animation

[serene fiber]

besides the AO ones in the preview do have the up and down preview poses actually in the correct place

(looking up/down)

[viscid willow]

Typically, your idle would NOT be additive and would serve as the base pose. Then all the assets in the AO would be set to Mesh Space Additive

[serene fiber]

if its not set to additive it will tell me "Invalid additive type"

even when there are no animation sequences on the grid

AAT_NONE is coming up (non-additive)

[viscid willow]

where are you seeing this?

[serene fiber]

wait hold on. maybe my approach is wrong. is AO strictly for third person fullbody mesh?

[viscid willow]

Not necessarily

are you using this for first person anims?

[serene fiber]

because im using first person arms. im seeing that when trying to add the idle anim to the grid of AimOffset blueprint. the grid is empty with such settings

[viscid willow]

Like i said before, the idle should not be in there

[serene fiber]

what should be there then instead? I thought that you would put idle in the middle, then right-/left and up/down on the grid logically. I used some yt tutorial for thsi

[viscid willow]

Typically, your idle is a base animation in a different part of your graph, and the AO is added to the graph and contains a series of static poses which define the direction you're trying to achieve

you could make an AO out of a series of idle animations, but then what are you going to add to? An additive needs a base from which to generate the deltas

[serene fiber]

no idle, just the direction animations?

at the given yaw/pitch values?

[viscid willow]

The idle lives elsewhere in the ABP and then passes through the AO node in the ABP

[serene fiber]

okay

it still doesnt explain why i cant add second additive animation to the AimOffset blueprint even when both of them have all the right settings

and they are not idle anims

[viscid willow]

https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/aim-offset-in-unreal-engine?application_version=5.3

[serene fiber]

ill take a look

[viscid willow]

For your animation samples to work with an Aim Offset, ensure your animations are additive, and that the Additive Anim Type is set to Mesh Space. This is required because Aim Offsets only accept animations that are additive.

[serene fiber]

I did that. still the same

okay weird

[viscid willow]

have you tried deleting your AO and remaking it? 😅

[serene fiber]

I took the ao__right one first and then the up one and it worked reverse way

im just done with unreal engine

[viscid willow]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[nimble torrent]

Huh - well. I suppose good luck? I don't know your relative coding experience, but unreal doesn't make access to it's curve values exactly simple. I would, if someone asked me to do this, use the python sdk for fbx to convert the anim file to fbx, as that is probably the path of least resistance.

You've been able to do it for a while using the Composure package - I think.

[viscid willow]

converting unity anims to unreal

https://tenor.com/view/wait-that-thats-is-illegal-gif-18393263

[nimble torrent]

It actually might be!

Are you sure you have a license to use those animations Tyran?

[viscid willow]

omg

[nimble torrent]

Animations are copyrighted.

[lethal blaze]

gonna ask once more - hope that's okay! im using a spring controller on this bag and it's working okay, but when i squat it gets really jittery.

Has anyone experienced this before?

I often feel like im just arbitrarily tweaking numbers on the stiffness and dampening settings. is it possible having multiple filter channels affects this?

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/1fgnt0ta5x4qr2pvt2gxm/2024-05-28-14-01-38.mkv?rlkey=ro8onq2y5yrwh0myuwmtq4n83&st=fk1dydax&dl=0

[nimble torrent]

Hmm - is it possible that the pouch collider starts intersecting with the leg collider?

Oh, this is just a spring controller.

[lethal blaze]

i was wondering if it might have to do with the physics but i don’t really have those on

[nimble torrent]

It's definitely doing something weird.

Like, the characters arm is right through his own stomach.

So that's... also not great.

[lethal blaze]

ah yeah that’s a different problem - the arm is clipping because the start pose i made for the motion capture is wonky and i haven’t applied the modify bones yet

it’s realtime mocap but dw i know how the fix the arm at least! 😂

[nimble torrent]

Hmm

OK, is the pouch bone attached to the pelvis or the thigh?

[lethal blaze]

its attatched to the spine bone just above the pelvis

[nimble torrent]

Huh, OK. Are you testing with the live mocap?

[lethal blaze]

i am!

[nimble torrent]

OK, what if you try not doing that.

What if you try playing a crouch animation?

[lethal blaze]

well the problem is this rig is going to be used for live mocap

[nimble torrent]

Sure, but right now you're in debug mode.

Trying to figure out what's happening.

[lethal blaze]

but yeah i can try to compare it to a crouch!

will give it a shot

[brazen wharf]

yea, all bones have scale of 1

[nimble torrent]

OK! That's good! Always good to check!

[viscid willow]

https://tenor.com/view/spidey-senses-gif-23174675

[lethal blaze]

so the same jitter happens when using a retargetted mixamo animation! https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/qjwhcsdv21ix87nkyiml9/2024-05-28-17-01-35.mkv?rlkey=jqtcl4hlk9koyhhzz8kbn12o1&st=wi2g02or&dl=0

[nimble torrent]

OK, well I'd count that as a win.

[lethal blaze]

i did too haha

tangible relief lmao

[nimble torrent]

So it's probably the spring settings somehow?

Your graph is too pixelated to read, but I would delete it and rebuild it.

Also - I would consider using physics for that kind of floppy thing, if you don't have a lot of characters on screen at once. It will give you more believable results.

[lethal blaze]

thanks! i'll give it a shot. i wouldn't mind doing physics on it, i just have no idea how to set that up. i originally tried googling it but everything i found felt vauge

alternatively i didn't know the right terms to search for

[nimble torrent]

I think the unreal documentation for it is pretty complete:

https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/animation-blueprint-rigid-body-in-unreal-engine?application_version=5.3

[lethal blaze]

ah yay!!

i'll look into this thank you @nimble torrent i think i was looking up the wrong stuff

[analog hound]

any one have a good video recordation for setting up smooth transitions?
I remember in unity I could have a run to backstep and an idle to backstep with different transition times. the even had graph to show the smoothness of the animation curve.
were is the unreal equivalent ?

right now im just naping into place

[viscid willow]

the transition will have the settings to set up blend times and the interpolation type: https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/transition-rules-in-unreal-engine?application_version=5.3

[analog hound]

thanks , i will give that a read

[analog hound]

ok now I need to find the setting to let the back step use root motion so the player does not snap back into place lol , but its bed time

[indigo gyro]

Hello, I'm a professional 3d artist who creates designs using software like Maya, blender, Zbrush, and 3ds max. I'm good at working with STL files for 3d printing. I would love to partner with you.
Did you need a custom 3d model, miniature model, Warhammer Star war lightsaber, space, gunship Game asset, Game evrionment, Game development or a 3d model of any kind of object with a wonderful STL file for printing

[twilit owl]

for partnerships/advertising work you should read the #rules and use the appropriate channels.

[indigo gyro]

Ok thanks

Am sorry for that

[midnight cloud]

Anyone know why setting the animations to the skeleton would completely fling some of the bones out of their original location? Like this

[nimble torrent]

setting the animations to the skeleton
What do you mean by this?

[midnight cloud]

bones/sockets are fine till the skeleton is animated. Then they're flung way up top

[nimble torrent]

OK, but what is the process of 'setting the animations to the skeleton'? The phrasing on that is very odd.

Did you make these animations for this specific skeleton?

Did you import them from blender?

Did you make them yourself?

[midnight cloud]

they're stock and work for others

[nimble torrent]

When you say 'work for others' what do you mean?

But you didn't make them yourself. OK. Did you retarget them to work with the skeleton you're currently using?

[midnight cloud]

i'm messing around and following directions. I don't have the same result. Did a bunch of googling but couldn't find a replication of my issue

[nimble torrent]

OK, so what's probably happened is that you've assigned some animations to a skeleton they were not created for, and this is not generally how you're supposed to work with animations made for other skeletons.

Typically, you retarget those animations onto the skeleton that you are working with.

If you didn't do that process, it's likely that the animations you're trying to use are going to display incorrectly.

[midnight cloud]

kk. I'll prob just delete it all and try again to see if I borked a step. Was just curious if it was a simple issue I overlooked. Thank you 🙂

[wet bloom]

Hello guys i have client only anim notify which is referenced by animation files which are included in server builds, i dont want to that notify included in server build can you guys help me? What is causing this situation? Thank you

[hollow saddle]

Do animation addtive layer tracks work correctly in UE 5.3.2? I'm trying to adjust some animations to correct hands placements, but it seems as if the addtivie layer tracks data is shared between animations, because after I adjust hand positions in one animations, it becomes off again in an animation I've adjusted previously. Also I remember back in 4.27 there was an option to "apply" the additive layer tracks (there was like a tick button near + key button), is it gone in 5.3.2? I've also tried to "submit" these additive layers tracks by creating a new asset from preview mesh (in anim sequence editor), but again it seems even after creating a new anim sequence with my adjusted hands positions, those positions still saved a bit wrong

[hazy matrix]

Hey Everybody, i having a hard time finishing this rig, the last part is drinving me nutz. at the moment its a combination betweet rotation, aim and position contraints. but the rotation contraint is moving "to fast" is it possible to override the rotation value by a certain percent? or maybe the way ive done it is not the right one?

[steep fjord]

I am quite new to the animation side of UE5, anyone know why this jittering on the picked up item might be happening?

[red bloom]

Hi guys we are working on a flagship game project, currently on revenue sharing

We are 35 total in team and are looking for ANIMATORS and 3D riggers

Dm me for details

[static vapor]

If anyone here is working with blender>unreal can you please enlighten me. I'm having a really hard time making root motion work no matter how I retarget my root. If I name the rig armature then I get the 2 roots error in unreal and if not it still doesn't work at all. No matter what I do, retargetting just won't make the root of the unreal skeleton move

[viscid willow]

#rev-share-jobs

[deft furnace]

Hey I need help, I've been using this video and it's going good so far but I'm using the default unity movement, not the one from his video, is there a way I can get the inputs of my movement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br8ODEhftR8&list=PLV98WIslM9wsUZQZUPWLluhVqiddJhuoo&index=6

I'm up to the part where I need to do the get movement input but I don't have one.

I'm using the default unreal movement inputs.

[nimble torrent]

I've seen this kind of error caused by a frame delay. So some value, either your camera or your animations, is delayed by a frame or two.

I suspect this is happening because you're controlling your camera with a animated skeleton and also controlling the animated skeleton with the camera.

So that loop causes one side or the other to drag behind.

[nimble torrent]

Naming the rig 'Armature' is supposed to remove the possible second root from Blender. Do you mean that you still have two root objects after doing that?

[nimble torrent]

I would need to see your hierarchy and your constraint graph to be able to help with this. A video of the undesired behavior would not be bad either. I can see the connection detaching from the bucket, but it's unclear what's going on.

[static vapor]

Yes
I somehow resolved it though. Did quite a bit of looking and found this

[nimble torrent]

I would double check the scale on your root on the skeleton you imported from blender.

[static vapor]

It solved it for me but saddly I encountered yet another issue. The Retargeter animation looks HORRIBLE. Like I have set the bones properly and it still looks absolutely nothing like the original

[nimble torrent]

Just because you might be surprised to find a very large scale on it.

Which, if you do - you should resolve because it causes problems in all of the rest of unreal.

[static vapor]

I set the units to 0.01 and then scared by 100 and applied
Isn't that how you do that?

[nimble torrent]

That sounds familiar - but I still always check.

[static vapor]

Should I check within blender or unreal? Sorry my head I a bit of a mess today. I have been trying to resolve all those issues all day today

On blender it seems to all be 1.000

[latent edge]

does anyone know how to change cost bias of AnimNotifyState_OverrideBaseBiasCost in runtime? Trying to do this in Tick() but PoseSearch seems doesnt see any changes

[nimble torrent]

I have never used these tracks, but googling around it looks like they have been persistently broken in various ways in unreal 5. My guess is, Epic doesn't use them internally anymore, as they can edit the animations in Sequencer using the Control Rig.

That's probably why it's still broken.

You might consider adopting that workflow, as it is more flexible than even a working version of the additive tracks.

[nimble torrent]

I would check in Unreal. Just to make sure.

[nimble torrent]

Sorry, I've personally never heard of that one. What is OverrideBaseBiasCost? Is that something you created or is that an unreal Anim Notify State?

[static vapor]

It seems to be fine (?)
It's the scale I see on the "Approx Size" inside the skeletal mesh right?

[latent edge]

this is epic's AnimNotifyState from MotionMatching which I'm trying to inherit and modify

[nimble torrent]

That's not where I'd check. I'd open the Skeleton file, click on the root, and look in the details panel personally.

[hollow saddle]

can you suggest me a good tutorial on that topic? I've heard that you can now "animate" in UE, but I haven't found a good tutorial showing how can I adjust some gameplay-suitable animations instead of actually creating some animations for sequencer

[nimble torrent]

All right! Sorry, I don't know anything about that system right now. Have you looked at the C++ for that notify state?

[static vapor]

This right?

[nimble torrent]

That is what I would check, yeah.

[latent edge]

no worries, yes I tried to override their code, but encountered their limitations it seems...

[static vapor]

Seems to be 1 also
I'm at a loss at this point. And even though now most of the stuff works the retargetting won't at all

[nimble torrent]

You recreated quinn in blender?

Why?

[static vapor]

Not even the automatic retarget. The manual one won't even help it match. Automatic gives me the same root error over and over

[static vapor]

Just the mesh
I am trying to see if I can match a new skeletal mesh with a retarget

In the near future I need to make a different character that will most likely have its own skeleton different from unreal's
So I'm experimenting kinda

The automatic retarget inside of unreal engine 5.4 gives me these errors over and over making the animation not appear at all on Manny/quinn

[nimble torrent]

I don't have a good one off the top of my head. I haven't been entirely enthusiastic about the quality of a lot of animation related youtube videos recently.

[nimble torrent]

I think this is a capitalization error.

Your root is called 'Root' not 'root'.

[static vapor]

Could thst be the case? I can try but yesterday I recall I did that once and it didn't work at all

I mean no harm done, I will check

[nimble torrent]

I'm also increasingly confused why you're retargeting quinn onto quinn?

But you have fun.

Good luck!

[deft furnace]

@nimble torrent You there, I need help if that's ok.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br8ODEhftR8&list=PLV98WIslM9wsUZQZUPWLluhVqiddJhuoo&index=6

I used this video in order to sort out my combat as it has the exact type of movement I want for my combat.

[static vapor]

Well I didn't wanna make a whole new mesh that's why I used her mesh. But the skeleton itself is different. It's a custom rig made inside of blender

[deft furnace]

Problem is, I'm missing a piece and might need to ask if someone can help me because I didn't follow this guys instructions exactly and am using it from other works.

[static vapor]

Nah just tried, renaming Root to root didn't do anything. Same exact error in fact

[nimble torrent]

OK, well you're trying to use the automatic retargeter, so... what happens when you try to do it manually?

[nimble torrent]

You said you're missing input values? What kind? For what?

[deft furnace]

Movement inputs, these were the ones in his videos, I'm using the default ones in unreal.

[nimble torrent]

In unity?

You're making a unity project?

This... might not be the best server for assistance then.

[deft furnace]

Unreal sorry.

goddammit, I made a mistake, I am so sorry

[nimble torrent]

It's OK.

So you're using the Enhanced Input Actions and the tutorial isn't, or is it the other way around, you're using raw keyboard inputs, and they're using Enhance Input Actions?

[static vapor]

This
Everything has been set up (I think) properly
Yet it just won't match
(Ignore the activate windows thingie, it's the pc they have at work lol)

Wrong image wait

[deft furnace]

This is what I am using.

I'm using the default unreal input movement.

[nimble torrent]

I mean, that's not manual. Your retargeter there is set to auto generate the Retargeter. That's possibly where the problem is coming from.

[nimble torrent]

Oh, OK. Well, those are from the template projects. But OK, so what is the problem? What are you missing?

[static vapor]

Is it? Wait how do I check that

Everyone on YouTube seems to be doing it this way

[deft furnace]

I need the get movement inputs.

[nimble torrent]

When you say 'Get the movement inputs' what do you mean? You appear to already have IA_Move and IA_Jump.

Are those not the movement inputs you need?

[deft furnace]

Hang on, I'm trying something with the default inputs in the template project.

[static vapor]

Oh manually I meant like make a new IK rig from my blender imported rig and then use the ik Retargeter
Not an actual blueprint for retargetting

[nimble torrent]

I suspect that making a retarget asset might help you solve your problems.

[static vapor]

(changing it to mannequin gives me tons of errors)

[nimble torrent]

That doesn't surprise me.

[static vapor]

I will give that a try. Gosh I wish the automatic way just worked for me

No idea where to even start or why it isn't working

[nimble torrent]

Me neither!

[static vapor]

Like, with mixamo it worked perfectly

[nimble torrent]

Yes, but that's because Mixamo is a known quantity. Your rig is new and custom, and probably needs custom settings.

[deft furnace]

I believe I need the inputs of the right and forward vector.

[nimble torrent]

OK, but every transform, every object, has a right and forward vector.

[deft furnace]

I guess I mean the movement right and forward.

[nimble torrent]

OK... are you sure? Because IA_Move, which is in the image you linked, clearly shows that you don't get a rotation out of that, you get two float values representing the direction that your player is pushing the analog sticks on their controller.

Now you can get a rotation from 'Get Control Rotation', which is a high level abstraction function that represents the movement of the camera.

I'm not sure if that would work for what you're trying to do.

[deft furnace]

Look, I'm sorry, I'm trying my best but I'm not very good at this.

[nimble torrent]

Everyone starts as a newbie. What are you trying to do here though? Like - what are you going to use these controls for?

[deft furnace]

I'm trying to make my game character move like in the following video. https://youtu.be/br8ODEhftR8?si=l5rF1G844zkWDgdw&t=1256

[nimble torrent]

OK! Neat!

You have a third person character you want to be able to attack in the direction of your movement input.

[deft furnace]

Yeah, that's exactly what I want, I'm almost there but my code for my movement is the template for unreal whereas his is different.

[nimble torrent]

OK, how is it different?

What are you missing?

[deft furnace]

Ok, I managed to sort the code, now the problem is that the character is still moving in a straight line

Is it because I'm using a montage or something?

[nimble torrent]

Possibly? It looks like the person in the video is using motion warping.

Are you using that?

[deft furnace]

It says I have it installed on here?

[nimble torrent]

Installed doesn't mean being used.

I would watch the video for the part where the person implements that.

[deft furnace]

Oh maybe I didn't put that in, thanks for telling me, I forgot!

[deft furnace]

I don't see any point he puts it in the video?

[nimble torrent]

OK, sorry. Must have mis-heard him.

I'm not going to watch the video to confirm though. I have other things to do today.

[deft furnace]

Ok understood.

[deft furnace]

HOLY SHIT, I DID IT!

[nimble torrent]

Hurrah!

[hexed sinew]

Can't wait for motion matching to stabilize, and for Epic to release the animation database they're working on. I just spent the day testing with the mannequin and Lyra animations. Pretty cool stuff.

[naive carbon]

Does anyone knows a good tutorial to create a IK/FK control rig in unreal ?

I'm trying to adapt the ue5 rig to a ue4 skeleton, but the spine is giving me trouble. and it looks very complex, so i'm trying to find a learning solution so I can build my own.

[mint marsh]

I'm on the struggle buss right now looking for some quick start guide on animation instances in C++ using the thread safe side of it, does anyone have any suggestions?

[nimble torrent]

If you find one, let me know. That sounds rare!

[robust tapir]

what would be the best way to add UI animation on an object for example i have a function that takes out the phone and puts it back i want to make UI animation of a lockscreen appearing and dissapiearing when either taking phone out or putting it back

[nimble torrent]

You could use 3D Widgets? Put them in front of your phone screen and do the animation in the ui editor.

[serene fiber]

I have a question. my anim montage stopped working when 'Aim?' is true. how can I fix this?

im guessing its because of this offset and layer blend per bone nodes.

[nimble torrent]

Does it... work when 'aim?' is false?

[serene fiber]

it doesnt seem to be working even after its set to false it looks like. it doesnt matter if i play 'Play Anim Montage', 'Play Montage' or 'Play Animation'. all of them return nothing

[nimble torrent]

When you say 'return nothing' does that mean that the animation doesn't play?

We don't see a slot node in that image.

So I would not expect a montage to play.

[serene fiber]

its using Upperbody slot but Upperbody slot is inserted into the animgraph and its feeding

it doesnt play the montage yes

[robust tapir]

the thing is i add the widget and select my Widget blueprint but widget is not appearing on the screen

it should look like this

[serene fiber]

https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/qfmiq56q/

heres my blueprint paste

for animgraph

[nimble torrent]

Neat, that's nearly illegible.

Wow, that's not a great display for blueprints.

[serene fiber]

guess it doesnt work with animgraph sigh

[nimble torrent]

I would ask - have you confirmed that the slot node that you have in the upper portion of your graph - is that set to the correct slot?

[nimble torrent]

Well - the slot we can see there uses 'DefaultSlot'.

So if you're playing to 'UpperBody' and you don't have another slot node hidden somewhere - then your montage will not be added to the graph.

[serene fiber]

I tried both, Default and Upper and they failed to play

[nimble torrent]

Interesting, the slot name is 'DefaultSlot' not 'Default', so that may be your problem.

[nimble torrent]

I haven't seen anything about widgets being used as materials. I would try adding the widget as a component.

There are lots of examples of how to do this with healthbars, but few for visual displays like this.

[nimble torrent]

Yes, as you can see, the name is 'DefaultSlot' not 'Default'.

Now, you can of course use another slot if you'd like - but you have to add a node for that into your graph.

[serene fiber]

whats the difference tho? DefaultSlot would work the same way imo

[nimble torrent]

It would! It's only for organization purposes.

[serene fiber]

also I cannot get the Upperbody slot in the node graph so unsure what im doing wrong here

i can just get the DefaultSlot

[robust tapir]

i think i gave a bad photo for you , i added widget as a component but its not showing i can only see transform arrows nothing else

[nimble torrent]

You can change which slot the slot node points to in the Details panel.

It's a bit strange that they don't let you drop them in directly, but that's... that's just Unreal for you.

[serene fiber]

even changing to fullbody does nothing

im out of ideas here

is it possible that eventgraph anim states override the montages?

[nimble torrent]

Montages only work when they are played into the correct slot, and the graph has a slot node active to receive them.

[nimble torrent]

Sure, it's trivially easy for a montage to be played into a part of the graph that is deactivated or inaccessible.

I would recommend doing the normal debug routine of removing as many possible counfounding elements as possible.

I would remove everything except a single idle animation and a slot node.

[serene fiber]

like I have a aim state for when the player has the weapon equipped and has clicked M2 button. It goes to Idle aim animation state. but the montage is for firing.

[nimble torrent]

And I'd work on that until I confirmed that I had montages working.

Then I would add other things back in.

[serene fiber]

im thinking my aim state overrides the firing montage.

[nimble torrent]

That's how I would, personally, debug an issue like this.

[serene fiber]

any idea why some sequence nodes inside unreal are green, others are brown colored nodes? and for firing, would you use a montage?
for aim idle weapon state, you would use obviously a state, right?

[nimble torrent]

I don't know why they're different colors, using a montage for firing is fine - it's not the only way of doing it, but it's fine, I wouldn't use a state machine for idle - I would just use a sequence.

[serene fiber]

the sequence would have to be conditional. you mean blend layers via bool node then?

[vocal stump]

green means the animation sequence is set to additive and brown means it is not additive (at least from what iv noticed)

[nimble torrent]

Ah! Good to know! Thanks!

[serene fiber]

interesting. I had a weapon aim state working with the brown node but not the green one.

[nimble torrent]

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Conditional how? You would only want to play it when the character was holding a weapon?

[serene fiber]

lets say i have a aim function. I press right-click once and i set boolean called 'Aim?' to true. It is also reflecting in MannyAnimBP. to get the weapon aim animation working I would have to have a branch checking if aiming is set to true or not.

only way to achieve that would be via layer blend by bool i think

[nimble torrent]

That does sound like a reasonable way of doing it.

[nimble torrent]

There are two types of blends in your graph. You have 'Blend by bool' and 'Layered Blend Per Bone' and they are different.

[serene fiber]

it is literally what these nodes do

[nimble torrent]

They are not the same kind of blend.

[serene fiber]

but like

im wondering if my approach is right

instead of simply creating a state machine with condition

Locomotion -> Aim

I think I cant use AimOffset if I use Locomotion -> Aim statemachine

[nimble torrent]

I believe you can, but I wouldn't do it that way.

[vocal stump]

I'm also making a shooter and right now I have an aim state(based on weapon type) within my locomotion state machine and since I have a few different aim offsets I just have those offsets blended within the state itself. now to be fair I'm still new at this my self and I'm not 100% sure this is "best practice" but for what I'm doing its worked the best so far

[opal tartan]

My blend space is broken I'm not sure if it's the max and min values or what I'm new to unreal and following this tutorial https:// youtu.be/WcDj4uZygyE?
si=R33dALzporU5abiR please could someone

help me

https://youtube.com/shorts/wSqyGrrEuuw?si=o9q6B81ufyGA-woI

This is a video of what’s happening

[robust tapir]

video is private it says

[opal tartan]

Sorry one sec I’ll make it unlisted

@robust tapir done

[serene fiber]

its interesting that it works via mesh custom asset

but not blueprints

[nimble torrent]

That's an indication that the problem isn't your assets - it's your graph or your code.

[serene fiber]

I used Play Animation and it worked right now but funnily enough its going back to no animation at all when its complete.

[nimble torrent]

The effect here is wild. I wouldn't recommend posting these as shorts, because shorts can't be scrubbed, and often you need to scrub videos of problems to figure out what's going on.

It does look like you're pushing the animations beyond 100%?

I'm not sure how you're doing that, but that's what it looks like.

[robust tapir]

what would be a way to call widget animation to play on object but not on the viewport

[opal tartan]

What do you mean scrub ? @nimble torrent

[nimble torrent]

Drag the current time bar back and forth across the video timeline to rewatch a section of the video multiple times.

This is not accessible on Shorts, which insist on playing all the way through.

[opal tartan]

Oh ok thank you but what do you recommend I do I’ve tried again and again and I still have no clue what’s causing it

[nimble torrent]

Well, what happens if you try making a new blendspace with those animations?

What happens if you remove one of the animations?

What happens if you change the active blend range?

What happens if you change the positions of the animations on the timeline?

I'd try all of those, and see what happens.

[opal tartan]

Ok thank you

[lethal blaze]

hi all - anyone have experience with simulated physics on a rig causing a bone to just fall to the floor like this? https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/it6urd5gff6k6fyxi4mce/2024-05-29-11-35-57.mkv?rlkey=ii28z7mt8a4jj2rk0lv9ppq4u&st=kdfw6nd9&dl=0

i figured it would remain attatched to the hip haha

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, you need a constraint.

[lethal blaze]

gotcha - following that guide you sent me yesterday and its been a big help!

[nimble torrent]

👍

[lethal blaze]

are they constraints set in the physics asset editor or constraint nodes in an anim bp?

[nimble torrent]

Physics editor.

[lethal blaze]

should i also be adjusting all capsules to fit the bones perfectly?

[nimble torrent]

The physics editor is very awkward to work with.

[lethal blaze]

its been so confusing and daunting haha

[nimble torrent]

No, you want them to match the mesh as well as you can without having them overlap each other.

[lethal blaze]

i really appreciate you

perfect thats good to know. thank you!

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, it's not great. It was never really built to be a construction tool, they built it to edit havoc physics imported from maya. So the UI has always been not great.

[opal tartan]

Sorry to ask again @nimble torrent but I’ve read through documentation and can’t figure out where I can change the active blend range

[lethal blaze]

that makes sense - it feels like its separate from how youd handle everything else in ue

[nimble torrent]

Sorry, 'active blend range' is not a good name for it. I meant the 'Minimum Axis Value' and the 'Maximum Axis Value'.

When you created your blendspace, what did you set those too?

Also - wow, blendspaces have gotten better since I used them last. They have whole subgraphs? Amazing.

[vocal stump]

@nimble torrent you seem to be the best at answering questions around here or at least pointing us in the right direction . Iv had a problem with trying to get ainim montages working on my weapon models.
now im pretty sure its not my code because the sound effects play at the correct time , so i think that the montage is being called correctly.
iv tried playing with the blend times (as its a very short animation)
Im guessing its something to do with how iv set up the anim graph or the actual skeleton it self
or im missing a step entirely but i just dont know

[nimble torrent]

OK.

So, couple of questions:

1. What is the animation that your weapon model is doing?

2. Does your weapon model have it's own animation blueprint?

Oh, and 3. Are those sounds triggered by animation notifies or are they triggered independently?

[vocal stump]

i am doing a manual operation of a hammer cock on a revolver
2 yes they have their own animation blueprints
3 i had to look at this one so the sound effect is being called in the animation sequence the montage is using , but in the blueprint i am calling the montage

[nimble torrent]

OK, that's interesting. It's very unusual for an animation notify to play without the animation also playing.

That's really odd.

Is that what's happening?

The hammer of the revolver is not moving, but the sound is playing?

Also - does your weapons animation blueprint have a slot node for montages?

[vocal stump]

OK so i just realized i had the blend per bone set to "none " so i set it to root and it worked fine so should have guessed it was something simple but its been giving me a head ach for the last week

[nimble torrent]

Aha!

Nice!

That's how it goes!

All problems appear simple once you've solved them.

[vocal stump]

haha right ? jeez

[serene fiber]

it can be compared with c++ raw code inside unreal or blueprint scripting. you think its so hard and confusing but once you realize how it works you wonder why you even worried in first place

[nimble torrent]

Eyup!

[lethal blaze]

yikes these constraints are way more confusing than i thought haha

[nimble torrent]

Yes. They're awful.

They suck so bad.

It's worth it to learn how they work, but they're also the worst.

[lethal blaze]

its confusing how to even make them or identify them as separate from their colliders which is crazy

[nimble torrent]

Yep!

[lethal blaze]

so the cones are constraints

[nimble torrent]

Yes, those are constraints.

You can see that your book doesn't have one, which is why it falls to the floor.

[nimble torrent]

You can also see that your leg constraints are probably not ideal either, as the knees can bend side to side, and your right leg looks like the constraints are pointing the wrong direction.

[lethal blaze]

i noticed that!

fortunately the leg wont really need constraints as im using this for live mocap

unless i need them for collision with the book

[nimble torrent]

That's true, but ragdolling from live mocap could be a funny gag.

[nimble torrent]

The colliders should be enough.

[lethal blaze]

gah you're so right

so when i click the generate constrtaints on the book, nothing appears

[nimble torrent]

You can make them manually.

[nova saddle]

Beginner question: I have locomotion setup, as well as combat animations etc. I am trying to incorporate a skeletal mesh for my main character which has a unique skeleton. I have the retargeter setup and it works correctly.

When you retarget an animation, it seems like it creates a new animation for you. Is there a way to have multiple skeletal meshes that all use the same animation asset?

If I end up with say ten unique skeletons, and I have 100 animations, I'm trying to avoid needing to have 10x100 animation as well as recreating the various blueprints which relate to them.

[mint marsh]

It does seem to be the case. Was really hoping that someone here may have played around with it lol

[lethal blaze]

For some reason creating a constraint manually isn't working. I've been right clicking the books physics body, selecting create constraint, but nothing happens

[nimble torrent]

I don't think that's the way you do it.

[lethal blaze]

do i click two bones then create a constraint between them?

[nimble torrent]

I think you click two physics bodies and create a constraint between them.

[lethal blaze]

that was it

now it's not falling!

[nimble torrent]

Hurrah!

[lethal blaze]

you're the best squish

[nimble torrent]

👍

[lethal blaze]

is the windwalker echo setup using separate physics assets for everything to run simulation without collision?

[nimble torrent]

Not sure what the windwalker echo setup is?

[lethal blaze]

its a free character setup unreal released for reference purposes

like a "heres how we do it" kind of thing

[nimble torrent]

Probably not then? You can enable and disable collision between physics colliders by clicking on both colliders and right clicking:

[lethal blaze]

gotcha

i wonder what that's all about

[nimble torrent]

It is possible though!

That's what it looks like from your screenshot!

[lethal blaze]

interesting!

[nimble torrent]

In the animation graph you can specify the asset, so it's certainly possible to do it that way.

I just don't know if there's any advantage other than organization to doing so.

I suppose being able to disable them at different distances might be useful?

[lethal blaze]

yeah that could be it. either way i think im on the right track now at least

i def prefer working with the spring component or even anim dynamics but its good to test this out as well

[atomic timber]

hi! im currently trying to blend animations -- a tutorial says to link up the foot position and enters a different screen.. but i cannot find this screen anywhere, i have a feeling it is "edit in sequencer" but when i click it, a small grey box appears and nothing happens? 😅 not sure what to do

[nimble torrent]

When you say 'blend animations' do you mean 'blend animations at runtime' or do you mean 'blend animations offline and create a new animation'?

[atomic timber]

uhhhh

[nimble torrent]

What is your goal? What are you trying to do?

[atomic timber]

im just trying to put my walk, trot, and run into a blend

(and idle, at the bottom)

[nimble torrent]

Ah, ok that's a blendspace.

Nice.

And why do you need to open something in sequencer?

You have your blendspace open. Are you unable to work in there?

[atomic timber]

So the video im looking at shows this screen, in order to change the feet… somehow? But i cant find where to open this ahah

[nimble torrent]

Hey, nice. Prismatica. He makes good stuff.

[atomic timber]

Everything works, i just cant enter the sequencer.. or whatever this screen is lol

[atomic timber]

Yessss

[nimble torrent]

Ah, OK. That's not sequencer. That's just the regular animation viewer.

[atomic timber]

OH

[nimble torrent]

(the names are very similar, technically it's the "Animation Sequence Viewer" which is not 'The Sequencer'... because Unreal)

You can open that window by double clicking on any of the animation sequences.

[atomic timber]

oh i see hahaha, so to do whats shown in the video do i just… open up the normal trot animation thing?

[nimble torrent]

In your asset browser.

[atomic timber]

ah!

whenever i look in it it doesnt have those timeline things though

[nimble torrent]

That doesn't surprise me, because those timeline things are added manually.

(or are added procedurally through the animation modifiers system, but that's maybe a bit advanced right now)

You can see four things in that image from Prismatica's video, none of which appear automatically. There are sync points, animation notifies, animation notify states, and an animation curve.

All those those have to be created manually if you're going to use them.

I don't know what he's doing in that video, I haven't watched it, so I don't know if they're necessary.

[atomic timber]

i see! it was to make sure the feet link up when switching animations. thank you so much for the help!! im gonna try and continue this now aahah

[nimble torrent]

Good luck!

[atomic timber]

thanks!

[lethal blaze]

so are collision in animation set to block by default?

im having a good laugh at how different this is from unreal's typical physics setup

[nimble torrent]

I think so, yeah.

[lethal blaze]

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6o2zgglyrrb6k1h94gpqe/2024-05-29-14-36-55.mkv?rlkey=p9ks3zzp0gis7yzob0hlqlzcz&st=rmy442fk&dl=0

im starting to think i should retreat to using the spring with some pose drivers to prevent clipping

[viscid willow]

Pose drivers are a good option, particularly for complicated areas like the hips. Something else which may be of interest to you is this set up using a spherical pose reader in control rig: https://www.youtube.com/live/6s8rCGtmCSA?si=RHUXcCuaZtN2Y5GF

[lethal blaze]

Oh neat I'll check that out! Thank you

[nimble torrent]

Yeah! Pose drivers are good!

You could use a pose driver with a little spring on it too.

In your case, your bag is clipping because the physics capsule for the bag appears much too small, same with (I think, hard to say from this angle) the capsule for the thighs might also be too narrow.

[viscid willow]

physics colliders can be more than just capsules right? A box might be a more suitable/accurate shape in this case

[nimble torrent]

I think they can, yeah.

[limpid zenith]

Hi, i have issue with CR bp again, i still don't fully understand what Axis in Basic IK for, and i have an issue, prob. coz of that, it is for sure not animation issue, i have point in world and my arm placed there with Basic IK? and i get this strange bug in some anims, elbow is strangly rotated, but i have not touched it other than Basic IK.

[nimble torrent]

So... the axis values are a bit weird.

To solve a two-bone ik, you construct a triangle out of the limb.

The axis values are about which direction the triangle is pointing.

And they're mostly useful if you have an unusual or non-standard orientation of your bones.

They should normally be fine.

The problem with your elbow is that, for your elbow to be solved correctly, in a IK system, you typically include something called a 'pole vector target'.

Which is a separate node that controls the elbow.

Now, you're putting in a pole vector in your example - but you're putting in the head for some reason.

And then subtracting an enormous amount from all of the values.

Making the results likely to be very strange.

[dark crow]

I have a question on left hand IK used to attach a hand to a weapon. A lot of tutorials get a relative offset from hand_r and the socket on the weapon. This is getting it from world space and updating what seems like on every tick. When its done this way, the hand is basically just being updated every frame right?

[nimble torrent]

Yes, it is.

[dark crow]

Is that the only way? Is there any way to "lock" the hand on the weapon and it just follow the weapon?

[nimble torrent]

To what end? What would that do?

[dark crow]

not have to manually update it to a position every frame

[nimble torrent]

I mean, it's not manual. You've written a program to do it.

The program does it.

So, it's automatic.

[dark crow]

every frame it has to get the socket transforms and create a relative transform and then update the location.

I want to know if it is possible to not have to get the transforms and do that.

[nimble torrent]

Uh... hypothetically it is possible to constrain a hand to a gun in a way that does not require you to do the specific operations you're talking about.

But that would not really do much in terms of optimization, if that's your concern.

[dark crow]

It was yes

[nimble torrent]

For every bone, for every active animation in the whole graph, you do a full matrix multiplication - and that's just for bones.

Then every vertex takes every bone that it's weighted to, and does a position lerp.

You're doing that kind of math hundred to millions of times per frame.

Computers are really fast these days.

[dark crow]

Right. I need to quit trying to optimize early

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, this is probably not somewhere you'll get a lot of utility out of optimizing.

[dark crow]

If you could procedurally generate all animations versus using baked animations, would there be a performance difference?

[nimble torrent]

Unfortunately the answer to that is an unsatisfying 'it depends!'.

It depends on how you procedurally animate the characters, and it depends on how you used the baked animations.

[dark crow]

Hmm ok. I seen a YT video and then started thinking about thing in my project. Really neat video in case you want to watch it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w78U3TwrI2Q&t=39s

[topaz narwhal]

I am having a fighting game type of tekken in Unreal 5
My question is, should I set the different sizes of the characters in Blender or in Unreal?
lets say they have exatcly the same* proportions (distance between joints)
so
if I just leave the same size in Blender
with the same rig (as they have same proportions)
and later in their BP_Character I set a different scale depending if is big or small (with some logic that detect it)

in this way I am saving time with the rigging (I just have to model over the rig everytime) and with the retargeting
as ALL animations (300 or more) will work for ALL them
because retargeting takes like 15 min everytime (and freeze a little UE)

*is a little more complex, there is like 2 types of proportions but 5 sizes, but I hope you got my point.

[lusty venture]

this sounds like the right way to go about it - if all characters have the same rig (same amount of bones and bone names), you should be able to set ONE base skeleton (even if you have two different proportions of the same rig) and animations should be able to play on all skeletons

unreal has a built in skeleton system that allows you to set the animation’s source SK (the rig the animation was authored in) and it should be able to retarget animations even to the characters with the different skeleton proportions

you’ll just need to check your retarget settings in the skeleton viewer

[topaz narwhal]

Thanks!
Exatcly, my workflow is to either:

• export Mannequin rig and using Pose mode in Blender I re-pose the bones to fit the character shape, then "Set rest pose" etc, then "Transfer weights" from the mannequin to my Char. So my Char get the native Unreal rig (being in T POSE doesnt matter, as I set a custom pose in the retarget settings)
• using Auto Rig Pro with UE settings (to get enough spine bones)

[lusty venture]

when you say re-pose, are you translating or just rotating the bones?

[topaz narwhal]

sorry I mean in "Pose mode" not in "edit mode"

it works great, I translate, rotate and scale

the mannequin mesh end up being something weird but it doesnt matter

I have a colored collection of the bones that can be adapted

that is one workflow, but the artist on my team get lost with bones so I explored another one, simpler, using Auto Rig Pro

a Blender addon that can create a rig with weights, like a Mixamo in Blender

I am still researching it, it works, but I get a warning (not error) in the IK_"yellow" file that the retarget needs, but everything works fine so far

[crystal crag]

Hey guys! I have a small question, does control rig have atan2 and RInterpTo alternatives? Because I couldn't find any

[nimble torrent]

It has an interpolate function, but not RInterp I don't think.

As for atan2, I've never used that one! What would you use it for in rigging?

[modest fox]

Hey guys, pulling my hair out. Has the Pose By Name node been removed? I can't find it anywhere in the list of nodes in the anim bp. I have an older project and if I copy the node from that project it pastes over fine and I'm able to drive the pose, but where has this node gone and why can't i find it?

[nimble torrent]

Hah - yes, this still exists, and it's still bananas how you have to create it.

This is the thing where you can specify a point in an animation to evaluate, right?

[modest fox]

i have a static pose asset and i just want to set to that pose

like for a seated character, i have a seated pose and i want that to be the base pose

so with this pose

just to get to this

[nimble torrent]

It's one of two weird conversion things.

You can also do this with a sequence to convert it to a time controlled animation.

[modest fox]

omg i just remember how i did it before. Drag the static pose into the graph and then click this

[nimble torrent]

Yep.

[modest fox]

omg, that's absurb!! lol

how am i ever going to remember this!

[nimble torrent]

I don't know, it's also how you get single frame animation nodes:

You have to drop a sequence in, and convert it.

I don't know why it's setup like that...

Decisions.

Were.

Made.

[modest fox]

gosh 😅 . ok, thanks

[spiral cloak]

Did you figure this out? Also seeing the same issue in 5.3 where the "modify curve node" with a curve set to 1, with a blend alpha of 1 is resulting in 0.41666667

For context, the exact same logic in 5.2 works as expected and gives a curve result of 1

[limpid zenith]

Thanks for explaining! I am using Head bone to just make a point in space to make it easier(i dont know any other ways), about "pole vector target" node i haven't heard of, so that's why i don't use it, i will go and check it out now, thanks!

Btw i can't find "pole vector target"

Do you mean "pole vector space"?

[queen matrix]

Hi, anyone here that could recommend me a good rig with IK of the UE5 manny for Blender?

[spiral cloak]

Weirdly, it's distance-to-camera based 🤔

[spiral cloak]

Okay, it's linked to Update Rate Optimization on the Skeletal Mesh Component. For some reason in 5.3 this is messing with modify curve values

[mint seal]

Hi, how to blend character position into the level sequence? I mean for player to move to the level sequence's start transform while starting playing it

Binding just teleports it

[plain bough]

Does anyone know if there's a way to make functions in Control Rig that can be used by several different rigs? Can you either inherit from other rigs, or make a function library of some sort?

[cobalt egret]

Hello fellas, is there a way to know if a "Animation State" in the AnimationBlueprint gets interrupted? UE 5.4 states that there is a "OnStateInterrupt"-Event (see picture) which I couldn't find yet. It seems like it is a new functionality since UE 5.3. Does anyone how to use that event?

[nimble torrent]

I don't mean pole vector space. I mean the vector called 'pole vector'. Now - there's two ways of putting that in. 'Position' which means that they calculate the pole vector based off of the subtracting a point from the the vector of the line between the top and bottom of the IK triangle, or 'direction' which uses a vector directly.

I can't remember which one you have it set too.

My recommendation would be to get and store your elbows translation before it's effected by the IK, set the IK to 'position', and put the elbows animated transform into 'Pole Vector'.

That's how I'd do it.

It uses the animated position of the elbow to keep things relatively close to how they were originally.

[nimble torrent]

Yes, you can make function libraries. Epic has one they use on their mannequin rigs.

[nimble torrent]

I would guess this refers to the transition interrupts that can trigger if a higher priority state becomes accessible during a transition.

[limpid zenith]

Okey, i will do that now

[nimble torrent]

I'd use the control rig inside unreal, myself. It's not bad.

[nimble torrent]

This is bizarre. Good to know though. Thanks Sam.

[limpid zenith]

Nope, it still breaks

Do i need to get global or local space for pole vector?

[nimble torrent]

You need whatever space your IK is functioning in.

[limpid zenith]

Global then i think

Have i understood you right?

[nimble torrent]

Possibly? I don't know what 'Get Elbow Check' is or does.

But hypothetically you are storing the elbow value and putting into the pole target. I suspect that your 'pole vector space' being the right arm for some reason is likely not going to let this work though.

Not sure why it's setup like that. You probably want that to be root space or component space.

[limpid zenith]

It is just to make it go and set Elbow Location only one time

[nimble torrent]

I wouldn't do that necessarily. I would use the animated position that frame.

But you do you.

I have to go, so good luck.

[limpid zenith]

Okey, you too, thanks!

[little creek]

Hey, I have an odd error with my exported animation.
It lasts the exact same time as it does in blender at 60 fps, but has twice as many total frames

[little creek]

This anim monstage has 24k frames.

This cannot be ok

[golden arrow]

try changing the sample rate

in ue import settings

[rugged shuttle]

How do I change, retime, export, fix an Animation Sequence that's 25 FPS to be remade to 30 FPS so I can use it in a montage with others?

[golden arrow]

I think the same thing I mentioned above would work. Just change the sample rate and reimport. the framerate should update automatically.

[nimble torrent]

I think that would work.

[golden arrow]

Does anyone have an idea as to why my animation becomes increasingly more unstable as I move/turn?

[rugged shuttle]

Worked for me, thanks!

[quaint cedar]

has anyone had their groom bindings stop working after updating from 5.3 to 5.4? all of my "small" grooms, like bangs and ponytails no longer work

5.3:

5.4:

i have tried: reimporting the assets, rebuilding the groom bindings, deleting my entire DDC, confirming i have skin cache on, confirming my meshes use skin cache, turned on recompute tangents

it seems to only happen on my small grooms with < 100 guides but i cant be sure

The groom binding builder code changed a lot between 5.3 and 5.4 from looking at the source but I have no idea what's wrong

[cobalt egret]

I haven't tried that yet but I know what you mean. The terminology here is a little bit misleading if you are right since "On State Interrupt" means to me soemthing else then "Tranisiton Interrupt".

But I will try that. Thanks for answering me.

[nimble torrent]

It does sound like there should be something specifically called 'On State Interrupt' but I went for a look and I can't find anything.

If you find it - let me know. Always good to know things.

[cobalt egret]

If I do, I will! 😁

[nimble torrent]

That's an interesting one. There's no obvious thing that would do that. Are you using root motion anywhere? What does your graph look like.

[golden arrow]

no root motion that I know of and here's anim graph, event graph and the bp threadsafe thingy

[nimble torrent]

Right off the bat - could be that spine rotation stuff.

What happens if you disable all that?

[golden arrow]

I've already tried disconnecting all the procedural stuff

[nimble torrent]

Does the accumulation of shenanigans stop?

[golden arrow]

nothing changes

[nimble torrent]

What happens if you disconnect absolutely everything and play only one idle animation?

Does that stop the shananigans?

[golden arrow]

I think so. lemme check

huh...my mesh is moving around

[nimble torrent]

That seems like it might be a fruitful area of investigation. : )

[golden arrow]

yeah...idk what could cause this lol

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, that's weird!

I'd check your pawn to see what's going on.

I might consider checking the actual translation values of your skeletal mesh component.

To see if those are going up and down, or if something else is happening.

[golden arrow]

will do, thanks!

[median dragon]

does anyone know why my feet are so out of whack here in my retargeter

[nimble torrent]

Could the left leg be assigned to the right and vice-versa?

[median dragon]

that fixed the crossing but theyre still kind fo crazy looking

[nimble torrent]

They do look a little... off balance!

[median dragon]

he looks pretty good by default, and when i overlayed them in the retargeter they legs matched pretty well but when the animation gets played it goes way off :/

[nimble torrent]

I can't remember exactly how to do it, but I believe the default pose for the retarget is also important.

The default pose for the mannequins is 'A', your character is in 'T', so I would look up 'How I do I change my starting retarget pose in unreal 5' as a place to start.

[median dragon]

yaaaa unfortunatley ive already done that lol, the feets still seem to want to do their own thing

very odd stuff considering how simple retargeting is in general

[halcyon sail]

This is probably a really stupid question but I am using the new modular control rig and cant figure out how to get to the BP tab to setup the actual functionality/code of the rig, like footplacement, etc. The default control rigs open right to the BP graph, but the modular ones dont do that

[nimble torrent]

I believe the idea with the modular control rig is that the modules handle all of that, and you don't actually do that.

[halcyon sail]

heres a better image showing my issue, the graph doesnt exist, and I cant make a new one

[nimble torrent]

(the modules are not entirely working for most people)

[halcyon sail]

oh, that seems odd

[nimble torrent]

Doesn't it?

It's very strange.

So far, in the month or so I've been hanging out in this chat there has been precisely zero people coming in to talk about their functioning modular control rig.

[halcyon sail]

yeah, i figured it was a new way to setup the rig

[nimble torrent]

Every single time it comes up - it doesn't work.

[halcyon sail]

hm

seems like its just for the sequencer then?

[nimble torrent]

Possibly? If it worked.

Like I said - nobody is having much luck.

[halcyon sail]

5.4 has been really rough, i feel like almost every "improvement" is broken

[nimble torrent]

It's certainly not been smooth sailing.

I personally do not understand why modular control rigs exist. They make no sense to me.

[halcyon sail]

i figured it was a nice way to setup a rig

[nimble torrent]

Control Rig modules, that exist inside a control rig graph, that allow for customization but handle a lot of the complexity under the hood? Yes! Good! That would be great!

But a fully separate system that is designed to build little black boxes that don't communicate very well - that seems weird to me.

[halcyon sail]

thats what i thought it was at first and got excited

so weird

[nimble torrent]

The cynic in me says that they created the system specifically for screenshots and investors.

But that might not be true. Maybe they're using it internally. I can't say. It doesn't feel cooked though.

[halcyon sail]

the modular control rig inherits from the normal CR, so im not sure why they removed that functionality

[nimble torrent]

They kind of didn't. You have full access to the graph... when you're building a new module.

It's when you're using the modules to create a control rig that you don't appear to have access.

You can create custom modules!

And do whatever you want in there.

[halcyon sail]

oooh so its module based now

[nimble torrent]

But when you're using them, and they're working together, you can't.

[halcyon sail]

hm but no one has gotten the custom modules working?

[nimble torrent]

I think people have, but the story of the modular rig isn't "You'll create your own modules" it's "You can put together a control rig in five seconds. Look how fast this is!"

[halcyon sail]

How do you even create modules? C++ only?

[nimble torrent]

And from a practical perspective, there are very few video games where constructing your own library of modules would be a worthwhile endeavour.

[nimble torrent]

No, I think you can make them in blueprints. I haven't done it myself. I've edited one, but I don't have the engine open.

[nimble torrent]

Like, most games would only have a couple of rigs? If you can build a rig module, you can build a rig - so why build it as a module?

And if you do want modularity, there's still the problem of communication - so anyone wanting to share functionality would probably benefit more from a blueprint library of control rig functions over a collection of custom modules.

[halcyon sail]

I could be understanding modules wrong, but it seems like a way to containerize your code so you have a module for foot placement IK, one for look at IK, etc

and then reuse those across rigs?

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, I think that's the idea.

But I don't see a benefit from isolating them into modular black boxes.

Rather than creating a library of functions to create or evaluate them.

From a practical perspective on a development team - the black boxes model only makes it harder? If you're heavily investing into the control rig / sequencer animation pipeline - you need a rigger anyways?

I just can't find the use-case.

[halcyon sail]

seems to be geared towards indie and artists

or cases where you have a ton of different skeletons and want to share functionality

id argue that modules are cleaner and faster than a bpfl

[nimble torrent]

True, and it's hard to overestimate the value of speed.

But they don't work for most skeletons. You have to carefully design your characters to work with the modules - which does kind of eliminate the speed advantage.

If they were completely bullet-proof and robust, I think there would be an argument for their use in the fairly narrow circumstances of:

• your team does not have a rigger
• your team has decided to animate in unreal
• your team has multiple characters they need to animate
• all of these characters require fully custom rigs

[cobalt egret]

Even though @nimble torrent tried to help me, I am curious what other people know about this topic (in my previous question)!

@Squishy: I tried the "Transition Interrupt" way but I do not understand how to use it. Furthermore I think that it won't help me with my problem since I need a way to recognize an interruption within the animation's state, whilst "Transition Interrupt" (even if I could bring it to work) might only be tracking an interruption within the transition itself.

So to simplify my question: Does anyone know how I can recognize an interruption of an animation state (within the AnimBlueprint)? The interruption gets triggered by a montage and I currently need a way to know when a specific animation state get's interrupted.

[nimble torrent]

Ah, yeah. Transition interrupts would only trigger during the transition into the state.

[cobalt egret]

No problem, it was interesting to know and try though.

[nimble torrent]

Could you describe what circumstances you need to know when you lose the state though?

[cobalt egret]

Sure, so currently I am developing a 3rd-person game in which a player can run around in a 3D world and fight with weapons.

Description of the current case: There is a case in which the player will trigger I certain animation to get equipped with a weapon into the players hand. After the equipment, the player's AnimationBlueprint switches into a new StateMachine from "basic locomotion" to "battle locomotion" (see "Screenshot_StateMachines01" for reference). The transition from "locomotion" to "battle locomotion" happens after the "equip" animation is done within the "locomotion"-StateMachine.

The reason behind doing it this way: The player should be able to "walk/run" while the character gets equipped. This is as far as I know only possible with AnimBP and this worked fine in UE 5.2 and the "Animation State"-Events, but since 5.3 the engine recommends to not use this way anymore... instead, the engine recommends to use the state's "anim node function" instead (see "Screenshot_AnimationState01"). I already tried to use that way, but using those thread safe functions hinder me to trigger certain events/functions in the Player's Blueprint that I need to trigger (see "Screenshot_AnimationState02")!

What should happen within the EquipAnimation: The weapon get's attached at a certain point within the equip animation and many other things happen at the end too. That was all possible with the "Animation State"-Events. Now I use the "Skeleton-Notifier" or "AnimNotifier" instead which doe the same work but have a critical side-effect: Notifier do not trigger when the animation gets interrupted, before the notifier got triggered!!! (as far as I know).

The core problem: Now it can happen that the player gets interrupted through e.g a projectile in middle of that equip-animation. In this case I would like to do all the tasks that usually would have been done through out the animation.

That's why I need something like "OnStateInterrupt"

P.S.: English is not my main language so be patient with me. Also, I hope my message is not too long but I was not able to describe my situation any better than that.

[nimble torrent]

You did good! Thank you for being thorough.

Hmm - equipping and unequipping weapons is always a bit of a mess. I thought it might be something like this though.

I'm in the middle of something, but I will try to come back with an idea in about 45 minutes or so.

[cobalt egret]

That would be awesome! 🤩 But it would be no problem if not, so don't push yourself too far!

[nimble torrent]

Got done faster than I thought.

So, here's my thoughts:

The player switching weapons is a very important state change. This should not rely on the animation system, as it can be unreliable. The state change should be handled by the inventory system or the pawn and not rely on the animation system.

I would recommend not using State Notifies or Anim Notifies. I would recommend using exclusively the pawn/inventory systems own logic to do this, and the weapon switching animation should reflect the change in state, and not control it.

This leaves you with a problem - how do you determine when to change the visibility of the weapons?

I would immediately spawn the new weapon as soon as the player triggers the weapon change. I would spawn the weapon invisible, and start counting down to when they should be displayed. The time to when they should be displayed would be set to how long the switch weapon animation is, but would not be dependent on it. It's just a countdown. This countdown could be custom per weapon, or it could be standard - it depends on your game.

At the end of the countdown, regardless of what has happened in the animation system, I would make the new weapon visible, and hide and/or remove the old weapon.

Doing it this way avoids all possible shenanigans from the animation system. Even if interrupted, or deactivated somehow - they will still switch their weapon when the countdown ends.

(in a real implementation of this, it would probably be several countdowns, one for 'time until you can use the weapon', one for 'time until the new weapon is visible' and one for 'time until the old weapon should be hidden' - but all of them should be mechanically independent of the animation system)

Note: It is possible using the 'Anim Modifiers' system, and 'Anim Metadata' to embed metadata onto a set of animations, which could be used to control the timers. This is quite elaborate, but would avoid game designers needing to update the timing data when the animations are updated, while retaining the independence of the pawn/inventory system from the animation system.

[cobalt egret]

Very interesting! Hmm... yeah that makes sense. Now that you say it, the way I implemented the "un-/equip weapon" was really messy, even though it worked so far. Which is why I was so intent to find a "best practice" way to do it! Which it seems I got today. Thank you very much for your time and effort!

I need to think this through a bit more and test some further things but I've got a good idea on how to accomplish what you wrote and still leave my AnimationBlueprint's StateMachines how it's structured (with minor changes).

[nimble torrent]

👍

[solar totem]

I have one animation.
This one animation has four swing animations. So it is a combo.
I perfectly split it up into four swing animations.
So I have four separate swing animation files.
I set their respective montages to have 0.0 blend in and out times.

In the Behavior Tree, I set them up so it plays one right after another.

However, what I'm seeing is that for one split moment (probably like a single frame) during montage transitions, it looks like it flickers to a default pose or something.
I want the montage transitions to be completely seamless.

I could combine this into one montage with the four animations together, which works.
But the reason I want to split it up is that I want the enemy to be able to rotate towards the player in between attack swings. Otherwise with one long montage, the enemy will keep swinging even after the player moves to the side.

I'm wondering if the 0.0 blend in/out times are correct?

[native umbra]

How the heck do I extend this timeline so I can make my animation longer?

[native umbra]

add a tiny blend between the two

you should also be able to rotate your character while it is swinging

[native umbra]

There's no way to just edit a timeline?

I can't just drag that end result to where I want?

[nimble torrent]

In the Anim Sequence Viewer? No.

If you want to make an animation longer, you'll have to use the sequencer.

[native umbra]

Its kind of eye opening how difficult it is to edit animations inside unreal lol.

But I also think something about my project is bugged, as I can't remove frames either

[nimble torrent]

Why couldn't you update the enemies rotation during one behavior state? It's been a while since I did anything with behavior tree - but those are pretty flexible iirc.

[nimble torrent]

The animations are pretty locked down, yeah.

The expected pipeline is importing fbx files from outside that come from Maya, Max, or Blender.

So, for most unreal projects, if they want the animation to be longer - they do it in another program.

[native umbra]

makes sense as to why that's the case, Unreal was never intended to be an animation software I suppose

[solar totem]

The one animation I have is actually one continuous animation that has four swings
So I cut them up into four animations. If I have any sort of delay in-between then it would look weird, since the animation is supposed to be one long continuous motion
This is the animation: https://youtu.be/x4gOCJoPUQ8?t=17

[nimble torrent]

Right, I get it - but if you had it as a single animation, couldn't you still correct the turning?

I don't see why you could do that between animations and couldn't do that during an animation.

[solar totem]

Hmm.. like adding an AnimNotify called AN_LookAt
That rotates the character playing the animation?

[nimble torrent]

I mean... I'd do it with a curve?

I'd add a curve (let's say it's called 'CanAdjustAimingRotation') to the animation. I'd ramp it up to 1.0 during periods where I want the character to rotate, and ramp it back down to 0.0 during periods where I want them to commit to an attack.

Then, in my attack behavior tree node, I would read that curve's value, and depending on the value, I would either update the rotation or not update the rotation.

My way gives you the ability to ease in and out of the rotation corrections.

[solar totem]

I understand what you mean..
By curves you mean this?

[nimble torrent]

Yep!

[solar totem]

And this can be programmatically set? Like if the enemy is playing the combo attacking animation, and the player moves 180 behind the enemy.. then you can set the curve to like.. 180?

[nimble torrent]

I wouldn't do it like that.

Instead, I would constrain the curve between 0.0 and 1.0, and I would add keys to it myself in the anim sequence viewer (you can do it by right clicking on the curve after you've added it), and I would add those keys in the places in the animation where I want the character to update the rotation.

Then, in the behavior tree node, I would calculate where the player is every frame, and I would calculate the desired rotation every frame, and read the value of the curve every frame, and then I would update the rotation of the boss every frame, but I would scale how much of the rotation correction I apply based on the curve value.

So at a curve value of 1, I would make the boss face the player.

And at a curve value of 0, I would leave the bosses rotation alone.

Does that make sense?

[solar totem]

I see. So like in the curve in the animation... you have values between 0 and 1
1 = should rotate to face target
0 = should not rotate
The animation does not actually update the rotation

Then somewhere else, like the behavior tree, that's when you read the curve and rotate appropriately based on the values

[nimble torrent]

Yeah!

[solar totem]

Very professional technique
I'll definitely try this out but I'll have to do a bunch of research and testing on these curves first though
Thank you.

[nimble torrent]

Best of luck!

[hearty urchin]

It's the same principle as adding layers of animation over other keyframes or motion-capture data. You'll have to set up constraints for it as well so that if the target is 180 degrees behind the enemy they don't snap their spine backwards, pivot at superspeed without matching footwork, or turn the opposite direction as the sword stroke. For example if the enemy is about to do a powerful swing from their right to left, you don't want them to take the shortest rotational path if the player is standing to their right hand side, they should follow through with the swing and continue in a counter-clockwise motion except with extra rotation in the same direction to make sword hit the player in a natural way

[nimble torrent]

Mmhmm! There's a lot of subtlety to when you want the character to be able to track the player, how much, and from where.

[warped dirge]

When I switch from montage root motion extraction to 'ignore root motion' when montage ended playing, the character skeleton shifts a little bit to the back. Any suggestions how to fix that?

I switching root motion modes so I can move character normally during some inactive parts of the animation and when there are some charges/dashes I am enabling it. Still blending isn't good at some moments

[spiral cloak]

So as a follow up to yesterday, it looks like in 5.3 when using UpdateRateOptimization on anim instances, the curve interpolation (even just on regular blend mode NOT weighted mode which was broken in 5.3 and fixed in 5.4) isn't blending between the previous curve value and the new one. For example, if I modify the curve in the anim graph to a value of 1, and then do the same again on the next anim update it should be a value of 1 as we're interpolating between 1 and 1. However, it appears it might be deciding to interpolate from the default curve value (which for curves afaik is always 0) and the new evaluated value.

Obviously the easiest way to fix this is to disable UpdateRateOptimization on the skeletal mesh component as it will evaluate properly each frame, but this obviously results in less optimization (thank you captain obvious).

I'm just about to run a test where I have a skeletal mesh with URO enabled and a modify curve set to 1 in the anim graph in a blank 5.3 project to reproduce the issue, and then try again in 5.4 to see the behaviour has changed.

If anyone has found any solution to this at all in 5.3, it would be great to know!

Note: Even when setting a meta-curve (which defaults to a static value of 1) on the running animation (instead of doing modify curve value = 1) it results in the same interpolation issue, despite a static 1 value on the animation meta-curve!

[misty dagger]

Hey guys anyone good when it comes to state machines not firing the events below, it doesn't seem to go past my idle/walk/run onto my other functions, the idle/walk/run has 0 effect code wise as with or without the code it isn't firing the events after.

[mint seal]

Bump

[spiral cloak]

I can confirm that this animation curve issue is exclusive to 5.3, it's not present in 5.2 or 5.4

[serene fiber]

when using Animation Notify System blueprint, is it possible to receive the character that is the source of executing the ANS?

[warped dirge]

You can get owner of the mesh component

[serene fiber]

ah makes sense, thanks!

[nimble torrent]

Ah! Very good to know! So it's specifically a bug in 5.3. Can you afford to upgrade or are you going to be stuck with it?

[spiral cloak]

Aiming to upgrade, but not until 5.4 has been patched a little bit more (currently has a lot of issues from what I hear, including simple things like spline meshes in construction scripts being broken 😬 )

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, I'm surprised at how long they're going without patching some of the more obvious stuff.

[spiral cloak]

For sure! But yeah, ideally want to upgrade for things like parallelised rendering thread, improved cook times, improved shader compile times etc from the 5.4 release notes 😅 Just hoping they sort out the glaring issues in hotfixes rather than waiting for 5.5!

[nimble torrent]

Eeyup!

[tawny palm]

--> When my character is growing, why isn't my Physics asset growing with it? for example if i simulate tail physics, the tail remains small, and body grows normally...

[winged bear]

Hi, I am trying to create some animations for a bought asset (one of "Toon RTS Units" pack from PolygonBlacksmith), I am trying to use the Modular control righ, the problem is that the models do not use the standard mannekin skeleton, for example, there is only one spine bone, and I am not able to set up the Modular Control rig. I have tried animating using the FK Control Rig, but it is really tedious to have to rotate every part, or having to reposition the feet if I want to move the pelvis forward or backward but no the feet, etc.

Is there any tutorial or way to setup a non standard skeleton using the Modular control rig? Or should I try to export the models to blender and try to change the skeleton, the thing is, I am not experienced at all rigging or weight painting, that is why I bought the asset in the first place.

[nimble torrent]

Growing is not a standard feature of the engine, so that's going to depend on how your implemented it.

[nimble torrent]

Heya! There isn't what I'd call a lot of really comprehensive stuff on how to build Control Rigs.

This is not bad, but it is outdated, as it predates the ability to generate controls in the construction script:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2WzNvJZk0E&t=282s

Kamila Bianchi's videos are also pretty good, and more up to date, but aren't arranged in any particular order.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdT5CglN4oY&list=PLYlYeXC3Q2NHLAfUWfaB9n-wJk38v3e-t&index=3

[winged bear]

Thank you for the help, I was checking one video from Smart Poly where he set ups a control rig for a T-Rex, it seems I will have to do it the old way instead of using the new Modular workflow.

[tawny palm]

hmm thats a general answer 😅 when setting scale of capsule, actor, mesh, nothing scales up the physics asset ... it stays the same size as it is on begin play

[nimble torrent]

Really? That's interesting! Scaling the actor doesn't change the physics asset? That's weird!

[wide idol]

I'll ask here since it's animation what it breaks this.
The SK Mesh changes the pivot point position when I play an animation (or animation blueprint). The pivot is correctly centered, as you can see in the second image. Why does this happen?

[nimble torrent]

Does the pivot point move. Like it's translation values actually change, or does the visual of the mesh move?

[wide idol]

No, the pivot point doesn't move. Here's a gif that may help debug the problem.

[nimble torrent]

OK, so that's not the pivot changing, that's the root of the character.

So the animation has the root in a spot you don't want.

Did you create these animations yourself?

[wide idol]

The one crouching is the one that comes in the starter pack. The one that is standing we created it. It works in all the characters we made, except in this one.

Which is considerable bigger. Not sure if that could be the problem.

Same proportions, but bigger.

[native umbra]

don't know how to help your problem but that's a dope mesh

[wide idol]

I'll tell that to our 3D model artist! Glad you like it.

[nimble torrent]

Ah, OK. So this is probably a retargeting problem.

If this character is physically larger, then the same offset from the pelvis to the root would result it it being placed like this - with the legs through the floor.

You need to check your retarget settings.

Specifically on the pelvis I think.

[wide idol]

I love you.

[nimble torrent]

Got it working?

[wide idol]

Yes. It was indeed the pelvis retargeting option. I changed the pelvi's to Animation Scaled and now it works fine!

Thank you!

[nimble torrent]

Hurrah!

[serene fiber]

when it comes to IK Rigs

is it possible to change their skeleton to another skeleton after using them for retargeting?

[formal cedar]

Got a question. Here is my AI. I want him to have turning animations, whenever he turns, how should I make them? Should I have him rotate in the animation or will that fuck it up?

[nimble torrent]

That's a complicated question!

There are a variety of ways of handling turning in your game, and how you do it is dependent on the kind of movements the character will do.

Stand and turn animations are actually fairly rare. Protagonists seldom have them because they need to react so quickly that they often turn instantly, and for non player characters, they're often combined with a common set of animations called 'starts and stops'.

[worthy sentinel]

Hello, for me its the first time setting up a custom animation blueprint and I'm kind of confused, why its not really working. The cast to BP_TestKerapac keeps failing could someone give me a hint? It feels weird that the owning actor is a SkeletalMeshActor in this case.

[vivid roost]

Hello! I am getting started with editing ABP. I made a 2D blendspace for locomotion and it looks good in preview, but I have discovered that the default third person template ABP only accepts a single variable for its blending. Is there a way to override that behavior on an inherited ABP? I have the blendspace overridden in the child but it's still only using a single velocity value.

[nimble torrent]

You're running into a bit of a problem with the way that the Animation Blueprint viewer window is setup. In the window you're looking at, that version of your character model is a Skeleton Mesh actor - so it's always going to fail that test.

If you play the game itself, and your character is a BP_TestKerpac, it should pass.

[nimble torrent]

You can't change the graph in a child animation BP, only variables. You can create a copy of an existing animation BP, and make your change in there.

[vivid roost]

That sounds like it could get out of hand

[nimble torrent]

It could!

[raven sigil]

Is it possible to controll the rate (speed) at which an animation plays by a variable? I want my run animation to be 0 and freeze at the current frame when the character is at 0 velocity, and if the velocity is say 400, i want the playback speed to be 1 or 100%.

[warped dirge]

How Lyra uses root motions animations without montages to adapt them to multiplayer?

[warped dirge]

You can use blendspace for that

So you can interpolate between idle and movement animations by pawn speed

[raven sigil]

Thanks for the tip!

I realized i can just bind to a variable, worked pretty well! 🙂

[rugged shuttle]

Does anyone know where I can get a premade/fully built IK Rig and/or IK Retargeter for the standard UE5 Manny/Quins? I have one for UE4 and want to retarget animations between them.

[coral rivet]

my anim montages will not play for some reason and i checked that everything is fine

i added the slot node in the anim graph and created a new anim montage and touched nothing in it

and the play montage node is fine too

[tardy fiber]

Can i make montage to blend out only upperbody slot but other slot should not blend?

[naive horizon]

why does my retargeting looks like crap? 🥹

have tried multiple different ways, even changed and added bones to the other model. these are two very different skeletons of the same animal that I'm trying to retarget. the original one (left) has way more bones and has a different pose than the one I'm trying to put animations on (right)

any tips will be appreciated

[nimble torrent]

The jittering has to be some kind of IK error.

I definitely feel like the you're losing some information on the neck and the spine, but it's mostly OKish. The arm jitter is the real problem, right?

[nimble torrent]

Yes, you can use the Layered Blend Per Bone node and cached poses to do this fairly easily.

[naive horizon]

yeah, I have to figure that out

one thing is that one skeleton is way bigger than the other

and poses don't exactly match

I'll look into IK

or pay someone to do it lol

[nimble torrent]

That should be OK, Unreal's retargeting is pretty good at handling scale changes.

[naive horizon]

mm.. good

[nimble torrent]

Both of those should have presets in the retargeter, shouldn't they?

[nimble torrent]

If everything were fine, they would be playing. To test, you could create a new animation BP, with just one sequence and one slot node, and use the 'Play Animation As Dynamic Montage' node to try playing a montage to that slot specifically.

If that doesn't work, then something might be wrong on a larger scale, but the likely source of your problem is that somewhere you have a slot mismatch.

[lone pebble]

anyone knows how i can fix this ?

[atomic timber]

Hellooooo again 🫠 tried researching but no answers... when pressing the button to activate an animation montage in-game, it wont play. heres the blueprint (in the avatar base).
it was working briefly before when the montage was just a play anim node (but would freeze, so i replaced it with the montage and now it wont play at all)
i have no idea what to change here :,,) any help is appreciated

( i do see there was a similar question above, but unsure what it means)

[coral rivet]

i fixed it but it was weird. i packaged my game and it worked then i went back into the editor to see if it worked and it did. idk it was weird but its fixed now

editor was tweakin

[nimble torrent]

That is weird!

[nimble torrent]

Do you have a slot node in your animation BP?

[atomic timber]

i do not! i have seen some things about needing that but i have no idea what to put or where to put it my anim BP just has the state machine, then addditive poses, then output

[nimble torrent]

You need a slot node, at least one.

Montages play into a 'slot' on the character, and those nodes enter the graph through slot nodes.

You need a corresponding node connected into your graph to play a montage.

You can just put one at the end, just before the pose output. It will pass through the input pose unchanged unless there is a montage playing in the slot.

[atomic timber]

ooh, so, for example. if i had multiple actions under different keyboard buttons, i can just use the same slot for all of them?

[nimble torrent]

You could do that, yes.

[atomic timber]

i seee~ let me try and add this node lol

[nimble torrent]

It will be called 'DefaultSlot' in the list of nodes, but you can change which slot it is in the properties of the node.

[atomic timber]

AH it worked! thank you so much, now i just have one err.. pretty funny problem. let me record it

the additive poses change back to default LOL

is this because the slot is placed after these? should i put it in between the additive poses and the state machine?

[nimble torrent]

I don't understand, sorry?

[nimble torrent]

You could try it!

A montage node will just replace the pose that enters it's node with the montage animation. So if you have post processing you want to keep, then you need to make sure to put the slot node at the correct point in the graph to keep them.

[atomic timber]

AH it worked! i see now

[atomic timber]

ooooh gotcha. thank you !!

[nimble torrent]

👍

[atomic timber]

also, i have another question.

for a different montage - (example, sit) how would i make it play until the player moves?

so, stand->sit anim, then the actual sit anim, then back to walk.
(i apologise for all the questions lately, btw! 😭 i am by no means experienced in blueprints)

[nimble torrent]

Hmm... so there's a lot of ways of doing that. I probably wouldn't use a montage, personally. You can make a montage segment loop, so you could have the sit-down, loop, stand-up in one montage.

It could work. You need to look up how to control montage segments to do it that way.

[atomic timber]

would doing it via state machine be better ooor?

[nimble torrent]

However, if it's this four legged critter, and they can sit in multiple places - I might include it as a state in the state machine.

Yeah.

[atomic timber]

gotcha!

i shall try that, ty again! (i may be back in a few minutes, LOL)

[atomic timber]

all the animations are set up in the state machine!, buuut im unsure on how to actually activate it in the first place, since i cant put the variables/action mappings into the anim bp

[nimble torrent]

Sure you can! Why can't you?

[atomic timber]

you can!?

[nimble torrent]

Yeah! Animation BP's have variables and stuff like any other BP.

[atomic timber]

do i need to put anything in the avatar base for this? or is everything just in the anim bp

[nimble torrent]

And you can read data from the pawn by using 'Get Owning Actor' and then casting to your main BP class.

[atomic timber]

cause i think i need to use the action mapping thing somewhere...

[nimble torrent]

So you could have a variable on your main BP called 'IsSitting', which could be a boolean. You could turn it on when they press the 'sit' button, and turn it off when they press it a second time.

And then, in the animation BP, you could reach out and get that variable from the main BP.

And use that to drive the state transitions.

[atomic timber]

i do have an IsSitting variable, but im not able to drag it into the anim bp state machine, unlike the avatar base

oh wait like a true/false thing?

[nimble torrent]

Well, OK. So they're two different classes. Your animation BP and your main 'avatar BP'. They're separate. I don't know what your animation BP looks like, but it probably has values from the avatar BP used in it somewhere.

Like velocity to control movement.

You can access the 'isSitting' variable the same kind of way.

[atomic timber]

so the state machine is set up with the is sitting variable, but do i need anything in the avatar base to make it actually work? is this enough?

[nimble torrent]

Well, yes. Because you're just setting it to false.

And you're not setting it to true.

So it will always be false.

Which will probably result in the character not sitting.

[atomic timber]

ahah yeah, it doesnt work

[nimble torrent]

What you probably want to do is toggle it. There are a variety of ways of doing it, but the easiest way is to set it to the opposite of itself.

So if you get IsSitting and use the 'NOT boolean' node to invert the value, and then put that into Set.

Every time you press the button it will become the opposite value.

So when they're sitting it will turn off, and when they're standing it will turn on.

[atomic timber]

ahh it worked ! but now my character begins the sit animation every time i move (after sitting once)

i think i did something wrong

[nimble torrent]

Can you show the graph again?

(also, you probably want to put a 'set IsSitting to false' node into the part of your Avatar BP that reads movement values, so that when the player starts to move, 'IsSitting' becomes false, so they don't try to sit down again when they stop moving)

[nimble torrent]

That's good!

[atomic timber]

yay! so something is wrong with the state machine?

[nimble torrent]

No, I don't think so.

[atomic timber]

oh hm

[nimble torrent]

I think the problem is probably caused by what I mention here:

#animation message

The issue is that if you tell the character to sit, and then move, they still have 'IsSitting' set to true.

So they will try to sit again when they stop moving.

[atomic timber]

ahh i see i see, where would i put that? by the player movement?

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, in whatever part of whatever code you're using that reads movement values.

If the player is providing a movement input, set IsSitting to false.

[atomic timber]

would this be in the event graph?

[nimble torrent]

It would be wherever you're doing it.

[atomic timber]

i didnt make the event graph movement unfortunately, only the state machine, so im unsure how it works

i think it might be this...

[nimble torrent]

It's probably in the main event graph of the Avatar BP, but whoever made the graph could probably answer that question better.

That seems like a pretty good place to put it, you could try putting it after the Add Movement Input nodes.

Though it's possible that they are always called every frame. I'm not sure.

[atomic timber]

i see, so how do i add a "false"(?) node? theres some set nodes here for other movement.. (which i do not understand at all haha) but would it be similar to this?

[nimble torrent]

This appears to be a toggle for a sprint system. I don't think that this is the right place to put it.

[nimble torrent]

You add a 'false' node, by just putting in the the 'Set' node for IsSitting, and leaving the boolean value unchecked.

That will set it to false.

[atomic timber]

ah sorry! i meant the setup of it overall, like using the SET- ahh

okay one second

oh dear, now the sit isnt working at all hahah, why must nodes be so hard

[nimble torrent]

So that's probably caused by those nodes constantly evaluating. Hmm.

I know how I'd solve this, but with your current level of knowledge, I suspect that this might be very confusing for you.

[atomic timber]

if youre able to screenshot some blueprints i can try and follow it perhaps? 😅

[nimble torrent]

I don't have access to unreal right now.

[atomic timber]

ahh no worries

hmm, what was the method youd go for?

[nimble torrent]

So, what you want to do is to check how fast the character is moving. If the character is moving more than a small amount, then you want to set IsSitting to false.

[atomic timber]

oh! i do have a get movement speed variable already

[nimble torrent]

I would also make sure that you can't actually exit the sitting state in the state machine until IsSitting is false.

I don't know what rules you setup for the sitting states, but it sounds like they transition out of the sitting state independent of that value.

So I'd make sure that you can only exit that state when IsSitting is false.

[atomic timber]

ah so for transition out, currently i have a speed greater than 0

[nimble torrent]

Yeah, I would probably have that rely on IsSitting, personally.

And I would set the 'IsSitting' value in the Tick update event of the main Avatar BP.

I would test the characters current speed against a small value, and if we're higher than that, then set IsSitting to false.

[atomic timber]

gotcha! how do i get a false node within the anim bp? since i cant actually grab it from the variable list... is it something thatd be in the property access thing?

[nimble torrent]

That's how I'd do it.

[atomic timber]

ooh hm

[nimble torrent]

So, I wouldn't do this in the animation blueprint.

Generally, you don't want to have objects setting other objects values.

That's generally not a great idea from an organization perspective.

[atomic timber]

would that cause issues with the idle?

i have it like idle 0, walk 200, trot 400 and run 800 (speed)

[nimble torrent]

Each object should, usually, keep their own information organized.

[nimble torrent]

I don't believe so, because you don't want to play the idle while they're sitting.

You want to play the sitting state.

[atomic timber]

ahhh okok so

[nimble torrent]

And I would cancel the sitting state at a speed of 1 or something.

Very very low.

[atomic timber]

in the.. event graph? the tick thing. this?

[nimble torrent]

Yes

[atomic timber]

ooh so greater than 1? instead of 0?

[nimble torrent]

Something like that.

[atomic timber]

gotcha, im very confused about the tick thing

i didnt realise this would be such a big thing to sort out ahaha

[nimble torrent]

Sadly, this is one of those things that you really can do in under a minute if you know how to do it.

But if you have very little understanding of blueprints - then yes, it seems quite complicated.

[atomic timber]

ahh yeah, that makes sense

[nimble torrent]

Conceptually, it's exceedingly simple.

"Are you moving? If you're moving, you can't be sitting."

[atomic timber]

should i keep these or get rid?

[nimble torrent]

Yes.

[atomic timber]

ah! yeah i see

[atomic timber]

yes get rid or yes keep hahaha

[nimble torrent]

Yes, get rid of them.

[atomic timber]

gotcha

okaaay ~ ticks.. how would i do a sitting one?

[nimble torrent]

Do you know what a branch node does in Blueprints?

[atomic timber]

ive seeen it being used, i can try haha

[nimble torrent]

You're probably going to have to watch a few introductory blueprint tutorials if you want to keep doing this kind of work.

Otherwise, this is going to continue to be really difficult.

[atomic timber]

oh noo this was the last anim.. and supposedly the hardest

for the bow animation, i do have this.. is it of any help?

[nimble torrent]

A branch node represents an 'if statement'.

If the input is true, it does the 'true' branch, and if it's false it does the 'false' branch.

[atomic timber]

oh wait no cause its a montage

[nimble torrent]

So in your example there of 'Bow', it checks "Are you busy?" and then if you're not busy (if busy == false), then you can bow and play the montage.

[atomic timber]

yess

[nimble torrent]

So for your test, you're trying to ask "Are you moving?"

So you have to check if your Move Speed value is above 0 (or above 1, I would use a non zero value because computers can be a bit weird about fully zero values).

Do you know how to check if a value is above another value?

[atomic timber]

uhhhh ive done the get velocity thing.. but i dont think thats the same

[nimble torrent]

I thought you said you had a variable called 'Move Speed'.

[atomic timber]

i do yes yes

[nimble torrent]

I'd use that.

Do you know how to compare that value to another value?

[atomic timber]

but thats in the state machine not in the event graph

[nimble torrent]

OK, well - unfortunately you have two event graphs. You have your animation BP's event graph and your Avatar BPs event graph.

So, if you want to find out how fast the character is moving, that 'Move Speed' value is set somewhere.

[atomic timber]

ahhh

its uhh

[nimble torrent]

I'd go find where it's set, and how they're setting it, and I'd use that method to get the value in the Avatar BP, where you want to check if the character is moving, so you can change the IsSitting value.

[atomic timber]

here

oh so just duplicate this whole thing into the avatar?

[nimble torrent]

Cool, so in your Avatar Base BP, you're already inside that BP, so you can just call Get Velocity directly, and then get the Vector Length in the same way, and then you have a value that is the same as Move Speed.

Do you know how to compare that to another value?

Because that's what you have to do, to see if it's above 1.

[atomic timber]

i dont think i do unf

[nimble torrent]

All right, in computer programming, we use the > and < symbols for this kind of comparison test.

[atomic timber]

i see, so i do this in the avatar or in the anim?

[nimble torrent]

So 10 > 9, and 5 < 6.

[nimble torrent]

I recommend putting this test in your Avatar Bp on the tick.

[atomic timber]

oki

[nimble torrent]

So it is run every frame.

[atomic timber]

i just have this, lol

[nimble torrent]

Cool, well, you have almost everything you need there.

[atomic timber]

ahh yay!

[nimble torrent]

The one thing you don't have is the comparison node. Grab the 'Return Value' pin off of the Vector Length node (the green one) and drag it out. Then type in '>'. This should let you create a node that is called 'Greater than' or something similar.

[atomic timber]

oh the greater than thingy! gotcha

[nimble torrent]

Yep!

So you can see that node takes two float values, and creates a boolean value.

You can plug that boolean value into the 'Branch' node's 'Condition' pin.

So then, the Branch node will only evaluate the True branch when the character is moving.

[atomic timber]

gotcha >:D

[nimble torrent]

Yep, now one more thing. Plug the 'Set' node into the true pin, and the 'Branch' nodes input pin into the end of the nodes coming off of Tick.

[atomic timber]

is this correct?

oh wait input pin

OH!

[nimble torrent]

I would also disconnect the 'Is Sitting' Get nod from it's Set node.

Because that won't do anything.

You're getting and setting the variable to itself.

So that will have no effect.

You want to Set 'IsSitting' to false.

[atomic timber]

yesyes my bad, i misread the last part of your sentence. here we go

[nimble torrent]

There you go!

That should do it.

[atomic timber]

ahhh it mostly worked !!! GAH, okay so

after sitting, when i move with wasd or whatever, the avatar moves but the (begin to sit, from standing) ainim still plays, after that the player clips back into walking (as it should)

so there is an extra stand->sit anim being played somehow

[nimble torrent]

How do you transition into the start sitting state?

[atomic timber]

just this

[nimble torrent]

So the character does not have a 'stand up' state.

They transition directly into movement?

[atomic timber]

yep

oh i could do a blend space perhaps. we didnt want it to be like, super slow for players to stand up once sat down

[nimble torrent]

OK, well - here's my guess as to what is happening.

On the frame that the player presses the control stick, the value of the velocity goes up a minuscule amount. This triggers the transition into the movement state, and then immediately out of the movement state and back into the sitting state.

Then the Avatar BP ticks, and sets sitting to false.

[atomic timber]

oooh

[nimble torrent]

But it's already too late, because we've already exited and then re-entered the sitting state.

Now, there are a variety of ways of avoiding this, but we're getting toward the hour and a half mark, and I would again reiterate the suggestion to control the exit from the sitting state with the IsSitting variable.

And not the way you were doing it with the Move Speed variable.

[lethal blaze]

hi is it possible to play with control rig controls inside of an animation blueprint? was hoping i could test some bone rotations with it paired with some anim dynamics nodes rather than playing animations

[nimble torrent]

So, I would have the exit from the IsSitting state be NOT isSitting.

[atomic timber]

AAAH it worked !

[nimble torrent]

Hurrah!

[atomic timber]

thank you SO MUCH for all the help, i appreciate it so so much

[nimble torrent]

👍

[atomic timber]

and perfect timing too, LOL i have a meeting in five minutes~ thanks again! hopefully all this animation stuff will be done for a while haha