animation

[nimble hatch]

like not joking on the half ass stripping of stuff from the shinbi example

[restive yew]

Second. Naming

[nimble hatch]

uh nope sec

it was in the material

[restive yew]

Oh lord

It’s like a student intern got a hold of it

[nimble hatch]

I guess it was other custom nodes they just removed

[restive yew]

A min max variable that’s nearly identical in spelling

[quaint fjord]

Does anyone know any great tutorials for creating a root motion movement controller?

[misty dagger]

Hey, guys my animations are not blending very well someone a idea why?

[restive yew]

Adjust interpolation time and type

Increasing number of grid divisions will help too but you have more than enough in there

[misty dagger]

yeah i increase the interpolation time and the type but without result. With my other enemy it works very fine no idea why it doesnt work with this one

[jolly osprey]

@nimble hatch https://youtu.be/1UOY-FMm-xo?list=LLR4A_B5-BjWRpwN_pggvqVg&t=4762

(timecoded)

at the timecode they're reviewing a full-featured paragon rig, not the stripped down version we're getting w/ the free paragon assets - the whole thing

I think it's pure gold

also the animator/programmer dude (Laurent) seems pretty responsive on twitter

[nimble hatch]

@jolly osprey awesome. I don't think I ever watched that one so 🙂

[jolly osprey]

might actually be worth a pin

[nimble hatch]

like right after I said montages are great now I can't get them to do what I want lol. It's like game dev is work or something

so like if you play a montage you get a completed and blend out wire. the blend out triggers when the montage is over and the blend out starts. the completed fires when the blend is finished. ok sure... but if I dont want the blend the completed never fires

[jolly osprey]

to do what

[nimble hatch]

was trying to fix a weird thingy where if I was walking, hit attack (stops walking, fires montage), didnt do a combo move, waited for the attack montage to end and start blending out, THEN hit attack again it would'nt trigger as the attack was between the blend out and the completed and I didnt allow it to fire again until completed

got it logically fixed. removed the notifies and just moved the events into the blend out and completed wires from the play montage and allowed attacking when its blending out

im sure there is a better logical way of structuring this in the end, still learning best practice lol

[jolly osprey]

wouldn't that ideally be a state machine?

attack <--> attack blend out <--> w/e else

or a sub-state machine or w/e it's called

[nimble hatch]

yeah.... it would have been and I had it like that but

epic doesnt do that

so I have a version like that as well

[jolly osprey]

what's wrong w/ that version?

[nimble hatch]

got like state machines, and sub graphs, and layer versions and etc.

nothing was "wrong" per se it's just you don't have montages which seems to be what epic uses for their examples

so basically just trying to recreate the same "goal" different ways right now for learning purposes

[jolly osprey]

honestly epic's examples seem like what the most basic of games would do, in general

for instance variable speed which is pretty neat and I'm sure lots of ppl want it has not been mentioned until the paragon asset drop

[nimble hatch]

doing it with montages has been nice as I can set up the combos on the weapons inside the weapon itself and simply swapping the weapon determines the animations now

no need for separate graphs for each weapon type it's all contained in the item

[jolly osprey]

then I saw one of the paragon anim vids and "oh actually we're using distance curves for that"

ah so what you have right now is a montage per weapon

[nimble hatch]

technically it's an array of montages, each montage contains 1 animation clip and any notifies that are needed (FX, callbacks, etc.), and the player cycles thru the montage array during the combo attack

each weapon also contains it's own code for the damage event so right now just making a new child of bp_weapon, setting up the mesh and collider, adding the montages I want to use, then setting damage info and it can be swapped in and out and it's all self contained

very similar to the way epic does it in the action rpg example, which I did not agree or understand, but they had it hidden in the gameplay abilities so it was harder to use

[jolly osprey]

too much framework! :D

sorry whenever someone mentions gameplay abilities I'm reminded of the god awful hibernate database framework

[nimble hatch]

yeah the gameplay abilties is good but man it's got some engineering to make it work

[jolly osprey]

my usual argument against frameworks like that is that you can write them yourself and avoid the learning curve

except for real complex stuff

like I don't know... lock step multiplayer

[nimble hatch]

it's a good argument and I can see for and against. For if it's a ton of engineering into a usable package but... fuck me the GA system is not easy to grok and if you dont need it all you can roll you own in less time

[jolly osprey]

yeah I mean what's so complex about gameplay abilities?

honestly curious

[nimble hatch]

well it handles like all the interactions in a hierarchial way if you set it up but again a ton of prep work

great for a large project

https://i.gyazo.com/3bc841e6708640caaa3e6937fbf30bfd.gif yay smooth animation and target lock

[jolly osprey]

next step: anim dynamics on the backpack :)

[nimble hatch]

I bet I could do it, it's a static mesh on a socket

I mean I don't know how but there are videos out there lol

dangly bits

[jolly osprey]

I just saw this great anim dynamics video a couple hours ago and now I want to apply it to everything

[nimble hatch]

yep this was mainly just a learning project for animation but jesus there are 10 ways to do animation in UE4 and none is right

[jolly osprey]

problem is I'm working on a mech right now and they're not known for carrying backpacks...

hm could make it a wizard mech though and bam, dangling magic powder pouch

[nimble hatch]

yeppers or like a bag of bolts

[orchid sparrow]

is there anyway from within the animation blueprint to get the currently playing animation sequence? Only montages are exposed in BP so I would appreciate it if someone could tell me how to access currently playing animation sequence in c++

[young urchin]

Any Maya users that have Locator On Curve mel script? (highend3d.com seems ded)

[tiny mirage]

aight so it's 4.24 now, has anyone got the animation sharing plugin working yet?

[opaque stirrup]

So..

Does UE4 only import the delta of the shape key?

Because when I'm seeing a bunch of imported shape keys with a small number of verts listed

So I ask because I Was under the impression that each shape key basically duplicates the entire mesh and adds a lot of memory load to the character.

If it's the case that it only stores the vert delta info then it's not as bad as I thought?

For example

So does this mean it's only storing that many verts for the entire morph? Or is it still storing the entire mesh but only saying how many verts it's moving around or what?

[opal jackal]

So I'm trying to export my animation from UE4 as .fbx then import it into Blender and tweak the anim, then export it back into UE4. It says it cannot create a valid skeleton form the import data. I'm reading online that blender has this issue but the topics are several years old. Is it possible now in 2020? lol I hope so because I don't know what else I can animate in for free

[restive yew]

You most likely forgot to turn off Add leaf bones upon exporting from blender

[quaint fjord]

Any ways to make movement more smoother and cleaner other than IK?

[steep heron]

Anyone ever run into an issue where blend per bone is shrinking everything above the specified bone? There's no scaling going on anywhere so not sure why it's scaling everything to 0... :l

Trying to blend these the base movement system with these aim offsets above the spine

Seems like something is off with the aim assets being blended in, as other blends work fine. Thinking it could be that maybe the default variables the project is calling have been changed to something else, so it's doing something weird with the aim offset when it comes in?

[opal jackal]

@restive yew I unchecked that box. When I exported the animation from ue4 to fbx, only the bones showed up in blender. Idk if that makes any difference. I've heard there are plugins or something that can help with all this but I'm not sure.

[young urchin]

@steep heron look at all bones prior to blend one, and see if any of parents has scale on it (in animation)

ue4 propagates scale through hierarchy, if you remove bone that gave skeleton its scale all the descendants will lose it too, or vice versa

[jolly osprey]

I have uncovered one of the hidden secrets of the universe

this makes any animations inside a state machine start from the beginning - great for repeating the same animation with a start position that's driven by game code

BAM I'm a technical animator

[young urchin]

cool feature...i'm not fluent with ABP, but it has some nice tricks

most annoying imo is Slots

it's so hard to debug those

i have a question about State machine...
if i have a simple transition animation from state A to state B, but A and B are static, how it should be made?
Cause i know there are poses in ue4, but, i have no clue if it's possible to make blend space from those or to use them as is (for me plugging pose in ABP graph does nothing)

[sonic roost]

I have an animation pack from the marketplace and when I transition between Idle and Walk, this happens -- how come?

(It happens to all of my blendspaces even though each one uses its own anim pack from the marketplace)

[young urchin]

that may happen, as the chain transform is propagating from hip

to solve that ik chain be a good way

it was called 2 bones ik before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK9rQzbSzio

[jolly osprey]

@young urchin make a 1 frame animation out of your pose

[young urchin]

@jolly osprey yeap, but that's so weird imo

[jolly osprey]

it's better than bad it's good

[opal galleon]

Could anyone explain to me how to retarget a mixamo anim to a ue4 mq without changing the ue4 mq pose?

Like simply there are a few land loco animations I want to use from mixamo for now and obviously they work perfectly on a mixamo skele https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KhjhHbejfw

But I want to use these on ue4 mannequin instead and the results I've gotten so far have been unfavorable. I want to do this without changing the mq pose. I was thinking load mq into mixamo and then dl the anims, then import those, but then it has some obvious problems(frozen pelvis for example). How would you go about getting the anim in and not changing the original pose?

PS: I'm not an animator at all, mostly a programmer, but I want to get this ground loco to work on ue4mq because.....because I want to 😛

[silent ingot]

hello, so i have a problem where when i move, the weapon keeps shaking, how would i fix that?

[misty dagger]

Whats a metadata curve in comparision to a float curve?

How can i save float curves at animations for other anims?

[neon zenith]

I've got a skeletal mesh with one animation on it, and I want to control which frame of the animation the mesh is at from BP, what's the best way to do this?

i.e I want to give a function a float [0..1] and have it go to the relevant frame and stop there

[neon zenith]

Aight

I try again

I got this ship

It's got ONE animation

In animation, first door shuts, then gear goes up

I want to make a button you can press, and it opens the door (by playing from frame 100 to frame 0)

You press another button inside and the door closes (by playing from frame 0 to 100)

Then when you take off, the gear goes up (by playing from frame 100 to frame 300)

but for the life of me if I can't figure out how to set the frame of the animation

Do I really have to do 10 different animation assets just to tell it to go to frame X?

[frigid drum]

you cant really, that would cause some problems, duplicate the anim, delete from 0-100, other one delete 100-300, create a montage, add both cut anims, create sections for them, from code you can play section at 1 or -1 scale for reversing

[neon zenith]

Ok, ta

Bit of a pain, I coulda done this in 30 seconds in unity

[frigid drum]

in case it gets more complex, like having combinations of open doors and landing gears that u cant know the order, needs to be done with additive layers and slots

[heavy needle]

you can do this with a state machine. Your opened/closed state is just a one frame long animation. you can reverse play your animation there as well.

[neon zenith]

I just found convert to single frame animation... could that do what it sounds like I think it will?

[frigid drum]

it messes with TAA but it works

[neon zenith]

what's TAA?

[heavy needle]

I dont know but you can just duplicate the animation and delete all the frames not needed.

[frigid drum]

anti aliasing, when you set next anim time, it shakes a bit

[neon zenith]

ah

well

[heavy needle]

in case you dont know, right click on the timeline and remove x to y.

[neon zenith]

I'll give it a go

I've realised tonight that animation in UE4 is a much deeper hole than I realised : \

[frigid drum]

i think youre trying to reinvent what should be simple

[heavy needle]

there is so much stuff. but for your ship, use a state machine. it will look way better.

[neon zenith]

ok, I'll google state machines

[steady ether]

How big is too big when it comes to AnimBPs? Maybes the question is too general to talk about, but hopefully some peeps have some insight

I'm developing a character creator which utilizes the AnimBP a lot, to modify bone scales, positions etc, it seems like it could easily become very excessive

If I'm sticking to using "fast path" Anim nodes as much as possible, and not calling external variables, how optimized are the Transform Bone nodes etc, and is there any documentation or video for more advanced AnimBP optimization?

[bronze osprey]

its all super cheap

gotta watch the math thats hooked up to update animation

if you have only 1 of it in the map you can do whatever u like, its multithreaded

if u have 100s u gotta be more carefull

ok, so im doin a custom 2 bone IK setup, on the paragon rig

this is gunna take some pictyures btw 😛

so im setting an IK target, its not a bone its outside the rig

the foot goes to the target and it bends just fine

but the twist bone is parented to the tigh but it can move freely

so it goes too the target aswell and doesnt keeep offset to the foot

so the ankle gets pressed into the foot

i can delete the twisbone in unreal that fixes this probelm or i can lock em in blender would also fix this

but i rather not change the skel

its also not about this skeleton but more of an overlay for all bipeds

just adding another point also works but gets a tad messy

it would basically defeat the purpose of goin IK

i just feel i am missing a keep offset checkbox somewhere 😛

hmm might be able to fix with a virtual bone

[young urchin]

Any Maya users here?

Is there a way to export "takes" from time editor w/o manually baking the keys to bones?

[young urchin]

I'm using GameExporter atm, and the issue with it, it's not baking position keys to the "root".

i.e. it remains in original position

[jolly osprey]

@young urchin

tried this?

it should be on by default

[young urchin]

yep, it is baking but not the root position (it even bakes the rotation of the root)

[jolly osprey]

what's the root look like

[young urchin]

the red bone (root offset) is always on the same distance

[jolly osprey]

and manually baking it works?

[young urchin]

yep

https://i.gyazo.com/95a0f9a7211b030ac4a57707c952ae4a.mp4

https://i.gyazo.com/c0bd6c953080a3e65ad1f992f01e6031.mp4

[jolly osprey]

does the root joint have a lockInfluenceWeights input connected to its lock influence weights node

[young urchin]

no

only the output

[jolly osprey]

ok

basically

what you're missing

is this:

hold up

trying to take a screenshot that doesn't look like spaghetti on a crime scene

trying to take a screenshot that doesn't look like spaghetti on a crime scene

follow the red lines to glory

anim source -> anim clip -> evaluator -> interpolator -> translate XYZ of your joint

that's what tells it to be using data from a clip

not sure about the lockInfluenceWeights though - I have animations on diff anim layers and it did give me a warning when creating a clip saying blah blah no clips for anim layers

so you might just need stuff going into its translateXYZ as in the screenshot

these should've been created automatically though

if not it's either a bug... or a feature :P

[young urchin]

@jolly osprey um...i don;t have all those spaghetti

[jolly osprey]

what about the other joints

the clip editor should have made its mark on them

are you displaying all the in/out connections?

[young urchin]

this one right?

[jolly osprey]

that

[young urchin]

yep i'm using that button to add node to graph

and traversal depth is -1

[jolly osprey]

check the controls controlling those joints

you might've added them instead

in which case the timeline connections should be listed on them

[young urchin]

yep

they are there

[nimble hatch]

why did no one tell me I could set the blend space that is used in the blendspace player in an anim bp state machine at runtime... why was I missing this information before now!

[jolly osprey]

@young urchin okay so why am I not seeing your controls connected to the root bone in the node editor?

[young urchin]

cause there is no connection

it's spline ik

[jolly osprey]

okay so there's your problem probably

whatever's controlling the root bone needs to have been added to the timeline

if nothing's controlling it then you need to add it itself

[young urchin]

why the root is different?

[jolly osprey]

otherwise the timeline's unaware

you tell me

it's your rig

[young urchin]

it's just a bare spline ik

[jolly osprey]

k so add the spline ik to the timeline

[young urchin]

the simplest one

[jolly osprey]

I mean time editor

[young urchin]

i've tried...it does not adding any stuff that has no keys on them

[jolly osprey]

k so add the root joint instead

[young urchin]

root is added

[jolly osprey]

does it work now in ue4

[young urchin]

no, it was there from the beginning

[jolly osprey]

ah

is Root Object the same as root though?

hm it probably is

well - I still believe your problem is that something's missing input connections from the timeline

either the root joint or whatever's driving it

you can also check what connections are made once bake it

[young urchin]

hmm...i'm not sure...it may be the locator's group, i've tried to rename it but this "Root" still labeled as root...
how to add new objects to existing "takes" ?

[jolly osprey]

it might give you a hint as to what's missing from where in the unbaked version

[young urchin]

but...baked one is not connected to anything

as it's export thing

[jolly osprey]

no you can bake it prior to export

just right click on a clip

[young urchin]

this bake...ok

nope, that one didn't change anything

i think that bake is to merge groups in time editor only

[jolly osprey]

bake to scene means that the keys you've set in the time editor itself are transferred over to the graph editor

flatten merges layers

[fresh tangle]

I'm trying to record the transforms of a component inside my recorded class but it won't allow me to do anything...?

So if I have a staticMesh inside my pawn that I want to record the transform of then I can't do it? That 'choose properties to be recorded' doesn't show translations, and I can't add anything.

[misty dagger]

Just figured out Animation LOD. Pretty sick stuff, here's my exaggerated example.
https://imgur.com/a/7SAqeBu

[jolly osprey]

there's uro and shared anim groups and all that

[young urchin]

@jolly osprey i've tried to bake to scene and it's the same...no root animation on export

it bake only the controller keys to scene

[jolly osprey]

out if ideas

[young urchin]

@misty dagger 3rd one looks wonky...

[misty dagger]

It's skipping anywhere from 0-8 frames, probably loses allot of the intended feeling
Actually I think its due to LOD Popping, and the overtly exaggerated-ness. You'd never see this much LOD popping hopefully.

[odd thistle]

Why doesn't my animation montage save the end time?

I want my montage to end after 3 seconds

after i close the project and reopen

it resets back to 0.3 which is too short

any ideass?

nevermind

just set the animation to loop 100 times

: d

[forest idol]

Does anyone know how I can adjust the direction of the SimpleGrassWind ? I am applying it to a plane, but want the wind to hit the other axis

[young urchin]

@forest idol it does not have particular direction...this wind is just orbiting the verts, you can double click and see the logic inside
as well as you free to change it, or make new based on it

[tender flicker]

hi, does anyone know a better way to do character animations for weapons?

currently I have a weapon with multiple attachments (for now its just 2 different grips and extended mag which has a different model.

and the way I'm doing the animations right now is that I have seperate animation montages for idle and reload and when you attach a different grip for example, that will override the idle animations

but the problem is that sometimes when blending between idle and reload, the hands go through the grips or the weapon

since the idle is just the character holding the weapon and the reload animation starts from when the character is holding the magazine. does anyone know a good way on how to do animations for weapons with multiple attachments? or how other games do it?

[young urchin]

i'm afraid modularity can only work with some rig or at least ik

[neon zenith]

Aight

I got the hang of state machines last night

Tonight I learned how to do a button in VR

Now I want to know how to set a variable in an animation blueprint from a normal blueprint

Mr google is not much help

[hoary knot]

hello, I'm trying to use blend poses by enum but I can't figure out how to add new pose slots to plug in for the enums 😕

[neon zenith]

this is my animation blueprint, doorGearPosition is an int

it makes the states change via the transition rules

I need to change that int from the actors blueprint...

ahk

got it

[neon zenith]

ok, so I'm in the physics asset editor... and I got this box primitive on the entry ramp of my ship...

I'm trying to walk up it in VR but I can't figure out how to turn on collision 😦

Use CCD doesn't do anything... (far as I can tell)

[hallow gazelle]

Hello guys. Anybody using 3ds max here? I have rig issue

I have a simple orientation constraint

after some limit initial point has rotation clipping

maybe anyone know a fix for this one?

[molten jewel]

It’s a skeletal mesh @neon zenith ?

Collision profile should be the thing to change on the primitive

[jolly osprey]

how would I pass a custom animation sequence from my anim instance in c++ to the anim bp to play?

I've tried FPoseLink but that's just an output pin w/ no animation

[molten jewel]

as in pick a animsequencebase?

[jolly osprey]

yes

so basically I'm looking for an anim sequence picker

I'm already using the blend poses by int node but I want something that won't blend

have looked at blend poses by enum too but it's essentially the same

I might have to subclass UAnimGraphNode_SequencePlayer won't I

[molten jewel]

it would be a good idea

you know you can expose the animation on the player to a pin right?

if you need to decide the sequence based on something you can't get in the event graph, you'd still need a anim node.. but otherwise yeah you could assign animation to a pin

[jolly osprey]

now I do

pah too easy!

[molten jewel]

applepah

[jolly osprey]

easy as pah ermahgerd

this would only suck up resources for at most 2 animations (blend in and blend out), yiss?

[oblique vortex]

any ideas how to mirror a skeltal mesh without fudging components attached to the mesh

i have vr hands and the way that it's done normally by scaling 1 1 -1

it udges the scene components i use as an improptu sockets

[frigid knot]

i want my body to float up and down, how can i make a simple animation in ue4?

[restive yew]

Timeline node, set transform current location + bobbing offset

[neon zenith]

@molten jewel yah, it's a skeletal mesh...

[molten jewel]

use a physics asset then to define the door's collision

can't really think why a box collision wouldn't work there though

[jolly osprey]

how do I make a montage play only once from c++?

[jolly osprey]

bound a delegate to FOnMontageEnded and calling Montage_Stop() in it for now but if there's a better way feel free to share

[shut kraken]

Anyone here have some blender fbx export settings that can send an armature to UE4 with minimal axis and unit bullshit? I know i had it nailed down once but that was like a year ago.

[jolly osprey]

@shut kraken

except for leaf bones

[neon zenith]

aight

so I need to figure out how to animate this:

It's part of the skeletal mesh, and has the necessary bones to do the movement I need

And I'm looking here: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Animation/NodeReference/SkeletalControls/index.html

Don't suppose anyone has done anything like this before

Or even better if there's an example project with something like this in it?

[scarlet spade]

Don't know if this is an animation problem but any help would be greatly appreciated

Does anyone know how I can get my player's anim to line up more to the wall? My wall slide function is set up to play on collision with the player's capsule component which can be seen above

[tough herald]

Anyone knows how can i set bone locations from an array?transform bone node has pre-selected bone and its not dynamic (i cannot set location by bone name from my array).

@neon zenith Im using skeletal controls too!

[tender flicker]

Hey, does anyone know how to do proper third person reload with IK or blending?

I have a reload animation but when I use it with the aimoffset, if the player is looking up then the character doesn't reach toward his chest since it only goes half way or if it's looking down then the arm goes through the body

[plush blaze]

importet a mannequin from blender, all looks finde, but if i apply a animation this happens, does someone know why? https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/485408595052199936/680866449631477760/unknown.png

[molten jewel]

@plush blaze turn off fix orientation in import settings

mannequin bones should look like they are pointing in all kinds of strange directions

[plush blaze]

cant find this in ue4 import

without animation it looks alright, I can also select bones and rotate them without errors

@molten jewel Do you mean the fbx import in blender? I have not importet the mesh in blender, I used the blender file from the ue4 wiki

[molten jewel]

Yeah I do mean the fbx import

zoom in close on the elbow and look at the colors of the axes

compare them to a mannequin you didn't import

[plush blaze]

yes, looks like the orientation is wrong, but how to fix this?

Ue4

mine

looked a tutorial video, but the bone orientation in blender seams right

[dusky axle]

Im tryin got import a model with animations with only keyframes set. But when i import into UE4 i get a blank animation preview. All the bones ive keyframed are there, anyone have any idea what im doing wrong?

[plush blaze]

@dusky axle Did you select "bake animation" on export?

[dusky axle]

Doesnt seem to be an option when i export to FBX with blender

@plush blaze

[jolly osprey]

it's on by default

[dusky axle]

Ive never had to do that before either. i have other models with full animation and they work fine. Just when i try to export animations with only a single keyframe

[jolly osprey]

try 2 frames

I'm working w/ maya and I can't export a single frame animation from there either

[dusky axle]

hmm ok ill try

[plush blaze]

are you exporting only the bones without mesh?

[dusky axle]

No mesh and all.

Im not sure whats going on..

i tried with 2 keyframes and that should have worked..

These are the only errors im getting on import

[jolly osprey]

try deleting the skel + mesh and reimport everything

[dusky axle]

Thats what ive been doing..

[dusky axle]

Hmm not sure, had alot of problem but i got it.. I think my rig was off i just remade it and a single keyframe animation imported just fine.

[limber pulsar]

https://i.gyazo.com/2a6ec35151aea7d73566b7a5982782d8.mp4 is there a way to blend between end of attack and idle pose, or do I have to have a separate animation ending it?

[limber pulsar]

so blend space can transition smoothly, but I can't use blend space in a montage.. Any ideas?

[dusky axle]

hmm ok guys im back again.. So ive got my keyframed animations inside my editor. I got a timeline inside my Character BP setup to set a blend variable that the AnimBP picks up. But it doesnt look like it is actually. Doesnt look like my AnimBP is running at all. Ive even dropped it right into the map and nothing.. When manually changing the alpha value on the blend node it looks like its doing what i want but i dont think the AnimBP is picking up the timeline float during gameplay.. Any ideas as to why? Or better approach to this maybe?

[dusky axle]

I have no idea why this is failing but its whats stopping me: /

[jolly osprey]

(how) have you set your anim bp in the skel mesh

@dusky axle

[dusky axle]

i set it to my animBP

Its this correct?

@jolly osprey

[jolly osprey]

sorry my project is not compiling rn but no, Idpon't believe that's it

there should be a setting on the skel mesh

where you can choose btwn asset, bp or none or something like that

pp anim bp is something entirely different

[dusky axle]

Oh yeah ive had that set to use animation BP.

I didnt even change anything and now its working.. im not sure whats going on, time for sleep lol

[obtuse basin]

I imported a skeletal mesh with 266 bones. The engine did not warned me. It imported success.
Is "maximum bones per mesh = 256" just a myth ?

[tender flicker]

anyone know how to make IK node enabled only when playing a montage?

[bronze osprey]

do any really good animators ever hang here?

they all got scared away by all the pics of horribly deformed rigs 😛

why u no work??!

[molten jewel]

@obtuse basin I’ve seen code that refers to bones as bytes index, but if you have imported something with more bones, ensured that the bone count on import is greater than what a byte index can hold, it may be possible they patched it. Otherwise that limit may be entirely deformation bones, hard to say. Mobile does have a much smaller than 256 bone deformation limit

[reef agate]

I’m struggling to understand FAnimInstanceProxy. I currently have a struct of floats in a custom anim instance that I expose and read in my anim graph. Is that something I should move to the proxy struct?

@jolly osprey I saw you were digging into this Proxy some days ago. Did you make heads or tails?

[undone river]

can anybody help me when i shoot in my scene the trigger boxes for the next level or the automatic doors sounds will trigger or i will load the next level

my projectiles are over lapping them how do i fix this

[terse lagoon]

hello, i'm trying to create a head bob animation, it works as long as i move forwards or right. but when i move backwards or left it doesn't activate. how can i fix this. or even better. reverse the animation whilst moving left or backwards.

[jolly osprey]

@reef agate I think for passing variables straight on to your anim bp like that it doesn't really matter - proxies are for when you're calculating stuff per frame

since they get multithreaded and all, whereas your anim instance is bound to the GT

but then you'd have to 1. copy to proxy 2. process in proxy 3. copy back to anim instance 4. read anim instance in your anim bp

so you'd be doing two copies for nothing if you're just reading some pre-processed data

[misty dagger]

I want rig character in blender and animate idle, walk and run then export it as fbx and import it in UE4. Any one know good tutorial for the right rig and animation?

[tender flicker]

could someone tell me what the difference is between 2 bone IK and FABRIK?

[reef agate]

@jolly osprey In my case I have a server that I create in anim instance which receives data and fires a delegate everytime it updates. It updates the floats every frame at run-time

i'm also smoothing that data with FMath:WeightedMovingAverage

does this qualify for an FAnimInstanceProxy use?

I'm so lost w that proxy

[jolly osprey]

just shove anything into the proxy that's getting modified per-frame for animation

and make sure you copy it back to the anim instance

in the proxy's... postevaluate/postupdate function? forget which

the idea is that the anim instance never does anything w/ the proxy since it kinda doesn't know about it

so you declare it a friend in your anim instance class

and each frame, the proxy pulls data in from the anim instance in [the proxy's] preupdate/preevaluate

then does Evaluate()

then copies everything your anim instance / anim BP is going to need back to the anim instance

so your bp'

so your bp's only interacting w/ your anim instance

pre/postupdate or w/e they're called are running on the GT vs. the proxy's Evaluate() function which is multithreaded

[reef agate]

hmm i will try, i don't really get the difference yet among all the per frame methods: pre, post, evaluate, update etc etc

[jolly osprey]

evaluate is MT the rest are GT

[reef agate]

So i'd always want to use MT when possible right?

[jolly osprey]

iirc the order is preupd, upd, eval, postupd

yes, always MT

[reef agate]

Ok, I have a feeling this is still gonna take some time to stick, but hopefully i'll get there

i've never done such elaborate stuff w structs

Where should i copy the per frame data back to the anim instance? in what method?

[jolly osprey]

postupdate

[reef agate]

k so my struct contains a struct of 50 some odd floats that update in a function I bind to the server which I created in that anim instance. I don't know how to do all that in a struct but i will try. Then I will create a duplicate struct in the anim instance and copy the data into it in postupdate

that's in my nativebeginplay in anim instance right now

[jolly osprey]

there's also postevaluate and preevaluate so w/e I've said about preupdate and postupdate might actually have to go into preevaluate and postevaluate - don't blame me though it gets confusing just figure out which methods work

🤓

[reef agate]

OnOSCMessageReceived fires on its own without running in animinstance tick

[jolly osprey]

unfortunately I've deleted the only class where I'd been using this anim proxy crap b/c I've refactored everything into my game code module so can't really pull any examples up

I also know jack about ue4 multiplayer

[reef agate]

I've been trying for two weeks to understand why averaging FRotator samples with WeightedMovingAverage() and other smoothing algorithms is causing this kind of flipping

if anyone could help. I'm desperate at this point and could offer a token compensation if fixed

[molten jewel]

you'd be better off averaging quat then normalizing

but that could also be problematic

since most orientations can be reprenented in two different quaternion values, you have to makes sure when your blending two quats that your using the version nearest between the two

you can't just interpolate euler angles like your doing there either way

for some bones you may want to consider even converting the quats to separate swing twist for interpolation

[reef agate]

p@t the thing is, I've already converted the quats to FRotators and these FRotators work perfectly. I'll take a vid now

so i'm feeling really dumb for not understanding

Here is mocap of the quats converted to FRotators with no glitching

You can see it's not smooth but at least it isn't spinning/glitching because i removed the weighted moving average algorithm

So why is it that when I take those FRotators and put them through a Weighted Moving Average algorithm, I get that spinning/glitching. Looking at the debug values, it looks like it happens whenever the values cross from negative to positive or vice versa

[molten jewel]

so eulers,

imagine if you point a cannon from front

to up, to behind

an euler rotation works in a predefined order to achieve the orientation

because something like pitch in a euler could be done first, when the cannon faces up, its gonna be +90 (or wahtever) pitch

and when its forward up, it'll be +89

as well as when its rear up

you can't interpolate these values by axis/component because of it

so having proper rotators doesn't help you blend them together such as you might need with the algorithm

they may point identically in relationship to their source quaternion, but the numeric values are a product of rotations around 3 axes in an order where the blending makes no sense on a component level

quaternions are a rotation around a single axis

and they're encoded in a way that they can be blended

axisnormal * sin(angle/2.f) = quat.xyz

cos(angle/2.f) = quat.w

so for any orientation except for no-rotation at all,there are two different quats for any one rotation because the angle / 2.f part

quat(1,0,0,0) is the same as quat(-1,0,0,0)

both of these are 180 degrees around X

sind(180/2) = 1
cosd(180/2) = 0

[reef agate]

if i can understand everything you are saying one day i will feel like a wizard : )

question

At this point, I have an FRotator (32 of them) and as you've seen, they work perfectly. p@t is there any way for me to smooth those FRotators while keeping them as FRotators?

trying to boil this down : )

[molten jewel]

do you define how the rotators are blended?

[reef agate]

I wish I understood what you mean by blended

[molten jewel]

Weighted Moving Average algorithm

[reef agate]

{
    FRotator OutRotator;
    OutRotator.Yaw = FMath::Clamp(FMath::WeightedMovingAverage(CurrentSample.Yaw, PreviousSample.Yaw, Weight), -180.f, 180.f);
    OutRotator.Pitch = FMath::Clamp(FMath::WeightedMovingAverage(CurrentSample.Pitch, PreviousSample.Pitch, Weight), -180.f, 180.f);
    OutRotator.Roll = FMath::Clamp(FMath::WeightedMovingAverage(CurrentSample.Roll, PreviousSample.Roll, Weight), -180.f, 180.f);
    return OutRotator;
}```

That's what that method does. It breaks out the three floats and smooths them

Is there something I need to further define with respect to the blending you're speaking of.

as I mentioned, if I take what I'm putting into the Current Sample param and connect it to a joint, everything is perfect. But as soon as I put it through this algorithm I get the spinning/glitching

(p@t i forgot but i think you do the c++ stuff, if not I can switch to BP language hehe)

This is probably (hopefully) irrelevant but code is converting the native quaternion orientation system to ue4 like so /** * Convert the Orientation from Kinect co-ordinate system to Unreal co-ordinate system. * We negate the x, y components of the JointQuaternion since we are converting from * Kinect's Right Hand orientation to Unreal's Left Hand orientation. */ FQuat JointQuaternion = FQuat( -NativeJoint.orientation.wxyz.z, -NativeJoint.orientation.wxyz.x, NativeJoint.orientation.wxyz.y, NativeJoint.orientation.wxyz.w);

then I do some FRotationMatrix stuff to get an FRotator called Orientation for each joint like Orientation = FRotationMatrix::MakeFromXZ(JointQuaternion.GetAxisY(), -JointQuaternion.GetAxisX()) .Rotator();

[jolly osprey]

I'm in no way an expert but what if you tried doing the wgtd avg on the quats instead

and skipped using frotators

[molten jewel]

FRotator WeightedMovingAverage_FRotator(FRotator CurrentSample, FRotator PreviousSample, float Weight) {
    FQuat QCurrent{ CurrentSample };
    FQuat QPrevious{ PreviousSample };

    QCurrent.EnforceShortestArcWith(QPrevious);
    
    FQuat QDelta{ QPrevious.Inverse() * QCurrent };
    FVector Axis{ QDelta.X,QDelta.Y,QDelta.Z };

    if (!Axis.Normalize()) {
        return CurrentSample;
    }else{
        
        float AngleTo{ FMath::Acos(QDelta.W) * 2.f };

        if (AngleTo >= PI) {
            AngleTo = -(AngleTo - (2 * PI));
            Axis = -Axis;
        }

        AngleTo = FMath::WeightedMovingAverage(AngleTo, 0.f, Weight);

        if (AngleTo < 0.f) {
            AngleTo = (2 * PI) - FMath::Fmod(-AngleTo, 2 * PI);
        }
        else {
            AngleTo = FMath::Fmod(AngleTo, 2 * PI);
        }

        if (AngleTo >= PI) {
            AngleTo = -(AngleTo - (2 * PI));
            Axis = -Axis;
        }

        FMath::SinCos(&QDelta.Z, &QDelta.W, AngleTo / 2.f);
        QDelta.X = QDelta.Z*Axis.X;
        QDelta.Y = QDelta.Z*Axis.Y;
        QDelta.Z *= Axis.Z;

        QPrevious *= QDelta;
        return FRotator{QPrevious};
    }
}```

[reef agate]

GlassBeaver yes! that will be my last ditch effort, but in the end, I believe I HAVE to convert to FRotators at some point, because i'm plugging these into the Transform Bone Anim Graph node which does not accept quarternians

[molten jewel]

that boils it down to axis of rotation between orientations

only weighing the angle between current and prev

its in radians for what its worth

[reef agate]

If this works, plz provide your patreon link lol

[molten jewel]

i dunno what FMath:: WeightedMovingAverage is

er

it might work, but its a weird way to smooth things

[reef agate]

It's goofy that i'm converting from Quats to FRotators then back to Quats

so if anything it would be some kind of temp solution

Your code is absurdly over my head also

[jolly osprey]

use this anim node for when you want to rotate bones via quats

(4.22 but it'll probably work 4.22+)

[reef agate]

GlassBeaver does that node work in Component Space?

[jolly osprey]

you tell it what space to work in

there's a dropdown on it

[reef agate]

ugh omg, that'd be amazing if that works

Do I just drop that in the engine folder with all the other nodes or?

[jolly osprey]

probably just anywhere you want

[reef agate]

Can be in my project source?

[jolly osprey]

I have an editor module for stuff like this

sure, it's in my project source too

[reef agate]

project source had errors hehe

trying this C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_4.24\Engine\Source\Runtime\AnimGraphRuntime\Private\BoneControllers

[jolly osprey]

Animation\AnimGraph folder I think

bc of the include

mine's like this:

Source\HoruEditor\Private\Animation\AnimGraph\AnimNode_RotateBoneQuat.cpp
Source\HoruEditor\Public\Animation\AnimGraph\AnimNode_RotateBoneQuat.h

[reef agate]

what is HoruEditor?

[jolly osprey]

my game's editor module

what's the path to your project's source files

[reef agate]

C:\Users\lagauche\Desktop\AzureKinect\Source

[jolly osprey]

is there a public and private folder underneath it

under Source

[reef agate]

C:\Users\lagauche\Desktop\AzureKinect\Source\AzureKinect

no not yet

[jolly osprey]

ok so what you can do is just copy both files under AzureKinect/Source/AzureKinect

[reef agate]

I also am using a plugin i'd happily add it to C:\Users\lagauche\Desktop\AzureKinect\Plugins\AzureKinectUnreal\Source\AzureKinectUnreal\Public

but either way

[jolly osprey]

go into the .cpp and change #include "Animation/AnimGraph/AnimNode_RotateBoneQuat.h" to #include "AnimNode_RotateBoneQuat.h"

[reef agate]

workin on it

[jolly osprey]

btw the node should do exactly what the Transform (modify) bone does in stock ue4 but it uses quats instead of rotators

(and it doesn't do location of course)

(or scale)

[reef agate]

ya

[jolly osprey]

(well you get the idea)

[reef agate]

that would be ideal! curious if you can still record with it? using take recorder or sequencer or whatever tools?

[jolly osprey]

I don't see why you couldn't

don't think the original transform bone node has anything special wrt recording

[reef agate]

  Running UnrealHeaderTool "C:\Users\lagauche\Desktop\AzureKinect\AzureKinect.uproject" "C:\Users\lagauche\Desktop\AzureKinect\Intermediate\Build\Win64\AzureKinectEditor\Development\AzureKinectEditor.uhtmanifest" -LogCmds="loginit
warning, logexit warning, logdatabase error" -Unattended -WarningsAsErrors -installed
C:/Program Files/Epic Games/UE_4.24/Engine/Source/Runtime/AnimGraphRuntime/Public/BoneControllers/AnimNode_RotateBoneQuat.h(1): Error: UnrealHeaderTool was unable to load source file 'C:/Program Files/Epic Games/UE_4.24/Engine/Source/Runtime/AnimGraphRuntime/Public/BoneControllers/AnimNode_RotateBoneQuat.h'
The terminal process terminated with exit code: 1```

sorry i'm struggling

In cpp #include "AnimNode_RotateBoneQuat.h" #include "AnimationRuntime.h" #include "Animation/AnimInstanceProxy.h"

[jolly osprey]

I'd remove it from engine source

[reef agate]

i did already

but still gettin that error hmm

  [1/6] AnimNode_RotateBoneQuat.cpp
  C:\Users\lagauche\Desktop\AzureKinect\Source\AzureKinect\AnimNode_RotateBoneQuat.h(9): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'BoneControllers/AnimNode_SkeletalControlBase.h': No such file or directory
  [2/6] AnimNode_RotateBoneQuat.gen.cpp
  C:\Users\lagauche\Desktop\AzureKinect\Source\AzureKinect/AnimNode_RotateBoneQuat.h(9): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'BoneControllers/AnimNode_SkeletalControlBase.h': No such file or directory
  [3/6] AzureKinect.init.gen.cpp
The terminal process terminated with exit code: 1```

this is promising

just gotta fix that include

i give up for now : / i should be able to get this in my anim graph. gotta decompress hehe

thnx Glass and p@t for all the help so far

[reef agate]

@jolly osprey Got the node to build by removing HORUEDITOR_API here struct HORUEDITOR_API FAnimNode_RotateBoneQuat : public FAnimNode_SkeletalControlBase and then adding AnimGraphRunTime to my publicdependencymodules in Build.cs

I can't find the node in my anim graph though

[jolly osprey]

nada?

[reef agate]

nada unfortunately. just recompiled again checking...

[jolly osprey]

AH!

hold up

them nodes come in pairs :P

this is animGraphNode, the other one is just animNode

you need all 4 files

[reef agate]

ooh ok, all in the same folder ya?

[jolly osprey]

yiss

logic being that you could invoke the plain animNode from c++ w/o any animGraphNodes

I think.

it's convoluted anyway

[reef agate]

cool. What was that _API thing I deleted? That is just the name of your module and unnecessary? I read that by including AnimGraphRunTime as a module dependency i was doing something goofy and can't package

working on new errors now fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'Animation/AnimGraph/AnimNode_RotateBoneQuat.h': No such file or directory

gonna change that folder structure

[jolly osprey]

yeah it's the same include business as before

the api thing is your game project's name

in your case probably AZUREKINECT_API

[reef agate]

stuck w C:\Users\lagauche\Desktop\AzureKinect\Source\AzureKinect\AnimGraphNode_RotateBoneQuat.h(9): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'AnimGraphNode_SkeletalControlBase.h': No such file or directory [2/8] AnimGraphNode_RotateBoneQuat.gen.cpp C:\Users\lagauche\Desktop\AzureKinect\Source\AzureKinect/AnimGraphNode_RotateBoneQuat.h(9): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'AnimGraphNode_SkeletalControlBase.h': No such file or directory

#include "BoneControllers/AnimGraphNode_SkeletalControlBase.h" tried this

[jolly osprey]

in your build.cs

"AnimationCore", "AnimGraph", "AnimGraphRuntime"

one or all of these

@reef agate

[reef agate]

cool ya put them all in public modules and got a crazy list of errors AnimGraphNode_RotateBoneQuat.cpp.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol "__declspec(dllimport) public: __cdecl FBlueprintNodeSignature::FBlueprintNodeSignature(class TSubclassOf<class UEdGraphNode>)" (__imp_??0FBlueprintNodeSignature@@QEAA@V?$TSubclassOf@VUEdGraphNode@@@@@Z) referenced in function "public: virtual struct FBlueprintNodeSignature __cdecl UK2Node::GetSignature(void)const " (?GetSignature@UK2Node@@UEBA?AUFBlueprintNodeSignature@@XZ) AnimGraphNode_RotateBoneQuat.gen.cpp.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "__declspec(dllimport) public: __cdecl FBlueprintNodeSignature::FBlueprintNodeSignature(class TSubclassOf<class UEdGraphNode>)" (__imp_??0FBl

it's all LNK errors

[jolly osprey]

        PrivateDependencyModuleNames.AddRange(new string[] {
            "Core", "CoreUObject", "Engine",
            "UnrealEd", "PropertyEditor", "EditorStyle", "Slate", "SlateCore", "Blutility",
            "AnimationCore", "AnimGraph", "AnimGraphRuntime", "BlueprintGraph"
        });

try these

:D

one of them is it.

[reef agate]

will try now. newb question but i notice yours are in Private. Does it matter?

[jolly osprey]

don't think so

[reef agate]

it built : )

[jolly osprey]

whee

[jolly osprey]

double whee

[reef agate]

can this use fast path?

would i see the lightning bolt? don't even have a quat to test w yet

oh ya it can

!

hey that's so cool! This helps me to understand a bit about making a custom anim graph node also

i've been wanting to learn

[jolly osprey]

whee on the three

[reef agate]

this question is just out of curiosity at this point, but is it at all (with whatever ideal configuration) possible to package when using this node?

and why doesn't Epic have a quat rotate node like this?

[jolly osprey]

you should be able to package w/ it, yes

no clue why they don't have it by default

the thing w/ anim graph nodes is they don't get used outside the editor

which a packaged game is

so that's why you should either put it in an editor-only module of yours or enclose everything in #if WITH_EDITOR #endif

otherwise it'll croak

[reef agate]

doh @jolly osprey ```LoginId:36c4b739453c5a677fa720b71f019068
EpicAccountId:77e06f97f9dc4fc2915301676d8aa37c

Assertion failed: ResultString.Num() == 3 [File:D:/Build/++UE4/Sync/Engine/Source/Editor/AnimGraph/Private/AnimGraphNode_SkeletalControlBase.cpp] [Line: 313]

UE4Editor_Core
UE4Editor_Core
UE4Editor_AnimGraph
UE4Editor_AnimGraph
UE4Editor_AzureKinect!UAnimGraphNode_RotateBoneQuat::CopyPinDefaultsToNodeData() [C:\Users\lagauche\Desktop\AzureKinect\Source\AzureKinect\AnimGraphNode_RotateBoneQuat.cpp:99]```

crashed when i tried to connect a quat to the node pin

[jolly osprey]

what's the error

[reef agate]

where do i find that again : /

[jolly osprey]

line 99 should be a carbon copy of what the engine had for their transform bone node

maybe you're naming something RotationQuat and it's not liking it?..

[reef agate]

log [2020.02.24-07.09.15:311][516]LogWindows: Windows GetLastError: The operation completed successfully. (0) [2020.02.24-07.09.16:793][516]LogWindows: Error: === Critical error: === [2020.02.24-07.09.16:793][516]LogWindows: Error: [2020.02.24-07.09.16:793][516]LogWindows: Error: Assertion failed: ResultString.Num() == 3 [File:D:/Build/++UE4/Sync/Engine/Source/Editor/AnimGraph/Private/AnimGraphNode_SkeletalControlBase.cpp] [Line: 313] [2020.02.24-07.09.16:793][516]LogWindows: Error: [2020.02.24-07.09.16:793][516]LogWindows: Error: [2020.02.24-07.09.16:793][516]LogWindows: Error: [2020.02.24-07.09.16:793][516]LogWindows: Error: [Callstack] 0x00007ff8451c9159 KERNELBASE.dll!UnknownFunction [] [2020.02.24-07.09.16:793][516]LogWindows: Error: [Callstack] 0x00007ffffe25a9a6 UE4Editor-Core.dll!UnknownFunction []

lemme try a bp quat

[jolly osprey]

[Line: 313] --> the file's only supposed to be 104 lines long

[reef agate]

hmm still crashing

[jolly osprey]

wait

[reef agate]

lemme look at mine

[jolly osprey]

wrong file sorry

did you rename the class?

UAnimGraphNode_RotateBoneQuat

or the file

[reef agate]

I don't think i renamed anything except for that _API

after struct

[jolly osprey]

hm

beats me then, sorry

what I'd do is run an engine debug and check the values there

[reef agate]

class is UCLASS(meta=(Keywords = "Rotate Bone Quat")) class UAnimGraphNode_RotateBoneQuat : public UAnimGraphNode_SkeletalControlBase

[jolly osprey]

did you give it a quat?

[reef agate]

it crashes as soon as I let go of the wire from a quat to the quat input on the node

tried a BP made quat in the anim bp and a c++ exposed FQuat

i'm on 4.24.2 if that could make any diff

i can't go back in versions on this project

[jolly osprey]

run an engine debug

or maybe a simple debuggame editor, you might get lucky and it'll give you the variables

[reef agate]

f5 in vs community right?

[jolly osprey]

yes

are you on stock engine or source built?

[reef agate]

stock

i dunno how to do a simple debuggame editor : P

[jolly osprey]

I think you need debug symbols installed for that

[reef agate]

ya i have them installed

jus fyi even if i drag off quat pin and hit make quat it crashes

[reef agate]

cool ya will switch over to VS community in a sec, just seeing if that is in vs code by chance

breakpoint hereNode.RotationQuat = tempOut.Quaternion();

in ```void UAnimGraphNode_RotateBoneQuat::CopyPinDefaultsToNodeData(UEdGraphPin* InPin)
{
if (InPin->GetName() == GET_MEMBER_NAME_STRING_CHECKED(FAnimNode_RotateBoneQuat, RotationQuat))
{
FRotator tempOut;
GetDefaultValue(GET_MEMBER_NAME_STRING_CHECKED(FAnimNode_RotateBoneQuat, RotationQuat), tempOut);
Node.RotationQuat = tempOut.Quaternion();
}
}

computer is all frozen, can't even screenshot hehe

[jolly osprey]

you could try making a variable out of w/e is returned by get_member_name_string to check its value

[reef agate]

a hair over my head what that function is even doing.

[jolly osprey]

some bp crap

[reef agate]

i would imagine if i'm crashing you would also in 4.24

don't think i'm doin anything weird here

[jolly osprey]

I'm on 4.22

try commenting the body of that function out

see what happens

[reef agate]

k

no more crash when i comment it out like this:

but some super weird crash when compiling the bp after connecting input and output pin hehe

oh wells : ) I gotta rest. Hopefully some gods will shine down on me tomorrow haha

[jolly osprey]

good luck

you can also check AnimGraphNode_ModifyBone.cpp for clues on what might be different in 4.24

\Engine\Source\Editor\AnimGraph\Private\AnimGraphNode_ModifyBone.cpp

[grave forge]

I'm a bit stumped on handling animation blueprints and associated state machines across multiple skeletons. I initially thought best practice was to have 1 skeleton across all your characters, and create child blueprints for all the different characters, basing it on a parent ABP and state machine. I've been watching some devstreams though, and I noticed that the game I am following has all kinds of different characters with their own skeletons. I realise it's a bit vague, but is there anyone well versed enough in the black magic of Unreal's animation tools that can explain how they are probably tackling this workflow?

In my reasoning, it would mean that they have to maintain all the different animation blueprints and state machines for each of the characters, as you cannot make an child blueprint of something that has a different skeleton, right? (+the maintenance nightmare that comes with that) Entirely possible (and I am hoping) that I'm wrong though, and that I could learn something from this.

[reef agate]

Has anyone here using FInterpTo to smooth rotations and vectors (especially from hardware sensor data) instead of using Averages? I'm curious if they are a viable option and what the pros and cons are

[jolly osprey]

void FPoseLinkBase::Initialize(const FAnimationInitializeContext& Context)
{
#if DO_CHECK
    checkf(!bProcessed, TEXT("Initialize already in progress, circular link for AnimInstance [%s] Blueprint [%s]"), \
        *Context.AnimInstanceProxy->GetAnimInstanceName(), *GetFullNameSafe(IAnimClassInterface::GetActualAnimClass(Context.AnimInstanceProxy->GetAnimClassInterface())));
    TGuardValue<bool> CircularGuard(bProcessed, true);
#endif

I keep failing this check in my packaged game

everything works fine in editor runs

has anyone come across it

[winged violet]

In most animation blueprint examples, the character is casted to on tick

Would it not be cheaper to just cache it once and use the reference?

[jolly osprey]

it would

[winged violet]

Thanks I'll do that from now on

[jolly osprey]

it would also be a lot cheaper to not use the event graph part of your anim bps at all and do it all in c++ instead

casting won't make a major difference if you're using bps to begin with I don't think

@reef agate I've used qinterpconstantto w/ quats to get consistent speed

but I'm using that for simulating turning rates of spaceships

basically these are your options:

        case EAlphaBlendOption::Sinusoidal:        return FMath::Clamp<float>((FMath::Sin(InAlpha * PI - HALF_PI) + 1.f) / 2.f, 0.f, 1.f);
        case EAlphaBlendOption::Cubic:            return FMath::Clamp<float>(FMath::CubicInterp<float>(0.f, 0.f, 1.f, 0.f, InAlpha), 0.f, 1.f);
        case EAlphaBlendOption::QuadraticInOut: return FMath::Clamp<float>(FMath::InterpEaseInOut<float>(0.f, 1.f, InAlpha, 2), 0.f, 1.f);
        case EAlphaBlendOption::CubicInOut:        return FMath::Clamp<float>(FMath::InterpEaseInOut<float>(0.f, 1.f, InAlpha, 3), 0.f, 1.f);
        case EAlphaBlendOption::HermiteCubic:    return FMath::Clamp<float>(FMath::SmoothStep(0.0f, 1.0f, InAlpha), 0.0f, 1.0f);
        case EAlphaBlendOption::QuarticInOut:    return FMath::Clamp<float>(FMath::InterpEaseInOut<float>(0.f, 1.f, InAlpha, 4), 0.f, 1.f);
        case EAlphaBlendOption::QuinticInOut:    return FMath::Clamp<float>(FMath::InterpEaseInOut<float>(0.f, 1.f, InAlpha, 5), 0.f, 1.f);
        case EAlphaBlendOption::CircularIn:        return FMath::Clamp<float>(FMath::InterpCircularIn<float>(0.0f, 1.0f, InAlpha), 0.0f, 1.0f);
        case EAlphaBlendOption::CircularOut:    return FMath::Clamp<float>(FMath::InterpCircularOut<float>(0.0f, 1.0f, InAlpha), 0.0f, 1.0f);
        case EAlphaBlendOption::CircularInOut:    return FMath::Clamp<float>(FMath::InterpCircularInOut<float>(0.0f, 1.0f, InAlpha), 0.0f, 1.0f);
        case EAlphaBlendOption::ExpIn:            return FMath::Clamp<float>(FMath::InterpExpoIn<float>(0.0f, 1.0f, InAlpha), 0.0f, 1.0f);
        case EAlphaBlendOption::ExpOut:            return FMath::Clamp<float>(FMath::InterpExpoOut<float>(0.0f, 1.0f, InAlpha), 0.0f, 1.0f);
        case EAlphaBlendOption::ExpInOut:        return FMath::Clamp<float>(FMath::InterpExpoInOut<float>(0.0f, 1.0f, InAlpha), 0.0f, 1.0f);

[shut kraken]

I love the new auto temporary IK in Blender, but does anyone know if there's a way to exclude a certain bone from being moved by it?

[young urchin]

New UE4 features...

[reef agate]

@jolly osprey trying to compare the quat rotate custom node code to modify bone but the code that is causing the crash lives in AnimGraphNode_RotateBoneQuat.cpp. In the UE4 engine source I can't find the equivalent ModifyBone cpp. I only found AnimNode_ModifyBone not AnimGraphNode

any pointer?

@young urchin have you made headway with the 4.24 control rig setup?

I found the docs outdated now that they changed control unit setup

[jolly osprey]

so I've spent time today w/ the rot quat node and turns out the check that's failing is coming from its parent node

the skeletal something something node

b/c of the default value it's getting

I've moved the node's cpp and h files (so 4 files in total) back to engine source

I haven't yet gotten rid of the check bug but this makes it run in a packaged game at least

(because turns out it wouldn't)

[young urchin]

@reef agate i have not used control rig setup heavily...if you write down the issue, i may look in to it...the screenshot is from 4.26 tho

[jolly osprey]

here's the new files

slight modification only iirc wrt includes

they live there now

remove the ones you've had in your project and you'll also have to re-add the node in the anim bp

[reef agate]

Cool Alexey i really tried with the new control rig in 4.24 but it's harder to setup than the >=4.23 setup

cool Glass, I'm on it right now. So you commented out that block line that was crashing still? (that Temp.out default thingy)

[jolly osprey]

nope

um you can

the advice I was giving earlier about needing an editor module for nodes is null & void

🤓

turns out you do need them in a packaged game

dunno what I was thinking

[reef agate]

what's the check bug then?

and how do i avoid it?

[jolly osprey]

comment it out?

if that works

basically it should only show up if you're connecting or disconnecting an input pin to the quat node

no biggie for me for now

[umbral radish]

Had some trouble with mixamo animations and took me quite some time to figure out that there is a difference when downlaoding with or without skin when using an own rig
https://twitter.com/AndiDev_/status/1232081434158018561?s=19

Andreas 🎮 (@AndiDev_)

Problem with root animation finally fixed. Problem was: Mixamo makes a difference when downloading animation with or without skin. Took much to long to figure out where the error was. Thanks @Dennsen_86 for your raid! https://t.co/1KXDaJ8fDW https://t.co/5BtUqQNWcI

▶ Play video

Twitter

[reef agate]

Looking for a bit of help on basics. I'm trying to smooth some data inside a struct and I'm wondering how I can use WeightedMovingAverage. My real question is a super basic c++ one. When I declare FQuat JointQuaternion at the top, when this runs again, what happens to its value at that point? does it get overwritten or copied or? FQuat JointQuaternion; FQuat PreviousQuaternion = JointQuaternion; JointQuaternion.Z = FMath::WeightedMovingAverage(-NativeJoint.orientation.wxyz.z, PreviousQuaternion.Z, 0.5f);

Usually I declare the previous sample in my header so i don't run into this problem of declaration order inside a function

[fiery gust]

Hello. Would someone maybe explain the Master Pose Component to me. It might be a language barrier. Documentation: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Animation/WorkingwithModularCharacters/index.html It says: "The Master Pose Component is a Blueprint callable function that enables you to set a Skinned Mesh Component Object (or Skinned Mesh Component Objects) as children to another Skinned Mesh Component Object considered to be the master. For example, you can define the Torso as the Master Pose Component, assign an animation to the Torso, then add Feet, Legs, Hands and a Head as children which will follow the animation assigned to the Torso.

Behind the scenes, the children do not use any Bone Transform Buffer and won't run any animations even if you set them on the child, it only uses the Torso's Bone Transform Buffer when rendered which makes it a very lightweight attachment system. The only Component that has to run animation is the Torso, and all attached Components will use the Torso's Bone Transform. Below is an example setup where we have assigned an animation to the Torso. We use the Construction Script inside a Blueprint to set the Torso Skeletal Mesh as the Master Bone Component and the other aspects of our modular character as children. " What exactly does it mean that it uses only the animations from the torso? ... isnt a animation always driven from the Skeletal mesh and meshes needs to be weightpainted to said bones to move with the skeletal mesh? 🤔

[fiery gust]

or did they mean use the skeleton of the torso to drive the animation?

even tho the skeleton should be the same anyway 🤷‍♂️ 😕

[short glade]

do people typically use blender for animations or unreal? say I created my character model in blender already. if this is a stupid question feel free to let me know also.

[fiery gust]

application doesnt matter 🙂

u can use blender for it.

[ruby dove]

So i have almost no experience in animation but is there a way i can animate the hand seperate from the walking animation e.g. holding an sword without creating a complete new animation

[mossy wasp]

Yo

Does anyone know any really good resources for learning inverse kinematics with Unreal?

[split oar]

Wayhoo. I'm making a character for a FPS/TPS game, I'm using a custom skeleton that's kinda similar to the UE4 one. However, I'm going to keep the face/head and body skeletons separate so I'm able to have their animations play separately. There's however one thing I'm uncertain how I'm gonna solve. I want the character to have a steady breath toggled, regardless of the body skeletons other animations. What would be the best solution? Adding a bone that controls breathing? I'm kinda new to everything here, so I'm not sure what options I have to solve it. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Currently, I'm just using an idle animation, following some youtube tutorial where I scale the spine bones. It really isn't what I'm looking for.

[shut kraken]

@ruby dove Layered blend by bone

[ruby dove]

So i make an animation for my hand for example and then i use layer belend to apply it for example on my idle ?!

Will the idle affect the hand too? @shut kraken

[shut kraken]

You typically use layered blend per bone and do the crossover somewhere in the spine to do upper and lower body animations seperatly. To do just a hand on top of other animations, like different grip poses or whatever, you want to look into ADDITIVE animation. It'll be a right bastard to learn tho, I'd just split your anims between upper and lower body.

[bronze osprey]

that breathing also scales connected children

[split oar]

@bronze osprey Yeh, and it's a full-skeleton animation. What I'm looking for, is a way to separate the normal full-skeleton animations from the breathing. So the character's always breathing regardless of other animations being played. I really don't want to have the animations collide, or have to implement the breathing in some way for every single animation I import.

Is there a way to do this? Maybe in the way Spring controllers work in the Animation Blueprint? Add function without interfiering with the other animations?

[split oar]

Is what I'm asking too hard, or too easy to answer? ._.

[misty dagger]

How can I time dialogue with animations?

[shut kraken]

@split oar You need to do the breathing as additive then.

Anyone here know a way to avoid the long-ass convoluted animation names when going from Blender to UE4?

[split oar]

@shut kraken So I can add some breathing-bones to the skeleton, animate them, export animation, set it to ''additive'' and add it with priority in my animation blueprint?

This thing?

[shut kraken]

You could do it with special bones if you wanted as well.

The additive approach would make a breathing animation that is basically a MODIFIER over the top of other animations. so the end result would be MainAnimation + deltas in position and angle due to the BreathingAnimation.

[vapid breach]

@split oar why don't you just make a breathing animation

Simple and less breaking your head

[split oar]

@vapid breach Thing is, I want the breathing animation isolated from all other animation/systems. I'm making a base-character with all kinds of physics/simulations, character creation sliders and armor-system for cosmetics n' sh*t. I'm sure there's gonna be enough complications as it is. I might try both approached though, but the ''Additive Animation'' seems to be exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks again @shut kraken ! Second time in a few hours you've helped me tremendously! ^^

[spiral sequoia]

so for stuff that just bumps around with movement, like pieces of armor dangling or something... AnimDynamics seems like a good choice. however, it requires the bone to be part of the skeleton. if im trying to make something modular, i dont really want to have potentially hundreds of bones, mostly not used, just for dangly bits. is there a better/efficient way?

[random aurora]

a few months ago I tried animation retargeting after watching some tutorials and reading documentation and failed miserably

I was trying to retarget animations from the human characters to humanoid characters with different proportions and couldn't get it to work

was ending up with monstrosities like this

has anyone had success with the retargeting system with weird proportioned humanoid characters? Or does anyone have any tutorials that really worked for them they can point me to? I am struggling a lot with expanding my animations beyond what came with the characters I bought from the marketplace, I tried exporting one using blender also but found it really unintuitive and hard to learn--so if you have any recommendations for an easier animation workflow please let me know also

[full plank]

Hello there. guys i have a simple question

im using some anim notify states

but for example i wanna go from montage 1 - > montage 2 -> montage 1

but when i do this continously

for some reason some anim notify states (begin play specially) call 2 times

anyone know how to fix?

it seems that the blend in time is affecting it

when i put it to 0

it fixes everything

[orchid sparrow]

Does anyone know how Paragon did their melee twist? The tutorial video Epic did on it doesn't do it properly (seems like spine IK is missing). If anyone could do it, I'd very much like it. Willing to pay as well.

[cloud lodge]

they just rotated the root bone

iirc

[orchid sparrow]

that's the tutorial method where they take melee twist anim curve to rotate root bone and I did it but there's definitely some spine ik going on

when compared to actual paragon gameplay

doesn't look right 😕

[rancid sonnet]

i followed a tutorial to rig a character for the ue skeleton but when i try an animation some parts look a bit twisted, should i start over or is this a common thing with a specific mistake?

[jaunty dew]

is it possible to set an AnimGraph variable from the BP that owns the mesh which is following the AnimClass?

[queen sail]

Does anyone know how to put some type of euphoria in unreal? I don’t need to do it atm, but I was wondering how rockstargames puts their euphoria in.

[analog rose]

Probably a noob question but what is the quickest way for someone who has very little art knowledge to rig a character mesh to the Unreal Mannequin skeleton? The character mesh is created in Adobe Fuse CC.

[grave forge]

Is anyone using any tools to separate out state machines/make easier to follow? This is becoming a bit unmanagable.

[next lichen]

@grave forge you can look into conduits and adding sub state machines

IS there any animation pack for weapons except for the the Mocap+ packs?

Esp looking for single hand pistol animations for the character

[grave forge]

I tried looking for sub state machines @next lichen, but am unable to find something. Would you happen to have some reference for it?

[inland oyster]

I dont know why but I cant see tracks so I can add a addictive layer

[cinder linden]

Hi guys how do animators go about fixing clipping issues such as this, myself I would add keyframes to the sequence but there has to be a cleaner way right? https://gyazo.com/48a4b41f7d860a896f8caf5aec7fe688

[formal tree]

Hello unreal fellas. Could you please advice a animation blending tutorial (like from walking to running and back) for a beginner. Please!

[velvet geyser]

https://youtu.be/t-yISgMYcDQ anyone know why **RigidBody node **isn't working for me? I can't see any physics and my physical asset is setup properly. Am I missing something here?

[cinder linden]

@formal tree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b9WM8TVdpA&list=PLfQ3pODBwOcaV1TdnqNWLTJ4wiUzEvXis&index=7

[jaunty dew]

@inland oyster nothing if you press the sideways arrow next to the word?

[inland oyster]

@jaunty dew Fixed it already

[jaunty dew]

awesome

figured you would 10 hours later

[livid spruce]

Would mixamo animations work with either of these rigged characters?

[shut kraken]

@cinder linden Either author the animations in such a way that the hand doesn't clip or use a bit of IK

[cinder linden]

@shut kraken thanks I'll try the IK since this is a retarget

[molten jewel]

@livid spruce yeah probably

[formal tree]

@cinder linden tnx

[odd sapphire]

hey anynoe know what the physical asset collider color represents? some are red, some are green, no idea why

[lunar iron]

I have a keypad where the buttons are separate objects and are animated, what would be the best way to import an asset like that without causing a mess like this?

when i combine the meshes the animations no longer work

[granite lava]

Does anyone know if this product is good for creating first person shooter gun animations? https://stretchsense.com/product/multi-knuckle-splay-glove-pair/

or is there other cheaper alterantives

[analog crown]

I'm retargeting animations using different skeletons (mannequin to custom skl) and I've almost got it except the left leg any ideas on how to fix that rotation?
I tried using the translations but none of them worked out

[molten jewel]

lets see the pose your using

front and side

[analog crown]

looks like I've fixed it just don't know how

[molten jewel]

don't really see anything wrong with those poses

maybe a slight outward point on the toes would help the thing understand it better, but if you've figured it out great

[spring moth]

hi! how come my walk cycle loops perfectly in blender, but seems to pause at the end in UE4? can anybody give me any ideas how to fix this?

[jaunty dew]

does anyone know why morph targets wouldn't import to Unreal? I am ticking skeletal mesh, import morph targets, and not ticking the one about delete morphs with zero curves

got it. I think because there was a shrinkwrap mod I randomly added at some point and "apply modifiers" was checked in Blender it erased the morph targets. have a great weekend everyone

[scarlet spade]

@analog crown What's that model?

[analog crown]

just a Thing model I'm playing with

[scarlet spade]

oo noice

you model it urself?

[analog crown]

nah not this one

I'm using this as a temporary mesh while I work on the main model

[scarlet spade]

ahh ok, what are your plans with it?

[analog crown]

just messing around making a hack and slash of sorts

[scarlet spade]

@analog crown any vids of the hack and slash?

[analog crown]

nothing for this version it's still early days

[delicate junco]

@grave forge A japanese guy who presented a few tricks about it https://www.slideshare.net/EpicGamesJapan/ue4animation-blueprint
Check from slide 77 to the end in particular
It's in jp but the screenshots are quite understandable

Also there's this trick that you could use for substate machines https://discordapp.com/channels/187217643009212416/221798806713401345/624202779925151764

[grave forge]

Awesome @delicate junco, thank you so much! The japanese slides are a bit tricky, but the example you made yourself made it click in my head. Merci! 😄

[meager plank]

how come when im using the same animation but sped up its not doing the whole animation...??

[misty dagger]

@meager plank possibly Blend In / Blend Out

on the anim montage or whatever animbp node you might use it

[meager plank]

@misty dagger i will try that : D

[misty dagger]

i mean it might be what causes it

[meager plank]

mhm

well i can send the current code im using

[misty dagger]

so on the anim montage maybe try to bring them to 0 or 0,02 or something, they should be on 0,25 by default i think

[misty dagger]

on the left

there's the blend times

[meager plank]

in anim montage

[misty dagger]

yea

[meager plank]

found it

should i change both blend in and blend out

[misty dagger]

i guess so

[meager plank]

yeah that worke

worked

thanks

: D

[misty dagger]

👍

[meager plank]

it looks a little stiff but i can just change the value until im satisfied

[misty dagger]

only playing a montage wont let him stay in the "drawn pistol" pose though

sure

[meager plank]

yeah i have added pistol aim animations

from mixamo

so after drawing the gun he will enter aim animaitons

[misty dagger]

alright

[meager plank]

yeah thanks for helping btw cuz its has been a problem for a while

hahah

[misty dagger]

no problemo

@meager plank 2 good tutorials about animation in ue4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVC-DL9Ibf0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkj6PAbGYtM

[meager plank]

@misty dagger thanks for the videos

ill watch them

[scenic dagger]

Hey all. I was trying to make a TurnInPlace. i tried to manually set the rotation but what I got was kinda ugly.

Then i tried root motion but it's only fixed to 90 and 180. Any idea how I can scale root motion rotation?

[crimson vortex]

Hey anyone tried to add custom animations such as gathering to advanced locomotion 4?

[simple swift]

Is it possible to load blendshape animation from custom attributes on a joint so we don't need to export actual blendshape data in all our fbxs?

[molten jewel]

@oak badger could talk here too

[oak badger]

Yeah lets talk here

Okay so just to double triple check im on the same page

If I spawn in my gun, dont socket it to the hands, I literally just place it under the arms in the hierarchy, and set its position and location to 0,0,0 this is what it looks like

perfect, thats how its supposed to be, and all the animations work

but obviously the animation can get kinda out of sync during a full auto

[molten jewel]

how are you offsetting the two arms

[oak badger]

Im not offsetting them

its an animation

thats what im saying

[molten jewel]

how come they are off?

[oak badger]

How'd you mean

[molten jewel]

what do you mean yb out of sync

[oak badger]

Oh

During full auto, even though both parts are animated, you can tell that the gun is sort of floating in the hands a bit

I assume because its not parented to the hands at all

so when the hands 'rattle' during the fire

the gun dosent

if that makes sense

so the gun animates still, such as the bolt moving back and forth, and the gun shakes

and the arms shake

but they dont shake 'together'

[molten jewel]

your gun is animated separate from the hands?

[oak badger]

the sequences are seperate yeah

So if I parent the gun to the hand socket, I end up with this right

Im trying to get the gun back down in the correct position

dynamically

Obviously I could spend a bunch of time just lining it up with the other one but that isnt really a good solution

[molten jewel]

the animations the gun does on it's own are?

[oak badger]

I want to just use code that sockets the gun to the hand, then gets its rotation, sets it back to 0 relative to the arms, and same with the location, so its all back to normal

[molten jewel]

does the gun animate its own recoil or something?

[oak badger]

In my components list I have arms, which are using FPArms_AnimBP, and then I spawn in a weapon actor which uses in this case AK74_Animbp, and they both animate

and it works, but they just arent connected together right

yeah the gun has its own recoil

let me gyazo a gif

So heres the arms for fire_1

https://gyazo.com/059ec01a5259dbb5d4e80e4f0112344f

https://gyazo.com/35248cdaa1f71f0a991ff45de982faaa

Heres the gun for the same anim

It works, it works great, EXCEPT I need to parent the gun to the hand bone

[molten jewel]

eh yeah I don't see this working tbh. You could very technically align the two animations but there is a lot of waste and potential for misalignment.

if you really want to address it and are positive that they are timed 1:1: you woulnd't need the parent to the hand

like each bone to the weapon's parent is a place where you can account for imprecision from interpolation

more places it can be visually off

since its literally a pair of hands alone, would really recommend having hands be part of the viewmodel weapon, old school style

or using masterpose for example

[oak badger]

I cant

Because then I cant make anything modular

[molten jewel]

this is not modular.

[oak badger]

How is it not modular?

[molten jewel]

you have 2 animations for 1 type of weapon that you can't change. you can swap out meshes of a hand and variations of a weapon on the skeleton it uses

your doing it extra hard when you could get the exact same modularity with masterpose

unless there is something beyond swapping arms out

[oak badger]

But thats why im doing it, so that I can easily swap out the variation of weapon or hand mesh

I dont really understand why you would want the arms fixed onto the gun in the animation

Every single UE4 example ive seen has them this way

and call of duty to my knowledge also do it this way, where they have a seperate pair of FP arms?

What ive done thus far is really simple to setup, I dont understand how it could actually be easier right

[molten jewel]

Usually you animate the gun with the arms, you have them animated as one thing entirely

They don't have to be the same geometry

you can animate the gun with a hand mesh on it, then export the gun without the hands in it

then use master pose to assign any arms to the bones of the animated weapon

[oak badger]

Yeah thats what Ive had done

[molten jewel]

Wouldn't call that modular weapons though still. but the way your doing it is beyond complicated

[oak badger]

and when you import them, you import them to a skeletal mesh?

And it assigns the animation to that mesh right?

[molten jewel]

are you familiar iwth set master pose component?

[oak badger]

No, I dont animate or anything like that myself

[molten jewel]

if you have a shared skeleton for all your view models, and you have hands that use the same skeleton, you can meld the hands to the animated weapon's bones that aren't visible otherwise

so you don't have two seperate things animating

but you do have two seperate skeletal mesh components

[oak badger]

view models as in weapons?

[molten jewel]

yeah

[oak badger]

How could you possibly have shared skeletons for every single weapon

[molten jewel]

so you have your whole arm rig in your weapon animations with the wepaon skinned to it, but no geometry for the arms

the skeleton rule with unreal is forgiving

the mesh determins which bones are in use

so i mean you have the standard arm bones

then any levers, buttons, eject, slides etc you make a bone for these that you share between weapons

weapons that don't have clip eject bone don't have clip eject bone, weapons that do have a clip eject, do have teh bone

the skeletons are compatible still

only thing that makes them incompatible is a different bone parent name

such as if you put a bone between the wrist and hand specific for one gun

that wouldn't be sharable

for what your doing, its many times less headache

and way less stress on timing

[oak badger]

Ill take a look into it, its pretty poor that this stuff isnt documented anywhere

or any examples given

Every single example ive ever seen shows different skeletons for each weapon being made

[molten jewel]

can assure you that even just including the arm in the gun mesh is way more standard than you might believe. but using master pose gets past that

[oak badger]

Because I understand what you're saying, but I quite simply dont know how to do it because afaik theres literally 0 info out there on this

[molten jewel]

what your trying to do is unheard of from my perspective

i believe that there could be guides out there telling you to do it this way though

i've worked on many fps games though and gun parented to hand is a never

there is way too much jitter from the few rotations up the arm

[oak badger]

I simply dont see how I can do this though without any documentation or informationj

[molten jewel]

when you get stuck ping me

its pretty straight forward though

[oak badger]

Plus how do weapons with very unique animations work

[molten jewel]

have your arm rig include bones needed by weapons, share them

[oak badger]

For example if you look at a game like apex where guns have very specific bones and animations

[molten jewel]

again

you can have a bone for a clip in the skeleton for a revolver that doesn't use the bone but is the same skeleton

[oak badger]

Yes but im talking about far more complex things

[molten jewel]

think of the skelton file as literally name and parent info. this is all it is. has no transformational data

[oak badger]

like chains of bones that control a scope and a barrel being pushed in and out of a rifle for example

[molten jewel]

thats completely doable

for things that don't have such scope, you don't include such bones

but they live in the skeleton still

just not assigned with that particular mesh

all you have to do is try to conserve bones by using similar naming schemes between the slides and releases, and charging rods etc

it has nothing to do with where they are positioned

animations aren't animated from ref pose

they contain all the translations, rotations and scale

[oak badger]

Unfortunately I feel 100x more lost now than before, I really appreciate your help but without any documentation or examples out there that ive clearly not come across, I just dont see how I can learn this

Every single animation guide ive ever seen shows them setting up unique skeletons for every weapon

All the animation packs ive delved through for UE4 are in the same format

[molten jewel]

if its confusing, have your animator make one gun as if the hands are included in it

then when they export the fbx for the geometry, don't include the arms in the export. keep the bones, not the triangles

repeat this for every gun, selecting the same skeleton on import

bones that didn't live in the skeleton file, will be merged into it. preferablly you have a naming scheme for it all so there aren't a ton of bone names in the skeleton for the same concept

I think your over estimating how difficult this is

[oak badger]

Okay but then what happens if tomorrow he makes a gun with bones that done exist in the current skeleton

then what

How can it import

[molten jewel]

at the import screen you choose your old skeleton

it'll then ask if you want to add these new bones to your skeleton

again, meshes that don't use the new bones, wont use the new bones

[oak badger]

Okay so you're saying every gun will have the bones of the arms in them

[molten jewel]

they are allowed to not fill every single bone in the skeleton file

[oak badger]

but why exactly is that useful

because the bones of the arms will move the gun for you?

the ones in the gun that is

and then the arms can do their normal thing, and it will appear synced?

[molten jewel]

your still thinking about the problems between two animations

i'm saying, one animation

i'd still recommend against having the gun be a child of the hand bone

but it doesn't matter because it'll be as authored

i mean it does matter ofc in terms of quality

but it wont be seperate animations that desync

[oak badger]

Okay I think im starting to get what you mean