What’s the proper way to make a skeletal mesh bow and arrow string attach to the characters hand when he pulls the bow back?
I can attach the bow to the left hand but struggling to figure what systems to use to pull the string back with the characters draw animation and have the string attached to his hand.
Should be pretty simple, In general when a bow string is pulled it is tight V shape, for that you can setup a two bone rig with stretchy bones. You can try mixing in Spline Ik for that extra control.
if you want to keep it really simple, An FK setup with 3 bone joints would work, after all it would be the hand ik handling everyting in your animation and not the bow string.
Goodluck
That IK part is the issue i am trying to figure out. The bow has a string animation on it and it has 2 bones that form a V shape when pulled back. I am trying to figure out how to get the string to follow the hand of the character so when the characters pull back animation plays the string sticks to the character hand and pulls back.
I don’t understand how to tell the bow string bones to follow the hand of the character.
Hope that makes sense.
It’s a matter of simply linking and unlinking or parenting or unparenting the node or one that controls the string to the hand IK (depends what software you are using, but in max you an do this with the Link constraint). One more important thing to consider and that many many games get wrong when it comes to Archery, The string never stretches it is the bow itself that bends, so if you want to get it right make sure to rig the entire bow as well.
Ah so you are saying to solve this in maya. For example import my character animation and bow animation. Then adjust my bow animation to the characters pull back animation. Then when i play my characters pull back animation in unreal i play the bow animation at the same time. Is that the general workflow?
I was hoping that I could use IK in Unreal to just adjust the string on my already existing bow animation to stick the string to his right hand on the pull back.
Edit to be clear I already have a bow animation with the string and the bow bending. I am simply trying to get the string to stick in any characters right hand when the bow is attached to the left hand using Unreal.
Adjusting animations like that in Unreal would be extreme pain as well as inaccurate and messy , especially when concerning characters, It is best to spare Ik functions in unreal to things like feet and uneven surfaces whcih act o top of the original animations, but even in there we still have massive issues without resorting to expensive plugins. So yes, all animations should be done inside 3d applications especially concerning character movements. Control is more important than hacks.
HaHa OK will do. I am not an artist so i try to avoid using Maya to solve problems at first, but guess this is the excuse i need to crack it open 
Thanks for help.