Adjust NPC with Variables in editor

[docTheJones]

Hi there!

I have started creating a VR experience for our music project and I have a problem positioning NPCs in the scene/level.
The part I am working on right now shall simply sit or stand around in the scene and maybe look at the player as he’s approaching.

I have created a BP with the character mesh, added a slot with wings and assigned a sitting idle animation.
The challenge for me is now that the places where the characters stand or sit will vary.
In the first case he is sitting on stairs and I am trying to control leg rotation etc via Animation Blue Print.
To adjust the pose I have already added a couple of variables and hooked them up. This part works fine so far - from the Animation Blue Print Persona window.

Now I would like to control these things within the editor on the characters placed for each one separately.
I have already set the variables to be public (the eye icon) and set them to expose on spawn.
Doing this with pure meshes or materials give me the “Default” section within the properties panel to the right within the editor. But not from the Animation BP.
How could I do that?

Here are some screenshots from the current setup.

Thank you for your help!
Tom

[anonymous_user_128d48a2]

This isn’t my field of expertise, but look into kinematics

Gl!

[docTheJones]

Hi DP, thanks for the hint - looks promising!

[jwatte]

What you want is “inverse kinematics” to plant the butt, and then each of the feet, on the downwards-colliding terrain.
Unreal Engine has some IK support built-in: IK Setups | Unreal Engine Documentation

[docTheJones]

Hi jwatte, I followed the steps but still have to problems with the character and animation create via Mixamo and Fuse.
Can you or somebody else help me out?

When I start to move the foot in the preview editor of the animation BP the legs get pretty “twisty”:

And when I start the level the whole thing

• does not seeem to have too much effect (one foot on the stairs and one in the air),
• drawing the two red lines (no green ones) and
• there seems to be only on red box:
  

Thanks to everybody so far - I am still working myself into the whole thing.

**Here are the detailed information about what I have set up: **