Let me start by thanking the Unreal Community for helping me make my dream of creating a gaming company not only possible, but within a month or two’s reach (depending on the speed of my 3d modelers). Advice as simple as documenting every task needed to create my end product once I had a solid idea of what that end product would actually look like and to just complete any step in development that i could, when i could, has saved me tons of frustration, many months of unproductive fumbling, and boundless enjoyment. This community is as amazing as the engine itself.
On to the actual question: what assets should I create in order to finish my animation work? I realized that Persona can’t create actual keyframes and thus I would need to work with my modeler’s copy of Maya to animate (to clarify, his copy his a lisenced full version Maya 2014 and my other modeler and material/texture worker are using lisenced full versions of Maya 2015 - if the versions make any difference here). My initial idea was to create a simple generic male body and then clothe them in a manner similar to RPG’s that allow armor to be swapped. That way I could have someone working on clothing and someone else detailing the generic male models without changing the skeleton so that I could make universal animations. Upon opening the ART tools, however, I realised the skeleton is actually a mesh and not just bones that a mesh is sort of placed on top of. If anyone has any advice to offer at this point towards the goal of making characters and animations to replace my free marketplace stand-ins, I would appreciate any personal experiences or answers that the community can offer.
Specifically, I would prefer to know the following before proceding any further in the editor. Given that the game is first person, I only need to model the arms of the player, the player’s ally, and a few variations of the enemy NPC’s (which are more or less clones of the same body as the ally NPC, but armored differently - full head covered for simplicity). After finishing this highly developed “demo” I will be creating much more variation, but until then we are just trying to get a working version out as soon as possible. With this in mind, would it be easier and faster to create the ally NPC in the ART toolset with full clothing already on the detailed body (as he won’t be changing his armor, though I will include sockets to attach metal plating to said clothing upon met conditions) along with a head that is at least detailed in shape? Or should I stick with creating a detailed male body and then apply the armor on top - and if so, how would I go about doing that so I can still achieve my goal of having clothing creases form automatically as the cloth folds on top of itself when, for instance, the upper and lower arm are in close proximity causing a crease on the inside of the elbow? In either the case of using the fully clothed ally character as a starting point for my modelers to create the enemies, or using a stock male character to create the ally and enemies via clothing/armor attachment, I believe that given my animation key frame needs I will still be able to create universal animations once the first model is completed since all the joints will be in the same place for all NPCs. The playable character should be a simple case of deleting bones that won’t need to be seen (just keep the shoulders and following arm/hand bones) and have the universal animations make it seem as if the playable character is being animated with a full skeleton. I intend to animate every keyframe so that the characters keep their balance and posture as if abiding by real life anatomical and physical constraints by animating from reference footage (my brother is supplying this by enacting all animations while carrying an actual combat rifle, sniper rifle, pistol, shotgun, knife, and long melee weapon in accordance with his actual training from his time in the army - and to naturally curious parties, I have every intention of making these resources available to the community once the game is complete). If anyone can anticipate a problem with me making these universal animations or applying them to the incomplete player character skeleton, could you explain what those problems could be and any possible remedies? Is there a much simpler way to achieve my desired animations and character models that I may have overlooked or am simply ignorant to? Besides using a motion capture room to construct the animations, of course (I wish I had the resources or funding for that). Keep in mind that our budget for this game is enough to cover Unreal, a few necessary hosting/distribution costs, and around a hundred dollars to spare at this juncture. If I’m missing any crucial details that I need before finishing this final stretch of development or if there are any questions (especially questions that could provide details to give improved answers/advice), please don’t hesitate to reply with them.
Thank you for any help and all the help the community has already given me. I’m aware that this material is somewhat covered by Unreal and Maya documentation and tutorials, but with the wide variety of options I have discovered and no personal experience concerning animation or character/skeleton modeling by anyone on my team, I thought input by developers working with this engine would provide the most clarification. I am grateful and look forward to any and all replies.