Ask Unreal Anything: Animation | July 13, 2022 at 11AM EDT

Jeremiah3D · July 13, 2022, 3:44pm

illYay:

Are there plans to support control rig controls being able to interact with other objects in the scene?

Imagine these scenarios when animating with control rig in engine:

space switching a character’s ik hand control with a lever in the world

space switching one character’s hand with another character’s hand to animate them shaking hands

space switching with a gun’s magazine when making weapon reload animations

So far the closest thing I found is the snapper tool but it bakes keyframes rather than letting you space switch.

It’s also very difficult to align controls with other controls or objects and the snapper tool occasionally works, but it requires baking over at least 2 keyframes, so I have to manually delete the second keyframe. All the usual tools that work in the editor don’t work with controls since they’re not actors or components, and the options aren’t there that you get when working with those objects.

Yes! The team is currently developing Constraints for Sequencer, which we hope to be in the next UE release. This will allow you to interact between other Control Rigs and other objects in the world.

Also in the works is animating multiple Control Rigs at a time, for example, a body and face rig, or the Mannequin and a weapon.

While we’re still actively developing many tools for animators, we’re also ensuring there is Python exposure so the community can also build tools. Here is some documentation on how to get started.