animation

[fair narwhal]

Anyone know why my animations aren't playing on the GASP skeleton? I've been following a few different tutorials trying to understand what's wrong, but all of them just work first time. For reference, the animation montage works fine on the same skeleton, I've tried with root motion and without, RM plays on the feet (sort of) and moves the character in-game but upper body anims don't play at all. No idea how to even start troubleshooting as it's set up exactly the same as the various tutorial videos I've watched.

[velvet jasper]

Could you show your animation and how it looks in-game?

[fair narwhal]

Let me see if I can get a video. I see the character move forward, feet move (no T-Pose), but nothing upper boddy animates at all.

https://youtu.be/3JLQHSILihQ

[velvet jasper]

You haven't shown the animation you want to play.
You can use Win+Shift+R and upload .mp4s directly here instead of YT.

[fair narwhal]

ah, sorry... misunderstood

[velvet jasper]

And what's the montage settings? Blend times, assigned slot?
Could you screenshot the whole window?

[velvet jasper]

Alright, the setup seems to be correct.

From the video you've posted it looks like the animation is playing, but it just applies the root motion, which affects the character's trajectory and motion matching reacts to that.

[fair narwhal]

Is it maybe the post process Anim BP? I tried disconnecting that output pose, but didn't change anything. I've gone back and forth with Claude all day trying all kinds of stuff and nothing changes that result. 🙁 Every tutorial I've seen has this work just fine from the start so there's no changes talked about other than the Layered Blend per bone node

[velvet jasper]

Does your custom character uses same AnimBP?

[fair narwhal]

I'm using the GASP character, just added stuff to it. It's a hidden version of that skel mesh under my character's parts that are animating

[velvet jasper]

If you change your montage slot to DefaultSlot, would it play this way?

[fair narwhal]

Don't think so, but let me try. I've tried so many other things, not sure that was one 🙂

Same result

[velvet jasper]

So traversals do not work as well, right?

[fair narwhal]

That's a good question. I don't think the map made it over when I migrated and I'm not sure how to set that up in my own level

[velvet jasper]

Could you show how your character is assembled?

[fair narwhal]

Is that what you mean?

[velvet jasper]

These additional meshes, are those just static meshes attached to joints?

Could you show the details of the main mesh component?

[velvet jasper]

This is the same screenshot.

[fair narwhal]

Those are skeletal mesh components under the main mesh. All organized in Scene components

[velvet jasper]

These skeletal meshes are setup using Leader Pose component?

[fair narwhal]

I don't know what that is. They are just added under the main Mesh component hierarchically

[velvet jasper]

Wait, so each mesh has ABP assigned?

[fair narwhal]

yes, looks like it... all the same one

[velvet jasper]

Which means you have a ton of anim instances, each mesh run its own.

This is incorrect setup, please refer to that page on how to work with modular characters:
https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/unreal-engine/working-with-modular-characters-in-unreal-engine

Long story short, for all the meshes you need to call "Set Leader Pose Component" and connect your main mesh as Leader.

[fair narwhal]

Ok, I'll look into that... but why does everything from the GASP project work fine with that setup but not the added animations?

[velvet jasper]

So what happens right now is that you play the montage on your main mesh correctly, but all the body parts on top run their own anim instances and not aware of any montages playing.

[velvet jasper]

Because Motion Matching is already part of the Anim Graph.
Montages are injected during runtime to the specified anim instance.

[fair narwhal]

Yup, just unhid the base mesh in-game and I see it working

holy crap, thank you. Did this setup work with the old way of doing anim BPs? I used the Synty character modular parts like this before and montages played fine. I just assumed it was all working fine since the locomotion stuff was working, but this sort of makes sense.

Thanks for walking through all of that with me. That would have taken me forever to figure out

What's really weird is the legs and arms are doing something that looks like it's animated, but not at all the right thing. It's like he's wearing an Edgar puppet 🙂

[velvet jasper]

I haven't seen your other setup, so it's hard to tell.
Anim Graphs behave the same way since UE4.

[fair narwhal]

Well, I just looked and they all were set to use an anim graph, but didn't have one set so maybe that was the difference. I'll play around with it, but definitely need to go through that documentation and set it up properly. Thanks again

Looks like my previous setup was using Leader Pose so at least I have a good example to follow. Explains why I didn't need to set the anim BP on each piece.

[versed flare]

Or rather it isn’t working. Probably blackboard.

[wheat cairn]

hey so i think thisll be the right place to ask this but im incredibly new to unreal engine and currently just learning about basic animations, ive implemented crouching with a blendspace sequence but when my character uncrouches they kinda spring back up and their hands do a thing, ive tried searching everywhere for any info or help, i have no idea what to do lol

[velvet jasper]

Could you show your implementation?

[wheat cairn]

ii did have someone talk to me about the animgraph and i nticed im missing a few things from there so im currently working on that and hopefully it fixes it

[wheat cairn]

okay so everything is where it should be and set up but the animations just dont play i fear ive just missed something

[velvet jasper]

I don't see where you set the "Crouched?" variable in your CharBP, if that's the issue.

[wheat cairn]

wdym exactly

[velvet jasper]

And why you need a custom variable for crouching if the Character class already have built-in one

[wheat cairn]

im following a tutorial and thats just what it said i dont fully understand it yet but im just trying to get the animations to work, cause the crouch is registering but no animation

so ive missed something somewhere

[velvet jasper]

Where do you set this variable?

It looks like a custom variable that you've added manually, which means that you need to control it manually as well.
It is redundant, as Character class already has "IsCrouched" boolean that's automatically being set to true when you call Crouch function.

[wheat cairn]

ok so i think thts from my previous setup that didnt work so im trying something else but i cant add the custom variable i made and idk why

also now my character goes into a falling animation whenever i press the crouch button lmao this is funny its just getting worse

[velvet jasper]

Depends on your implementation.
You haven't shown your transition rules which are important, but I guess that's just checking the AnimBP's "IsCrouched" variable, right?

[wheat cairn]

wdym by animsbp exactly im a little lost

[velvet jasper]

How do you transition to and out of the Crouch state?

[wheat cairn]

i know im being an idiot here but do you mean keybind idk what else that means

[velvet jasper]

You have a State Machine that handles the anim states.
Between the states you have a transition rules.

[wheat cairn]

they should be corrent ive double checked them and theyre the same as the tutorial im following

the tutorial isnt too old so im just a bit confused why its not working

[velvet jasper]

Let's start from the beginning - what's not working?

[wheat cairn]

okay so i have all the animations set up on the animgraph, both idling, leaning , crouching and jumping. the idle animation works and so does the leaning but both the jump and crouch animations dont do anything, i can still jump its just not animation and crouching wokrs casue i have the collision marker circle thingy and i see it shrink, there just no animation

[velvet jasper]

How do you update the information in your AnimBP about if the character has jumped or crouched?

[wheat cairn]

through the event graph or the animgraph?

[velvet jasper]

Anim Graph is not mainly responsible for pulling the character data, so Event Graph.
As you said that you have all the animations set up in your Anim Graph, I assume that the setup there is correct.

[wheat cairn]

yeah it should be

i am a little confused with the event graph i dont think i have it set up correctly

also i dont have anything about jumping in the event graph i dont think

[velvet jasper]

Alright, so AnimBP doesn't know currently if the character has crouched or not.

[wheat cairn]

so how do i hook that up

[velvet jasper]

From your Character reference you get IsCrouched boolean.

And connect it to your ABP's IsCrouched variable.

[wheat cairn]

like this?

[velvet jasper]

Yes.

[wheat cairn]

okay now if i crouch it just puts me into a falling animation

this is my land state is it cause i have the is crouched variable there, what should be there

[velvet jasper]

This is state, what's inside the transition rule?

[velvet jasper]

And if you single-click on "To Land" state alias, what's inside the Details tab to the right?

[wheat cairn]

this?

[velvet jasper]

Alright, so the Land state could be triggered only from the active Jump state.

Where else you use that "IsCrouched" variable?

[wheat cairn]

what should this be set to casue if i put it as auto rule its doenst make me do the falling animation it just makes me crouch but doesnt activate the crouch walking i just slide around whilst crouched

[velvet jasper]

How is the falling related to the crouching?

As you're working with AnimBP from ThirdPerson template, originally there's IsFalling check.

[wheat cairn]

i had to manually add a falling variable i didnt have one by default

[velvet jasper]

So you're building AnimBP from scratch?

[wheat cairn]

i think so- is that bad lmao

[velvet jasper]

Absolutely not.

[wheat cairn]

im assuming its more difficult

or something

but i think i just created new animation bluprint and then added it to my character

[velvet jasper]

If the tutorial you're following makes you confusing, the tutorial might be not that good.

In any case, again, where else do you use that "IsCrouched" variable?

[wheat cairn]

i did switch tutorial after i origianally had the weird snapping crouch thing i sent the video about first

[wheat cairn]

in the animgraph?

[velvet jasper]

Yes.

[wheat cairn]

the red cricles are is crouched and the circle with lines through is theres not crouched

[velvet jasper]

What's inside your states related to the crouching?

[wheat cairn]

the crouch idle animation works but the crouch walk doesnt

wait i think its the stand to crouch and the crouch to stand work

but the crouch walking doesnt worj

and the jumping dosnt work but i havent gotten to redo jumping from the last tutorial that wasnt very good so i probably just have it set up wrong but the crouch walking idk why its not working

this looks okay maybe

[velvet jasper]

Could you record the issue you're having with the landing anim playing on crouch?
Win+Shift+R for screen recording.

[wheat cairn]

like this?

i tihkni fixed the weird falling loop playing on crouch when i added is falling so thats some progress

so now the only thing not working with the crouch is the crouch walk

[velvet jasper]

You have a theory why it is not working?

[wheat cairn]

im assuming something to to with the crouch walk animation isnt connected properly, or something is overiding it

[versed flare]

Not sure why but the enemy ai isnt playing the anims while moving they still stop then attack the player. so im assuming blackboard takes priority. However when they do attack their feet move. Like they slide around a bit.

[velvet jasper]

Blackboard is just a collection of parameters.

[versed flare]

i always get confused on the bb or animation tree thing

[velvet jasper]

How did you set the layered blending?

[velvet jasper]

And the node settings

[velvet jasper]

Logic seems correct.

[velvet jasper]

If the issue still relevant, could you show your transition rule here?

[versed flare]

i think it is playing the idle animation on the bottom half and the attack on the top. But never attack on top and running on the bottom.

I dont know how to fix that

[velvet jasper]

Could you show how it looks?

Provide any possible context, if you want to acquire the help efficiently.

[versed flare]

ill link a video showing it in a sec

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

[velvet jasper]

Logic works correctly, you have a foot sliding in general.

[versed flare]

foot sliding goes away if i just go locomotion - slot default slot- output pose

[velvet jasper]

I see the foot sliding directly in the BlendSpace.

[versed flare]

the part i want to be working is the enemies attacking as the player is close enough

without stopping the running anim so they can attack while he passes by

[velvet jasper]

That depends on the timing when you start the montage.

[versed flare]

here is a pic of the behavior tree. its a mess i know

[velvet jasper]

Have you debugged it?

Like, you sure this part gets called during the movement?

[versed flare]

I should do that yeah

[versed flare]

this seems to be the issue. Normally it is set to something but wouldnt work no matter what was placed here.

the blackboard based condition in dark blue

outlined in red

[velvet jasper]

I was about to ask where you update your ShouldMove boolean, but if the anim logic works now after restart, that’s good.

[velvet jasper]

Lower the value here.

[velvet jasper]

Well, the “slam” you’re probably talking about, as I assume, relates to the additive landing animation playing as soon as the character lands.
Am I understanding you correctly?

You can change the play rate of the player node.
Alpha value of Apply Additive node controls how much of the animation you want to apply.

If you click on MM_Land node, there would be settings of this node in the details tab to the right.
There you can tweak a play rate.

The value I’ve mentioned before relates to the weight of the animation.

To be honest, looks fine to me.

The transition to standing is off, but that's a different topic.

I just told you how to adjust the additive landing animation.

Setting up Sync Groups for standing and crouching movement sequence players might help.
https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/unreal-engine/animation-sync-groups-in-unreal-engine

You mean limit the actual capsule movement? No, this is only about the visuals.

[velvet jasper]

You'd have to change the Max Walk Speed in your Character Movememt Component reference.
How and where are you going to do it is up to you.

One of the solutions would be to use Skeleton Anim Notifies - you add a notify to your anim sequence, then it becomes available in your AnimBP's Event Graph as the event you can add, there you can write your logic there.

There are other advanced ways, this would be the easiest for the beginning.

Yes.

[velvet jasper]

Provide any possible context, if you want to acquire the help efficiently.

How would you define if the character sprinting or not?

What do you usually do to turn the lights on?

I mean, in real life.

Can we describe the sprinting state as a switch?

Yes, but in case of sprinting you have to manually create the "IsSprinting" variable and set it to true when character sprints and back to false when it's not.

Can't?

Character Blueprint and Anim Blueprint do not share the variables.

Where would you set your sprinting state to true?

How?

So you have this variable in your Character BP

And if you drag out the pin from your Character ref in AnimBP, the search doesn’t show it?

Yeah, logical. Your variable doesn’t reference your actual blueprint.

Its type is just Character.

Which is a base class of your player blueprint.

As I said, Character class has built in IsCrouching variable.
It’s in the code originally.

Your player blueprint is child of Character class.

Yes.

So in order to pull that custom stuff, engine needs to know where to pull it from.

So your character reference variable type should be assigned to your blueprint class.

If you look at your variables list, there’s two columns - name and type.

Here you go.

Try it.

Could you show me how you set that Character ref in your Event Graph?

Do you set your character ref in your character blueprint?

Yet you have it and it's working.

Anim Graph has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

In order to make your AnimBP know if the character is sprinting or not, you have to pull that data from your custom Character class, the blueprint where you set the core logic.
Yes, you can update your variables like this - by casting to your BP on each update.

Usually, it is more efficient and convenient to store the reference to your character as a variable and pull the data from this reference.

In order to switch between the inputs based on a boolean, you can use Blend By Bool node

Looping turned on where?

What's here?

And what's the transition rule to the Sprinting Locomotion?

I'd suggest doing a debugging by starting the game, then pressing Shift+F1, opening up your AnimBP, then selecting your blueprint instance here.
That way you can switch back to your game and see how the Anim Graph updates in real time.

[velvet jasper]

I'm not getting the logic here - you have a transition state with the start sprint animation that then transitions to the sub state machine that has it's own idle, start sprint again, sprint loop etc.

[velvet jasper]

That's nice to know that you're making good progress 🙂

That was my goal, yeah.

What kind of limit you're talking about?

[velvet jasper]

You can try increasing a Braking Friction or Deceleration Speed in your Character Movement Component settings.

That explains, yeah.

As usual, requesting a clip

Check Ground Friction in CMC as well.

So you set all the friction parameters back to default values, right?

Could you search for "deceleration" keyword and see if anything changed there as well.

Now show the search result with "friction" keyword.

Turn off separate braking friction and set the friction factor to 2.

Hm, do you change anything for the sprint except Max Walk Speed?

Do you change anything else besides Max Walk Speed with notifies, if you doing it?

Alright, nothing problematic. I see that the character eventually stops at 0:10.

Like you can make it stop.

Is this function used? If so, what it does?

And what Start and Stop Sprinting functions do?

Why you set Walk Speed two times?

Leave only one speed change.

I mean, you change the walk speed to 600 in sub-function, then set it to 800 afterwards

Stamina system has nothing to do with, there's just no point in this code here as you're already doing it in the sub-functions

[mellow urchin]

did anyone find a solution to the linked anim sequences using the start and end frame instead of there own start and end

[velvet jasper]

What’s the issue here?
The linked anim sequence is controlled by the level sequence asset, so it is logical to have time range synchronized.

[mellow urchin]

yea but you would have multible skeletal assets in there

if you create a linked anim sequence for a skeletal mesh i would assume it to have its own start and end frame

[velvet jasper]

I don’t think this is correct workflow, at least that probably wasn’t planned to use it this way by design.

Each animation sequence has its own level sequence.
If you have multiple anim clips, they should be baked down to their own animation sequences.

[mellow urchin]

hrm i would end up with a bazillion level sequences

thats annoying

[versed flare]

Looks like the bottom right attack nod isn’t firing.

[hollow wadi]

Hi, can anyone describe a situation where a Warp Point Anim Provider should be used?

[velvet jasper]

Are you talking about Motion Warping notify settings or something specific?

[hollow wadi]

Yes, that's it

[velvet jasper]

It's just an additional way to describe how the warp point function for the motion warping notify.
By default, it set to none, and it's up to you to define a name of the point and call the function during runtime to add transform data for this point to character's motion warping component.

Static mode means that you can "hard-code" the warp point transform, relative to the mesh component.
It's hard for me to come up with the use case, maybe it might be useful for modifying the animation, like additional offset to the dash animation.

Bone mode means that the root bone warp would happen relative to the character's joint.
The example of usage would be GASP traversal animations, where character would be aligned relative to "attach" joint that represents the edge of the climbable object.

[hollow wadi]

Thanks for the detailed answer, Dan 😁 . I'm not familiar with how GASP traversal animation work, but if my understanding is correct, the attach joint would need to be updated at runtime to match the transform of a climbable's object ledge, is that right?

[tidal cargo]

So I made these animation with the ue5 model and I cant test it since my laptop cant run unreal, I was wondering if someone can help my test to see if these animations works in-engine.

[velvet jasper]

You mean procedurally? Not exactly.

I actually just figured that the Anim Provider means a different thing.
It basically describes a pivot point for root bone transformation.

By default, Motion Warping would manipulate the root bone itself and warp it to the defined warp point.
So if you provide a static transform or joint name, it’d warp those transforms and position the root accordingly.

In case of GASP traversals, this joint was specifically “animated” (constrained to the point in space where the climbable object’s edge would be ) to be as a guide for animation systems - game would find the actual edge and, based on a context, would motion match the fitting animation by comparing the hit trace result with the “attach” joint from all of the animations in the database.
While the traversal animation plays, the character will align to the physical edge by its attach joint.

I hope I explained it understandably 🙂

[velvet jasper]

Yeah, you can drop the files.
But why would you want to look at the animations specifically in Unreal?

[tidal cargo]

well I used the unreal engine mannequin so it seems right

[velvet jasper]

As you wish 🙂
Send me a DM.

[runic peak]

Do I need to play or something? My AnimBP isn't going through it's nodes.

[velvet jasper]

Is the issue still relevant?

[sturdy oar]

uaf can inject montages though, i hope they drop some fancy features in 5.8

[velvet jasper]

5.8 has Montage Trait, but Control Rig Trait is still broken though differently (variables are not exposed at all).

[sturdy oar]

@velvet jasper i tried it but didn work have you ?

[velvet jasper]

Last time I've tried it on main branch source build a couple of months ago and it worked, haven't actually tested in 5.8.

[sturdy oar]

@velvet jasper I've been playing with it since yesterday to get a feel for it. I probably did something stupid, but thanks for the heads-up

[velvet jasper]

Works in 5.8.

[sturdy oar]

ah great!

[rotund musk]

<@&213101288538374145>

https://tenor.com/view/you-are-my-competitors-scam-2003-telgi-the-telgi-story-abdul-karim-telgi-gif-475825752497390381

[hollow wadi]

Thank you so much. So this is basically an offset from the root bone's transform, right? If we didn't use a bone anim provider for climb animation I guess the warping would be based on the root bone rather than the attach joint and we would need to take into account that offset when warp target transform is set.

[velvet jasper]

Yup.

[versed flare]

What typically is better for performance? Using behavior trees or setting up the logic in character bps?

[velvet jasper]

I don’t think that’s animation related question.
#gameplay-ai might be better fit.

[runic peak]

Yeah, it still isn't playing anything. Even when I just hooked the walk in directly.

The skeleton and mesh are both correct.

[velvet jasper]

The anim asset is correct, right?

[runic peak]

Yes.

[mild brook]

Hey all. This might be a super noob-ish question.

I've imported a new skeletal mesh that fits on Manny, but when I swap to that new mesh his root isn't locked and he walks away from where the character actually is.
After searching for a fix online the advice is usually to "lock root node" on the animation -but these meshes are all using the same animations.
Is there something super basic I am missing or have I overlooked something on importing the SKM FBX?
Thanks for any help!

[velvet jasper]

Alright, so you plug your animation to the result input, press compile and character keeps playing some specific animation, correct?

[velvet jasper]

Could you show the hierarchy of that new mesh?

[mild brook]

the blueprint or the bones?

[velvet jasper]

Bones

[mild brook]

BTW I am loving your game🔥

I have to step out, but thanks! I will post back if I figure it out 🙂

[velvet jasper]

Yeah, the first bone should not be there, the root motion is broken now for this skeleton.

[runic peak]

The animation blueprint doesn't seem to play at all.

[velvet jasper]

Hm, this is very weird behavior.
Does that happen only with this specific mesh?

[runic peak]

I haven't tried another mesh yet with the same skeleton.

[velvet jasper]

Out of interest, could you show your skeleton hierarchy as well?

[runic peak]

You can see this animation plays fine too

Also in fact here is that same animation I showed in my animBP that should be showing, playing just fine on the same mesh.

[velvet jasper]

Alright, could you make a short video where you create a fresh AnimBP, add your animation to the Anim Graph and compile that blueprint?
Win+Shift+R, if that's needed.

[velvet jasper]

Could you DM me the FBXs, if it's possible for you?

[runic peak]

Yes. For the animation?

[mild brook]

Took me a while to get home but it worked! Thank you so much. Stupid Maya put it in a group which I was re exporting out (I mean, maybe it was me but I'm going to blame Maya)

Thanks again!🍻

[magic pasture]

I am having issues with my muzzle flash particle effect not staying aligned with the muzzle socket that I have it attached to, especailly when I aim down sights.

[velvet jasper]

Are you using First Person rendering?

[velvet jasper]

It’s not Maya. When you export the meshes from Unreal, it packs both mesh and the skeleton to a dummy node.
Don’t know why, but it is what it is.

[west cedar]

Hello is there anyone who can help me with converting fbx control rig to p3d file for Arma, I tried all I know including installing the Arma toolbox on blender to convert

[velvet jasper]

FBX Control Rig?

[velvet jasper]

To be honest, that question feels out of scope of this channel.
Arma modding community might be a better fit.

[west cedar]

Ok thanks so much

[magic pasture]

I am not too sure what you mean. I am basically using the old first person template from Unreal with some arms and animations added.

[velvet jasper]

FP template where the legs could be seen or just the arms?

[magic pasture]

Just the arms. So spring arm, camera, arms.

[rotund musk]

https://tenor.com/view/sailormoon-art-wallpaper-sailor-moon-gif-20236673

[velvet jasper]

If the issue still relevant, could you check if that happens when you attach some mesh to the pistol or only with emitters?

[magic pasture]

It seems to persist with or without the pistol. I don

t know if it is the animation the arms make when aiming down sights or what

[velvet jasper]

What’s the difference between BP_Pistol and SK_Pistol in your code?

I see that you play the animation on the former.

But attach the emitter to the latter.

[magic pasture]

BP_Pistol is my pistol BP actor that I created. I was trying to make it so the character has firing logic, but I think I got crossed up somewhere. currently the firing logic you see is in the character BP but am thinking I may need to set up a proper weapon logic

[velvet jasper]

So, logically you need to attach your muzzle flash to that BP, right?

[brisk sapphire]

In Blender I’m making FPS rig and using bone constraint called “child of” on character hand bones to hold weapon but the animation of weapon won’t match with arms in UE since the arms don’t get their own animation that belonged with the guns
animation.

What I’m tryna ask is how do I turn the constraint movement in the arms into an animation for the FPS arms so they are in sync.

For example idle animation where gun sways up/down and hands follow in blender due to constraints but what happens on export is no hand bones have constraint so arms don’t have the idle animation (sense all that was animated was just the gun and I let that decide hand movement but that isn’t a animation that is keyed)

If I need to provide more information or a better explanation let me know.

[magic pasture]

Attaching it in my BP did nothing unfortunately. Basically the muzzle flash stays in the location of the pistol when it is using hip fire. I can't figure it out

[velvet jasper]

Are you trying to attach to BP directly or you getting the mesh reference first?
If you get the socket transform and draw a debug point at acquired location, where will it be?

[velvet jasper]

If I understand your question correctly,
usual in-game implementation would look like this:
Character mesh, contains a weapon joint.
->lowerarm_r
—>hand_r
—->weapon_r

Weapon mesh, approximate hierarchy:
->Root
-->Clip
-->Slide
-->Trigger

In DCC, the weapon’s root joint gets parent constrained to hands weapon joint, this joint is used for weapon posing and animation relative to the hand.
Then the animations gets exported both for the character and the weapon.
In Unreal we repeat the same setup where we attach the weapon mesh to the character's weapon joint.

[forest spear]

heyo quick question, how long can a model load into ue5 after blender export?

[velvet jasper]

A couple of seconds, DCC doesn’t play a big role here.

[forest spear]

okay i am waiting since minutes now. only when i use chars from blender that are a bit more complex- if i use mixamo stuff for testing it opens instant

[velvet jasper]

Depends on what you export out, like what’s inside your result FBX.

Check your Output Log in Unreal, there could be some information related to the import process.

[forest spear]

okay thank you

[vast schooner]

why can be this happening?

[velvet jasper]

Do you play the animation on the weapon or is the mesh just attached to the hands?

[vast schooner]

im not really sure its my first time trying to set up animation in ue

i was following a tutorial but ig i messed up somewhere a little

[velvet jasper]

Needs more context on what’s happening here then.

Because there’s at least two possible issues I could assume.

[vast schooner]

do u speak russian? just saw a RU flag in ur desc

we can move to dms

just dont want to flood in russian in here

[brisk sapphire]

Oh my bro the tutorial I follow made me make hands follow gun and not gun follow hands it was hurting my head so much lol . So just to make sure I understand, what your saying is in blender I animate the hands and attach guns with “child of” constraint to hand then I animate hands so I can do stuff like idle Anim and junk then in ue5 I add socket and align gun as close as possible to area it was at in blender when attached to hand?

[velvet jasper]

When you animate, it would be logical for the animation rig to make hands follow the gun. But on the low level, the gun should follow the single hand.
You won't need a socket as you'd have a joint to attach directly.

[brisk sapphire]

Ok I’m new to this kind of stuff so I’m sorry if these questions are silly, but in that case when I’m animating the gun(and hands follow gun), for example for a idle animation, how will the arms know what animation to play since they only follow gun by constraint and have no animation.

The gun has the idle animation but the arms won’t since they have never been keyed and only follow the gun in blender due to the Child of constraint

[velvet jasper]

Well, when you export the animation, it gets baked down to the joints and as a result you get Animation Sequences in the engine.

[brisk sapphire]

Oh it’s just an automatic process on export, so It just generates the sequences in the engine ?

[velvet jasper]

Engine just imports what it sees in FBX. The animation highly likely would get baked down to your meshes skeleton.

[brisk sapphire]

Alright thanks, I’ll export a generic animation I make eventually just so I can understand and see the process actually in affect. Apparently I was just worrying over nothing lol

[sharp raft]

If an fbx has 2 animations, how do I find the 2nd in Unreal?

[velvet jasper]

Unreal usually automatically imports all the animations found in FBX, so they would be at same place.

[prisma heath]

So i'd like to ask

What do i do for my game???

I have 1,700 animations for my AI, but idk what to do when it comes to animations.

[velvet jasper]

You implement what you need for your game design.

[prisma heath]

I know, but i mean what may i need?

Like an ABP or Motion Matching?

Or something else?

[velvet jasper]

I don’t know what kind of animations you have and what’s your skill set.

[prisma heath]

Its really just Rifle and Pistol animations similar to the GASP

[velvet jasper]

Similar or the same animations with the pose applied?

[prisma heath]

Similar, though i can send the video of the animations if you'd like?

I found it on YT and thought it looked good for my game

[velvet jasper]

If that are the ones from FAB, then no need.
Those are just animations from GASP.

To be honest, I have no idea why those exist and what to do with them.

Other than replacing the animations databases in GASP or practicing Motion Matching setup.

[prisma heath]

Alright.

[sudden sedge]

I'm wanting to make an fps character where the lower body has the walks/runs then the upper body has the gun aiming and reloading/whatever other gestures. Is there a good guide for setting up that kind of system?

One of the things I'm having issues with is getting the hands to align

[velvet jasper]

Won’t be able to provide the guide, but can answer the questions.

[sudden sedge]

Ah, the issue is what I have is a bit nebulous since I haven't really attempted a super deep implementation. So I wouldn't really be able to ask specific questions

But generally when blending the upper body with the lower body, I try to have the lower animations still influence the spine. But the issue with that is it causes the hands to misalign

I was trying to use IK, but I don't have a way to get the animation pre-subtraction

[velvet jasper]

Do you use mesh space blending?

[velvet jasper]

You can cache your pose first, then blend the caches and acquire needed information from these caches.

[dire thorn]

Hey guys, What is the best method to prevent the character to dip below the surface of a object like a road laying on terrain/mesh? Is this due to the IK of the legs and how would I best avoid this behaviour?

Is there a way to say if the collision distance is so small (like a road on terrain) that it ignores it? And only does when its like 20-30cm distances instead?

[velvet jasper]

Mesh Collision and collision responses.

[dire thorn]

Thanks for the response, can you elaborate a bit on the subject? Is there a way to force the IK to keep to the first collision it finds with collision responses?

[velvet jasper]

There’s no forcing, it’s a line/sphere trace. Whatever it hits based on the function settings would be the first hit result.
What’s your Feet IK setup and does your road mesh has collision?

[dire thorn]

The IK setup is the default manny one and yes the road mesh has collision. Though I do notice differences between the mesh by itself and the mesh following a spline.

(Image 1) The mesh works fine even when the mesh is pritty close to the ground.

(Image 2) The splined mesh reacts easier to the ground being close to it. But when its further away the collision works as intended.

When raising the spline further off the ground and thus creating a larger gap between the splined mesh and the ground surface, everthing works properly again. (as seen in the image)

[velvet jasper]

In that case, check the resulted collision of the generated spline mesh.

[dire thorn]

This is the collision settings of the mesh and this is the splined mesh one. Its a plugin I bought ages ago, Not entirely sure how to see the channels specifically.

[velvet jasper]

If you type “show collision” in console during PIE, how do the meshes look?

[dire thorn]

They both show the same type of collision on the road surface (Its a simple box collision I added while trying to figure out the issue)

I think

I do notice when using player collision view, the spline looks like it should only block visibility. But the shape is only due to the box collision I added, its not even being respected by the pawn.

Wait, I see something. On the spline. The character does not respect the border, using the IK feet. The right foot is clipping through the stones.

While on the mesh it does.

Inside the spline, i notice it adds the collision type.. But not the channels. Should I add the channels after the Set Collision Enabled?

Adding the channels and setting it to block all fixes the edges for the FootIK.

Eureka, its indeed because the spline does not fill in the information for the channels at all. Now the spline works as intended, i think. Will test it further with some other meshes

Thank you very much @velvet jasper for the push in the right direction.

[velvet jasper]

You could also eject from the player, select the spline actor, pick the mesh component in the component list and see what’s going on with it.

[dire thorn]

i'll have a look at that tomorrow.

[ivory osprey]

You could also debug this in the control rig itself. You can spawn debug spheres / shapes where the collision hits / check its trace channel. But glad you were able to find the solution!

I only say this because I have no doubt control rig will be an issue in the future and its good to get familiar with it

[north grotto]

I want to add different jump while he is running I am so confused what to do

[velvet jasper]

What is confusing for you?

[north grotto]

like when my character is ideal he can jump but while running he should have different jump animation so I'm struggling to implement that second jump aniimation

@velvet jasper

[velvet jasper]

But what exactly is a main struggle here?
Core condition logic or technical setup inside the BP?

Because in a nutshell, it'd look like this - character has jumped, AnimBP checks is the character moving or not and based on that picks the animation.

[north grotto]

setting the logic in BP

I put a montage for ideal jump in character blueprint

but I dont know how to bring another jump animation

[velvet jasper]

"ideal"? You mean "Idle"?

[north grotto]

idle

[velvet jasper]

Check the player's speed, use a condition if the value above the threshold.
You can either use Branch execution node or Select node for the Play Montage node's anim asset.

[north grotto]

hey man can we have voice chat

[velvet jasper]

Unfortunately, I can't voice chat.

[north grotto]

I have so much to show and ask so yea when can we do that session then

[north grotto]

.

[velvet jasper]

I prefer to stick to text messages.
If you have questions, but you don't want to flood the main channel - create a sub-thread here.

[north grotto]

ok

[random hatch]

Hi, I have a normal UE4 Physics Asset. This character mesh uses the UE4 Skeleton, and animations run fine on it. But as soon as it goes into physics/ragdoll, the head gets sucked in and the shoulders raise up strongly.

[velvet jasper]

Does it use Phys Asset custom for this specific mesh?

[random hatch]

HI iam not sure what you mean, so i use the normal ue4 PhysAsset and i use it as an overwrite in the Character BP

[velvet jasper]

If the PhysAsset has been authored for a character with different skeletal proportions, the physics setup might not work correctly.

There's no thing such as "normal".
The Phys Asset by itself contains nothing, it should be filled in with the data and can't exist without the context.

Additionally, the shrinking phys bodies is a usual symptom of bone scaling issue.
Have you changed the import scale of your mesh? Could you check the root bone scale in Skeleton Tree?

[random hatch]

yes i will recheck of the things you mentioned

[random hatch]

i import them as basic as possible, and i use a target skeletin inthe setting UE4 MAnnequin

i jsy foudn that when i hit antohter preview mesh on the physasset i use the collsision wander off

in the noral ue4 mannequin all fine

[velvet jasper]

Are your custom meshes same in proportions?

[random hatch]

some are atheletic tall males, others are smalelr fat ones

skinny womens

ect all a bit different

[velvet jasper]

Each “body type” would need its own Phys Asset.

[random hatch]

yea i was hoping i can get around that

[velvet jasper]

PhysAssets could be shared only if the bones are same.

If they’re not, things would break.

[random hatch]

ok, well then i have to do that

thanks for your Time Dan!

[random hatch]

A quick follow up, i tried to copy the basic physics asset, and used the custom mesh of the overweight Dude. I dragged the physics bodies to the visual right place of the Skeletal Mesh, including constraints. Using the Asset on the mesh i set it for… but exactly the same, shoulders up head sucked in. Is modifying the PhyAs not able to simply drag bodies and constraints into positions? What i oversee?

[velvet jasper]

I'm not sure that I understand your text correctly.

Just copy-pasting PhysBodies is not enough as it doesn't solve the constraint relationship issue.
Each constraint has Parent and Child transforms - if some of these settings are too off, you get the broken relationship.

Select all constraints with Ctrl+Shift+A, right-click at one of the constraints, select "Snap" -> "Snap All Transforms".
If that doesn't help, try "Reset" option as well.

[north grotto]

ok when I did this my entire idle jump animation got replaced with running jump and then my character is zoning out of thin air and coming back

[velvet jasper]

Could you share a clip and your logic, please?

[north grotto]

I'll send you more in short

[velvet jasper]

Well, the warnings are self-explanatory.
Regarding a condition, why do you use some BPC Stamina?

Do you understand what these nodes do?

[north grotto]

yea I should add the second landing animation for running one but I cant find that in mixamo

[velvet jasper]

I'm not sure how's that related.
Can you describe the logic at the screenshot above?

And can you describe the condition here?

[north grotto]

so I'm using Bpc actor component blueprint to store 3 movement speeds of my character:

1. Jog speed 200 2. Run speed 400 3. Standard Run speed 600
   now the condition I used is like if my character is running higher than 400 (which is St Run) is true then running jump animation should occur if not then normal one

ohh I see the mistake

running one should be there all time while idle one when not running so ho write that logic

🤔

[velvet jasper]

I suggest looking into how your AnimBP detects if the character is moving.

[north grotto]

ok

the first one is for idle jump 2nd one is for running jump

I thought to make 2 separate event triggers for each jump anim

to see if it works

[velvet jasper]

There's an issue with your jump animation trigger condition.
There's an issue with the animation node setup in your "Land" animation state.

[north grotto]

I should have shown how my animations were looking too lol

[north grotto]

so what should I have done here then just put only "falling to landing" animation then as an additive to loco cache and so am I supposed to make one jump condition then?

and add running jump as a separate additive then but how would I do that did not find right tutorial in youtube yet or did not get the right way to put it

[versed flare]

So Dan what do you know about optimizing animations?

[velvet jasper]

Do you understand what the additive animation is?

And what kind of logic is happening in your setup?

[velvet jasper]

Depends on what you trying to ask exactly.

Unreal documentation has some pages related to Animation Optimization:
https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/unreal-engine/animation-optimization-in-unreal-engine

https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/knowledge-base/xBZp/unreal-engine-performance-tips-tricks-animation

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

[north grotto]

it means to add one animation to one already existing one that is already happening

[velvet jasper]

https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/unreal-engine/animation-sequence-editor-in-unreal-engine#animationassetdetails

[north grotto]

👍

[versed flare]

ok thank you

[random hatch]

Yes that is helping! Thanks Dan

[sharp raft]

Does anyone know why 1 of my animations goes whacky?

[velvet jasper]

Depends on how this animation was done.

[sharp raft]

All made in blender. It works in blender:

[velvet jasper]

Yeah, but technically what is involved besides bone rotation and translation?
Bone Scaling? Blendshapes?

[ivory osprey]

Try importing the FBX into blender to check if any export settings are causing it 🤔

[sharp raft]

When I import the FBX it is also deformed. So the problem is not Blender >to Unreal.

[ivory osprey]

Oh good! That narrows down the suspects then 🙏

[torpid smelt]

Hi quick question, how do you rotate actor in Contextual Anim Scene without changing the pivot direction? Any way to rotate root 180 on Z in Anim Montage or Anim Seq, or do I have to reimport?

[torpid smelt]

nvm simplest solution as always, reimported it 😄

[junior seal]

if anyone here is good at ue4 animation trees i've posted a job in the freelance channel

[north grotto]

Man I give up I did not find right solution to jumping and landing problem

ok here's the thing my running jump animation seems to move forward here right so how can I make it such a way that when my character jumps while running the camera also moves with the jump instead of just character jumping forward while the camera remains static

like here

sorry dont mind landing animation right now I messed it up I did not set it to no additive so it looks a bit wonky

man I only get problem when I try to apply running jump wtf

[oblique rampart]

Ummmmmm.... Why is her tail doing that in the Anim Montage????? I have it keyframed properly in the animation file, why is it... different in the montage?🫠

[velvet jasper]

1. Your Jump action condition (where you decide which anim to play) won't work, as you're working with the static number.
   Your AnimBP has an example how to acquire the needed values to define if the character is moving or not.

2. Your jumping animation has the character moving in the scene, but the root bone is not moving.
   The easiest way for you would be to redownload the animation from Mixamo with "In-Place" option.

3. Your landing animation breaks because you're trying to apply the additive animation logic to non-additive animations.
   If the Sequence Player node is red, it is a standard animation. If it's green - additive.
   Logically, your base always would be your locomotion, and the additive input would be the animation you want to apply on top.
   If you haven't planned to use the additives - get rid of these nodes.

[velvet jasper]

Does that happen in-game as well?

[oblique rampart]

Yep! In game, in montages, in the BSD/ABP but the anim files look fine?

[velvet jasper]

If you select your tail joints in the skeleton tree, how do they look when the animation is deformed?

I see you have Retarget Source assigned - do you have multiple characters assigned to a single skeleton asset?

[oblique rampart]

The x rotation changes in the montage of the base bone, from 160' to -18 (the same as the reference rotation 🤔 )

[oblique rampart]

Not for this character, she has a unique skeleton

[velvet jasper]

So, "cc_base_pelvis" is correct there?

[oblique rampart]

Yeah it has unchanged rotation from the original file

I haven't changed the retargeting options either, it's set to Animation

[north grotto]

Damn that's pretty cool thanks I should check again

[velvet jasper]

Well, to be honest, I don't have a clear idea what's going on in your case.
If you import your anim FBX back to your DCC, does the tail joints have keys?

[oblique rampart]

Yeah that worked! I had to export it first since it was originally retargeted, thankfully there's only a handful of animations to do this for. Thank you Dan!🌟

[mild finch]

Hi!!! i have a problem with my character rotation head settings in my event graph ... I want to use live link and have the head rotating too. I did this but the rotation is mixed up , when i look up it turns left... when i look down it turns etc... here is my event graph and anim graph , anybody knows how to help fixing this? 😢

[velvet jasper]

Which space are you using in the bone transform nodes?

The rotations are connected weirdly.
For example, Head Yaw curve is connected to head’s roll rotation.

Instead of each node having its own rotation variable, you can use a single rotation variable but normalize the weight between the transform nodes.
1/3 gives us approximately 0.33, this is what you can set as an Alpha value for all of them. Alternatively, you can use your multiplication values.

[crude jewel]

Hello ! Sorry to bother, but me and my workgroup are currently encountering an issue with setting up physics on an animation blueprint : we have made a physical asset and created bones in the hair to apply physics to, and by itself the hair moves fine ! physics work with no issues. the problem is that when put inside of the animation blueprint for our character, the hair physics stop working. The hair is set as a child of the body it is attached to, simulate physics is on, collisions have been done, and we also tried to use the physics asset of the hair to override the one of the body, to no avail, the hair stays in place without movement. If anyone had an idea of what is causing issues, we'd love to hear your thoughts ! We are a bit of at a loss and have been pulling our hairs (lol) over it for over a day now...

[velvet jasper]

How do you implement it? RigidBody node?
If so, have you set the physics bodies to Simulated mode?

https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/unreal-engine/animation-blueprint-rigid-body-in-unreal-engine

[crude jewel]

yes they have, i checked and like in the documentation all the other bones are sets to kinematics (1st pic) and the hair bones (2nd pic) are set to simulated, and it's not working :/

[velvet jasper]

So, if you add a RigidBody node to your Anim Graph, does it move?
Can you see the phys bodies when the node is selected?

[crude jewel]

it doesn't move inside the AB we made for it either no, we added the rigibody node but we can't select the hair inside the preview to test it when simulating, and it also doesn't move in the general viewport. The physics only seem to be able to function in the physical asset

[velvet jasper]

You're not supposed to select them there, they are only for the preview.
What's the simulation space set in the node settings?

[crude jewel]

It's set to "component space"

[velvet jasper]

Try "World Space".
Make sure the mesh component in your blueprint has no physics simulation options enabled.

[crude jewel]

Ok i think i found the problem (not sure tho) but in world space in my physics assets they are simulated but in my world they were frozen? so i just changed it everywhere to "simulated" and it seems to work!
thanks so much for the help!

[velvet jasper]

Also, when you turn on the physics simulation for the mesh component itself, make sure it has correct collision settings.
You can just set the "PhysicsActor" or "Ragdoll" collision profile.

[ivory osprey]

The correct setup for phys assets going through a rigid body anim node is setting simulated bodies to “Simulated” and static bodies to “Kinematic” . Then you switch the solver type in the phys asset from “World” to “RBAN” (which stands for Rigid Body Animation Node 😊 )

And I tend to use “Base Bone Space” set to the Root bone instead of Component/World

Oh but if you need world collisions then yeah… I think it needs to be set to WorldSpace. Check the logs, I think UE yells at you if the proper space isnt being used

[mild finch]

i'm not sure i understand, i followed this tutorial and i got confuse indeed when she started putting them not in the same connections but turned out fine with her tho... i watched this https://youtu.be/L8RckB9ZRJE?si=vbWgTrNrK3_Dj4Wd&t=653 , i changed the alpha in the anim graph but i don't understand how to have just one variable; i mean then how to connect to the variable of upperneck rotation or head rotation ? i must be asking dumbed question sorry ...

[velvet jasper]

Quick setup I did without looking at the tutorial, using Mannequin mesh.

Pitch and Roll are misplaced when transforming the joints, so I had to swap the values.
Changing the Rotation Space from Component to World space did nothing, though in theory it should have.
In order to get a 1-to-1 rotation I had to flip the Roll value, then flip the whole rotation.

[covert widget]

Hello, i have been trying for a while, but still can't seem to find any info on how to blend alembic cache animations. Each one is imported as a skeletal mesh, skeleton and animation sequence. I have a few cloth simulations and i would like to use them for a third person character meaning i need them to loop smoothly and transition smoothly form one to another. ( i also can't figure out how to manualy change the lenght of the animation sequence). If anyone knows something or has some tutorial please help out.

[velvet jasper]

In theory, if you merge all of your simulations into one Alembic, then import it as a Skeletal Mesh, you'll have a master anim sequence that you would be able to work with, like trimming etc.

For editing, you can use Sequencer.
Edit the animation section as needed, then bake the result to a separate asset.

That way you'll have a bunch of sequences that you would be able to use for your locomotion logic.

[covert widget]

Thanks. That should work, but there is still the problem of blending smoothly between alembics in real time

[velvet jasper]

Could you show what you mean?
Blending obviously might look off if the poses change drastically, as the engine blends the blendshape curves, not the joints.

[real atlas]

how do I make this... actually work? jump usually slowly blends to the fall animation, but if you jump onto a rope it should use the 2nd much quicker transition, but it doesnt even though I set it to higher priority

[velvet jasper]

Could you show the settings for both rules?

[velvet jasper]

I mean, the priority settings.

[real atlas]

just 1 and 2?

[velvet jasper]

The ones that you're asking about.

[real atlas]

yes

theyre just 1 and 2

[velvet jasper]

Swap the numbers.
In the Transition Rules, lower number means higher priority.

[real atlas]

🤦‍♂️ oh man how could I even miss that, thanks I never would have even guessed that

oh

nothing changed

I imagine they also cant be interrupted if they already started?

[velvet jasper]

Hm, does the default transition kicks in immediately after the jump?

Hacky way might be to create a custom Blend Logic and manipulate with alpha value directly.

[real atlas]

well quarter of the way through the animation so its pretty quick

hmm I guess that could work

[velvet jasper]

As I understand, the moment you land on a rope happens much later than the default transition logic.

[real atlas]

yeah pretty much, I guess what I should have said is it kinda needs to interrupt the other blend

then come to think of it I suppose I could put the rope anims in both if it doesnt cause any extra issues

ok yeah that did it lol

but thanks for the help, Im pretty slow today so I wouldnt have thought of it without this

[velvet jasper]

Alternatively, Jump animation could be triggered through the Anim Montage instead that you can manipulate freely.

[hybrid kayak]

so im using the defualt first person unreal proejct and im looking into their animation blueprint and i've noticed it doesn't have any locomotion by default. So how is it possible that the FP template provides walking, jumping, and runninganimations but doesn't have any locomotion?

[velvet jasper]

Take a closer look at the character's blueprint.

Its components, to be specific.

[hybrid kayak]

I'm not actually sure how to look at the components of a blueprint. I know if you search in its blueprint you see all of the properties in all the components of the actor.

[velvet jasper]

List where the capsule, the mesh, the camera etc.
This is all components.

[hybrid kayak]

sorry i'm having trouble finding what you're hinting at

i see the components though

[velvet jasper]

What do you see there?

[hybrid kayak]

im looking at the meshes and i see a lot of different properties:

The animiaton tab just references the abp i sent eariler so im assuming thats not what you were talking about

[velvet jasper]

Yeah, but what happens before.

[hybrid kayak]

It copies the bones from somewhere?

[velvet jasper]

From somewhere? What would be your guess?

[hybrid kayak]

Is it here? The mesh?

[velvet jasper]

Go back to component list.

[hybrid kayak]

ok

[velvet jasper]

The answer is in the hierarchy.

And the settings of Copy Pose anim node.

[hybrid kayak]

Got it, thanks

[rotund musk]

https://tenor.com/view/you-are-my-competitors-scam-2003-telgi-the-telgi-story-abdul-karim-telgi-gif-475825752497390381

@clever shard

[narrow minnow]

i am totally mf confused by aim offsets and making the weapon mesh point properly in both an fps and a tps project, and trying to copy all the stuff from another BP is tedious and hard to do, and doesnt teach me as well. i have a lerp and such to blend poses from idle to aim but i cannot figure out how to get meshes in truefps or TPS to face forward. using sockets on both of these frameworks i have, but they are barebones so im not overloaded. i would layer in the ABP of another if i knew how to begin doing that.

when it comes to ADS ill be lerping to a camera socket on the gun, but getting the gun mesh and arms to point properly seems another matter

[next python]

you can effectively compose abps together with linked anim layers if that helps

[velvet jasper]

I’d suggest to tackle one thing at the time.
Out of all the issues you mentioned, what would be the base one that you’d want to resolve?

[wary briar]

5.7 GASP metahuman hand bug-Anyone else happen to notice this bug and know a fix?
Hands are stuck down and not animating and twist with camera

[velvet jasper]

Is that clear, non-modified project?

[wary briar]

Yea went as far as unistalling epic games launcher and unreal, brand new GASP 5.7 and still happening. I got 5.6 and it works fine there 😧

[velvet jasper]

Can't reproduce on my side for now.

[wary briar]

oh is it fine for you? hands are good? that at least gives me some clue that it might be something i did somewhere

[velvet jasper]

Works fine for me.

[wary briar]

thanks for letting me know, ill keep looking into whats happening

[narrow minnow]

Honestly just merging the abps somehow

[narrow minnow]

And or getting the gun mesh to point to crosshair. Lol.

[velvet jasper]

What kind of ABPs you want to merge and why?
Could you give a bit more context about what do you work with?

[narrow minnow]

Sorry, yeah. Different third person player blueprints and their ABPs, but they've got different states and enums and all that so idek where I would begin or where to like layer stuff for poses. One also utilizes blend spaces while the other does sequences and montages so that may complicate it

[velvet jasper]

Sounds like overengineering to me.
Could you show what's currently not working in your existing setup?

[narrow minnow]

let me see what i can do. im a bit lost. honestly if i can just get the gun mesh to align w crosshair for now ill be happy.

and I get this D:

trying to line it up so i can lerp to a camera socket on there after

[velvet jasper]

Without Aim Offset the hands are placed correctly, right?

Do they go off when you look up/down?

[narrow minnow]

This is just when aim is held down the other is a random to the side idle anim that works okay until I aim. I am not sure how to mess with aim offset is where I am kinda stuck. I thought I could like trace muzzle socket to crosshair or something but im lost

[velvet jasper]

Are the hands placed correctly in the original aiming animation?

[narrow minnow]

They look to be

But maybe thats my screw up? Idk. I retargeted the anims to be on the safe side too but. Idk.

Do you mean placed when I preview the anim? Cause yes. There is no original aiming animation for this gun in the framework though so I had to try importing a couple

[velvet jasper]

For the reference, could you show it?

[velvet jasper]

Do you have any additional processing in your Anim Graph after this pose?

[narrow minnow]

just returning to normal idle from the overlay

[velvet jasper]

Could you show your Anim Graph?

[narrow minnow]

its rather...large, i had some help with the initial groundwork which is why im a doofus now.

[velvet jasper]

So there is processing.

IK adjustments etc.

[narrow minnow]

possibly in the aim setup, or the fact that there are two FP cameras and idk which is for what.

yeah, and some ALS stuff i think for mantling

[velvet jasper]

That would be hard to evaluate as this is a complex setup.
So, this whole setup is not been made by you and you have little idea how it works, correct?

[narrow minnow]

not LITTLE, but im also having issues aligning weapon meshes/crosshair in even simpler setups with new animations as well. this framework i do have the author to talk to but theyve been away and i wanted to just learn myself as much as i could

this is the overlay state i did for the pistol that has the results i showed

[velvet jasper]

Do you apply it with Layered Blending in the main graph?
If so, what's the node settings?

[velvet jasper]

What's the settings of the Layered Blend node.

[narrow minnow]

on the layered blend per bone node? or do you mean one of those purple layer blend nodes cause i dont have one

[velvet jasper]

I'm asking about the nodes that could see in the screeshots.

[narrow minnow]

all seem to use this general setup w different bone names for the differnet blend nodes

[velvet jasper]

Could you try enabling Mesh Space Rotation blend and see how that affects the pose

[narrow minnow]

yeah thank you 🙂 let me see here

oh wow. i need to change FOV and try to line up muzzle better but that is awesome

two god damn check boxes are you KIDDING ME lol

thank you so much, thats a lot of progress already

[narrow minnow]

do i need to lower the camera to fix the vertical FOV and such?

thanks again, i wont bug you much after this lol

[velvet jasper]

I'm not sure how camera position is related to the field of view.

[narrow minnow]

i mean like, the arms being low and such i guess in relation to camera. so idk if i should lower the camera socket or not

[velvet jasper]

These animations were not authored for the first person view so it's up to you how to make them work.
Technically, if you have IK setup for your hands, by tweaking "ik_hand_gun" joint you'll be able to add an offset to the weapon position.

It's a rare case when you can just grab the 3P animations and they would work with 1P view out-of-the-box.

[narrow minnow]

for sure. idk where to find 1P animations that work with the 3p skeleton but yeah, im on the right track now, thank you. need to keep arms from colliding with body but thats another matter

[marble tundra]

Is there a way to do a FABRIK node that has a bool or like a condition. like how can i make it only allow the node to work if something is true in the animbp

[velvet jasper]

You can change the alpha type of the node to bool type.

[marble tundra]

Even if im using a finterp?

[velvet jasper]

I’m not sure how’s that related.

[marble tundra]

The Finterp is part of the alpha

[velvet jasper]

This is related only for Float type alpha. Bool type would have it's own blend settings.

[marble tundra]

so if i switch it to bool, it will still have the finterp?

[velvet jasper]

It would have blend settings, where you define the curve and the time.

[cosmic wolf]

Hi, sorry for my bad English, but I need some help. I'm making a zombie game inspired by Call of Duty Zombies, but my animations are not working correctly. Everything looks fine in the editor, but in-game the gun is outside the character's hand.
but the socket is on correct position

[velvet jasper]

Hard to tell what's going on without seeing the issue.
Win+Shift+R, if needed.

[velvet jasper]

Are you modifying the First Person template?

[cosmic wolf]

Yes, I’m watching a series of tutorials from a channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U6jupF46Fw&list=PLCiHxNy70he05QBxYddlAb0uPFIVjE4Jf

[velvet jasper]

Please read the documentation on First Person rendering. This is what FP template utilizes.
https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/unreal-engine/first-person-rendering

[cosmic wolf]

There was nothing about animation in that documentation. Is there any way I can check what’s going wrong?

[velvet jasper]

Your issue is not related to animation.

[marble tundra]

I have a FABRIK node to get the left hand to attach to the grip of the weapon. how am i able to move that left elbow down? if possible

[velvet jasper]

Transform the shoulder bone? Looks like it's too far for IK to reach the target.

[marble tundra]

what node should i do. and before or after the fabrik?

[velvet jasper]

There's a node for modifying the bones.

[velvet jasper]

As for the node order, do you have a guess yourself?

[marble tundra]

id say before right?

[velvet jasper]

Try it.

[marble tundra]

im trying to think if it should be add to existing or replace. let me test some thigns out

[echo nebula]

I'm considering using the Motion Warping plugin. I noticed it's marked as experimental though. Does anyone know how stable/usable it is in practice? Just want to do a sanity check in case it's totally janky and everyone with experience knows that.

[swift ridge]

Does anyone know how to make premade animations interact with the landscape? doing some googling only vaguely mentioned Inverse Kinematics. I need it functioning just a a cinematic, not play.

For context, I want feet to conform to a landscape for a 3 second shot

[ivory osprey]

IK would definitely do that! I think a good setup is actually in the Game Animation Sample Project, they use some newer nodes for nice foot angle calculations

[swift ridge]

Sounds nice! Do you know of some tutorials that could help me set this up?

[ivory osprey]

So there's a couple ways to approach this:
-- I'm not sure if there's a tutorial on the GASP setup specifically, but I would look at the animBP and find the nodes in the AnimGraph that deal w/ foot placement.
-- Could just use the default IK control rig that comes w/ the Third Person Character content. This setup doesn't give you good foot angular alignment but will snap to terrain. I think there's a ton of tutorials out there that work with this default control rig.

ill dig through my ue tutorials in a bit

[swift ridge]

Sounds good, thanks! Not to pressure- But I've got to get this done by the end of the day tommorow- Its one of my exam deadlines

[velvet jasper]

Motion Warping is being used actively in production since early versions of UE5, it’s pretty stable.

[ivory osprey]

https://youtu.be/lV8O6Isu2oA?si=857ZKNid8eCwjJP0 Try this. It actually shows the downsides to the default control rig method and uses those GASP nodes i mentioned instead

[lyric gull]

Hello, I am running into trouble doing IK for a character than can extend its neck to attack and bite (It's an Eel). Does anybody know what IK solution I could use to make this work?

[velvet jasper]

CCDIK might be useful here.

[lyric gull]

I've been playing around with CCDIK and FABRIK, both are perfect for reaching a target at a fixed length. The problem comes if the target is any further/closer to the animated overall neck chain translation

Apparently neither CCDIK nor FABRIK allow for stretching and try to maintain bone lengths internally, so it just won't do it unfortunately

I am currently trying with spline IK, but I don't have a lot of experience with it

[velvet jasper]

I’ll have to do some research on that topic on my side, I’ll get back to you when I got some results.

[lyric gull]

Cheers mate, any help is welcome

[lyric gull]

Is there a way to get the distance from a bone to another bone from the animation? (Prior to IK modifications)

[velvet jasper]

Get location of the joints, get the distance between vectors.

In Control Rig, if such logic nodes are placed before IK nodes, you'll get the actual information at the node execution moment.

[lyric gull]

So I think I can use a FABRIK or CCDIK but prior to it's application I need to calculate the distance between the animated chain and the distance to the IK target

Then I can scale the translation of each bone in the chain in parent space by a Stretch Factor calculated off those 2 distances

Then IK

That might do

[real galleon]

Question:

I currently have some animations that begin left-foot-up (LU) that end in a desired idle-pose. I need to build some animations that start in the mirrored position (right-foot-up) and end in the non-mirrored position

Example: I have a walkingLU_stop animation, and I need to build the walkingRU_stop animation that starts with right-foot-up (opposite of the original) and ends on the same position as the original LU animation.

I have already built a Manny_Mirror_Data_Table so that I can do a bilateral swap of the animation.

What would be the UE5-sequencer-idiomatic workflow for authoring the desired animations? I imagine it would be something along these lines:

In the sequencer:
1 Create a new sequence
2 Import the animation
3 Add an output_animation track
4 Key the final position into the output_animation track
5 Use a mirror table to mirror the animation
6 Key in the beginning to get the reversed beginning
7 From there? Would I bake the reversed animation to the control rig, and then manipulate the control right and key it in until I get a natural flow into the correct destination?

Is that the best approach, is there more efficient or UE5-idiomatic method to obtain the desired output?

[velvet jasper]

You would need to edit the animation in any case.

Mirror the animation, then using Sequencer either edit the resulted mirrored animation using Control Rig by applying the correct idle pose at the end or simply blend two animation sequences together, that also might work.

[real galleon]

Thank you, I greatly appreciate the advice

[lyric gull]

It kinda works, though the translations need to be flattened to avoid the over-curvyness. I think from here it's just vector math

Thanks for the help btw, appreciate it 💯

[jagged wing]

Hi!
Maybe someone here has encountered a similar problem before?
I have the default Unreal engine 5 mannequin and its control rig in my project. I have one run animation, in which I tweaked finger position by selecting the run animation sequence, then baked it into the control rig, edited it with the control rig, sequencer and then saved the animation. As far as I understand this is the correct way to tweak animations?

The run animation is working fine in the animation sequence preview window and also in the Blend Space preview window of the character. But in game it looks like the characters' feet IK's are stuck at 0.0.0 and don't move.

I also tried opening another run animation with the control rig, but even just opening and saving run animation with the control rig, seems to then break it the same way.

[velvet jasper]

Was it a custom Control Rig?

[jagged wing]

no, it's the default one that Epic has made

[velvet jasper]

Weird. Your animation sequence is missing animation on the feet IK joints.

Technically, default Animation Control Rig should have covered that.

Well, ideally, the Animation Control Rig asset needs fixing.

One of the ways to fix this issue is to apply Copy Bones Animation Modifier to your AnimSequence and bake the movement from FK to IK joints.

[velvet jasper]

Under “default” you mean the assets that’s provided in Third Person template? Which UE version you use?

[jagged wing]

Yeah completely default, I have not touched the control rigs nodes at all. I use 5.7, but I think the control rig is originally from 5.6.
I also downloaded the Epic games Control Rig Samples pack and compared the nodes in the rigs, but did not notice difference. (This one: https://www.fab.com/listings/2ce3fe44-9ee6-4fa7-99fc-b9424a402386?lang=en )

I'll look into how to do that Copying of Bones Animation Modifier 👍

What makes this hard to figure out is that in the preview windows the animation works fine and all its settings seem to be identical to the unmodified original run animation. Gif shows how it looks in preview window

[velvet jasper]

You have to check the actual joints in the Skeleton Tree.

[jagged wing]

Looks like some of the icons have changed in the edited run animation. Not sure what that means though

maybe keyframes did not exsist on some of those bones and in the edited version there are now?

[velvet jasper]

In your Preview Scene settings tab check which mesh is used.
This is not related to the animation directly.

[jagged wing]

I can change what ever mesh to them, that is skinned to their skeleton. Both original and edited versions use same skeleton

[velvet jasper]

Yeah, but you see which mesh is being used for preview?

[jagged wing]

SKM_Manny

[velvet jasper]

For both animation assets?

[jagged wing]

yeah

[velvet jasper]

Because what you're showing in the left part of the screenshot is not SKM_Manny.

[jagged wing]

I have been changing those preview meshes during that screen, but like I said, I can change same preview mesh to both and they work as the skeleton is the same

[velvet jasper]

That's correct.

Just by looking at the mesh you won't see the problem.
Try selecting the IK joints or toggle on showing the whole skeleton hierarchy

Just checked CR_Mannequin_Body asset - yeah, it breaks the IK joints animation because the Control Rig hierarchy has these joints removed for some reason.

[jagged wing]

aha, interesting. So the control rig would have to be edited then?

[velvet jasper]

For future edits - yes.

[jagged wing]

damn.. okay

[velvet jasper]

Have you fixed the animation on your side?

[jagged wing]

I mean yeah, it was a small thing to edit finger rotations. I wanted to test if this is something I can do for more animations in future too

[velvet jasper]

I mean, have you fixed the IK joints?

[jagged wing]

Do you mean in the skeleton tree or in the Control rigs node system? But nope, I have not.

I'll have to watch some videos on the Control rig node system/ hierarchy as I have never used it before. I have only done some shader code in in UE5 before

[velvet jasper]

As I said, another way is to apply Anim Modifier in post.

[jagged wing]

yeah. Thanks for your help! I know at least more now where the problems are

[verbal moth]

Recent animation work 👇

Focused on clean motion, readability, and game-ready implementation. I enjoy working on animations that feel polished in-engine and fit the gameplay/style of a project rather than just looking good in isolation.

Open to helping with animation work for characters, gameplay interactions, stylized motion, loops, and project-specific ideas. Feel free to reach out if you’re building something and need an extra hand 🚀

[steel fjord]

Hey everyone, I’m new here 😊🦉
This is one of my works, hope you like it!
And if you’ve got any ideas or suggestions to help me improve, I’d really love to hear them — feel free to message me ✨

[dark phoenix]

Hey all, we recently put together a demo of how we took animation made with lattices in Maya into Unreal Engine for render. We couldn't find much information about this online, so hopefully this helps someone who encounters a similar problem: https://youtu.be/A-nv1qQLjrY

[velvet jasper]

Thanks for sharing!

[jagged wing]

Thought to drop solution for this here in case someone else has the problem too. I followed this video and got things fixed for the UE5 control rig.
https://youtu.be/KdDY4cpsLAE?si=GJMsL4IETKPG7jju

[smoky shell]

You know how sometimes your animations trigger an ensure for bPlayingBackwards? I PR'd the engine bug fix. If you're using orientation warping you'll want it. Bit pointless because Epic's animation team generally do not review PRs. Traction does help though, so react/comment if its important to you.
https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine/pull/14834

[elfin axle]

anyone ever have a problem with ue5 skeleton fingers not following ue4 fingers?

[velvet jasper]

Could you give more context?

[elfin axle]

Yeah so for example if a hand has a certain pose, the fingers in the metahuman or ue5 skeleton won't rotate to match it

Like a grapple pose would look like a default hand pose

[velvet jasper]

Still need more info about the animation processing.
How, where, why?

[elfin axle]

So like in this animation

When I convert use a retargeter to convert it to ue5, the hands don't grab the gun

Like there's no grabbing pose

[velvet jasper]

Well, I don't see that the character in your clip holds the gun either 🙂

There's a finger pose at the first frame, I guess, but the rest is mismatched.

And this is doesn't look like the UE4 Mannequin - is it actually rigged to UE4 skeleton?
Because if the skeleton is uncommon, the auto-retargeter might not work correctly, like it might not find and map the finger joints.

[elfin axle]

Like there's no grabbing pose

[elfin axle]

Ah I see

Would inset those manually?

[velvet jasper]

Could you rephrase the question?

[elfin axle]

Yeah one sec

[obtuse parrot]

Hello! Does anyone have any thoughts on using Motion Matching and the CMC in production?

[velvet jasper]

What’s so special about it?

[hollow saddle]

Hello. I have "head look at" set up as on the screenshot. So basically I use this "Look At" node but I blend it by bool when there's actually something to look at (which is not always). It works, but for a few couple of frames when something to look at appears, characters heads first bend down (as if look at location was at local 0,0,0 for a couple of frames) and only after that characters start looking at actual locations. Is there any way to fix this ugly side effect without actually having "Look At" node to run constantly and until specific location is set - just look at wherever the head currently is facing (I guess I can't just use forward vector because I also have basic 1-d aim offset for looking up-down for upper body) ?

[velvet jasper]

Do you reset your look at vector variable?
Sounds like it might be set to zero value which then interpolates to the correct one frames later.
So it would be logical to have it always set to some proper default value unless there’s a need to look at something and define the blend logic differently.

[tidal rock]

1. Can i export the animation with this rig selected? 2) Should i push the NLA down? 3) SHould i delete the other nla layer below it since i have already baked animation?

[hollow saddle]

Do you reset your look at vector variable?
I do, and it is also FVector::ZeroVector by default. I will try to set it to some default value and change blending logic to bool "bHasLookAtTarget", but idk... as I am programming it right now - it already looks ugly code-wise 🙈

[dull goblet]

What it's the best way to switch between unarmed animations to rifle, pistol, etc?

Idk if made a base locomotion and then switch only upperbody or make different fullbody for each gun

[heavy kayak]

https://gyazo.com/23f7b2c2643484d93106e09c1b403fc0
hey guys i need some tips!, this is a idle animation that just loops for a npc, but since the end is so different from the start it really snapps back, any tips on how to blend it or something ?=

[velvet jasper]

Can't answer your last two questions, but regarding the first one - only deform joints must be exported, no control shapes. Other than that - yes, you can export animations.

[velvet jasper]

Everyone would have their own "best" way.
Fullbody or upperbody blending depends on your animation - if the poses do not change drastically between weapon types, go with the upperbody layering.
You can create a custom enumerator and utilize Blend by Enum node to control the nodes.

[indigo current]

First

[rocky brook]

So physx counts as an influence?

[timber perch]

Hi can someone help me make my animation montage to play once the object is hit by the first person projectile. I have set the Montage up, I just need to know what I should do to implement it.

[upper gulch]

You mean when they take damage from the projectile?

You could catch the Damage event in the Blueprint, check the damage type and then just call Play Montage

[dense bough]

^ fairly straight forward, OnReceiveDamage/OnHit or something -> play montage

[dapper trench]

I believe specifically, you get the pawn that you hit, find it's AnimInstance and call AnimInstance->PlayMontage(MontageReference)

[upper gulch]

Depends on whether you're doing it from the Projectile or from the Pawn

[timber perch]

I'm really new at this so excuse my dumb questions. I have a made my Animation Montage actor. I then place it in the world.
Next I add to the FirstPersonProjectile BP ?

Or do I make a BP Class for the skeletal mesh and add EventHit --> Montageplay

[upper gulch]

You don't place a Montage in the world. You set up an AnimBlueprint and assign that to your Pawn class

Then you call PlayMontage in Blueprint from the Pawn.

[dense bough]

E.g. you have a player that has all kinds of animations, then you should use an animation blueprint, in there you could just play a specific animation that is properly blended. It can even be automated without having to call blueprints.

Yep, use an animationBP

[timber perch]

Can we do it in baby steps.. First select the animation Montage I created and add it to the level ? Yes or No

[dapper trench]

what KIND of actor are you hitting first off?

is it a player/pawn? Is it a practice target? A can of beans?

[timber perch]

is a skeletal mesh of a car, it explodes (I animated the explosion in maya)

[dapper trench]

okay

I'd say first thing, just create a new blueprint for your car

[timber perch]

new BP for the skeletal mesh? not the AnimMontage?

[dapper trench]

yes

well

Create New Blueprint > Parent Class = Actor

so you'd be creating basically a blank blueprint, and adding the skeletal mesh as a new component to it

[timber perch]

So I dragged the SKcar onto the level and then went BluePrints/ConvertSelectedActor to BP class

[dapper trench]

that should work

if you go into the Event Graph of that blueprint, you should be able to go to the functions section and hit "Add New -> Override Function -> Hit"

this will give you a new hit event

[timber perch]

Ok I see the Event Hit node

[dapper trench]

okay, you should be able to see the components tab which shows your car skeletal mesh in the list. Probably called SkeletalMeshComponent

you should be able to drag that out onto the event graph

[timber perch]

ok

[dapper trench]

it'll create a variable for that skeletal mesh, drag out that blue pin and find Play Anim

[timber perch]

play anim or play montage?

[dapper trench]

mmm, let me see one second

I think you want Play Animation

it should connect the Skeletal Mesh pin to the Target, you have a drop down box below that to select the montage (which should highlight purple), and it should have a bool to ask if it should loop

you can then connect the Event Hit exec to the Play Animation. And whenever the blueprint actor receives a hit, it'll play that montage

to double check things work, I would suggest dragging off of the Event Hit and typing "Print String" and give yourself a quick debug message so you know for sure it's receiving the hit

[timber perch]

Haha!! That works.
But.. the animation once it plays reverses back into its starting position.

Its probably something to do with the way I set my animation montage up

[dapper trench]

probably what's happening is it's resetting the skeletal mesh back to "no animation" after it finishes

[dense bough]

Either set another animation up with the destroyed idle, or just let the last frame loop

Isn't there a "use last frame" like timelines have?

[dapper trench]

yeah I think if you call Stop() or StopAnimation() it'll just pause the animation in place.

[hushed agate]

does anyone here have experience with animation setups for Sequencer (New Matinee system) ?

[timber perch]

The Stop just stop just the montage from playing

[hushed agate]

running into a few workflow roadblocks - undefined by any docs i can find online.... and looking for some experience if there is some..... i know its a new system & all

[dense bough]

Theres literally no delay jettam, you're stopping the animation as soon as it starts

[timber perch]

do should I put a delay between the Play animation and Stop?

[dapper trench]

get the animation length

and stop it just short of the finishe animatino

Get Play Length

[hushed agate]

@timber perch - what exactly are you trying to accomplish? I read up in the history and dont see your goal here with your animation

[dense bough]

The easy way... look up how long the animation is and add a delay that is just slightly shorter.

[timber perch]

@dapper trench @dense bough I intend to add FX and Sound to this animMontage. So I am concerned that if I add any kind of stop to it it will pause the overall effect

[dapper trench]

they might if you add them to the AnimMontage itself, never tried that.

[dense bough]

The proper way, get animation lenght - minus 0.1sec - plug into delay

[timber perch]

My intent is to use the animMontage to hold all my FX and sound once the mesh is hit

[hushed agate]

why are you requiring to STOP the animmontage?

[dapper trench]

well what RuneStorm is saying is the right way to go about it. That 0.1 delay won't be noticed

[hushed agate]

why not let it play the full length?

[dense bough]

He doesn't have a end idle

Hes basically doing everything in a single anim

[dapper trench]

you could also use that delay, and then turn the car into physics mode by ActivateAllRigidBodies or something and then physics handle it too for some fun

[dense bough]

Thus the stop

[dapper trench]

as long as you have collision setup

[timber perch]

@ walldiv Because thanks to IrishKilter I was able to make the animMontage play but as soon as the object exploded it would reverse

[hushed agate]

are you not using an Animation Blueprint?

for the said actor?

[dense bough]

Well the proper proper way is using an animation bp

Hes only using a montage yes

[hushed agate]

unless this actor is ONLY going to be doing 1-2 animations - i'd learn how to setup an Animation Blueprint for it.....

you will get MUCH BETTER proceduralization out of your animation states

[timber perch]

I just made a BP for the skMesh

[hushed agate]

IF THIS HAPPENS -> Fire This Animation this is basically an AnimBP's functionality

[dapper trench]

he's only setting up 1 single animation when it receives a hit event

[timber perch]

This calls the animMontage when hit by the projectile.

[hushed agate]

how is it playing in reverse then?

[dapper trench]

so an animation BP isn't really needed

it's not playing reverse, it's ending the animation and going back to the default state of "no animation" which makes it reset to the default position

[timber perch]

My animMontage looks like this

[dapper trench]

we're trying to get him to stop the animation just a microsecond prematurely so it stays always in the last frame of his animation

[hushed agate]

so.... take and duplicate the animation

get the last keyframe & delete everything else

when the EXPLODE anim is done (using the above methods to Get Playtime -> Delay)....

fire off this new animation

which will be 1 frame

[dapper trench]

could, but then you're technically using up unneeded memory/processing constantly playing a single frame for all of eternity

[timber perch]

Its pretty straight forward, for you guys I would imagine. Just not sure why the car reverses its animation after it explodes. It doesnt loop

[hushed agate]

then simply run an ANimBP

problem solved

[dense bough]

didn't I suggest that already, set a new animation with the end state and make that play afterwards

[hushed agate]

have a state for IsExploded

[dapper trench]

you did

[hushed agate]

same difference as "using memory to play a 1 frame animation continuously" .... because in the end - thats what needs to happen

you'd have like 3 states - Idle -> Hit -> EndHitIdle

[dense bough]

Well we need 2 states (1 frame anims) and a normal animation (the explosion) to do it properly

Ay

[hushed agate]

as far as using up memory - dont even consider this

it'll be sooooooo minescule

wont even factor anything....

[dense bough]

Yep, memory footprint is almost non existant for that. But it wouldn't matter in any case

[dapper trench]

in reality, it's really not important. But I've always taken the general approach of making sure to always eliminate overhead when can. It's the only reason I mention it, as it's, to me, a "cleaner" approach. But in reality, it's really not going to impact anything

[dense bough]

It works both ways, idle , explosion , idle2 or just idle , explosion

In this case the anim is so stupidly simple, there's not really any room for optimization xP

[dapper trench]

Yeah, and the important part right now is just getting your stuff to work for oyu and understanding how everything works. Eventually you'll find a way you like to do it the best

[timber perch]

Since I cant share my screen with you can I share with you my Car explode .fbx its only 685k

[hushed agate]

if i had any actor that required any animation to be played other than 1 animation (i cant think of anything that would only use 1 animation unless it was a static mesh that had a continous looping anim) - i would setup an AnimBP

[timber perch]

I added just the last few frames to the montage

[dense bough]

Can you set custom ticks on anim bps btw, I know you can with ordinary bps

[hushed agate]

because simply stated - anything that requires anymore than 1 STATE - is an AnimBP by nature

[dapper trench]

an Anim BP is ran every tick, so I'm not sure what you mean.

[hushed agate]

@dense bough https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Animation_Blueprint,_Implement_Custom_C%2B%2B_Logic_Via_Tick_Updates

[dapper trench]

what are you still having issues with jettam?

[dense bough]

Setting up idle2 I assume

[dapper trench]

the simplest way is to keep with the soluition we already came up for you, and just add that delay

[timber perch]

Still trying to resolve why the animation reverses after it explodes

[dense bough]

I know, bps are ran every tick too.... UNLESS.... you set a custom tick rate

[dapper trench]

add a new variable of type Anim Montage -> Reference

[hushed agate]

like runestorm suggested earlier - if you dont want the overhead of doing an AnimBP.... duplicate the animation , then remove all keyframes except the last one. when the EXPLODE is finished, run the post-idle anim (1 frame)

[timber perch]

will the delay effect the particle explosion FX I intend to add to the animMontage asset

[hushed agate]

you could handle it WITHOUT a delay by simply doing a timer event as well.... same difference

[dense bough]

No, the delay only delays the execution of the stop node, it doesn't delay anything else.... yet

[timber perch]

The delay I added to the end of the PlayAnimation. A delay of 2 seconds. But it still reverses. Have I implemented it wrong?

[dense bough]

If you add something to the end of the stop node then that will also be called after the delay, do circumvent that, use a sequence node and plug the delay-stop node into the first one and everything else into the other

[dense bough]

Delay isn't plugged in

Put the stop node behind the delay

[dapper trench]

oops, didnt plug in the Get Length function

[dense bough]

Wah wah xP

[dapper trench]

should work though

[dense bough]

@timber perch there's your solution on how it should look

[dapper trench]

when you add the new anim montage variable, hit the compile button and then look at the defaults tab and you can set your animation in there. Without compiling it won't show up

[hushed agate]

@dapper trench what screencap software you using?

[dapper trench]

printscreen

[hushed agate]

ah nice - discord takes in pasted screenshots

[dense bough]

Prnt - ctrl v work in discord, if you want to be fancy, use shareX

[hushed agate]

shareX same as puush ?

[dapper trench]

I have dual monitors, so I have to crop all my screen caps

[quartz cove]

https://gyazo.com/df1315fe8f748fb60309836c62e97e85

[dense bough]

I would argue its better

[hushed agate]

My man VicB

wassup bud :0

[timber perch]

@dapper trench how did you add the animMontage varible to the BP

[dapper trench]

same way you added the Hit Event

green button on the left (by default) that says "Add New"

Add new -> Variable

then in the properties panel, you'll see a drop down for Variable Type. Click it, type in Anim Montage hover over it, and click Reference

[timber perch]

and name it exactly the same name as the AnimMontage in my case its called CarExlode

[dapper trench]

name it whatever you want that makes sense

[dense bough]

@dapper trench try puush or shareX, has some great features, selection of capture region, webm capture support, instant upload to a host if you want to( and putting the link in your clipboard of course) text upload, you can even upload blueprints if you want

[dapper trench]

the variable name doesn't matter, that's just for organization

once you create the variable, hit the compile button up top. And in the properties panel you'll see a new drop down box with the same name as whatever you called your variable, clicking it you can select your montage and that's how it knows which to play

[dense bough]

It's 7 AM and I haven't slept yet, what is wrong with me....

[dapper trench]

and I'll have to check it out, thanks. I get tired of loading up Photoshop to screenshot something and crop it

it's 1AM for me so as soon as you got your montage stopping correctly I'm finding my bed

I tried programming AND watching Discord. Was not productive at all

[hushed agate]

@dapper trench yah screencap web based accounts like puush ❤

[timber perch]

I am having trouble turning the tyoe to reference. its Boolean

[hushed agate]

such an easy workflow - Keystroke - set area -> autosets up to clipboard the link

http://puu.sh/r3Nvc/2fc1ffb0b0.jpg

[dense bough]

Click on it, and type anim

[dense bough]

Sharex does the same with added support for files, text and all that. I have it integrated in my context menu, if I want to upload a file I just right click and select upload via sharex and Boom, link in my clipboard

[dapper trench]

so it's liek drop-box for screencaps?

like*

[timber perch]

@dapper trench getting closer but the BP is telling me to connect something to the target input in the StopAnim node

In your example you didnt have anything connected to that pin

[dapper trench]

hmm

yeah it's yelling at me now that I compiled too

[dense bough]

Mesh Goes there

[dapper trench]

yeah, I used the wrong Stop function in mine

grab the Skeletal Mesh pin and drag it, and type in "Stop" and use that function instead

it should stop all animations playing on Skeletal Mesh when it runs

[dense bough]

Yep

[dapper trench]

the worse is going from C++ to blueprints. I did a lot of this when I setup FPS weapon/arm animations that were all called from C++

don't usually use the blueprint graph much

[hushed agate]

hehehe i'm on the flipside

started off in BP's

[timber perch]

@dapper trench

[hushed agate]

made WORLDS difference learning C++ - made it soooo much easier to understand

[timber perch]

Still not letting me connect to it

[lucid otter]

Started off with C++, used some Blueprints... Ported them back to C++

[dapper trench]

yeah, get rid of that function jettam.

There are multiple functions labeled the same thing

[hushed agate]

@timber perch - are you using a blueprint for this actor?

or just skeletal mesh

[hushed agate]

and are you coding in the Level blueprint or the actor's BP ?

[dapper trench]

he created a special blueprint actor off of the skeletal mesh

[hushed agate]

ok then it should be as simple as this:

http://puu.sh/r3NUa/1644ffad04.jpg

this is from a ACharacter parent class

depending on what your parent class is - will depend the nodes setup

simply right click the blank area - start typing PLay Animation

it should fill in for you

[timber perch]

@dapper trench I think I have wired it up like you showed me . Now when I shot it, it doesnt explode anymore

[dense bough]

Jettam, the one you have in your bp is calling the wrong target, you want the one you get by dragging off the skeletal mesh component and then that stop node

[dapper trench]

click on your Car Explode variable

[dense bough]

Jettam click on the variable carexplode

And set the animation montage there

[dapper trench]

yeah, what he said

[dense bough]

Its currently unassigned and thus plays no animation

[timber perch]

Ok the car explod varible is now pointing to the carExplode Montage. But it still plays in reverse

FBX of carExplode fiel I am using.

[dapper trench]

mmkay

let me try that file then

[dense bough]

Guess you guys can handle that? I have an urgent date with my bed.

[dapper trench]

I'll just jump on your bed if I need you

[hushed agate]

sleep well Runestorm

[timber perch]

Your efforts are hugely appreciated. I have been trying to figure this out all day. Its much harder trying to learn by myself.

[dense bough]

Ay, good night/day everyone o7

[timber perch]

@dapper trench What I have discovered is I need to put a value of .5 into the float-float

[dapper trench]

so

[timber perch]

This will stop the animation from reversing.

[dapper trench]

I'm getting the same issue as you

and the reason being is that it's the montage

I haven't used montages a whole lot yet, so I could be wrong, or this could be common knowledge. But a montage is used to blend animations together firstly and has its own set of states and rules you can modify to create any kind of animation you want using various animations and combining them

[timber perch]

But if I shoot the car again it explodes again. Is there a way to tell it to not reset

[dapper trench]

by playing the montage, your car is exploding and then it's "blending" between your last frame (frame 36) and frame 0 at the start. So it LOOKS like it's reversing back because it's trying to blend with the next state

so you don't actually need the montage, you could just play the animation you imported

I changed the Car Explode variable from Anim Montage to Anim Sequence, got rid of all the delays and stopping stuff we added

and just used Play Animation and it stops at the end automatically

[timber perch]

Acording to some FX guys I chatted to on a forum. The animMOntage tool is great for building events. Like Car explodes, then you can add FX and Sound etc

[dapper trench]

while that istrue

you can add sounds and FX to normal animations too

if you open up your Animation (not the montage) and right click the timeline where it says Notifiers you can see there are Add Sound and Add effect buttons

[timber perch]

Interesting... Let me try that.

[dapper trench]

to get your animation to only play once, you'll have to do some more blueprinting/coding type stuff. You'll have to create a bool, call it bExploded or something. Then use a branch node to check to see if it's true

if it's not, play the animation and set bExploded to true

that way next time it goes to play, it'll be true and it won't do anything

[timber perch]

You have been a huge help too me IrishKilter. I'ld buy you a beer if I could. Thank you. You should go to bed, and I will keep trying to solve this.

[dapper trench]

sounds good bud, good luck! I'm off! night.

[calm pelican]

So I'm getting into rigging, and I'm wondering what an ideal humanoid heat map looks like? I'm having troubles figuring out what I'm doing wrong with some of the volume collapse/quad stretching/quad deforming issues I am getting

[scenic imp]

does any one used faceFX in UE4?

[hushed agate]

@calm pelican i cant say what a ideal humanoid heat map looks like - it depends on your software your using to rig in (I use Maya) and the bind/skin method (I use Closest in Hierarchy/ClassicLinear)..... this allows for weight painting - which is the most conventionally used method for maya & film/game assetts that i know of (at least all the study i've done)

Max has a BonesPro software - and many other plugins... that assist in skin weighting

@scenic imp - i just watched that video and there was a software that was a facial MOCAP solution that was bougth out about a year ago.. and hasnt been back on the market since that did just this. I'm surprised this plugin even exists - as its a non-commercial free to use product.... anyways - it looks to be the same kind of setup.... wave file based setup for a rigged facial setup. .... i definitely like this software from the looks of it!

What sort of questions/problems you having?

[scenic imp]

yeah in our project i want to find facial animation solution For UE4, do you have a proper solution?

what about the MOCAP solution?

[hushed agate]

@scenic imp the face mocap software i WAS talkin about was FaceShift: http://www.faceshift.com/

currently has a plugin for Maya, MotionBuilder + Unity

with maya - you would bake out the skeletal information to use in UE4

[scenic imp]

does it well supported UE4?

[hushed agate]

no plugin

again =- this is raw animation using MOCAP

there is no need for a plugin

[scenic imp]

ok isee

have you ever used this ?

does it easy to use?

[hushed agate]

sorry as isaid - it was taken DOWN over a year ago when it was baught out

however lookin gback at this

(i have to thank you by the way!!!) it looks as though its back in useage rights!

so i'll be downloading this and puttijng it to good use!

[scenic imp]

how much is it?

[hushed agate]

click the link - investigate yourself sir

as i said - you prompted me to look back into this - and i thank you much.... because i would have NEVER found out that this was available again

[scenic imp]

hha