Export Rigged Model From Blender To UE4

Development Character & Animation
4

Hehe nps! :slight_smile: Mechs are cool in general.

Okay, let me explain what I mean. The way you are doing it at present is the wrong way to rig Skeletal Meshes in Blender for games. It is not the way Epic Games rig their characters or machines, or the way Skeletal Meshes are rigged for any game engine as far as I know. What you are doing wrong is the act of splitting up of the Mesh into separate Mesh Objects. In the screenshot of your blend I can see you have 20 or more Mesh Objects parented to the Skeleton. Like I said this is not the way to rig for game engines. Why? Because there is a simpler and more efficient way to do it.

The only reason you would want separate Mesh Objects is for vehicle suspension, but that’s a whole other story. What your doing here is essentially using Mesh Objects as Vertex Groups. When really Vertex Groups are what you want to control the different parts of your mesh.

Trust me here , I know what I’m talking about. :slight_smile: I’ll explain.

So, here’s how you fix it:

  1. In Object mode, select every single separate Mesh Object. (Hold Shift, Right Click on every Mesh Object until they are all high lighted Orange.)
  2. Join all the Mesh Objects together into 1 single Mesh Object. (With all Mesh Objects Selected, Press Control + J.) So now if you select the single Mesh Object and enter Edit mode, you will see that all the Meshes are part of the same Mesh Object. The Polygons themselves don’t have to be joined, they just have to all be part of the same object.
  3. In Object Mode with the Mesh Object Selected go to Object tab and under the Relations menu remove any Parent.
  4. In Object Mode, go to the Modifiers Tab and remove the Armature Modifier.
  5. With the Mesh Object select go to the Object Data tab, Vertex Groups menu and remove all the Vertex Groups from the Mesh Object by clicking on the - button on the right.
  6. Now in your scene you should have 1 single Mesh Object with no parent and no armature modifier and no vertex groups. This is essentially cleaning the object of unwanted armature data. And you should also have 1 Armature object.
  7. Select the Mesh Object and then holding Shift select the Armature object. They must be selected in this order, Mesh first, then Armature Second.
  8. Press Control + P and select “With Empty Groups”. Your Mesh is now parented to the Armature and Vertex Groups have been created on the Mesh Object, one Vertex group for every single bone in your Skeleton. But at present none of the polygons in your Mesh are weighted to the Armature.
  9. Select the Mesh Object and enter Edit Mode. Navigate to the Vertex Groups panel inside Object Data. Starting at the top with the first Vertex Group, select the Vertices of the Mesh, the Tris or Quads or NGons, that you want to be controlled by the Bone with the exact same name as that Vertex Group. With the chosen Vertices selected press Assign in the Vertex Group panel. Those Polygons will now be assigned to that Vertex group and so weighted to that specific bone. When that Bone now moves, those Polygons will move with it.
  10. Repeat this process with every single Vertex Group so that all Vertices/Polygons in the Mesh are assigned to a Vertex Group. All vertices must be assigned to a Vertex Group. Although it is perfectly fine to have a Vertex Group with no Vertices assigned to it.
  11. In Pose mode make a Single test animation. Export your Skeletal Mesh as FBX with the animation into UE4 and watch it play! :slight_smile:

This is a proper way to Rig Skeletal Mesh characters inside Blender. I hope it works fine for you. If you have any questions or need help with it please ask. :slight_smile:

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