# Animation on bow pullback/stay/release, for both the character and bow **URL:** \ **Category:** Character & Animation\ **Tags:** aim, unreal-engine, question, Blueprint\ **Created:** [May 19, 2016, 2:19pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/animation-on-bow-pullback-stay-release-for-both-the-character-and-bow/357927 "2016-05-19T14:19:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Xullien](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Xullien](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Xullien)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 2:19pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/animation-on-bow-pullback-stay-release-for-both-the-character-and-bow/357927/1 "2016-05-19T14:19:52Z")
Hello, I’m fairly new to all this, but I have some basics from youtube videos and tutorials. So my question is, how can I achieve an animation when the player pullback the bow, stay in an idle pulled animation, and play a last animation of releasing the bow. What I was trying to do was making a montage, of each of these three states, and putting them into the state machine. But I have no idea what to do later on, and how can I loop the idle pulled animation of the bow. For the Arrow projectile and such I used this tutorial [UE4 Arrow Projectile Introduction - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYJkZM_yWs4&list=PLY_FQXauSxlAiaLUllZv_u8YykldnKHaE&index=1) which helped a bunch. I’m sorry if I didn’t make myself clear enough I’m kind of bad in english^^. Thank you all. ---
**Author:** ![Zarkopafilis](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Zarkopafilis](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Zarkopafilis)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 3:15pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/animation-on-bow-pullback-stay-release-for-both-the-character-and-bow/357927/2 "2016-05-19T15:15:36Z")
Alright. You need to use 2 state machines inside different animation blueprints. One is going to be on the character and one on the bow blueprint(unless you weld them together but then your character would be unable to control other weapons). They are going to pull the same variables out of the character in order to determine what animation needs to be played. Here is a sketch: [![](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/3X/7/0/708c7b22e572c598a3f1aa7d72500c1c4f2e9a32.png) ](https://i.imgur.com/XKuGKp5.png) Notice the “funky stuff” part? Yeah pretty much this is where stuff like blending the animation only to affect the upper body or using IK in order to get the hands of different sized characters to be in the same place holding the arrow. If you don’t understand all these you should go ahead and watch the 2 livestreams regarding animation as well as ALL of the introductory videos. ---
**Author:** ![Xullien](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Xullien](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Xullien)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 3:39pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/animation-on-bow-pullback-stay-release-for-both-the-character-and-bow/357927/3 "2016-05-19T15:39:44Z")
I did do two state machine, one for the character and one for bow. It’s just the character pullback animation until release isn’t working,or I just didn’t know where to add it, or I just did something that just don’t work. ![91205-bow_bp.png](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/0/0/8/00835ca89acbac72067d40c2520189e11b9a5f44.png) ![91207-thirdperson_animbp.png](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/8/0/a/80acb2958b353041831ad30893250267efddba61.png) ![91208-thirdperson_animbp_state.png](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/9/5/29575c85437f5afaa4c56548f0c1c0000973715c.png) Well thank you for your help ^^ I appreciate it, I’m going to try this and see where i fail because I’m sure I’ll mess up something else while doing something. ---
**Author:** ![Xullien](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Xullien](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Xullien)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 5:13pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/animation-on-bow-pullback-stay-release-for-both-the-character-and-bow/357927/4 "2016-05-19T17:13:39Z")
All is working good now with minor bugs that I have no idea yet how to fix but in time I will. Thanks again for your help ^^ Have a nice day ---
**Author:** ![Thilina\_arimac](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/thilina_arimac/32/1068821_2.png) [@Thilina\_arimac](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Thilina_arimac)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 12:53pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/animation-on-bow-pullback-stay-release-for-both-the-character-and-bow/357927/5 "2019-08-01T12:53:57Z")
I implemented a bow and arrow system, but I mainly used montages and didn’t use any state machine. still it works fine. here is the link to full tutorial. https://www.youtube.com/embed/r0DBIA6k86g?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&list=PLNTm9yU0zou5KXdA7iubXJAE1j5ZB2Cvk ![283814-hqdefault-7.jpg](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/d/5/d/d5db449ebd059efd854582469b478666b3178a69.jpeg)