Hello everybody !
I searched a 3ds max rig of the UE4_skeleton to be able to make custom animation in 3ds max compatible with the UE4_mannequin skelmesh in UE4.
I found these one](3DSMax Biped Rig for HeroTPP (Default Blue Man)... - Animation - Unreal Engine Forums) (build by @Obihb). But I’m a man of habits… I don’t like biped and don’t know anything about CAT (but it seems very interesting…).
That’s why I spend some time to build my rig.
Maybe it can be of some use to another person.
Now it’s done, it’s maybe a good idea to share it :).
It’s a pretty simple rig. It’s very rigid and has no elasticity, no spline IK (just like I love my rigs ^^).
It’s made with 3ds max 2014 and it should be compatible with higher version.
The only thing you’ll need that’s not in a vanilla 3ds max is the PEN_attribute_holder_v2 modifier.
You can find the script on Paul Neale’s site : http://paulneale.com/scripts/penAttr…buteHolder.htm
Here, you can read the documentation to learn how to create your own presets (but I made some).
Even if you don’t use my rig, download this script, it’s really well designed and I think it’s a “must have”.
I use it for the fingers, on the Ctrl_fingers controller.
Every link between the attribute holder and the bone rotation are stored in the reaction manager, if you want to modify them.
AddOn bones :
The skeleton is the exact clone of the UE4 skeleton but I made it for my needs and I can’t conceive a humanoid skeleton without 3 more bones :
the Jaw
the sternum (I think that breathing is an important part of a vivid animation)
the lookAt bone (which I can use to set the rotation of eye balls or offsetting a texture with BP)
I regroup these 3 bones in a layer : “addOn”.
If you don’t export them with your skeletal mesh, the resulting skeletal mesh will be fully compatible with the UE4_skeleton.
If you use them and export them with your SK, you’ll have to use the rig “humanoid” in UE4 to share animation between the UE4 skeleton and yours.
Controllers are the only and 100% shapes. You can easily lock your selection mode on “shape” to select them more comfortably.
I try to lock every unwanted location, orientation or scale changes on controllers to avoid bad use of them.
There are selection preset (double clicking on the root bone will select the entire skeleton, with the addon bones, use the selection preset if you want to easily select the skeleton without the surnumerical bones) :
I don’t get why you want it in FBX format. In FBX format, it’s the UE4_mannequin skelMesh. That’s all.
The only useful thing I do here is to rebuild the same skeleton and add a rig to it.
It’s a tool to use the UE4 skeleton in 3ds max.
Export it in FBX and it lose any interest
Oh Ok, well Mixamo has no root bone nor twist bones, its been causing issues with rigging and animation, especially when trying to switch characters in the party.
Seriously, you lost me !
What’s Mixamo ?
A skelMesh with no root ??
Switch what in… what ???
In fact, I’m not sure that you get what we’re doing here.
This is a tool for 3DS max.
You use it to create animations for the UE4_skeleton in 3DS max.
If you just want a FBX version of the UE4_mannequin skelMesk, to use it inside Mixamo, You can export it from your content browser in UE4. You don’t need my rig at all if you don’t use 3DS max
But I don’t really get what you do want ^^.
Well Mixamo is an online Animation Service that auto rigs your meshes up for you… They rig meshes up with only the Skeleton with just the Hip Bones. NO Root Bone or twist Bones as the Epic Rigs use the twist bones for i think smoother more relaxed animations. I went to them to do the rigging because I couldn’t get the rigging to work in Blender because of a nasty bone scaling armature bug that’s in the blender software program that causes the rigs to warp and twist in Unreal Engine as soon as you start to apply animations.
Its a well known but annoying bug that Blender has with its armature mode. That if you move any of the bones while in the object mode, it causes the armature to warp and twist all out of shape or the mesh on the armature to twist or develop wavy lines in the mesh in the fingers but after importing the rig into unreal engine and looking at the skeleton in the Skeleton editor you can see all the bone stretching and twisting And when you retarget and animate it, the mesh will warp and twist where the bones have been scaled all out of position which messes up all the animations.
Its a nasty bug because its not always noticeable in Blender when the bug gets triggered. Only you know its
occured if you see your bone scaling numbers have all changed even though you may or may not see any
noticeable changes in Blender happening to the armature or the mesh itself. But in Unreal Engine,
it all shows up.
The only thing I know about blender is that a lot of people do use it to rig for UE4, with success.
If I were you (I’m not), I start learn blender and leave automatronic-fligidi-pop things like mixamo forever…
But there’s one solid fact emerging from this conversation : the tool I propose here is not for you, sorry
If you have questions about the rig and how to use it, don’t hesitate to ask them here.
In the first post, I put a link to other kind of rigs (biped and CAT). Maybe you should try them to compare and find the tool that fits you the best.
Yes, I am french ! I tried to unFrenched my work but it still some of it in my old scripts
Keyword: Maximo
To sum up the confusion …
Maximo isnt / doesnt support UE4 at all. Actually, they pulled support a while ago. So, really “maximo” shouldt even be an issue at all in UE4 since we arnt supposed to be using it.
I hope that clears up the confusion
In fact, it has HI IK solver for the foot and the hand You can use the little flying controllers named xxx_swivel to play with the plane of the IK solving.
I just add the addOns bones for my usage but they are not skinned to the UE4_mannequin skel mesh.
My purpose is to use this skeleton with my own models. I let the UE4_mannequin to have something to see but it’s just a dummy mesh. AddOns bones are irrelevant in the UE4_mannequin context.
The principal interest in using the standard UE4 skeleton is to share animation with other users. You can use any animation build for this skeleton. That include a lot of things from the market place (custom anim, mocap…) and the default animations. But of course, if you don’t plane to use this kind of things, You should use your own custom skeleton. Using this skeleton is certainly important if you plane to sell animation on the Market too ^^.
But it’s also a pretty simple and yet efficient skeleton. I don’t see any reasons to not use it if you don’t need any specific and custom behaviour in your personal skelMeshes… I would add few rotation bones on legs and arms to avoid some volume crushing in extreme movement. But it do the trick for almost every stand up animation.
If you use the addOns bones, you’ll need to retarget animations but it should not be a problem because every surnumerical bones is at the periphery of the hierarchy and doesn’t break the main skeleton.
I was thinking about making a little video to explain and demonstrate how to use my rig but you seems to have no problem to understand it by yourself
Then how are get gonna get our Custom meshes into unreal Engine then if there’s no rigger in the engine?
That’s why I went to Mixamo to try to rig them only to find the pawns don’t like using the Directional Controls after switching to them.
I will now stop to answer your posts in this thread because it feels like feeding some strange and cute kind of troll…
Open your thread and ask your questions in it.
But before that, learn the basics.
Read, watch videos…
It seems to me you don’t have the big picture of how UE4 is working.
Hey I was wondering how I could apply my motion capture data to this rig. The bipeds have a feature that let you apply motion capture data to it but I can’t seem to find any way with this rig. any feedback would be great
I noticed you didn’t use any freeze transforms/rotations on spline control objects, they are good for resetting the position of the of the spline as well as the bones it is parented to.
Correct me if I’m wrong, no HI solvers on the legs? I’ve seen HI solvers on the arms in wireframe mode but none on the legs from the upper leg bone to the foot bone.
BTW the PEN Attribute Holder plug-in was done by Paul Naele who used to be my teacher back at Humber College, good times with this professor.
Here you go, https://www.sendspace.com/file/hjunpo
A perfect Biped AND Mannequin aligned perfectly, Animate the Biped (Or apply .Bip / .BVH Mocap) and the Mannequin Skeleton gets the same animation!
The power is now yours to do with what you will!
Thank you !
1- Nope, I don’t use freeze transform, I never really get how it’s works
2- There’s 2 HI solver on each legs, one for the legs and one for the foot. Maybe you should in a hidden layer ? It’s odd that you didn’t see them
I’d love to talk a bit with Paul Naele, I use several of his tools and they are very cool !
Your rig looks to be exactly what I was looking for my Max rigs! I wanted to download your rig in the first post but looks like the link is broken. Can you please reshare it? I have a couple of questions regarding proper Bones and Spline Controls (controlling them) hierarchy. Thanks!
