@floral sky Maybe look into UE4's inertialization node? I know that instead of evaluating all poses it only uses the end pose to determine the blend. Maybe try putting that just before the node you're blending into
#animation
nocturne moss
floral sky
Interesting. I see how that node works with blending with bools (per the doc). Wonder how to just make it blend depending on value changes
nocturne moss
@floral sky It's hard to say I haven't used the node very much, tbh, so I cant offer too much to how to fix it. But, maybe if you want to were to use a layered blend per bone node to more easily blend between the source pose and modified pose and perhaps control it by manipulating the alpha of the layered blend
floral sky
^I like that idea. Gonna try it out. Thanks!
nocturne moss
anytime!
neat hazel
Hi @upbeat comet if the meshes share the same skeleton, there should be no problem having them as one entity. So if the upgraded version uses more bones than the normal one as long as they're linked to the "full" skeleton they should play without a problem (think of it as 2 character skins in one skeleton) 🙂
wary crypt
Hi everyone! I have tried searching this Discord server for an answer to my problem but can't seem to find it.
I am trying to apply an additive animation on top of my state machine using the node "Apply Additive". Whenever I plug in anything as the additive pose, my mesh explodes and scales up to a giant. Anyone know why this happens?
I saw someone had the same problem, they solved it by "refreshing" everything but it doesn't seem to work for me.
wary crypt
I solved it! To anyone else having problems with scaling and additive animations: You muste open the animations that you want to have as additive and change Additive Anim Type to Local Space
ripe coral
how do i retarget my skeleton to the original? i retargetted a skeleton to a paragon model and it's messed up
misty dagger
My "Random Sequence Player" has an array of 3 animation which are "Hit reaction"
As i get hit i will trigger them
1-How i can give it a bool ? i know how to set everything from true to false but how i can tell this node yes you can do your thing now?
I need to use a cache to save it and connect it to the Movement right?
misty dagger
BigSquirmy i want when my character get hit it do one of the random animations
Movemnt have idle walk etc
i want it to switch to the random sequnce player
@junior geyser
junior geyser
so yeah try blend by bool. I think for what you doing though it may be better to use anim montage and add the slot.
but blend by bool should work with the way you have it now
junior geyser
np
misty dagger
it worked that saved me a ton of time love you mate
junior geyser
yw
smoky hedge
So I've come across a issue I'm trying to figure out, that quite frankly I didn't think this would be the reason I asked y'all for help! 😄 I'm having an issue when it comes to animations with characters wearing heeled shoes, as apposed to flat.
I feel as though I have seen something regarding a fix or a workaround for stuff like this? But I haven't been able to re-find it.
I tried placing them as they should sit, and setting that as the default pose before importing, but that didn't seem to do the trick
as these should be flat, as it's a bow aim position
Is the best type of solution to have two skeletons, one for heeled and one for flat-footed. And then target animations to each?
misty dagger
How would I port an animation from Blender to Unreal?
For a first person shooter, for example.
junior geyser
@misty dagger there are a few ways. A google search would probably be better for you than here.
neat hazel
@smoky hedge even if you change the base mesh, the former animations (without heeled boots) still have the original coordinates so it will keep offseting them. So you might have to either do a "heeled" animation set, or trying with some sort of additive/partial animation system to override it in Unreal 😅
junior geyser
You may need to state which problem you are trying to fix @hidden geyser
smoky hedge
Thank you for the information @neat hazel
hidden geyser
swap attached socket during animation
junior geyser
how you have it set up in animation. Im guessing the gun animation maybe messing with it. Are you using a blend?
hidden geyser
anim montage
junior geyser
post a picture of the setup
junior geyser
it looks like you are playing the gun animation twice? calling it in the event then in the montage
timid brook
Is there anyway to have subtrees in anim graph? Either a way to compartmentalize the graph or to connect different animgraph assets?
junior geyser
@hidden geyser If you can, try something like this.
junior geyser
yeah like i said. i think the problem is how you are trying to play them in ue4.
if you have two separate animations, one for arms and one for weapon, then try set it up like i have in the picture and see what it does
junior geyser
Did you set it up with the two montages like the picture i sent?
hidden geyser
woeful kayak
Is it even possible to copy animation Additive Layer Tracks Curves in Unreal Engine? I want to paste it to another animation.
hidden geyser
no problem with animations of other weapons
junior geyser
@hidden geyser hmmm
hidden geyser
The reason why awp animation doesn't work (I think) is sockets
junior geyser
i still dont get why you are playing the gun animations twice though
youre calling the play animation on the weapon bp then playing the montage right after
?
hidden geyser
one is anim sequence and the other is anim montage
junior geyser
but why? you should just do both montages
junior geyser
Why have this?
junior geyser
i know but if you playing it in montage why also there
junior geyser
do you have a separate anim bp for the weapon sewt up with the slot group?
junior geyser
no i mean like this on the weapon anim bp
should have an anim bp for the weapon and one for arms
weapon one just need to put the slot connected to output
then try play both with montage only like this.
also set the weapon bp in the weapon bp on the weapon mesh
urban knot
can anyone tell me why this is not working?
hidden geyser
@junior geyser thanks for everything
junior geyser
np
urban knot
@junior geyser the animations
junior geyser
put some print string nodes and see if the nodes are being called
why trying to play through BP though?
fair gazelle
Hi is it possible to split animations from one animation
i don't want to record it, for it wont give the correct frame i need
ripe yew
Any idea why some of the animations appear invalid and use the T-Pose ONLY in standalone mode?
fair gazelle
Any idea why some of the animations appear invalid and use the T-Pose ONLY in standalone mode?
@ripe yew i got this issue before, i fixed it by enabling import animation in the import panel
ripe yew
Where is that?
ripe yew
Ok. So do I have to import ONLY my skeleton mesh then enable that or all of my anims?
Hopefully SM.
@fair gazelle I think I had this enabled when I imported first time. But if this is it, I will try again.
fair gazelle
yeah it is
@fair gazelle I think I had this enabled when I imported first time. But if this is it, I will try again.
@ripe yew is that an fbx file?
ripe yew
I already had everything imported including SM and anims. So to try it I might have to export then re-import. Now i'm trying to build the project to create the exe files. I heard Standalone Mode has issues.
subtle thicket
so little quick question regarding animations
I'm wanting to make this scene with a big machine in a cave, there's gears and pistons and all that stuff
is there a way I can import all the anims without having to import a skeleton as well? this is for props, so having like 50+ skeletons just for animated props feels tedious to work with, organization-wise
fair sentinel
Quick question for everybody here. Context first;
I'm working on a singleplayer shooter. slower paced, lots of control for the player. I'm interested in full body awareness, but I'm not sure how exactly to approach the character design there, nor how to animate it. I've found 3 basic options that are commonly used.
- Arms and no legs. Pretty self explanatory.
- Arms and leg meshes separate, animated separately.
- Full body mesh/animation.
I'm leaning towards option 2, as it seems far more flexible and easier to make believable for a novice animator (experience in material and model work). What's the consensus here? any good GDC talks about this?
supple oar
^^ Wish I could help with this one, but sadly I do not have an answer for you.
I do have a question of my own though, if someone can answer it I will be really impressed!
https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/952029/anim-location-track-doesnt-import-for-specific-bon.html
opal jackal
How do I fix my arms so they don't disappear like this? https://i.gyazo.com/eb2a624774ba16e1a66a788218654336.gif
mental badger
Can anyone tell me why my variable float curve starts at -60 when it should start at -90?
Is there any obvious reason that something like this may happen?
floral sky
I'm guessing gameplay logic should never be based off animaton bps right?
Like how to turn a car based off tire rotation, or where to shoot a gun based of the character anim.
neat hazel
@subtle thicket Maybe you could import the whole collection of props as one skeletal mesh (since I'm guessing it won't be a procedurally generated slice of the level) but depending on the detail you want having dedicated skeletons is not that crazy of a deal.
Otherwise, you might be able to import the pieces and then animate them as individual parts inside unreal
fair gazelle
Hi is it possible to split animations from one animation
i don't want to record it, for it wont give the correct frame i need
peak quail
@fair gazelle right click on the timeline -> remove frames
misty lichen
How do I fix this?
tl:dw My move animation is taking a longer time than I need
@pine cliff do you know?
pine cliff
What is driving your animation? Speed or what?
If you are using a State Machine what are the transition rules between walking and idle?
pine cliff
@misty lichen why isn't your idle state just an animation in your Blend Space instead of combining it like you are doing?
Anyway you should look inside your blend space
misty lichen
Because when I did that, it glitched it out
pine cliff
Probably it takes too long to go to the idle state
misty lichen
What do I do in my blend space?
pine cliff
@misty lichen you are using speed and direction to drive the blend space. I would assume the idle animation is your central one (when you have 0 speed).
misty lichen
Yes
pine cliff
What you are doing instead is blending the idle on top of the blendspace weight 1.0 which means it is always blended
What happens if you remove that blend node, just for a test
Does it behave as expected
Or are those different animations?
misty lichen
It doesnt change anything
pine cliff
Ok then leave it as is and show the settings inside your blend space
pine cliff
Try to reduce the interpolation time for Speed
pine cliff
@misty lichen is it working now?
misty lichen
It works now, but
1: The animations snap into place instead of moving in smoothly
2: The gun moves around too much, so you can't shoot while moving
@pine cliff
pine cliff
@misty lichen what's now your interpolation time?
misty lichen
0.0
pine cliff
so yes, there is no smooth transition between the animations in the blendspace
try 0.2 or 0.4
Did you change the Alpha in the layered blend node as well?
@misty lichen
misty lichen
What's that?
pine cliff
It's the factor that determines how much of the first animation vs. how much of the second is used in the blend
Alpha = 1.0 it means it uses the second animation completely replacing the first one (at least for the configured bones)
misty lichen
Yes, but where is it
Also I tried just cutting out the middle man and making it just WalkRun_BS with no Layered blend and now if I move left, right or back, it spazzes out a bit
You know what, I'm done. I'm gonna get someone else to do animations
@pine cliff You wanna work on the game with me?
I'll pay you in revshare
pine cliff
@misty lichen I appreciate the offer but I am not an animation guy, just trying to help you out a bit. Maybe someone else is interested.
misty lichen
ok :)
pine cliff
Anyway Alpha is on the Leyered blend node
It's one of the input parameters
It's actually called Blend Weights
misty lichen
IT JUST FUCKING CRASHED
livid shard
I have an animation here in maya of pistons attached to a rotating bar. The main bar is the only mesh that has keyframes, everything else is just constrained to the bar and eachother etc. How do I export this from maya into unreal if not all of these meshes have keyframes?
rain wave
@slim herald can I pm/dm you?
slim herald
Sure?
I dk why you would want to dm though, we can just talk here. But I don’t mind dms
fair sentinel
what's the easiest way to add animated legs to a first person character in UE4? I'm thinking it should be a separate legs/torso mesh driven through IK and pose blending. Then just focus on the arms animations?
is there an easier way to do this? Procedural animation for legs and keyframed arms just seems like it would preserve the ability to move the character through code and not anims. I'm not a very good animator, if that wasn't clear.
slim herald
I think you what you might need is a blendspace
Blendspace take input float values and play animation based on that
So for example I can have player stand, player walk, player run animations all in 1 blendspace and play the animation based on the player speed
cedar sedge
@fair sentinel You can indeed use procedural by interpolating through minimal keyframes, and you can do it for only a portion of the skeleton, and can setup IK constraints or use Control Rig. I would recommend against fully procedural locomotion with no pose keyframes though, as that gets into very difficult territory of driving long IK joint chains and keeping it balanced and upright
feral vine
Can anyone explain the differences between blendspaces and sync group? I don't really understand when you would use one over the other.
fair sentinel
@cedar sedge how would you recommend going about the creation of the character's meshes in my case? I'm worried about the character looking down and having the body and legs look way off for some reason, so any advice on the construction of this type of system would be much appreciated.
cosmic sentinel
I was wondering whether anyone has experience with trails, specifically those attached to weapon sockets (vs skeleton sockets). I've got trails working within our Anim Montage, using a custom Anim Notify State, but this is using sockets attached to the skeleton of the character.
I'd like to use sockets attached to the individual weapons - eg sword or spear. For the life of me, I cant see how to make an Anim Notify State trigger from an Animation Sequence (on the weapon) vs an Anim Montage. Or am I heading in totally the wrong direction?
tight scroll
Hey guys! I have a silly question, how to add these bones?
fair gazelle
@fair gazelle right click on the timeline -> remove frames
@peak quail Thanks a lot
neat hazel
@livid shard Not sure about Maya specifically, but normally you should have an option as you export the .fbx file to "bake animation". That should put in the keyframes needed on all those constrained parts you mention.
The other way around is to bake the animation inside Maya, and then export it into Unreal
livid shard
@neat hazel Thank you, I just figured it out last night lol. I do actually have another problem now though, the textures move around on the cached geometry animation as if they don't have any animation applied to them, do you know how to fix this?
@neat hazel Do I have to make a UV set for every single frame of the cache? There's 800 frames so it would obviously take way too long.
neat hazel
@livid shard I'm sorry but I have never encountered a problem like that 😕 But in theory unles i'ts supposed to be animated (i.e: spritesheets, etc) textures/materials shouldn't need to have keyframes assigned to them.
livid shard
@neat hazel ah ok, thank you for the help anyway.
neat hazel
Anytime 🙂
remote needle
I did both of these but i have forgotten how to bring in another animation...
could anyone tell me how i can get the idle pose anim into the second screen shot please ?
junior geyser
@remote needle DO you mean its not showing up in the list to be selected?
remote needle
@junior geyser I figured out it is because i need to swap the skeletal mesh but i forgot how i did it last time, it is greyed out in the selection boxes
junior geyser
Ah ok yeah i was going to say that is normally cause its a different skeleton. If you right click on the sk mesh rou should have the option to assign a different skeleton
remote needle
where would i go to do that ?
specifically, sorry I am having a total brain melt down @junior geyser
junior geyser
whatever sk mesh you want to use, right click on it and go to assign skeleton. Then select whichever skeleton you have on the animations you want to use. Or you can always just retarget the animation to a new skeleton
remote needle
junior geyser
looks like you need to maybe just retarget the animation to your character skeleton
feral vine
@slim herald Can you explain the differences between blendspaces and sync group? I don't really understand when you would use one over the other.
slim herald
sorry, can't help you, i've never used sync groups before
misty dagger
hi guys - im currently figuring out how to make a storyline game, sorta like call of duty with this voiceovers and animations. what would you guys recommend to do the animations?
junior geyser
Most use motion capture
scarlet spade
smoky sail
Does anyone know why i've got different results between a PIE and a packaged game, first entry of animinstance is set a position for ccdik(hand joint as tip), packaged game position leads to weird results
wise spoke
Hi there, when I import a character from Maya, the skeleton root got a 90 rotation in the X axis. Why that? Is it okay to have that?
the skeleton is oriented correction, there's no problem. Just that there's a rotation of 90 in the root, and I would prefer to not have it.
junior geyser
@wise spoke Its a settting you have to uncheck when importing. If you sent the screenshot i can tell you which one.
wise spoke
@junior geyser Okay here you go, first part of the window (can't resize it to fit all the settings into it)
Second part :
junior geyser
So i think if you check convert scene and convert scene unit, it should fix it. Thats what i had to do the other day. Now i was coming from blender, but its worth a try. You could also try the force front x axis but that didnt work for me
Let me know if it works
junior geyser
in blender you can select which and forward and up axis you want to export in
Sorry, Could you not just turn it 90 degrees in maya and re export to fix it?
wise spoke
Yeah I did that as well, but the skeleton get's imported with a bad rotation AND the 90 degrees in the X axis 😅
junior geyser
Damn. Well sorry i couldn't help.
topaz cypress
Unity to Unreal transfer here. Is dynamic bones handled a certain way in Ue4? I have a character with a long coat with a dynamic skirt and a ponytail.
brazen wharf
aren't there any default loop animations for turning in place for the mannequin?
wise spoke
No problem Squirmy, i'll just keep it with its rotation, nobody will know that ;)
@topaz cypress You can use the physics assets to do that
topaz cypress
Thanks!
oak badger
Hey guys, I have a question, im a bit stuck on some first person animation stuff.
We have animations for a pair of first person hands, and a weapon made in the same scene, the skeletons are separate. When played together, they line up correctly etc. But we want to have some 'universal' animations eg. for sprint/walk etc. So if we animate the hands we want the gun to align with the animation, without having to do the animation for each gun separately.
We are unsure how to do this, since we are unsure how to make a universal animation for weapons, since each gun's skeleton will be different. Attaching the gun to the hand socket will not work with our existing animations, as the animation of the weapon is relative to the scenes origin, not the hand/wrist that it would be attached to. Is there is some way to alter the gun animations in 3ds max/other software to make this work relative to the socket/palm bone, or is there some other way we can go about this in Unreal Engine perhaps?? Cheers!
misty dagger
@oak badger gun actor class?
oak badger
What do you mean Mystice, im confused. Im talking about animating a gun and arms in an external software then setting them up in Unreal right?
misty dagger
yeah i'd think of a gun actor that has a skeletal mesh component for the gun and is parented to the hand socket
not sure if it would need animations on the guns
other then loading /firing
like for running, you could have different running anims on the arms and depending on if it's a hand gun or a rifle f.e. you could rotate the gun actor or the socket of the skeletal mesh component in it or on the arms actor
like holding a rifle with both hands vs a hand gun with 1 hand
oak badger
I think you're misunderstanding our issue. We know how to make a sprint animation, and we already have all of our animations, the issue is that we cannot attach the gun to the hand because if we do, it interferes with the way the animations play
misty dagger
well never did any firing weapon stuff, you probably could use rotation anims on the guns for running, like if a rifle is held with 2 hands and the hands move but keep the rifle and it sort of rotates between them, probably would not be that easy by just parenting it to 1 hand and then rotating it in the engine
well in this case not sure @oak badger
oak badger
No worries Mystice, thanks for taking the time to give it a thought, if anyone else knows the solution to this animation issue id love to hear!!
small bluff
my animation is messed but i don't know why
sonic patio
fair narwhal
Can anyone explain how to fix this? It's a Mixamo animation imported into UE4. I've pulled other animations of theirs in with no issues, but all of the ones I've imported recently do this. What did I do wrong?
neat hazel
@fair narwhal have you tried to look in the Asset Details tab and see if EnableRootMotion is checked?
as I'm guessing your issue is that the anim is staying "in place" while its legs sliding around, right?😅
neat hazel
Hello @oak badger the weapon animations you mentioned, are constrained/lined somehow to the hands in your scene? Or the weapon anims are being animated directly?
oak badger
Hey @neat hazel The weapon we had animated was set up such that both the right hand and left hand were constrained to the rifle. So as you move the weapon itself, it moves both of the hands around. Obviously at some point the left hand comes off the rifle, for reload animations etc, but thats how its set up.
junior geyser
@oak badger that sounds like the hard way to do it. For first person, there are normally two ways i see it done. Separate animations with arms for every weapon. (Bad in my opinion. ) and Animate arms, have sockets on weapons to attach the hands to, then the weapon will follow the hands for whatever animation you are doing. The weapon can still have its own animations for reloading and firing etc
oak badger
Hey @junior geyser Its only set up that way in the animation software, unfortunately I cant comment on the way it was animated as it wanst me that animated the actual arms and gun, im just playing around with it in engine. Are you saying its bad to have the arms and weapon seperate, im a little confused what the 2 ways are that you see?
junior geyser
no im saying its better to have them separate
oak badger
Oh, yeah well in Unreal Engine 4, they are, so like for a reload animation we have one for the arms and one for the weapon
so each part does its own thing
The issue is that, attaching the gun to a socket on the hands dosent work, because then the animations get screwed up
junior geyser
i dont understand why you cant attach to hands then. Can you post a short clip of what its doing or not doing
oak badger
I can kinda show you what i mean
yeah give me a few minutes to show you the two comparisons 🙂
oak badger
Yeah, completely seperate in every way
They were animated together of course, in 3ds max
seperate skeletal meshes, seperate skeletons
junior geyser
ok. so if you play only the arms animation with the gun attached, does it stay in place or still goes wacky?
oak badger
it should stay in place, let me just gyazo it
junior geyser
k
oak badger
Obviously the part where he charges the bolt dosent work because the gun is attached to the hand so
junior geyser
would root motion happen to be enabled on the gun animation?
oak badger
gun or arms??
junior geyser
gun
oak badger
Dosent appear to be no
junior geyser
where is the root bone on the gun?
oak badger
Here
Just deleted the old gyazo's so I dont flood the channel with thumbnails
just fyi
junior geyser
maybe try to add a socket and put it on the handle then attach to hand socket like that?
oak badger
I actually already have a socket on the pistol grip called WeaponAttachmentPoint, but how do I attach the gun to 'x' socket at a specific socket point rather than the origin of the mesh???
Isnt the issue though that the animations are playing from the origin, rather than relative to the hand?
junior geyser
could be but you also have to detach at certain points in the animation. I m looking for one i have had set up like that in the past
oak badger
Hmmm interesting.. Id really appreciate it if you could give me an example like you said, because this is quite confusing
junior geyser
when you attach, are the gun and arms separate blueprints?
ok so i think i may know the problem, if you look in the arms sk mesh, is the gun a part of that skeleton also?
i couldnt find my project but if you look at the fps assault pack that is on the marketplace, that is probably the same as how yours is set up
So basically you have to set up a separate bp just for the weapon. then remove it from the arms bp. also make sure its deleted from the arms skeleton if its there. then attach in the arms bp event graph like in begin play or something.
vestal osprey
hello guys, do we have solid tutorial about inverse kinematic animations?
oak badger
Sorry I just went away to get a drink!
vestal osprey
or procedural animation
junior geyser
@vestal osprey dont know of any but there is plenty stuff on youtube afaik
oak badger
When we attach it, the gun has its own blueprint yes, we have a BP_Wpn, we create a child of it and set it up per weapon, then we spawn in based on class, and attach it to the arms
vestal osprey
@junior geyser i was looking for that kinda tutorial but couldn't find anything useful
ngl i found one but it was for unity
oak badger
the gun isnt part of the arms skeletal mesh by the way
the arms and gun are literally seperate in every single way
I can take a look at the fps assault pack though for sure, thats the free one right?
free atm anyway
junior geyser
ok then the only thing you should need to do is have the animation ignore the run bone rotation
gun*
junior geyser
im looking at my animation now to see if i can find it
oak badger
Awesome, thank you very much
junior geyser
i cant find where to do that but another way could be
do you have just like an idle animation for the gun?
junior geyser
so if you take one of those where its not rotating, and use a blend per bone with the reload, then set to blend on a bone after the root. then i think that would get rid of the rotation
you could probably actually just duplicate one and make it a single frame animation so its no movement at all and blend that.
oak badger
let me just give it a go, im a little confused so trying it will probably clear that up in my mind hang on a second
junior geyser
ok no problem. let me know if it works
oak badger
any bone after the root bone right?
junior geyser
yeah try justt like the next one after
oak badger
So I did this right
on the 2nd bone in the hierarchy
Its still keeping the rotation though
junior geyser
you want to put the idle as the base
junior geyser
ok so that looks better
oak badger
So what you're doing here is only keeping the blend after the root
junior geyser
so what you need to do is you could do like an anim notify or something. Then you need to detach the right hand and attach the left hand in that part of the animation
oak badger
so that the root of the gun (which is moving) is ignored
junior geyser
correct
oak badger
Question, is that something that is commonplace in games, to change the attach at runtime
I tried something like that and got something to work, but I thought it was a janky solution
it worked but it seemed 'hacky'
Also as much as its better, the magazine etc dosent move which would be an issue obviously right
junior geyser
afaik in games, you fake it to make it look good lol. Thats how i do all of mine cause when you have different weapons, its the only way i have found to share all the animations etc
for mag you should just need to attach to left hand then detach etc. I have also seen where mag is its own bp attahced to gun like that
oak badger
Right ill go give this a play around with and see what I can come up with, ive heard quite a few times that theres no set way to do things and things that seem hacky sometimes are just what you have to do
I just worry that im doing it wrong if you get me
junior geyser
This is the way
If it works it cant be wrong in my opinion
Different ways to skin a cat
oak badger
Yeah
Ill play around with it and see what I can come up with anyway
Thank you very much for the support!
junior geyser
no prob. in the future
if you make animations
just dont animate the rotation of the gun root
then you wont have to use the blend
keen apex
Anybody here have experience with or has been sucessful in exporting an animation from the sequencer into an fbx ? ive got a camera move with a object moving that id like to bring into blender for vfx
timber star
Hello,
I m trying to export the mannequin of ue4 to blender as fbx but the skeleton is jeust "broken".
I follow a tuto on internet with the params they give but any chance to make it work.
Do anyine know how to achive it?
tall knoll
is there any way to play an animation montage in playing preview animation instance ?
blissful apex
hi, i just started an udemy course about animation but's reffering to ARTv1 wich cannot be installed under 4.24. Is there any replacement or someting ?
lunar iron
just slightly confused on a type of workflow from a modeling software -> UE4
I have a basic cctv camera and I want to animate just the head moving, I did so in 3ds max but this is what i'm left with in ue4 with no way to combine these
i wanted to combine the mesh in the modelling software and animate it as one, but then the gizmo is in the wrong place so i can't
what's the best way to do this?
junior geyser
@timber star just use 'mr mannequin tools' addon
timber star
@junior geyser yes but it s a pay add on
junior geyser
no it isnt. its free
timber star
have you got a link for free?
timber star
i can t get for free do i miss something?
junior geyser
you just put 0 for price
junior geyser
did you physically type 0?
junior geyser
i know lol
junior geyser
so you can import any mesh and it will be compatable with the ue4 mannequin. I think you can use other skeletons but i have not used it for that. If thats what you are after, rigify prob better
you can join his discord also, if you have any issues he is very helpful
timber star
ok but it s for a model i got from a asset anyway i will try
junior geyser
if its in A pose then it should be fine. if not you will need to retarget
timber star
ok
valid wagon
does anyone have any tips for doing three-bone ik situations?
I want to do two-bone with my arms (so my hands can reach something), but if it's just out of reach I then want the shoulder/clavicle to bend too to extend the reach. but only if the arms can't reach it with regular 2-bone.
is it possible to read bone positions in the animation blueprint after applying a pose? Then I could read the remaining vector from hand to target, and apply that to the clavicle
stuck scaffold
@valid wagon You could either use "transform modify bone" in some way to push the clavicle or run a second 1 bone ik solution from clavicle to shoulder
valid wagon
the prob is I don't know how much to transform it by. I need to know the remaining distance from the hand to the target after the ik has been applied
I don't see a way of reading the bone positions in the anim bp
fair narwhal
@neat hazel Yeah, that's my issue with what you see. I have tried enabling and disabling the root motion to no avail. I'm getting this with everything I import from Mixamo now. Only a few weeks ago I had no issues with their stuff. I assume it's my settings somewhere, but don't know enough about animation to figure it out. It's either this issue or it won't import because their characters don't have a root bone or something like that.
grave drift
Hey, I have a player that can draw the string of their bow. When the string is held for X time, I want the hand holding the bow to get unsteady, preferably on an interp basis. Now the question is how should I go about animating the hand? And I should probably do the same with the string hand. Any suggestions? (Not an animator so I would like to handle this in anim BP if possible - maybe some bone IK magic?)
austere light
Hi everyone. In my animation I want the weapon to be attached to the characters right hand at all times, but look like it's being held in their left sometimes. This is for reloading animations where he has to swap hands
I do this in Blender by adding a constraint on the right hand item bone to copy the transforms of the left item bone, and key framing the influence
In Blender it looks great, in the asset browser in the UE4 editor it is a little off (doesnt quite sit correctly in the hand) and in game it looks way off, like the gun is completely ignoring the constraint
I dont have any IK set up, does UE4 just ignore any constraints I use in Blender during gameplay?
stuck scaffold
@valid wagon Do you mean "get socket by name" or "get socket location" or do you mean something else?
valid wagon
@stuck scaffold I mean something like that that lets me read the bone position mid-transform inside the animgraph. Those will just give me the cached input positions from the start of the frame.
meager plank
How do i fix this? Cuz my code is obviously wrong 😄
valid wagon
@meager plank what do your transform bone settings look like?
valid wagon
@meager plank your rotation is in worldspace (Get Actor Location returns worldspace), so set rotation to that and you prob want it set to replace
grave drift
Anyone got some suggestions for how I can solve my problem, a bit up? 🙂
thick ridge
Hey! I just got here from a Unity animation tutorial, and while it was a nice tutorial to learn the basics of animation in games in general, I found a lot of the time the animation controlled the player movement in that tutorial. I've always assumed doing it the other way around would generally be the way to go for smooth gameplay. Anyone care to explain this to me?
stuck scaffold
@grave drift Your own proposed solution seems reasonable. Wouldnt really call it magic though. You would just wiggle the ik target a bit when you want it to be a bit shaky. Is it the implementation itself that you are unsure of?
@thick ridge Some games have animation drive movement and some keep animation and character movement separate and some games use some sort of combination of both depending on what you want to achieve.
@valid wagon Couldnt you read the distance from shoulder to hand and shoulder to whatever it is you want to reach and if it is too far push an the ik target for the clavicle forward to make the reach possible? Or am I reading your issue wrong?
valid wagon
@stuck scaffold Yeah, in theory I just need to move the shoulder forward by the distance from it to the target minus the arm length. But to do that I need to read where it is, first; Unfortunately getSocketlocation reads its final position from the last frame (after transformation), so if I correct one frame it will think it's in range the next and snap back, jittering back and forth between frames
Ideally I need to read where it is before all transformations have been applied
Unless there's a way of saying "move bone to within this distance of target"
stuck scaffold
Are you not just overriding all current transformations if you would run Ik through it?
valid wagon
I'm not sure what you mean
stuck scaffold
You would know the max distance of your reach before anything and when you know you are within reach you turn on the ik and place the target on whatever it is you are targeting is and if the arms need a bit more reach you would push the shoulder forward a bit by rotating the clavicle to help the two bone reach the target? I dont think you need to test if you are in range every frame and apply more/less reach. If you would push the shoulder too much forward it would still be fine since the two bone would compensate and not reach further than its target?
valid wagon
@stuck scaffold well, I won't know exactly when they need more reach. I can't measure the distance from the shoulder as I may have moved that already in the previous frame to compensate. I could make a guess and just record a fixed position at the very start (and nudge that a bit to take into account the shoulder moves a bit during animations), and then just push/rotate it forward a fixed distance if it looks like the arm probably won't reach
it might look a bit weird if the shoulder leans in too far when the arm isn't fully extended, though
and if the shoulder doesn't lean in far when it needs to I don't gain much benefit (this is for a vr rig, so I want to be able to provide some extra stretch when needed so those with longer arms aren't too limited)
grave drift
@stuck scaffold Yeah, not able to pull off the implementation 😅 Tried different methods but no go yet
stuck scaffold
@valid wagon Create a socket that is fixed where the shoulder is normally when it isnt pushed forward and measure the distance from that and drive the shoulder push alpha with it?
@grave drift Have you done any form of ik implementation before?
valid wagon
that's kinda what I said. The model is animated though, shoulders and stuff move :S
stuck scaffold
and the distance paramater would update with the animation?
valid wagon
no, it will measure from where I've manually offset the shoudler too, after performing transformations in animbp
maybe I'm wrong. I hope so. When I tried this before I did get it jittering back and forth according to my transformation from last frame, though
stuck scaffold
Place the the extra socket under the same parent as the clavicle and that shouldnt be happening
valid wagon
true, that would work
if the model happened to animate shoulders I'd need to animate it as well, so maybe a separate bone
stuck scaffold
You could add the bone to the rig and just constrain it to the shoulder so It would have the shoulders baked animation aswell
stuck scaffold
np!
valid wagon
sorry, it's been a tricky problem to articulate
stuck scaffold
Totally fine, happy to help
valid wagon
cheers dude
stuck scaffold
You would need a dcc to add animated joints to the rig though, dont think you can to it in unreal
so like maya or blender
valid wagon
nods
I don't think the shoulders animate separately from the spine too much, anyway, so I don't think it will be too bad a prob
grave drift
@stuck scaffold Yeah, but Im not advanced in it. Atm Im setting a vector variable referencing the location of the hand bone, altered by a random vector. I then blend by bool a two-bone IK for the same hand. Getting very strange results though (tested using other values than a random vector etc)
I would love some assistance if youre more versed ;) My goal is to jiggle both hand bones (the one holding the bow, and the other holding the string) - for realism I dont think they would need to be synced, but yeah... one step at a time I guess haha. I'll read more around while I await your answer
stuck scaffold
@grave drift I would create a socket under the bone of either the bow if it has a skeleton or create a socket under the left hand and place it where the pulled bowstring would be. I would then make that socket the ik-target for the right arm ik. Then you should be able to just set some random vectors close to that socket and quickly lerp between them to create some shake. Don't know how you are solving the string though since it will look wierd if it is only following the left hand and the right is shaking around it. (I am assuming here you have a bow object that you are parenting under the left hand)
grave drift
Yeah, the bow is parented under the left hand. The bow has its own animations (asset), while the player draw animation is from another asset, so the animations dont match as well as I'd hoped they would. The bow has a skeleton which has the string as a bone, basically allowing me to animate the bow in-game (currently not doing that though).
How exactly should I go about setting these random vectors?
https://gyazo.com/7c4076c82d9f084a7bf789c8f728edb5 Current look of things.
I was asking about this earlier, if it would be possible to attach the string to the player's hand and let the hand of the player literally draw the string, but I didn't come to any results about that
stuck scaffold
there is a "modify (transform) bone" node which has the option to add to existing transformations which you should be able to use and send small vectors to
if you add a socket to the string with the offset of the right hand you should only have to shake that string bone and the right arm should follow with it.
You could set that strings position to the right hand aswell using the same logic but I think matching the right hand to the string would be easier.
grave drift
Alright, so essentially I could drop the bow animations and simply do everything in the anim BP of the player, drawing the string and adding vibrations?
stuck scaffold
@grave drift You would still use the bow animations you would just layer this logic ontop to make things match and shake
stuck scaffold
The two bone ik on the right arm will try to place the hand bone on the target which usually is located by the wrist. So if you just use the bowstring the character would be drawing the string with his wrist
the socket is to compensate for that
grave drift
Alright, I'll try to sketch something up and send it your way in a bit
@stuck scaffold So eh, not sure if I should be using ComponentSpace or not here for the IK nodes, but getting some odd results hehe
(Tried moving the socket; same outcome)
stuck scaffold
You probly want to transform it to bone space with (transform to bone space) node and use the left hand so it is relative to that then do the same with the ik target if I remember correctly, depends alittle on what ik node you are using since they have different options
Usually there is an option on the ik node which space it is receiving its target. Just make sure it is synced with the space you are getting the target.
@grave drift
grave drift
Getting such crazy results haha, the arms behaving like a floppybird
grave drift
@stuck scaffold For some odd enough reason it's hard enough just to attach the hand to the string haha. I must be doing something horribly wrong because I'm just getting bizarre results atm
Debugged the vector value of the bow string location and it's being updated properly
stuck scaffold
which ik solver are you using? @grave drift
grave drift
Two bone IK into a Transform (Modify) Bone
Unless I mistook your question
@stuck scaffold
So I figured out the root of the issue
The vector being the effector location seems to be the issue
https://gyazo.com/f9f39023633b4d5f2fc63c1b6a2657a3 vector location set as 0,0,0
Set as 100,100,100
This value changes constantly during gameplay aswell which is what gives me the funky movement of the hand haha. Soeeh
stuck scaffold
You dont need to do a transform modify bone after the ik
The ik is what is moving the hand bone to the target location
grave drift
Oh, I was adding it to the two IK
stuck scaffold
also the "get bone location" returns the location in world space
so in the ik solver you need to set it to world space if you can
grave drift
Okay
Yups
Okay!
@stuck scaffold Alright! Got the hand stuck to the string! https://gyazo.com/641829d84bec52a2eb5562cb25d9d902
Still looks a bit glitchy. World Space solved it
If I rotate around while aiming the hand glitches about though
stuck scaffold
Yeah you probly cant have the string at 0 pull with that pose since the left arm is fully reaching at all times
grave drift
Hmm, so only apply the attachment after the string has been drawn beyond the "break-limit" I guess
stuck scaffold
or cut the string animation abit and have it be 60% drawn or something when aiming
grave drift
Woops, was the old clip - heres the rotation issue
stuck scaffold
another thing to keep in mind is the "joint target location" which you can give to show where your elbow should be aiming
grave drift
Oh yeah
I set the joint target location to the same vector value as the effector now and that removed most of the issues
Still got a bit of a chicken wing there though
stuck scaffold
could add some transform modify bones to rotate the chest and spine bones a bit to give a more natural aiming
wind marlin
Trying to add a blood vignette and it is setup correctly and got the animation setup, but when the player takes damage it just flashes white
any fixes?
stuck scaffold
@wind marlin wat
@wind marlin You sure it is an animation issue?
Sounds more like something you would be applying in some other sort of blueprint class
wind marlin
im watching virtus hub if you know who he is and i tried what he did but it didnt fix
got it to fix
grave drift
@stuck scaffold Any suggestions on how to set those rotations?
Tried getting the socket for the rotation here, but that was a big fail since the bow rotates with the character, so if I rotate the character splits himself in half 😉
stuck scaffold
@grave drift You would get a look at rotation from the headbone to see how much the head would have to rotate to look at that target and then distribute that rotation along the spine up to the head
grave drift
Adjusting the drawlength was a good idea 🙂
@stuck scaffold https://gyazo.com/0437f895003186f3fa422e1929d4199e
Oh wait, think I got it
Hmm, no. If I set the spine to rotate, it goes completely wild 🙂
stuck scaffold
You likely want to read from a socket you wont be affecting with your rotation
grave drift
Arent all sockets on the skeleton affected by rotation?
stuck scaffold
I mean the rotation you would be applying when distributing the rotation from your lookat
You are asking unreal "how much would this bone need to rotate to look at this object". You then cause a feedback loop if you at all change that bones rotation
Try using the hip bone or something and then split that resulting rotations onto the head, neck and chest or something
keep in mind that the "Find look at rotation" will give you a rotator that points the joints X axis towards the target
so depending on how your joints are oriented you would want to apply some offset to counteract that.
@grave drift
grave drift
Oh yeah, as otherwise the head would rotate around the X axies.
Thanks for all the help tonight, I'll sleep on it and see what I can get done tomorrow 🙂 Thanks a bunch!
stuck scaffold
np gl!
valid wagon
OKAY, so the super simple solution to my prob before was to just do regular 2-bone ik first, cos that does the correct thing when it's in reach of the arm, then do a fabrik ik after, from the hand all the way down to the spine.
Fabrik is smart, so won't do anything if the tip (hand) is already reaching the target, but if it's not then it will bend the shoulder and spine slightly to lean in and extend reach, which is exactly what I want
(just fabrik on its own isn't a good idea because it begins bending the lower bones too, before the arm bones are fully extended, but applying it after a regular 2-bone ik ensures the arm is already extended by the time fabrik kicks in to try and also bend other stuff)
grave drift
@stuck scaffold A clamp should work decently to lock the rotation?
stuck scaffold
@grave drift What are you locking rotation on and why?
@valid wagon Only issue I could see would be that because you are then overriding the normal 2bone ik when something is out of reach and instead using the FABRIK node, you lose the ability to have a "joint target" that you have in the 2 bone solution which helps aim the elbow. Without it you might get some wierd elbow flipping issues, could be fine aswell. Just keep testing and if you are happy with the results I wouldnt worry too much about it.
faint forge
Hi, i would like to make WASD moviment using the same animation but in diferent ways, i mean, to move backward i would like to use the forward animations but reverting the axis and walking backward, how can i do that? how can i rotate the just the body?
grave drift
@stuck scaffold The head/chest, so that they dont rotate 360 degrees around. Btw, any suggestions on how to stop the 2-bone IK setup when the arrow is released? Atm the hand follows the bowstring and is reset just a tad too slow, making the hand follow the string all the way to the default string position
Boolean-based blend?
thick ridge
Hey! I've imported a character that got physicsAsset when I imported it. That applied capsules to my character's feet, which raised the character from the ground. Now that I've corrected those, the character is still floating a little. How can I get the character back to the appropriate height?
stuck scaffold
@grave drift I think you should have a blend in and blend out time that you can set on the ik node. So you just flip the bool when you want to turn the ik off and let the blend in and blend out time handle the rest
You also controll when the ik target is set, so you could just stop updating it on release so it doesnt follow the string on release
@thick ridge Could you show a picture of the issue?
thick ridge
@stuck scaffold After a bit of research, it turned out that it was a couple of physics capsules that made the character this way (it's not like this in Maya), but it's still like this after I save both the physicsAsset and the model.
thick ridge
@stuck scaffold Apparently not. I would just like to know if this is going to cause problems further down the road.
stuck scaffold
@thick ridge As far as I know the character is just moved up a bit or the "ground" plane lowered a bit in the physics asset view. Likely just to give you a better view of the colliders under the feet if you want super accuracy.
thick ridge
@stuck scaffold Fair enough, I guess I'll let it slide. From my experience there just SO MUCH that can go wrong in game engine you can't fix if you're not a programming wizard, so this came up as a bit of a red flag in my book. Thanks, though!
faint forge
Could anyone help me with animation issue please? im new using it haha
i have a simple run animation that works well (i will use it to run forward) , but to move backward i would like to rotate that run animation and use it to run backward but looking forward
idk if i am explaining it good but..
austere light
@faint forge you could duplicate the animation, and in the import settings look for the "import rotation" setting and set the Z rotation to 180 and then reimport
The animation will now play as normal, but facing the opposite way
austere light
Alternatively, if the animation is for a character, you could look in the character movement component and look for "orient rotation to movement" or something like that
Then the character will always turn to face the direction he or she is moving in
Then you dont need separate animations for each direction: the character will always play the running forwards animation but will turn to face whatever direction they're moving in (including backwards)
stuck scaffold
Would that work since your move direction is driven by the root motion animations?
Like you would want input direction and rotate towards that or smthing, right?
faint forge
@austere light i did the first option and it works well but when i put in the animation blueprint it is a bit bugged in the transicion Forward to backward
austere light
@faint forge Are you using a blend space? Might be an issue with the blending between movement directions
austere light
Have a look at Blendspaces, they essentially let you blend between different animations based on an X and Y axis
So X might be your left/right speed, and Y would be your forwards/backwards speed
They will let you control how the animations should blend
austere light
Oh ok, looks like the two nodes you have in the middle left and right are interfering
You can also change the interpolation setting on the left so it doesnt transition quite so jarringly
grave drift
@stuck scaffold If I aim downwards, the shoulder dislocates. Any suggestion on how to prevent that?
faint forge
@austere light fixed 😄
austere light
@faint forge good to hear :-)
brazen wharf
some noob question... what do you guys use for (rotate) door animations? a simple skeletal mesh or the sequencer?
stuck scaffold
@grave drift How are the arms currently aiming around?
brazen wharf
if later, can the rotation be inversed to open in the other direction, or would i have to create a animation for each side?
stuck scaffold
Just scale the door by -1 on the axis you want to inverse :^)
brazen wharf
smart, thanks
brazen wharf
but is a level sequence really the right approach?
it looks like it's rather for something like cutscenes instead of actor animations
brazen wharf
nvm, going with a timeline in blueprint
ivory osprey
Hey all, do you know if the rigify add on works well in UE4?
junior geyser
@ivory osprey i use the mr mannequin addon
ivory osprey
I know it’s best to make your own rigs from scratch, but that’s gonna take some time :^/
Mr Mannequin huh? Never heard of it :o
junior geyser
but ill prob switch once epic finally releases the blender ue4 tools
brave cypress
Hi guys. I was wondering if it’s possible to make an animated texture that last longer than 1 second. I’ve been using flip book in blueprints but that limits me to 1 second. He are some of the things I’ve made so far
ivory osprey
YOOO do they have a release date on that?
ivory osprey
Omg thank you! This is perfect for prototyping!
junior geyser
yes it works great. The dev is helpful on their discord for issues also
No release date yet but if you watch the live streams they did showing it off. I can not wait for it. I hope its soon
ivory osprey
Same dude ;-;
grave drift
@stuck scaffold Aim offset
grave drift
@stuck scaffold https://gyazo.com/b184387c178d4ce508a9f1afa9f9df01
I could set a limit to how low you could aim/look using camera or aim offset I guess, but that would ruin a situation where youd be standing ontop of a wall and firing down at enemies.
Or do you have another solution in mind?
stuck scaffold
@grave drift What do the poses for aiming up and down look like?
grave drift
@stuck scaffold https://gyazo.com/2946db6bbc18e3ea25645bf4b3cac337
stuck scaffold
@grave drift and how does it look ingame right now?
whole sphinx
Hello boys, quick ask, i've got a play montage of an FPS animation who shoot, the playmontage is over a animation state machine. The fact is, i've got an animation for shooting while ADS, and one animation shooting while hipfire. The issue is, if i stop ADSing in the middle of a fire, there is no transition, is there a possibility to blend the end of a montage with an animation state machine ?
Here a video of the issue :
young urchin
@grave drift i'm feeling bad for that archer
grave drift
@stuck scaffold https://gyazo.com/7ffb6fc9a741f7930b56e830d75bbcbb
@young urchin Me too haha
So the current issues are that the shoulder bone pops if I aim downwards, and the arm generally gets pulled too much. I think it's due to the hand being moved straight to the bowstring (which is too far to reach properly) and thus it stretches?
stuck scaffold
@grave drift What are you currently using as your "joint target" in the 2 bone ik?
young urchin
@whole sphinx montages have blend durations, if you want to transition only when animation is ended, switch the node state switching rule based on animation, you can add an intermediate state if you have no
stuck scaffold
I mean what object are you using
young urchin
@whole sphinx same way jump transition is set in default mannequin
stuck scaffold
@whole sphinx How are you blending between being ads and hipfire without shooting??
whole sphinx
@young urchin Thanks, i will look this. If i understand good, have a bool on "on complete" play montage exec path, and in my state machine, for the transition, check if it's over, right ?
@stuck scaffold it's handled by the state machine.
stuck scaffold
@grave drift The joint target will be what the elbow will try to aim at so having it be the bow string is not the best ideas
grave drift
Hmm alright, makes sense
young urchin
@whole sphinx
node is set to always true (i.e. no rule)
but duration is not 0
you can set that transition to any preferred time
whole sphinx
I see, so i should not use play montage for shooting, right ?
and manage this by the state machine
(Sorry, i'm a programmer, animation is sometime a bit complicated for me)
young urchin
if you use play montage, you can use this output to set the conditional rule for transition
whole sphinx
Thanks, i will try this
grave drift
@stuck scaffold Alright, that did the trick. Now to solve that stretching when the stringhand over-reaches for the bowstring.
https://gyazo.com/d4e0918d1fc6cf309d0601ff179ad1ac - up and down aiming doesn't pop anymore
Also, another strange issue where if I run the hand stretches and bends in an awful manner (hard to see without slow-mo). After firing I have the player run an idle shoot-animation for a brief second to simulate the player looking if the arrow hit or not. I think that is why the hand is being dislodged like that https://gyazo.com/0dac1dc4acb60d71158eacd8e1c6ce44
Nope, confirmed that its not that animation's fault, it's just the firing animation..
stuck scaffold
@grave drift Note that if you are setting the ik positions in worldspace and move forward and dont update it. The position will stay the same position
grave drift
By the way... not sure if this is the right way to do this, but I'm setting the chest rotation like we talked about using Look At nodes. It gives somewhat an okay result, but then again, not perfect. Im making the head look at the bow and then I have the neck look at the bow. The spine_3, 2 and 1 look at the head as target (been trying a lot of different targets for these but none looked good, the head looks okayish but only on low alpha input)
@stuck scaffold Hmm, I'm updating the position as long as my character is holding the string, if thats what you're referencing
misty dagger
Is there a way to wait for animation to finish in "AnimGraph state" which can be listened in "can enter transition"?
For example going from "Running state" to "Stop State" and then wait for the stop state animation to finish/set boolean value if done?
valid wagon
@stuck scaffold Oh, I'm not overriding, I'm doing both - 2 bone ik AND a fabrik, on the same bones (although the fabrik also goes down the spine). The fabrik doesn't do anything if the 2 bone reaches the target. And if the 2 bone doesn't reach the arm has already been straightened, so when the fabrik tries on top it just adds extra lean-in from the shoulder and spine
stuck scaffold
@valid wagon What happens if you turn off the 2 bone ik when you turn on the FABRIK?
valid wagon
It looks a bit rubbish. It bends the shoulder and stuff in too early, too.
I think the elbow mostly looked okay
Oh, and the shoulders weirdly rise up when walking
It's too keen to move those bits instead of just arms
stuck scaffold
I am not talking about replacing the 2 bone with the FABRIK I mean when you are activating the FABRIK when you need that extra reach
valid wagon
Oh, I imagine it would snap into a different position (not at machine atm)
stuck scaffold
hoke, if it works it works!
@grave drift Ideally you dont want the character to be looking at things that are on itself and instead for example try to cast a ray from the bow or camera and look at the point the ray hits.
Also the hand dragging behind the character like that is caused by you still being in the ik or blending out of it after the position has stopped updating
latent condor
I'm trying to duplicate an animation sequence and make a slight rotation change to it by adding a key to the root joint and rotating it. when I do this though, it changes the rotation for both the original sequence and the duplicated sequence. am I misunderstanding something?
thick ridge
When it comes to creating character movement, if you want rather specific movement, is it best to heavily modify a character blueprint, or create one from scratch (not a programmer)? I'm talking about not being happy with the pre-built crouch animation which is instantaneous for example, or if you want to build a very specific jump for a platformer that doesn't rely on physics, but something more predetermined and controlled? I'm really doubting if the prebuilt character blueprint is sufficiently malleable for what I want, and would like some input on this. I know it might not be much of an animation question, but it works in tandem with animations, so sorry if it's the wrong channel.
grave drift
@stuck scaffold Alright, thanks. :)
An entirely different sitatuion... How can I isolate the right arm from the rest of the locomotion? I set the three Transform (Mode) Bone nodes to Replace Existing rotation https://gyazo.com/b4a4f3fe113ea7f4716a08c98de577f1
valid wagon
@grave drift make sure you replace with a worldspace rotation, otherwise it will just be a fixed rotation relative to its parent bone, which might still be moving
haughty apex
May i ask a question?, my character changes in size during animation and from what i see online it says setting translation retargeting fixes it but im struggling to find it, could somebody please help?
all good i managed to find it
tender flicker
hey
does anyone know why this is happening with FABRIK?
IK_HandEffector = FTransform(OutLocation);```I'm using that to set the effector transform
the location is fine, sometimes the jittering will stop but at random points. not really sure why
grave drift
@valid wagon Yeah, thats what Im doing :)
whole sphinx
Hey boys, i come yesterday with an issue on an animation :
with help from here, add a condition for exiting the condition in the anim machine state, but it not solvd the issue, i understand why after some test :
The shoot animation is a play montage, when he is triggered, we can imagine the anime state machine is on (1). The fact, is, visibly, when we use play montage for shooting, the anim state machine do not save when we was, and start by entry (2) and then, go for example to "walk and jog". There is a possibility to "stop" state machine and "restart" from a defined state ?
@bleak flume -> https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/BlueprintAPI/Animation/CalculateDirection/index.html ? It why i use.
bleak flume
will this work for leaning left and right? thought this is used or 8 way ?
whole sphinx
i mean, you want to have a float based on the direction where your controler go, to animate this, right ? so, if yes, it will work, on 2 way, or more.
bleak flume
works like a charm!
whole sphinx
happy to ear this 😉 good job !
viscid adder
where can i go for some help
I got two diffrent aim spaces one for just looking around and another for ads ironsights how can i switch between them using BP
pine cliff
@viscid adder normally you would probably use a State Machine, but for a simple blending also Blend Poses by Bool should do the job
cedar sedge
https://streamable.com/s1c7ud think I can see what the issue with this root motion montage -> in-place idle transition is, but not sure how to approach fixing it. The blend out in the montage is interpolating the pelvis down on its way back up to the idle position, looks like
Also happening on the blend in. The animation in the montage looks fine on its own as the sole animation, for reference. Feet don't clip through the floor on the start or end.
Is the answer just "make sure the pelvis starts/stops at the same height as the animation(s) it's blending from/to"? I'm considering foot IK but assume that it needs to be off during the montage (or will be ignored since it's root motion), and still not cover the blend in/out
valid wagon
@grave drift Which bone are you fixing rotation on? I would have assumed you'd want the hand fixed, as it presumably holds the socket he torch is in
But doesn't look like it has a replacement rotation there
If it were me I'd prob fix the rotation of the hand and apply a slight (not full alpha) ik to the arm so it holds steadier in place
But I'm totally new to ue4, so there might be better approaches
hard fog
Hello, Im having a problem with 'Play Montage' is this the place to put it? The problem being that Im trying to 'Play Montage' on a NPC to show an animation of them talking to each other but the animation just wont play, as I use the same skeleton for the player, I tried it out on the player and it works fine. What do I do?
junior geyser
@hard fog did you add the slot in the anim graph?
hard fog
yea, just found it. Thanks
vague barn
hello, does anyone here works with motionbuilder?
i have animations separated for lower body and upper body, i would like to know if you could merge them
junior geyser
if they are same skeleton, you can just do a blend per bone node
vague barn
i know, but i would rather have them joined cause its easier to tell which one is which
you know
grave drift
@valid wagon Here's my setup: Using World Space for the rot makes the arms rotate around the character, component gives the best result atm. However, the issue is with both of the animations; the idle running anims arent being cancelled out for the arm
sour latch
I have a simple problem:
I have an anim montage that has a long blend before and after the thing is, its blending from a t pose. so in my game the charector well snap from his idle to a tpose and then smoothly blend into the animation
how do I set the animation to blend from?
junior geyser
you have no other animations?
junior geyser
im confused what you mean. send some photos of anim graph and stuff
maybe vid of the animation
junior geyser
how you have the blend setup?
junior geyser
where do you have the slot in the anim graph?
sour latch
what do you mean
its not used in the anim graph
im just playing the animation as play animation asset
junior geyser
to use montage properly you need to add the slot in the animgraph. In that montage you have it set to "default slot"
sour latch
will that fix the problem?
im trying to bypass using the anim graph
and just calling the animations as I need and then switching back to animation blueprint mode
junior geyser
should cause then it will blend. you cant play animation like that in player bp unless you use montage and add the slot in animgraph so it will blend
sour latch
For some reason though I can't get a play montage in my player bp
even if I try pasting it in it gives an error
junior geyser
prob cause you dont have the slot added?
junior geyser
send pic of anim graph
sour latch
its the default for third person charector
junior geyser
so you have no anim BP and using animations in player bp for everything?
sour latch
what no
i have an animation blueprint
i duplicated the thirdperson charector's blueprint
junior geyser
just read through the docs link i sent. it should show you what you need. I think you prob dont have the slot added in the anim graph
sour latch
ok one more thing
ive done something like this before to blend an animation
but once I did that it only worked for that one animation
I had made a custom state for the charector when the animation was playing
will I have to edit the anim graph every time I want to play an animation or will I be able to call any montage without adding to the anim blueprint
junior geyser
if they use same slot then no. But why are you trying so hard not to go through the anim bp? I think you probably making a lot more work on yourself
sour latch
its just because the game im making is going to have alot of events where I need to call short animations and i don't want to have to edit the blueprint for every animation
junior geyser
montages will work fine. just go through the doc so you can set them up properly and you should be fine
junior geyser
yeah
sour latch
if I just plug an animation asset into the final pose tthats going to override everything
sour latch
so its between the state machine and the output?
junior geyser
yes. did you look at the docs?
junior geyser
yes thats it
junior geyser
send pic of where you playing it in bp
junior geyser
its cause you using play animation. you need to use montage node. You should really go through the documentation i sent you and read through it good
sour latch
alright sorry
junior geyser
no worries. let me know if it still dont work after
junior geyser
lol no need. glad it worked out
valid wagon
@grave drift Ahh yeah, if it's fixed angles like that relative to the skeletal mesh then it's component as you're doing. Workspace is for if the angles are relative to the world itself (thought you were calculating some from the world with getActorRotation, must have had you confused with someone else). Looks like that's working okay? Maybe just some slight ik if it's still translating around too much?
grave drift
Hmm, how do I prevent the idle running from being affected on the hand tho?
junior geyser
@grave drift blend per bone at the shoulder?
grave drift
Thanks, I'll try that 🙂
potent garnet
With skeletal mesh animation, I see there's an option to set the curve data to stepped - this works for bone curves but custom attribute curves are still interpolated on sub frames, is there a way to step custom attribute curves too?
tender flicker
does anyone know how to fix this issue
IK_HandEffector = FTransform(OutLocation);```
I'm using that to set the effector transform
the location is fine, sometimes the jittering will stop but at random points. not really sure why@tender flicker not sure but id only last like a minute like that
On a srious note though. Post some pics of your BP etc. Hard to tell just off the video
tender flicker
1 sec, opening up the editor now
topaz cypress
I found how to access Anim Dynamic bones for my project. One of my characters has a ponytail that I want to sway back and forth slightly so it mimics early ps1 game physics. I've got her hair moving from side to side but it keeps jittering and the ponytail moves as one piece. Using chain just breaks it in spectacular fashion.
junior geyser
@topaz cypress wouldnt it be easier just to make it a cloth?
tender flicker
topaz cypress
May do that with her coat skirt, but I already had her ponytail and coat rigged up with bones from when we were using Unity. Thinking was dynamic bones lets us control how they react to her better. More like how they did it back then.
tender flicker
@junior geyser I don't have much on the blueprint, I just have the IK Effector location updated using c++ ontick
junior geyser
i think your effector target needs to be right hand
i dont think your target and solver should both be left
@topaz cypress oh ok i see. Im not really sure on that. I never did it with bones.
cedar sedge
Having trouble with animations from this one set. Any blending to/from them, root-motion or in-place, montage or blendspace, does this. The ABP is currently stripped down to just blendspace -> cache -> out to test.
topaz cypress
Think I've solved the kittering. Needed to make the simulated space Bone Relitive and the space bone head.
cedar sedge
I have a Humanoid rig on the relevant skeletons, and retargeted them all to this one, all default on "Animation" retarget source for all bones.
Any ideas on why the pelvis gets dropped when blending but not when fully in an animation?
tender flicker
@junior geyser what do you mean by the effector target needs to be right hand? it's for the bone space right?
since right now I'm getting the IK Target position and getting it in the bone space of the hand_l
tacit wolf
Yo guys, What's the typical setup for an FPS Games animations. If I have it right it should be:
- 1 Skeleton
- 2 Meshes (First Person - Arms Only / Third Person)
- Set of Animations for FP
- Set of Animations for TP
But i'm unsure about how the animations should work, Should I be using the First Person animations on third person also and then blend per bone? Or just have flat out 2 sets of animations
junior geyser
@tender flicker
@tacit wolf it depends. You can make fps with third person skeleton and animations. Depends if you want to look down and see your own feet lol
tacit wolf
Doesn't matter about the feet
junior geyser
but by typical if you mean like say CSGO then yes thats correct
tender flicker
@junior geyser fixed it, that should actually be set to none
tacit wolf
Ah okay ty @junior geyser
junior geyser
@tender flicker Ah ok nice.
oh sorry @tacit wolf you would actually have 2 skeletons normally but you could do it with one also i believe
tender flicker
@tacit wolf I'm making a FPS game right now and I had to make separate animations for first and third person since If i used the third person on just the mesh with just the hands, it looks a bit weird and I have 2 skeletons as well since you need to set the translation retarget to the animation
junior geyser
You could use same rig im just saying normally when i see it done, its with 2 separate ones
junior geyser
if you looking for a good tutorial on it there is a pretty good udemy course i watched a long while ago that uses that set up. Ill link it if you want me to. just let me know
tacit wolf
It's not so much that I don't know how to do it
It's more just i'm trying to understand the best way
It seemed to me like using 1 skeleton you could use the same rig for both Meshes
so it made sense to me
junior geyser
i started out that way then i switched to just using the third person character and moving the camera to make it first person
I also used the mannequin and removed everything but the arms and legs and had it all on same skeleton before so it can be done
tacit wolf
yea fair enough
I mean I wanna use Epic Skeleton for both anyway
So I don't see why not
junior geyser
in games i dont think there is really ever a necessary right or wrong way to do things. Just whatever you want to do as long as it works and looks good. Thats what i do lol.
tacit wolf
fair
junior geyser
you use blender?
tacit wolf
Na
Maya
I was considering changing over to Blender but I heard it's a pain in the ass with scaling
junior geyser
its not bad i dont find anyways. If you do switch over there is a free add on called mr mannequin tools. check it out. plus epic releasing the blender to ue4 tools soon
timber star
hello,
What s the usage of gun r and gun l bone inside the ue4 skeletal mesh
i'm new in animation stuff
tender flicker
hey bigSquirmy, do you know why my aimoffset is messing with the IK?
I'm using the FABRIK node after I apply the aim offset, but when I look down, the hand moves off the weapon by a slight amount
this was happening with the aim offset so that's why i'm using Ik but it's still happening even when I use IK
tender flicker
the green circle shows the IK target effector and it's at the same position since I'm using a socket
junior geyser
Just off the top of my head maybe a weight value needs adjusted?
Maybe the solver value in the left hand ik node?
@tender flicker
yeah try precision at 1.0 instead of 10
junior geyser
oh ok in the pic from earlier it was at 10
not sure then cause i think you may have a different setup from how i normally do it. Because normally i have the right hand set as the effector but you had to set it to none so im not sure.
tender flicker
no, you were right
i had to set it to the right hand
tha's how I have it as well now
tender flicker
yeah
how did you do your aim offset? my brother is doing the animations and he said he adjusted the hands, do you do this as well?
junior geyser
no i just do the aim offset and use the fabrik nodes to keep the left hand on the sockets i create for each weapon
tender flicker
yeah I mean when you create the aim offset
do you just bend the spine and that's it?
junior geyser
yeah spine01
tender flicker
that might be why then, when he was making the animations, he adjusted the spines and the hand as well so it might be the hand is being rotated
junior geyser
depending on the animation, maybe you could also add a blend per bone node. add the base, aimoffset and the lefthand
set it for shoulder or elbow maybe?
last time i did it, i had it like this.
vast egret
hey folks, I'm a sound designer and I was wondering if there was any tool within the AnimationEditor where I could export an Animation Sequence to say, an mp4so that I can do sound design on individual animations the same way I can export a LevelSequence when I'm doing sound design on larger setpieces.
Currently my workflow is to use OBS to record the screen and then import the resultant window, trim the ends off, etc. Ideally, I just select a dozen anim sequences and get clean video printouts of them though.
junior geyser
you talking about to add sounds to the animations?
junior geyser
go in character controller. should be option like use control rotation yaw or something
uncheck that
junior geyser
click on character movement component
then it will be in the details panel on the right side
faint forge
yes
oh but now when i move my mouse the camera also move
and i want it in static position
junior geyser
you have to click on the camera or springarm and uncheck the rotation settings you dont want there
junior geyser
you dont want to adjust those. you want the ones lower that say inherit yaw, pitch, roll
you want the camera to turn when the character turns?
describe what you want it to do.
faint forge
i want to use my mouse as direction of the moviment
if i press W and the character move foreward, but i move my mouse to the left, the character should follow the mouse axis
tacit wolf
Yo is ARTv1 on the Marketplace the most up to date version?
vast egret
@junior geyser yea I'm talking about exporting them so that I can create a bunch of sounds to add to the anim notifies - but some of the sounds will be pretty specific to video sync timings, so I wanna have video reference for those things are less generic than footsteps or cloth movement.
tacit wolf
I notice it only says it goes up to 4.21 so I can't install it
junior geyser
@tacit wolf there is the art v2 on the epic github i believe
junior geyser
@vast egret not sure sorry
vast egret
No worries, thanks anyhow! 🙂
faint forge
same
junior geyser
is orient rotation to movement checked?
its under the right arrow of the last photo i sent. that should be unchecked
junior geyser
hmm that should have fixed it.
junior geyser
send screen shot of the very top component
faint forge
what i would like to do is control my character with WASD but if i walk with W, it should be able to control it with the mouse
like black desert
done
junior geyser
ah ok. on the first one. uncheck use controller rotation yaw
faint forge
oke
i think its problem of the animation blueprint
i have this
WASD moviments
and i think it cause problems
junior geyser
is the rotation working right now? and just not the animations?
junior geyser
i thought thats what you wanted?
junior geyser
no i dont
junior geyser
fortnite?
faint forge
yes, it could be an example xD
if you walk and move the mouse, it rotates the character follwed by the camera
to aim
that's what i want
then my broblem is that the character rotates more than the camera
it dosn't follow camera rotation axis
if you saw the video
look this
wait xD its uploading
the character rotates more than the camera rotates
idk if i explain my problem
junior geyser
ok go back to your spring arm and check use pawn control rotation
junior geyser
one thing i notice is your spring arm is child of the capsule. normally is should be child of the mesh but i dont think it should matter
junior geyser
yeah that was a different one. I dont think it matters. So you have no movement at all now?
junior geyser
ok
junior geyser
hmm id try open up a brand new third person template.
faint forge
okee 🙂
junior geyser
make the changes like the ones i have and see if it works
if so then try add your mesh and animations
get the third person template right how you want first though
faint forge
oket
okey
i have another bug
when i appears and i click "D" it moves to the right, but if i turn around i click "D" it also moves to the right
and should move to the left
sorry
should move to the right
but it movees to the left
wet sage
hi, can i have a quick question about what to do if the spherebychannel node kinda skips half of the animation because its a fast swing?
it checks properly, except not enough times a second so im looking for a way to increase that
cedar sedge
@wet sage Are you using continuous collision detection?
Could also try substepping your physics simulation
wet sage
what im talking about is that this is how the gaps look like after the swing
even if you dont know the trajectory you can tell that its missing a lot of space
also sorry for not being able to give a proper answer, im really new to coding
cedar sedge
Any reason why you're doing a separate sphere trace instead of just putting a collision shape right on the weapon and listening for it to get overlapped by generating events for it? Or am I misunderstanding and you are doing that
hollow tulip
hey guys, what is the best way to play an animation (hit animation) and then comeback to original animation (idle animation) ?
balmy quest
@hollow tulip take a look at anim montage
wet sage
Any reason why you're doing a separate sphere trace instead of just putting a collision shape right on the weapon and listening for it to get overlapped by generating events for it? Or am I misunderstanding and you are doing that
@cedar sedge as i said i am a beginner and ive been told this is a good method to do it, ill see what can i do with a constant collision, thanks
I didnt even think of that tbh
Ill update you if it worked or not, when im able to get to work again
misty dagger
Hey guys I'm stuck on skeleton rigging and maybe this is a stupid question to ask but for some reason i just cant understand why my skeleton is forming like this throughout multiple scales
1- is the base skeleton working correctly with the desired scale
2- is the super enlarged skeleton im using to try and see why this isnt working(i scaled this skeleton x2 in both blender and unreal to see if it was an issue in either one)
3- thats what i get when i attach the skeleton mesh and play the animations i have setup for it
4- this is my skeleton mesh unscaled, which is the same height as the others which im sure is not a coincidence
5- is the obvious solution of just scaling the object up but i would prefer to have the best workflow possible when dealing with this
if anybody can help that'd be greatly appreciated also ive played with the retargeting modes on the skeleton, and the animation mode just stretches the whole thing out
cedar sedge
I assume you tried following this? https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Engine/Animation/AnimationRetargeting/index.html
Because it specifically walks through matching different relative sizes of the same skeleton
tl;dr is root:animation, pelvis:animation scaled, rest:skeleton, though, on the retargeting modes
misty dagger
thanks for the reply @cedar sedge, i did try following that and this is the end result of that, i just set everything to skeleton to actually get the character onto the floor
this is the result of that
tacit wolf
Anybody know how you fix this issue with ARTv2?
junior geyser
you have to browse to the folder the art is it