Hello,
I have a parent Character blueprint that contains the inherited skeletal mesh component. On my child blueprint, I’ve changed it to a different mesh.
The problem is that when I close the editor and re-open it, the skeletal mesh in that child actor gets cleared and I have to go in and reset the SM.
I’ve searched the answer hub and have found similar issues, but didn’t find a resolution.
Hello bh8817,
After doing a bit of digging this appears to be a known issue. I have provided a link to the public tracker. Please feel free to visit the provided link for future updates.
Link: Unreal Engine Issues and Bug Tracker (UE-18765)
Make it a great day
I see, looks like it was resolved as wont fix? Am I reading that right?
It isn’t the worst thing. I just hope that When I try to package the game it doesn’t do it with the cleared anim blueprint. If I can package it then it won’t be breaking anything and just an annoyance.
Just in case, here are some things that I’ve tried–
Deleting the child blueprint and recreating from parent. No change
Duplicating a different child from the same parent and renaming. No change
What doesn’t make sense is that i have a different child that is working just fine. It doesn’t reset at all.
I see many more running in to the problem on 4.12 here:
It seems I’ve been able to point to whats causing it in my project at least. Doesn’t make any sense to me, but maybe it’ll be of use to you guys.
Using the blueprint node SpawnAIFromClass and then adding the pawn class as the child blueprint causes it to reset it’s skeletal mesh to nothing.
Steps:
Remove the node that is referencing the pawn class.
Set the skeletal mesh in your child blueprint.
Save and close the editor and restart
Check to see if the skeletal mesh is still set on child actor, and for me it is.
Add the SpawnAIFromClass node back to the graph and set the pawn class as your child blueprint.
Compile and save-- restart the editor,
My skeletal mesh is now set to none.
Tested this just now with other nodes that would reference the child blueprint. For example, just SpawnActorFromClass does the same thing.
I can confirm this, It is not only limited to the Spawn nodes though. Any references seem to break it, even when it’s linked in a datatable.
I found a solution that is working quite well! It’s just a few easy steps. Tested in 4.15
Step 1: Remove the character mesh and animation BP from the Parent. (Set AnimBP to None)
Step 2: In the Child, use the node “Set Skeletal Mesh” to your character. Check “Reinit Pose” and set the inherited mesh as the target.
Step 3: Use the node “Set Anim Instance Class” to your animationBP. Same mesh target
That should about do it.
I have have eight child actors all using this method and it works with all of them, no loss of data or missing characters.
Here’s a couple images to help ya out.
Parent Character
Child
Yes! this is what i’ve been doing ever since 4.12. I forgot to come back and update this post. Thank you very much for sharing 
It’s annoying that it’s still a problem, but at least the work around is pretty simple.
I am experiencing this exact issue in 4.16 - even though the issue you linked says it is fixed?
