Change default character animation

Development Character & Animation
1

Hi

Im new to using unreal, I was wondering can you change the walk animation on the default character? i tried changing the stance by moving the bones etc and it appears fine. But when i exit the edit and re enter the character changes back to the default stance.

thanks

2

You have to create you own anims which you will have to implement:

3

thanks for the reply. He mentions unreal actor to import the file do i have to do this for unreal 4? Iv made a CAT model and unreal wont let me bring it in :frowning:

4

How are you exporting it? Does it have an animation? What errors or warnings do you get when you try to import?

That “he” in the video is himself, btw. :stuck_out_tongue:

5

You just have to export your character as an fbx file.

Yep, I’m :stuck_out_tongue:

6

im saving it out as an fbx file, it has a basic walk cycle and it doesnt matter if i save it out with the animation or not, I still get this error. its realy frustrating as this is the basics and i cant get past it

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7

Hi Fehron! :slight_smile: Don’t worry mate, you are obviously new to Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) and possibly to animation exporting in general and when you first start out it can be really frustrating. But it was like that for all of us, so don’t worry.

To answer your questions so far:

  1. You cannot edit the character animations in the Unreal 4 Content Examples, such as Shooter Game, Third Person Game, inside UE4. UE4 does not have tools for editing animations. To edit animations you need an Animation software such as Maya, 3DSMax or Blender 3D.

  2. You do not need “Unreal Actor” to export your animations from your animation software or to import it into UE4.

  3. The error message you are getting in UE4 is a general error message from a failed import and could be caused by a 100 different things.

So, in order to help you out a bit more we need to know some more information about your workflow so far to see what’s going wrong.

First off, what 3D modeling / animation software are you using to make your game character and animation? Let me know and we can take it from there.

Okay, so now I’ll describe a workflow very quickly for you to explain how it’s done.

Step 1: Create your game character’s mesh.
Step 2: Create your game characters skeleton. Bind the mesh to the skeleton.
Step 3: Make an animation. Say a simple walk cycle.
Step 4: Export the game character as a .FBX file. (3DSMax, Maya and Blender 3D can all export as FBX as standard.)
Step 5: Import your game character FBX file into UE4. (Includes, Mesh, Skeleton, and Animation).
Step 6: Open the Skeletal Mesh inside Persona and play the animation. Voila!

Obviously I have skipped all the details here, but a lot of the details are specific to the 3D Package you are using to make your character.

Okay, hope that helps! :slight_smile:

8

Which program are you using to make and export your character?

9

@ @Dyoto0rion hi thanks for the reply :slight_smile:

Iv been using 3ds for a while so im ok when it comes to modeling etc. all im trying to export at the moment is a CAT model as its basic. then i want to move onto skin etc but im trying to keep it simple. this is what im trying to export.

thanks for the help, i realy appreciate it.

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10

Hi Fehron. :slight_smile: Nps mate! We all gotta start somewhere.

Okay your using 3DSMax, cool.

Unfortunatly, I have only a little experience of using 3DSMax so I won’t be able to give you specifics. I work exclusively with Blender 3D. But the general process and pipeline of making a character and rigging it is the same at a fundamental level as far as I know. So I’ll offer some universal troubleshooting tips for Character / Animation export.

  1. The character AND the skeleton must have their Origin / Pivot Point at the centre of the world. If they don’t, the UE4 import will fail.
  2. All vertices inside the character mesh must be assigned to a bone within the skeleton. It doesn’t matter which, but you cannot have vertices inside a mesh that have no parent bone. (This may have changed from UE3 ->UE4 actually) But having free vertices, not assigned to a part of the skeleton can cause the import to fail.
  3. The mesh must contain a Vertice Group for every bone. Vertice groups may be called something else in 3DSMax, but they are basically data about groups of vertices on the character mesh that correspond to bones. If there is a bone that does not have a corresponding Vertice Group on the mesh, the Import will fail.

Hmm… sorry my knowledge of 3DSMax lets me down here. But those are some of the common reasons I have encountered for UE4 Imports failing.

Okay, I think what you need is to watch some tutorials on how to set up your character in 3DSMax for export. I don’t know if there are Tutorials for 3DSMax ->UE4, but here is a Tutorial Series for 3DSMax -> UE3, and the export process is identical. This tutorial should explain the basics of how to set up your character inside 3DSMax.

?v=ANSgt1Bjgho

If this tutorial series doesn’t answer provide a solution, search for more tutorials that do.

Hope that helps and best of luck!

11

Oh right, i forgot that you mentioned CAT. That CAT object is just a skeleton actually so that may be the reason of the failure. Enable Import Rigid Mesh and Import Meshes in Bone Hierarchy in import dialog box and see if it helps.

12

hi

I have watched tons of vids but its all UDK and options are slightly different but the vids I have watched regarding unreal 4 everyone imports without an issue, its realy stressing me out as its basic and i cant get round it :(. is there anyway i can upload the file so someone can try for themselves and talk me through it?

Thanks

13

tried that too :frowning:

14

Upload the file and i’ll take a look.

15

thanks a lot, im new to this lol. how do i upload it to u?

16

You can use Dropbox or Google Drive if you have a Gmail account.

17

sent u a pm

18

There really shouldn’t be any differences between content creation / character creation / exporting for UDK3 and UE4.

If your getting a failed import, its probably because you are setting up your character incorrectly in 3DSMax.

If you can follow the workflow from start to finish for creating a custom character in 3DSMax for UDK, that same character should then work fine for UE4.

Sorry, I can’t help more than that. Don’t worry, you’ll work it out. Its easy when you know how. :slight_smile: