So I have a bit of a problem with my character’s Animation Blueprint. Basically, I have now incorporated some logic into my game where I can hold and use objects in both my left and right hands. When standing in place, the animations look quite nice. The left and right Arms of my character properly align in whatever direction I am looking at.
However, once I begin moving, both my left and right arm animations lose most of their control, usually facing whatever direction that my character walks in. Below is a short clip demonstrating how when I am still, my animations look nice, but once walking left/right, my control of my left and right hands are essentially sporadic:
To add some additional context, I have made sure to use the “Layered blend per node” for the “clavicle_l” bone for my character’s left arm. The animation which I have I have playing for the left arm for the “Layered blend per node” is just a single frame, so nothing crazy there. Also, I’ve made sure to make a montage of my left arm animation, and add it to my “Left Arm” slot.
Does anyone have any advice of how I could essentially have my character’s arms/upper body act independently from the lower/midsection of the body? Or even just some advice on how I can make some of my “jaggedy” looking movement much smoother?
Thank you in advance to anyone who may be able to help me! Please let me know if you need me to add any additional info here.
Hey there @POTATOGAMER! I came to let you know the blend per bone node was what you had needed, but it seems you’d already started down the correct path. You may need to have less weight on the blend itself, or start at a lower bone in the chain. If this is only going to be first person and singleplayer, you could in fact start much further down.
As a note, the jagged nature is probably from the distance where the bone wants to be in the original animation and where it intends to be and the time it’s blending is very quick. Tinkering with the blend weights and blend time should help a bit.
These are some fair points, I guess for the moment I will work on my animations and try to make sure that the locations of some of my important bones (spine, root, etc.) don’t stray too far from each other when changing animations. Also I’ll definitely adjust my blend times and hopefully this will resolve my problems.
So I’ve been working on my game a bit more and have been able to improve the animations a little, but I am still having some issues. Here is a video of the sort of thing that I am talking about:
As you can see, when I move in any direction, there seems to be some sort of issue with the animations, where my flashlight and gun (very crude looking gun I know lol) jolt towards one side of the screen.
Do you know how I could achieve a smoother transition when moving?
Did you skip the tutorial videos on animations made by epic which explain the basics?
Its a simple yes/no.
If you did, you need to go watch them at x2 speed to get bored to tears and get an overview of how things are supposed to work according to epic.
This series particularly.
What you probably want in the end is a montage slot that plays the idle animations and is then adjusted by an aim offset, but thats’s getting ahead of things. Start from the ground up.
To answer your question, no I have not seen any of Epic’s tutorials regarding animation and in no way took this question as an insult Mainly, I have been watching various YouTube videos and learning on my own to get as far as I’ve gotten.
But I just watched the video which you attached to your previous comment. Since all animations that I’m using were made specifically for the UE5 mannequin, I don’t feel that any sort of retargeting will be needed in my case.
Rather, I seem to be stuck trying to recreate a smooth “true” first person character where the entire body is animated. It’s hard to word what I feel like I’m missing, but essentially I want my character to feel as if there is the lower body which is responsible for player movement, and then the upper body which just feels as if there are a pair of arms and the camera which can smoothly look around without the lower body affecting it’s animations (If this doesn’t make sense please tell me).
But I see that you have suggested adding a montage slot which plays the idle animations, which is just adjusted via an aim offset. Based on what I am looking for here, do you know any good references to point me in the right track?
You need to whatch that whole series of vids, not just the retargeting one (just the first one i found off a search).
TFP is complicated and really requires custom made animations to be done right.
But you would.probably need to look up the epic turn in place tutoeials to learn some more advanced techinques to get things working… and and Ik. You definitely need that too…
Mainly, I have been watching various YouTube videos and learning on my own to get as far as I’ve gotten.