Hello! I was testing the ALS and i was wondering how to implement a custom character from scratch. Lets say i have an static mesh of a character wich i liked (for example this one), how can i assing the als skeleton to this character?
Thank you!
There are a lot of steps that need to be done actually.
- Download and pray that it is correctly rigged. (Rigging is the term for giving a mesh a skeleton, same as our bones.)
- If it is not rigged, which is most likely the case… you are in for a looong session of giving life to your asset. Look up some Rigging Tutorials and keep in mind, that this is a long process if done correctly. Depending on how serious you are, or how often you are going to rig stuff, you might want to check out AutoRigPro.
2.1) just a quick tipp, try importing your mesh into Mixamo. They do an awesome job with automatic rigging on humanoid characters as well. No promises tho.
This should also already fix “weightpainting”. The process of deciding which bone controls which geometry. If not (and since your character has a lot of clothes this is most likely the case: you gotta adjust it yourself.
After all these steps, you can export, or rather import your mesh to UE5 and do all the fun UE5 shenanigans.
Making a character animation ready is hard work (if done properly). There are many ways to cheese it and make it easier, but there are quality tradeoffs.
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Hi there,
If you use Blender for rigging, there is an addon called Autorig Pro that adds the default UE4 Skeleton, and the default “binding pose”, fully compatible with ALS. It seems that the latest version also can add the UE5 Manny’s skeleton, based on release notes, but I haven’t checked it so far.
For facial rigging, Autorig Pro also comes with this feature, but I prefer the addon called FACE IT, which adds the 52 ARKit FACS blendshapes needed for facial mocap with Live Link, among many other features.
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Thank you! i was hopping for a magic process where you have a skeleton, a mesh and just link them but it seems not hahahaha. Well, thanks for the answer!
Sounds nice i gonna give it a try, thank you!
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Hey there, thanks for this! I’m curious how FaceIt generated ARKit blend shapes can be imported into UE and used with Live Link, similar to Metahuman Animator. I found tutorials on how to do this inside Blender, but not within Unreal Engine, does anyone have any pointers?
Hi, just export your character from Blender to UE and verify the export settings to make sure blend shapes are properly exported. Your character must be rigged either with a full body + face or only the face if you’re exporting only the head mesh.
In UE, the setup consists in using the ARKIT shapes in combination with facial bone controls (either control rig/anim blueprint or skeletal controls/anim blueprint). All methods below require an iPhone X or newer. If you don’t have one, there are other methods that use a webcam and can provide good results.
A quick example of a custom ARKIt character setup is provided by Polywink with a sample FBX/Maya scene available for download in the webpage:
Motion Capture Avatar From iPhone - Facial animations for everyone! (polywink.com)
For more advanced setups with facial bones (eyelids, eyes, jaw + neck and head), three other sources are available:
The UE4 sample project Face AR shows how to setup a ARKIT character with eyes, neck, head and jaw bones controlled by skeletal controls/anim blueprint, and the video below is the original live stream exploring that sample project.
Face AR Sample in UE Legacy Samples - UE Marketplace (unrealengine.com)
Face AR Sample | Unreal Engine 4.27 Documentation | Epic Developer Community (epicgames.com)
Introducing the FaceAR Sample Project | Live Training | Unreal Engine Livestream (youtube.com)
The sample Windwalker Echo includes a setup for ARKIt characters with a full body control rig + anim blueprint and is available from UE 4.27 to UE 5.2:
Windwalker Echo in Characters - UE Marketplace (unrealengine.com)
You’ll find more recent tutorials on YT for UE5 with control rig, which offers more refined controls than UE4’s skeletal controls. Both methods can be used in UE4 and UE5.
A third method is shown by Trash Praxis, which consists in replacing the ARKit blend shapes by full facial bones control, making use of pose assets. Mind that it can be tricky to make the pose assets without a control rig:
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Found a full tutorial for anyone else interested:
