# Building a moving head **URL:** \ **Category:** Rendering\ **Tags:** unreal-engine, Lighting, Blueprint, question\ **Created:** [January 18, 2024, 10:22pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935 "2024-01-18T22:22:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jiajing](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jiajing](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jiajing)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2024, 10:22pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/1 "2024-01-18T22:22:46Z")
Learning to build my first moving head in Unreal, however, when I tilt the mover, the pivot point of the head is off ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/d/c/0/dc09c42e8052625a0941ba31269eb2b6673c9393.jpeg) Can I change pivot point in BP - Viewport to correct that? ---
**Author:** ![Quetzalcodename](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Quetzalcodename](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Quetzalcodename)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2024, 11:21am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/2 "2024-01-19T11:21:13Z")
Hey @jiajing, Check out these threads that have solutions that might work for you: > [@How do I change the pivot position on a component in a blueprint?](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/how-do-i-change-the-pivot-position-on-a-component-in-a-blueprint/289439/5): > > Hello Jacky, Could you please detail me the complete procedure to do this. I am a real beginner and I did’nt understand everything. I didn’t get how to use the scene component as pivot. (I’ve place an arrow then attach the mesh to the arrow by drag an drop the mesh on the arrow in the Components Panel but I don’t know what to do next). Thank you. > [@Blueprint pivot point](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/blueprint-pivot-point/617914): > > Hi everyone I am working on a plane project and I have been running into an issue lately. When I try to rotate the plane, it rotates from a pivot point under plane itself which gives it a weird effect. This is my blueprint: Does anyone know how I can change the pivot point inside the blueprint itself? Thanks for the help I hope the above contains the solution you need! ---
**Author:** ![jiajing](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jiajing](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jiajing)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2024, 7:57pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/3 "2024-01-19T19:57:49Z")
Hello @Quetzalcodename Thanks for threads. I tried both and still have problem here to make it tilt correctly. was hoping to have arrow pivot at organe maker at. ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/4/6/3/4633101b66bc08bed8369ca6b4b7c1d8ab904324.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Quetzalcodename](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Quetzalcodename](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Quetzalcodename)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2024, 10:07am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/4 "2024-01-22T10:07:28Z")
Hey @jiajing, Would you mind sharing your blueprint so we can see where you placed your error in regards to your hierarchy? Otherwise, the only other way to fix this would be to edit your model’s pivot point in blender or something similar. ---
**Author:** ![jiajing](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jiajing](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jiajing)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2024, 9:02pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/5 "2024-01-22T21:02:19Z")
Hey @Quetzalcodename Please find screenshot below. ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/6/b/b/6bb548eb0d62dee6f654063e57b1de58e92d47ef.jpeg) I try to figure out that for DMX visualization, if GDTF file doesn’t exist, would I be able to make a fixture utilizing real fixture geometry and make a unreal fixture for visualization. Do we have tutorial on that? would love to dive into this. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Quetzalcodename](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Quetzalcodename](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Quetzalcodename)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 10:50am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/6 "2024-01-23T10:50:42Z")
Hey @jiajing, I see an issue with your blueprint already. You need to correctly parent your components, as your current setup will not do what you wanting to do. For example, the head should be a child of the arrow so that it works on the arrow’s pivot, not the other way around. The same would apply for the lens above the head, which I assume is part of the head. That should be a child of your head mesh. Could you also explain what you mean by “make a real fixture geometry and make an Unreal fixture for visualization”? I’m not aware of DMX having any model creation like you are wanting. ---
**Author:** ![jiajing](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jiajing](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jiajing)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 6:23pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/7 "2024-01-23T18:23:49Z")
@Quetzalcodename Thank you, I will give a try this afternoon. When I draft on vectorworks and load info into Unreal using Datasmith and MVR, if the fixture doesn’t have a GDTF file available, those fixtures will be replaced as default Unreal assets which is located in UNREAL ENGINE CONTENT, titled as ‘MOVING HEAD’. However the geometry of MOVING HEAD vary by manufacture. I am learning on making a moving head with manufacture 3D geometry in Unreal if GDTF is not available, in that way, i will be still able to have right fixture geometry for visualization ---
**Author:** ![jiajing](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jiajing](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jiajing)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2024, 7:24pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/8 "2024-01-23T19:24:01Z")
@Quetzalcodename Hello again, Changed hierarchy , it doesn’t seems to solve the problem, Also I tried clean up pivot point on blender before import, unfortunately it doesn’t help neither. I wander if there is anything assoccaite with attributes. ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/3/6/2361c8caecb1eddd62019fc10cdc801b9a35b3e2.jpeg) I zipped project [here](https://1drv.ms/u/s!AuiF_iRN7A20gbBQRc5QF-kcUMCG6g?e=2UUc1v) Thank you ---
**Author:** ![Quetzalcodename](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Quetzalcodename](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Quetzalcodename)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2024, 10:37am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/9 "2024-01-24T10:37:05Z")
Hey @jiajing, Where is your pivot in your blender files? Did you reexport and send after changing them? Can you show us with screencaps what those look like? ---
**Author:** ![jiajing](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jiajing](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jiajing)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2024, 9:17pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/10 "2024-01-24T21:17:52Z")
Hi @Quetzalcodename, First of all, I redraw the geometry , on oppose to use the one from Vectorworks, with new geometry, it seems work. so i went back to the old drawing and imported old one to blender, made those changes on blender. ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/1/b/4/1b4d456bc36c6bd4e1e10cdb249f29468f17df88.jpeg) Export back in to unreal, it didn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Quetzalcodename](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Quetzalcodename](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Quetzalcodename)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2024, 10:55am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/11 "2024-01-25T10:55:11Z")
Hey @jiajing, It looks like your pivot point is not centered here on your model either. When you use the rotate tool in blender what does that look like? Also when you exported your model after editing it and then imported those now new models into Unreal, what did those settings you used for export and import look like? ---
**Author:** ![jiajing](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jiajing](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jiajing)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2024, 7:18pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/12 "2024-01-26T19:18:36Z")
I was messing aroud pivot point on blender, tried both center of geometry and side of geometry. Rotate tool on blender works great. When I Export from blender, setting as below, changed UP to Z, PATH to copy ![Screenshot_1](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/9/8/a/98a2084ba2af1aa7ae1718d4b3745998a0024988.png) When importing into Unreal , all setting is default. ---
**Author:** ![Quetzalcodename](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Quetzalcodename](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Quetzalcodename)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2024, 10:37am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/13 "2024-01-29T10:37:42Z")
Hey @jiajing, That’s odd, correcting the pivot in blender should have worked. Check out this non Epic affiliated tutorial to make sure all of your steps are correct: [![](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/3/8/4/384704e0bab135ea0869ed1d25ac8db46b37a6f8.jpeg "FBX from Blender to Unreal Engine with the correct pivot point") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMjjOIO6LMo) ---
**Author:** ![jiajing](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jiajing](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jiajing)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2024, 4:45pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/14 "2024-01-30T16:45:49Z")
Hey @Quetzalcodename , Followed up on that Tutorial, the tilt is still off. ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/8/3/8/8384ea195fb9d91b82964ba126fc5c515dc3983d.jpeg) I will look up info on how to build moving head from scratch, really don’t know the way to fix it, but I will keep messing around it. ---
**Author:** ![Quetzalcodename](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Quetzalcodename](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Quetzalcodename)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 10:50am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/15 "2024-02-01T10:50:58Z")
Hey @jiajing! From blender, have you tried individually exporting each piece? Also, could you share all of your blender export settings? Screenshots are preferred here. ---
**Author:** ![jiajing](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jiajing](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jiajing)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2024, 10:41pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/16 "2024-02-07T22:41:44Z")
Hello @Quetzalcodename Please find blinder export setting attached. ![Screenshot_1](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/7/0/c/70c3417dc825a0374e637d5e0cbb7ebd4494a98a.png) I just tried export BASE , YORK, HEAD individually from blender with the same setting. I do noticed when I import BASE fbx, Unreal has an error : _could not be created because all of its polygons are degenerate_ Then I clean up in blender, it did imported into unreal, but the pivot point of the head still not behaving correctly. Also becasue the original 3d model was exported from Vectorworks, in blender the mesh was composed by multiple faces , it certainly doesn’t seem to be a clean model. ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/0/6/4/0649f98f51e6cf2d46b004535297ce24d2176b63.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![jiajing](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jiajing](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jiajing)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2024, 10:58pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/17 "2024-02-25T22:58:15Z")
@Quetzalcodename Give a couple try . found this. so the mesh is not rotate at their origin once it folds into a moving head. This is move head is from Unreal Content , I simply swapped out Mesh at Blueprint. However it works great if it is simply be a mesh and not in blueprint ![image](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/6/5/e/65e361f199557b3e35370402735fc1177925df64.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Quetzalcodename](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Quetzalcodename](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Quetzalcodename)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2024, 10:46am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/18 "2024-02-26T10:46:22Z")
Hey @jiajing, Is the image above from just the mesh or your blueprint? If you are unable to get meshes to move the way you want, have you tried converting the mesh into a skeletal mesh to ensure it turns based correctly (based on the armature you will create)? ---
**Author:** ![Quetzalcodename](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@Quetzalcodename](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Quetzalcodename)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2024, 10:25am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/19 "2024-03-06T10:25:09Z")
Hey @jiajing, Checking in! Are you still having trouble setting up your mesh? Were you able to figure out what the issue was or did the above solution work for you? ---
**Author:** ![jiajing](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/2/8/5/28502927f1d97ba1051b3b47ccfe17233bf41ef0.png) [@jiajing](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/jiajing)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 7:50pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935/20 "2024-03-22T19:50:08Z")
@Quetzalcodename Sorry for the delay , I am in the mid of job hunting. I’ll give a try this weekend or early next week. [Next page](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-a-moving-head/1624935.md?page=2)