Attatching Enemies heads to a melee weapons when hit

Development Platform & Builds XR Development
1

I have seen something I want to replicate in both the walking dead saints and sinners vr game and the new boneworks game.
Basically when you hit an enemy in the head with a melee weapon it makes it seem like the weapon has embedded in the skull and you need to yank it back out again.
Boneworks example vid

Walking dead example vid

I have had some Ideas on how this could work where if the velocity of the melee weapon is greater than a certain value when the head is struck, it could attach to the melee weapon using either An IK chain or physical animation blend. And detach from the melee weapon if the motion controller velocity is above a certain value.
Anybody got some good ideas on a way to pull this off convincingly or better methods on how to do it.

2

They are using physical constraints to attach, which lets it easily also be not limited in X+ but imparting forces still.

3

Thanks for replying mordentral.

Sorry I don’t follow what X+ is.
when you say physical constraint Do you mean like a physics handle ?
Could you provide more information of how you think its working as I don’t fully understand yet

4

No, like an actual physics constraint, like what the PhysicsConstraintComponent does, then you can unlock a forward axis to allow penetrating deeper or pulling out again and just add some friction to it.

5

So this is most likely the same method that being used to run through enemy’s with swords too like in blade & sorcery.
I think I may have already use a physics constraint to simulate a grenade pin swing on the main body of a grenade.
But Im not sure how it would work in the method I need.
Would the constraint need to be on the enemies body or the melee weapon?
Just trying to visualize how the system would work

6

A constraint works between two objects, it could be inside of one, or the other, or neither if using an actor constraint.

You are basically just looking for something like at this timestamp:

Though the actual effect is notably better if you are using physically interactive gripping like in the video as it limits forces applied.

7

Found a Better video Of the exact thing I want to pull off. I also like the way the player can grab the zombies around the head /neck and stab them with a knife in the head.

8

Yeah that is the same thing?

9

Sorry to be a pain in the ■■■ mordentralBut I’m struggling to understand how to set this up inside BPs.
If you get a chance could you provide screenshots of the BP code as I cant visualize how the weapon Is interacting with the skeletal mesh of the character BP.
And how they are attaching via the constraint.
I really want to solve this as its been a issue on the back-burner for a while.
not sure if the constraint should be in the victim BP or the weapon BP.
Not sure how a vr hand could also grab a character skeletal mesh by the head.
Im still working and testing stuff but its not going well :frowning: