I’ve got a fair few actors i need to setup animations for, and all of them have the same basic functions like idle, perform an action, or die however they all have different skeletons. I looked into animation blueprint templates so im not copy pasting the blueprints every time i change a condition that affects them all, but i’ve run into an issue with animation notifies. Since the template doesnt have an assigned skeleton and animation sequences are just variables i can’t get the notify event nodes in the event graph. Every actor which i will use this template for will have exactly the same animation notify events in their animations so i would like to have the notify events in the base template i will be using for them.
However I’m not entirely sure what that solution entails.
Does anyone know how i can get the animation notify events in the ABT or is there a better way to go about replicating animation blueprints across different skeletons without resorting to copy paste?
Do one set of animations (with the anim notifies, basic curves, etc) as your master set of animations, create a master animation blueprint, then retarget your other skeletons to the skeleton you’ve chosen as your master, and then create instances of the master animation blueprint with the necessary extras for your other skeletons. You should be able to do additional overlay layers for your other characters if needed (eye blinks, aims, etc).
I’m not sure if that solution will work for you, but it is one way to do it rather than copy pasta all the anim notifies.
Although i’m using the same animation types for everything (idle, action, death) the individual animations themselves vary drasticly skeleton to skeleton. Would the master animation set still work here, if maybe i can override the animations with the correct ones later down the line? Or would this only be viable if the animations would be approximatly the same skeleton to skeleton?
The above solution may not work for you if you did not plan for a master set of animations.
When you exported them from your 3D software was each set of animation for each skeleton all in one file? Depending on the software used to export the FBX, you might be able to annotate (or add notes) where needed and then import into the engine. This is not something that I’ve tried so I don’t know what settings you’d need to select when importing or if the annotations are stripped upon import.
Both Maya and 3DS Max have scripts for skeletal meshes and rigging within the Extra folders under the Engine. They might have what you need? 3DS Max Biped has footstep automation, but I’m unsure about other software. Unfortunately Blender doesn’t appear to be supported; but I’ve never used it for animation so I don’t even know what’s available there.