A workflow for Rigging my characters (no more mixamo)

Development Character & Animation
1

Hi Everyone, this is just a little thread asking for information.
With the dropped UE4 Mixamo support, some non artists developers lose our workflow for rigging characters.
As a developer I preferably don’t want to mess with this things unless I really must to. Well at this time i think I must re build my character creation workflow for keep the working on my prototypes/games.
So, what are the options?

-I obviously can learn to rig my characters for my self (the long path)
Probably horrible results at first but improving over time. But this process could be very long considering I need to do everything else in the game =)

-I can pay an artist (not money for this, at least while I am a hobbyist)

-I can rig the character with mixamo autorig and then re-target in engine or//and in blender/max/modo (?)
with this last option, the problem is that I, as a non artist, I dont know all the available options that could safe a lot of my time.
What should work and what not. Sure I can start the process and experimenting with all the options, but could be a huge time saver have some recommendations.

I am interested in some characters generators like DAZ3D or others, but those are useless until I create a good workflow from the character creation to get it functional inside Unreal Engine.

So,
-How did you guys modify your workflow if you are in a similar situation than me?
-If you are an experienced artist, some recommendations could be very welcome.

Thanks!

Edit: I am sorry, this probably should be in Content creation sub forums

2

I use Maya 2016, and here’s a pretty solid way to do it if you have previous characters that are already rigged in ue4 beforehand. This is pretty easy, and generally only takes me like 5-10 minutes per character. Theoretically this will work with pretty much anything, daz, make human, etc, so long as the initial model is un-rigged and or aligned.

This will work with Root motion. Well, here’s the best solution I’ve found so far, for implementing a character Directly From Fuse, especially if you are struggling with something like a clothing system .One downside is you will want a previously rigged character for ue4 (It works with a generic SK_Mannequin but will just be more fiddly to set up since you will have more trouble aligning the two meshes) . Another is that it might not work very well cross-gender or with drastically different body scales.

1.Start off by importing the Ue4 Rigged character and remove all the attached clothing models until you have just the body left, select the body in your Outliner and rename it.(Hopefully you have a complete body, or this probably wont work).

2.Go into fuse and create whatever you want your character to be. export this as an obj in the fuse export options, and import the obj into your maya scene.

3.Select all the imported OBJ Objects in the Outliner and Rotate them 90* upward until they fit the position of your Starting Ue4 character. (A Trick to get the rotation perfect is to go into your rotation tool and set "Step Snap to 45 or 90)

4.Start to align your ue4 bodies bones you renamed to fit the OBJ files you imported

5.Change the Mode in maya from whatever you are currently on to Rigging(Default in the top left). In the Outliner Select All the imported Obj Files, and then select your UE4 characters “Root” bone.

6.With all the OBJ files and Root bone selected go to Skin-Bind Skin.

7.After you have Bound all the obj files to the root hierarchy, you need to select your initial Ue4 Body that you renamed.

8.This is a very key part to make sure to do this in This Order, with the Initial Ue4 Body that you renamed Selected First, Ctrl-Select the first Obj that you have imported so that Both are Highlighted in your Outliner

9.Now with those two selected in outline go to Skin-Copy Skin Weights. This will copy the initial skin weights of the Ue4 Body that you renamed to what you have selected.

10.Go back to step 8, and Repeat the step but with the next Obj file you imported down the list.

  1. After you have done this for each Mesh Part Obj, you can find your initial Ue4 Body that you renamed and delete it.

After this all you should need to do is export and import directly into ue4. In my case i didn’t even need to use a unique skeleton, i was just able to plop it straight into an existing one.

3

Fruity, thanks man, this kind of info is what I am looking for.
With this information I can dig dipper and explore this option.
Thanks a lot!