I’m an animator wanting to animate a short film in Maya and render it in Unreal. Most Maya rigs for film use blend shapes for the facial animation, but game engines traditionally haven’t been able to use blend shapes, only joint-based facial rigging. I can’t seem to find out if Unreal support blend shapes or not. It’s kind of a deal-breaker for this project. Thanks.
Are you refering to morph targets? https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-us/Engine/Content/FBX/MorphTargets
Noob question: Is it necessary to separate the head from the body to accomplish talk animation ? All the examples that I find in the docs show separated head meshes.
Morph targets or blend shapes are additive and only the blend data is stored so it does not matter if the head is attached or as a separate object.
And what if I used joints for facial rigging?
For a single player TPS: I want my main character to be able to change the equipment. do I need to split the body in to several pieces ? Or is it ok to put the “cloth” or equipment over the body mesh like in real life ?
Sure why not. You can, for example, use a character BP and composite all of the parts as a added component Each of the components can use it’s own animation BP soooo
You can add a body component, add it’s animation BP, and then add the head as a separate component and attach to the body via a socket and give it it’s own animation BP.
You can if you wish even mix morphs with facial rigging to a stand alone head and attach it to any body type you wish. It all really comes down to what is required from the design as to intended game play.
I don’t think that it will matter about the fact that head is attached or not.As blends are complementary