Baking control rig animations modifies the bones positions

Development Character & Animation
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1

Hi,

I’m using Unreal 5.5. There’s an issue with control rig where when I bake my carefully prepared animation, baking it to the skeleton changes the position of bones compared to control rig’s animation. It’s visibly different from the control rig anim. Sometimes it’s very subtle, other times there are significant changes.

Is this normal? Is there anything that can be done to at least improve it/make the difference less obvious?

Thanks!

2

Hey Tactile Visions,
Are you talking about a regular baking on FK Controls, or baking on your Control Rig? Do you end up in an Animation Sequence or you stay in the Sequencer?

3

Hi @Stephane_Biava, love your videos! It’s an honor to have your first post here be in reply to my question :smiley:

I have a (modular) control rig animation and I use the “Bake animation sequence” function in sequencer with the default settings. I can then see that the animation is different after I open it as an asset or after I insert it in the sequence, replacing the control rig animation

4

Thanks for your kind words! :blush:

Could you tell where the difference in the animation occurs? For example, around the shoulders or the fingers?

Backward solving of some modules could result in this issue.

5

It seems to occur in many places, the shoulders and elbows are one example. Here is a demonstration:

Notice the difference in shoulder height between the control rig animation and baked sequence. Not to mention that baking the animation sequence to control rig deforms the anim significantly and that the first frame of the baked animation sequence is completely deformed too. But let’s focus on one issue at a time :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

This is the modular control rig that I’m using:
CR_Manny_Modular.uasset (340.7 KB)

6

Thanks for all the details and for the file! The behavior does seem odd, but I’m not seeing the same issue on my side using version 5.5.

Could you try testing it on the 5.6 preview version, using a new Modular Control Rig on Manny, and let me know what results you get?

On my end, I only notice a minor difference in the shoulder area on both 5.5 and 5.6, which should be easily fixable with an additive layer on the baked Modular Control Rig track.
Also, I’m not experiencing the issue with the first frame being out in the animation sequence like you mentioned.

Backwards Solve on Modular Control Rig has improved quite a bit since its initial release, and we’re actively working on polishing it as much as possible! :raising_hands:

7

Thanks for all the info! Good to hear the backwards solve will be getting more love :slight_smile: Sometimes it works great, but on my end it usually results in the control rig animation being very different.

I’ll try out 5.6 and report back.

1 Like
8

I’ve tested 5.6 and it’s certainly an improvement! However, the shoulders still kind of lag behind. I’ve created a new project and fresh modular rig and then followed the process from above (bake the standard jump animation to control rig and then back to an animation sequence)

Here’s the new modular rig I’m using. Are you getting the same results?

CR_Mannequin_Modular.uasset (162.0 KB)