. Way more than any standard state machine setup and much more than ive seen in any motion matching demo thus far which sits somewhere around the 40 to 50 asset mark from what I can see.

[barren fiber]

ofc its going be more

since we have blendspaces

[viscid willow]

Blendspaces in your motion matching setup?

[barren fiber]

no

in the regular

its blending poses nicely and you can use blendspaces to get coverage you didnt have

thats different with motion matching

if we have 4 directional animations

how we choose the red path

blendspace can manage that

[viscid willow]

so you're creating an animation for walking forward for example, and you have an animation for every concievable angle between forward and left?

[barren fiber]

in motion matching it would snap from FWD to Left to Fwd to Left and shit

[viscid willow]

You could use orientation warping instead of adding more assets

[barren fiber]

noooo

you get sliding

man

Motion Matching is not a new invention

research the topic

[viscid willow]

https://tenor.com/view/whatever-shrug-idk-i-dont-know-obama-gif-15684252

From the livestream

[quiet egret]

Just wondering, but Modular Control Rig requires the character mesh to have a skeleton already right?

Does it handle anything like automatic weight painting

Or is it specifically just for telling the rig how to move certain body parts

cant really find much info on the MCR

Like, do I need:

1. a skeleton already
2. the skeleton needs weight paints already

[viscid willow]

This. Modular Control Rig expects an already skinned character.

[quiet egret]

what does "skinned character" mean?

is this just the mesh of the character? or like a UE character asset

[nimble torrent]

You need the mesh, the skeleton, and weight paints.

A control rig is just a rig.

[quiet egret]

thank you

[viscid willow]

Skinned meaning you've applied weight painting. Typically this part of the process is called Skinning because you're assigning a "Skin" to the bones

[quiet egret]

Gotcha, thank you

With how deep UE got into animation development in 5.4, I won't be surprised if they take a look at weight painting or a form of it down the road

[nimble torrent]

And 'skinned character' means 'a character with weight paints'. The process of attaching a mesh to a skeleton is often called 'skinning' or 'linear skinning'.

[quiet egret]

appreciate it

[nimble torrent]

They do technically have a way of doing weight painting in unreal as of 5.4. It is not Control Rig, and it is very experimental.

[quiet egret]

so is this just modifying your rig to have IK?

[nimble torrent]

Same with creating a skeleton. So you're correct - they're definitely heading in that direction.

It's just not Control Rig.

[quiet egret]

It would be awesome to have each part of the rigging and animation process within UE

then more detailed models and sculpting in Blender

[nimble torrent]

Not exactly no. You can use IK in a control rig, but it's more about creating a series of controls that make the skeleton easier to animate. Sometimes that is IK, sometimes it's dynamics, sometimes that's combined controls, or controls that constrain things on an axis.

It's more than just IK - though IK is a big part of it.

[quiet egret]

Okay I thought IK was like, from the hand to the spine sort of animation. Like changing the anims of the bone's parents essentially

Like moving the hand would change the arm, etc

[nimble torrent]

As usual 'it's more complicated than that' but it is also definitely that.

[quiet egret]

Right

Ty again

[lusty venture]

what the hell are you doing that you need 300 animations per gait

[nimble torrent]

Yeah that's a lot.

Like, a lot.

Your graph is alarming as well. Good heavens.

[lusty venture]

i think our largest set is our jog/run which is about 16 animations, including start/stops, and accelerate/slowdowns

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, the video demonstration of motion matching has a few more than that, but not more than thirty.

[quiet egret]

so my gizmos for UE 5.4 ModularRig are incredibly large compared to the mesh size, why is this? has anyone encountered this

tried searching online and nothing came up

[viscid willow]

This might be one of those rig scale issues. To check, can you open your skeletal mesh, select the root bone and see what the details panel says about scale?

Are you coming from blender?

[quiet egret]

thanks for responding. yeah im coming from blender, I applied all transforms before exporting for the mesh and armature/rig

haha

the scale is at 50

[viscid willow]

Scale issues are very common coming from blender. It's a matter of applying transforms yes, but also your scene scale.

[quiet egret]

that explains everything

[fickle silo]

does anyone have any idea why i cant add my pose to the blend space? the dot appears, and i can also press shift for it to snap to grid, but upon release, it disappears

[quiet egret]

i thought so, that's why i tried fixing it by setting my units in blender to half the size, but it didnt seem to change anything

[viscid willow]

Have a watch through this video. Explains the issue and how to solve it very well. https://youtu.be/YbWfoyf4MqI?si=LpCKArh5wxv3a1bP

[quiet egret]

alright thank you

does he basically set the scale manually in ue

oh wait

[viscid willow]

Is it perhaps an additive animation that you're trying to add to the blend space?

[viscid willow]

I don't believe so, it's more on the blender end that the scale needs to be fixed.

[quiet egret]

i see

[fickle silo]

i dont know what that is. its a pose. as in created with in content browser, animation > pose asset

[viscid willow]

Ohh, I don't think you can add pose assets to a blend space. You could add a single frame animation in place of a pose asset.

[fickle silo]

oh. i tried searching for an hour some information on how to add my pose to my character but couldnt find anything. how can i create an animation file? i cant find it from the animations asset creation

oh i think i found it, a sequence right?

[quiet egret]

Okay yeah, he basically fixed it by setting his Blender scene units to 0.01, then upscaling his mesh and armature by 100

[viscid willow]

Sequence, yes that's what unreal calls them.

[fickle silo]

thank you, i got it to work. someday i actually have to animate stuff. but luckily i dont have legs, so staticly holding a gun is good enough for now.

[viscid willow]

woo 🎉 glad you got it figured out

[viscid willow]

Pretty much, you'll want to make sure the transforms are applied etc as im sure the video explains.

[old falcon]

True, but I pass in relative information as opposed to absolute. I don't tell CR "your effector target is right here" I tell CR "here's a bone, here's an offset from that bone, calculate the current up-to-date effector target yourself".
But hey, if you got it to work then great!

And since the offset from that bone never changes (e.g. your socket transform) the resulting effector target transform is always accurate

Or even if it were to change, it would be accurate since CR has the current pose not the 1-frame-before pose

[bitter vault]

Hey, I've trying to create animations for my fps game in blender. I've tried almost all the add-ons like mr.mannequin , game rig tools, uefy, ue to rigify but my weapon never attaches to the hand. Can anyone help me with this please!!

I've followed a couple of tutorials and even copied transforms of the weapon socket to ik hand gun but it never works.

[viscid willow]

When you're animating in blender have you positioned the ik_hand_gun bone so that it lines up with the root/origin of the gun?

Based on your images it looks as though the ik_hand_gun bone is still in the default position from the A-Pose/Bind Pose of the character. Meaning that there is no animation or pose on the ik_hand_gun bone.

[elfin axle]

anyone???

this is the most ive gathered:
1.copy one of overlaystate Animblueprint which most same with your
2.add tag for your overlay
3.add bot of it to character overlay map value
4.replace anim in animblueprint
5. adjust anim curve

but idk what the character overlay map value is

also. since im using a class derived from alscharacter, i cant seem to get the overlays working at all

[bitter vault]

okay

[barren fiber]

Well in theory cr still has the one frame behind pose, it just runs in sync with the Right hand so it sticks to the Weapon, i can see this work.
I just wish what to do with the Control Rig inside of the blueprint maybe this way it would run on the gamethread who knows what its about.

[crystal sigil]

Hi, i auto retargeted Paragon animations to the ue5 Manny and they look fine in the BP-Editor. However, when i start they game they end up looking like this 😄

Has anyone seen something similar and knows what may went wrong here?

[old falcon]

Has anyone seen something similar
Yeah, in my worst nightmares. Jesus Christ.

I feel I need to wash out my eyes after seeing that 😄

[stuck zenith]

unable to duplicate objects or add spline points when editing level sequence. seems to be something in editor preferences but don't know what to look for. any ideas?

[barren fiber]

would you mind sharing how you calculated the offset?

[barren fiber]

this is mad

[crystal sigil]

i found the problem, it was lyra and i it didn't like the aim offset that comes with paragon

[old falcon]

void USceneUtil::GetSocketTransformInAttachParentSocketSpace(const AActor* Actor, const FName Socket, FTransform& Transform)
{
    FTransform SocketTransform;
    GetSocketTransform(Actor, Socket, RTS_Component, SocketTransform);
    FTransform RelativeTransform;
    GetRelativeTransform(Actor, RelativeTransform);
    FTransform ParentSocketTransform;
    GetAttachParentSocketTransform(Actor, RTS_ParentBoneSpace, ParentSocketTransform);
    Transform = SocketTransform * RelativeTransform * ParentSocketTransform;
}

SocketTransform = the literal transform of the actor's StaticMesh/SkelMesh socket as you see it in the StaticMesh/SkelMesh editor
RelativeTransform = the relative transform of the actor
ParentSocketTransform = the transform of the socket we are attached to

[barren fiber]

🤣

[nimble torrent]

This is genuinely one of the coolest looking video-game development fuckup images I've seen.

Amazing.

[nimble torrent]

But uh... yeah, this is also probable a scale problem.

Check the scale of your skeletons root object.

It's probably real big.

REAL big.

[nimble torrent]

I'd like to help but I don't know what sizxe is, or what 'alscharacter' are. Could describe where you got them from ?

[rotund musk]

I suppose Unreal Discord/Epic don’t host any events/contest for us users to compete for crazy/good images made while working for projects? 😂

[nimble torrent]

Which is a pity, because they can be hilarious and horrifying.

[barren fiber]

its a third party locomotion system, which is hella nice for when it came out, but it comes with so many performance problems

only up uses this

and every low effort asset flip game existing

[nimble torrent]

Ah! Good to know.

[barren fiber]

its free if you ever want to check it out

[crystal sigil]

The paragon animations seem to have no root motion data.. does anyone know of a way to calculate it from the footsteps or smth?

[deep oak]

accurig create bones like these is there any other problem?

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, they probably wouldn't. That game was designed for multiplayer, and using root motion for multiplayer is usually a mistake.

[barren fiber]

accurate root tho hahahah

[deep oak]

so is it fine or not?

[nimble torrent]

Depends on if you're using those bones.

Probably not.

[barren fiber]

well your hand ik shit is fd

[deep oak]

so how can i fix this

[nimble torrent]

Well, OK. There's a few answers to that. I think in the 'Edit Skeleton' menu, where you are, you should be able to just move the bones.

[barren fiber]

its a problem with accurig

[nimble torrent]

But the question of 'fix this' is dependent on if you're going to use that kind of IK hand setup at runtime.

[deep oak]

no i didn't need hand ik

the game is for mobile

i might need foot ik

[nimble torrent]

That doesn't mean you won't need hand IK.

But if you don't want to use them, you can just delete them.

[deep oak]

isnot there any other software which can rig mesh easily

mixamo autorig is good

but that didn't create root bones

and hence when i retarget animations and try to open then in 5.4 it crashes

[nimble torrent]

Blender's pretty good! It's got it's own issues, and won't hold your hand, but it is good.

You do need a root bone.

[deep oak]

mixamo rig is great just missing root bomes🥲

[nimble torrent]

I haven't heard that. I've definitely seen people using the mixamo rig in Unreal.

[deep oak]

yes it works but in 5.4 when you retarget animations that didn't works

[nimble torrent]

Again, I haven't heard that.

I suspect that it might be another issue.

[old falcon]

Man, being able to animate any mesh's transform in sequencer and then just constraining your controls to a socket on that mesh makes animating prop/weapon anims so much more comfortable.
One of the few redeeming qualities of animating in UE right now lol

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, the dynamic sockets and parenting stuff is rad.

[barren fiber]

i think the willy bone is the root

[barren fiber]

it does

why not use manny rig?

[deep oak]

i just fixed the accurig

[elfin axle]

https://github.com/Sixze/ALS-Refactored

[nimble torrent]

Oh this thing. OK.

I remember this being baroquely complicated.

The results were impressive, but it was extremely complicated.

So, I'm sorry to say, I'm don't know to fix anything with that one!

[elfin axle]

yeah but Im getting used to it lol

your good!

[crystal sigil]

Does anyone have a clue why certain animation cannot be orientation warped? My back- forward- and left-animations are working fine and get properly oriented, but the forward animation doesn't.

[nimble torrent]

It's unlikely to just be like... cursed animation files.

There's either something wrong with your setup, or something wrong with the files themselves.

Have you checked the files against the ones that work?

If they're similar, it's probably the setup.

[crystal sigil]

That's base lyra, i just filled in the animations. The animations are straight from paragon retargeted to ue5manny.
So setup and anims should be fine... I suspect the forward anim is missing something that the orientation warping node needs to work properly.

The curves custom curves are similar, so maybe a bone track is missing?

Is there a way to inspect those in engine?

[nimble torrent]

You can see bone tracks when you load a character in sequencer.

[crystal sigil]

ok thanks, but they seem to be similar aswell

ok lol so the forward stuff works when the warping node is in "manual" mode, but then the backwards motion gets fucked up 😄 Is there a possibility to switch between nodes based on a value in animBPs? Select doesn't work with pose refs 😦

[nimble torrent]

I don't know, sorry. I haven't used the warping stuff yet.

Also - why use warping for running.

My understanding of the warping system is that it's almost entirely designed for contacts.

Like, 'I need the character to jump and grab this ledge at a specific point in space'.

It's not designed for locomotion systems.

[crystal sigil]

ah ok, well i am a total noob regarding animations, this is just the way lyra does it and i am trying to use it 😄 They use it instead of a blendspace because it apparently gives better results but idk

[nimble torrent]

Do your sequences that don't work have 'Use Root Motion' checked on?

[crystal sigil]

All of them have it off because they do not seem to have root motion data

[nimble torrent]

Well, I expect that may be a problem.

As Motion Warping's whole deal is warping root motion.

Are you sure you're using this.

https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/fr-fr/unreal-engine/motion-warping-in-unreal-engine

It's about warping to specific points in space.

[crystal sigil]

yeah its probably that, i had a look at the node code and it tries to extract the rootmotion data... so that backwards is working is just a best guess because he finds no data

[crystal sigil]

Not really, they seem to use a different functionality of the plugin

[nimble torrent]

Oh, I suspect that Orientation Warping and Motion Warping have nothing to do with each other.

I'm glad they have a stride warping node now. I had to build one of my own back in 4.5, and that was a hassle.

[crystal sigil]

It adapts the animation to different character speeds based on the footsteps right? Sounds nice but complicated 😄

Nice, you were right, i just added a bit of directional root motion to each animation and it works now. Thank you!

[nimble torrent]

Hurrah!

[deep oak]

what cauld be the prob

motionmatch

[nimble torrent]

I'm not sure you'll get a good answer to this. Without the example files, nobody who has posted here has made a solid version of a motion matching system.

My guess would be a problem with the root motion of the files.

[deep oak]

i have figured out

[nimble torrent]

But... that's just a guess.

[deep oak]

wait i send u

[nimble torrent]

Please don't. I'm not setup to open files.

[nimble torrent]

By 'the example files' I mean 'the example files that Epic is planning on releasing'.

[deep oak]

not the files

i have retargeted this manequin anim to my character but why it is not inplace

[nimble torrent]

Can you show the skeleton for that?

Is the character running away from their root object maybe?

If it is, that's definitely where the problem is.

[deep oak]

yes the problem is the character not in place

[nimble torrent]

I mean look at the skeleton during the animation.

[deep oak]

can you tell me how can i view skeleton here

[deep oak]

i don't know how to check

everything is moving i guss

[nimble torrent]

Hmm - viewing the names like that makes it hard to see.

[deep oak]

ahh i got to know finally

this section shows all the animations

i have two folders one for rootmotion and one for inplace

and i retargeted all animations together

that's why the animation is not in place

unreal should bring new feature to this so that we can use specific folder

here is correct one

[nimble torrent]

I'm not 100% sure that's the case.

I would really inspect the one that appeared to move.

Because it's possible the root itself was left behind.

That's what I'd do.

But good luck.

[deep oak]

okay let me test and i will share

😭

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, I expected that might be it.

I think it needs the root motion in order to properly read the speed.

That's why you really need to check the skeleton.

[deep oak]

but how can i check the skeleton

[deep oak]

can u please tell from where i cauld check

[nimble torrent]

In the sequence viewer, in the 'show' menu, you should be able to turn on the skeleton.

If I'm right, which I very easily could not be, my guess is, the character runs away from the root.

Meaning they move forward and the root stays behind, or does not move as fast.

That's what I would expect based on the herkyjerky kind of movement.

But it's only a guess.

[deep oak]

okay i found that

see

[deep oak]

i think it is at right position

[nimble torrent]

Huh, OK! I was wrong!

[deep oak]

Then what is the problem 🥺

[nimble torrent]

I dunno!

I would strip it down to one animation, confirm it works for that, then gradually add more.

Testing every time.

[deep oak]

Finally!!!!!!!

[deep oak]

this was the thing

[nimble torrent]

Huh!

OK, that's interesting, so it was forcing them to act as though they were stationary.

I think this counts as 'undefined behavior'. Those features were probably not meant to interact.

Still!

Good to know if someone else comes in with a similar problem!

[tranquil fable]

Can someone help me? Modular control rig doesn't seem to be working right for me, all of the sockets keep appearing below my character's feet and i'm not sure how to fix it...

[misty dagger]

Lol that's a cute character

[tranquil fable]

its a model i made of the slugcat from rainworld (a 2d game)

i followed a tutorial but my skeleton isn't a direct match with the mannequin so i'm assuming that's why i'm having problems?

I did have scaling problems too but i thought i fixed all of that...

this is frustrating and i don't know why my model is having trouble :(

[pliant zodiac]

Does some know where the eyelids gets driven for metahumans? I feel like I went through all blueprint I could find but when the eye looks up the upper eye lid moves too, it is not done by morph targets so the bones for that must be adjust accordingly.

[pliant zodiac]

Yes but in the nodes

Or do you think they drive the controls

However I nowhere find the bones for the eyelids referenced to move with the controls only the normal eye but not the eyelid bones

FACIAL_L_EyelidLowerA must be driven somewhere for example

[vestal aspen]

Sorry, I don't know

[tranquil fable]

anyone know why this is happening? all the sockets are stuck below my character and I don't know why, i followed the tutorial i found but mine is just messed up completely

[vestal aspen]

I have not seen this error in my work, sorry.

[pliant zodiac]

Do you use the unreal skeleton for your model? It doesn't look like it, either you write your own module for modular control rig (I have only done head and eye but not full body, that works with almost any skeleton and you just drag those on the root bone and it looks automatically for the correct bones)

They might add those later.

Since their presets at the moment as this is in beta mostly want an unreal compatible skeleton.

[tranquil fable]

well that sucks :/

[vestal aspen]

Using Modular Rig, is there a way to connect the forearm twist bones to the wrist control? the wrist twists up

[pliant zodiac]

Lemme look I think they might added a boolean switch you can turn on so it follow if not I would duplicate their arm module and edit the forward solve.

Gimme a moment I start a new project real quick and look

I am quite certain they added it

For me it works when I enable the ABP_Manny_PostProcess

Lemme check I think you are in another window

You probably created a new modular control rig

[vestal aspen]

Yep,is the ABP_Manny_Postprocess with modular Rig?

[pliant zodiac]

For me it shows automatically to activate it

I can't quite reproduce your thingy

Usually it is here

And usually it is already setup

If you don't have that message I dunno how to enforce it.

[vestal aspen]

Hmm? I do not get the ABP when I select the wrist. I will update the Manny from the library and recreate the Modular Controls.

[pliant zodiac]

You can probably migrate one over from another project.

So you can create a new third person project for example look for it and then right click and chose migrate then you have to select the content folder of your current project.

[pliant zodiac]

Maybe it is not missing and you dismissed the message at some time

And now it is not showing up

Lemme look if we can bring it back

Ok on top click character then Animation and uncheck disable post process

I hope that fixes your issue I have to go to bed now unfortunately gotta go to work tomorrow. I hope this works for you.

[vestal aspen]

Thank you for your time,

🙏

[pliant zodiac]

Oh did it work?

[vestal aspen]

I'm restarting my project

Thank you

[pliant zodiac]

Nice was this with migrating or the character-animation and unchecking disable post process?

[vestal aspen]

The ABP does not show up on the

However, it does show up on the

[quiet egret]

Are you coming from blender? Like is your model from blender

[vestal aspen]

If we are creating our own characters, how would we connect the Correctional bones and Correctional geometry to a ABP for Modular Control Rig?

[tranquil fable]

I am but i gave up on it, i'm just going to have to do it the manual way. It's probably not working because my skeleton isn't like the UE5 default

[quiet egret]

i was going to say I had the exact same problem last night and solved it from people here and online, here's how you do it:

1. In Blender, set your scene units to 0.01
2. Your Scene will now be incredibly small. Select the objects you're exporting, then Alt + S then type 100 and this scales everything by 100

[tranquil fable]

thanks i'll try that

although i do have the scene units to 0.01 and my character shows up the right size in UE5

[quiet egret]

Oh, apply transform too

these steps helped fix my gizmo issue

and scaling stuffs

So on the left image, you can see my leg socket on the top of my thigh bone. Then, when I add the socket, it for some reason shifts the foot up to that position (right image)

Any idea why this is happening?

I used a mixamo character skeleton, then used a tool to automaticalyl rename the bones

to UE standard

[fickle silo]

anyone know why i cant extend the red line in animation sequence? in videos people just clicked on the top of it, but its not working for me.

[tranquil fable]

Now i'm running into the same issue that i had with manual control rig that made me want to use the modular one in the first place... every time I try to make IK for my character's legs they twist in weird ways... First image is how it's supposed to look, but when i enable the solver it's twisted...

third image is with "Draw Hierarchy" on. Is it something to do with the skeleton itself? Is there a way I can fix this in Blender or within Unreal???

[nimble torrent]

Did you double check the scale?

Also - the modular control rig is very picky about what it will work on, which is unfortunate.

If you search 'modular control rig' in the backscroll, it is unfortunately not full of people swapping cool tips about how to use it.

[quiet egret]

yea the modular control rig is still very new so there won't be a whole lot of info on how to easily control it yet

[nimble torrent]

As for the IK issue in normal control rig. I can't tell for sure, but I think you might be trying to use the fourth bone in the chain with 'basic ik'.

Basic IK only does 3, I think.

[quiet egret]

I can't seem to place leg modules without the foot folding to the leg module's position

[nimble torrent]

Oh! Wait, hold on. I think the issue is with which bones you're using to control the IK. The 'effector item' should be your control that you're using to drive the bone.

[tranquil fable]

I'm getting confused now

[nimble torrent]

And I think the 'Item B' object is the foot.

[tranquil fable]

i did double check the scale in Blender

[nimble torrent]

Not in Blender, in Unreal.

When you open your skeleton and check the scale of the root bone - does it have a weird scale on it?

[old falcon]

I have the same setup on that node, it should work like that

EffectorItem is my Foot_R or Foot_L bone

[tranquil fable]

this is what i have right now

[nimble torrent]

OK cool.

[tranquil fable]

which is messing it up

[nimble torrent]

Did you try playing with the primary and secondary axis values?

[tranquil fable]

let me check the unreal scale real quick

[old falcon]

Your bone rotations look kind of wonky maybe? Both legs are pointing in -Y

But X and Z are flipped

[tranquil fable]

how do i fix that?

[nimble torrent]

I think that's what Primary and Secondary Axis are for.

[tranquil fable]

scale is normal

[nimble torrent]

Good!

[old falcon]

For Primary you want 0, -1 ,0 I think?

[tranquil fable]

i'm so confused 😅

[nimble torrent]

Do you know much about vectors?

[old falcon]

PrimaryAxis = which direction are the bones in the IK chain facing

[tranquil fable]

I do

[nimble torrent]

OK, so you know vectors can represent a direction, right?

[quiet egret]

Managed to "fix" this issue by placing the leg module onto my calf bones instead of thigh bones. I added the "add control" module to the thigh bones instead of the leg modules, resolved nicely

[nimble torrent]

That's what the axis vectors are.

[tranquil fable]

so i flip something?

[nimble torrent]

You can click on the little arrow beside 'Primary Axis' and it will open up.

[old falcon]

Oh, your pole vector is also wrong

Ah, nevermind

I shut up now :^)

[elfin axle]

anyone else work with als refactored from sizxe?

trying to get a montage to work

[tranquil fable]

I put it to 0 and it almost fixed the leg

foot is smooshed in though

[nimble torrent]

So that's good news.

You're probably going to need different values per leg.

So those vectors represent directions.

They don't have great documentation, and I don't have unreal open, so I can't double check myself.

[tranquil fable]

uhhhh moving the control is messed up though 😭

even if i remove the pole

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, it would be, because you have no direction in there.

The Primary Axis I think represents the knee facing forward, and the Secondary Axis is the Angle of the knee-to-foot triangle facing out.

I think.

I don't have unreal open to double check.

[tranquil fable]

dang

[nimble torrent]

I think it's in 'parent of the top bone space' - but don't quote me on that.

The two I would immediately try for primary would be would be [-1, 0, 0], and [1,0,0]

[-1,0,0] because that appears to be the direction of forward for the left leg.

And [1,0,0] because that appears to the be the direction of forward for the pelvis.

[tranquil fable]

they both still look messed up

[nimble torrent]

OK, you do have both of them in alignment to work - I believe.

So it's not going to work with only one of them correct.

[tranquil fable]

right

i don't understand why its so difficult

it has to be the way my bones are oriented in blender???

how would i fix that??

[old falcon]

Try (0, -1, 0) and (0,0,0)

According to the node:

::Primary Axis:: Axis down the bone (typically X)
::Secondary Axis:: Up axis (typically Z or None)

[old falcon]

No, negative 1

[nimble torrent]

Aha! The benefits of looking at the code.

[tranquil fable]

OMG I THINK IT WORKED

[old falcon]

I'm not sure what to put into secondary, no combination of 1s or -1s ever worked for me there

[tranquil fable]

not working right with the pole though

[nimble torrent]

This is the way the hovertext describes it.

(I got unreal open)

Try [-1,0,0]

[old falcon]

Oh, I checked "IKTwoBone" instead of "BasicIK"

[nimble torrent]

In Secondary Axis.

And [1,0,0]

[tranquil fable]

did the same thing to the other leg and it looks good now

[nimble torrent]

You're not going to be able to control the knee until you get the secondary axis to work.

Just keep plugging in values. One will work.

[tranquil fable]

oh

hmm

got it :D

[old falcon]

Was it 1,0,0 for secondary?

[nimble torrent]

[tranquil fable]

secondary was 0,-1, 0 for one leg and 0,1,0 for the other

which is weird but yeah

[old falcon]

Weird yeah, I would've expected the "up vector" to be X for the left leg and -X for the right

[tranquil fable]

ugh i'm not ready to have to set this up for all my other creatures 😅

[old falcon]

The important bit is just the primary axis

[tranquil fable]

i'm trying to learn how to do procedural animation but i have to setup control rig first

[old falcon]

You'll just put the vector in that your bones are facing. So from one joint to the other, which axis does the bone align with?
The secondary is just trial and error then I guess 😄

[tranquil fable]

i want my character to be wiggly with dynamics but still able to walk around and stuff