How to properly rig and animate a weapon/vehicle in maya and take it to UE4 and use in blueprints

I’ve read all the documentation and tried figuring it out myself and it’s been very confusing and I have got so far nowhere in this process. I’m simply trying to take a mesh (such as a gun or vehicle) and rig it properly and animate it in Maya and take it into UE4, using an FBX and play the animation. And clearly I’m getting no where with it. Is there anyone that knows how to do this properly. And if so can you explain as clearly and detailed as possible like as if it’s the first time doing it, like making sure what things need to be checked and what the different nodes need to be plugged into and also screen caps or video would be really appreciated. I’ve tried watching tutorials or reading UE4 documentation and they are confusing and don’t get to explaining what I’m trying to get done. I’ve been at it for 3 days and would like help. Unfortunately most videos or documents already have the entire thing complete and not explained what they did and so i dont figure out the proper steps to take. for now im just using a simple mesh consisted of 3 boxes moving around each other. just so i can figure out how you take this from maya to ue4 and make it all work. but i get lost it whether i need a blueprint, and animated blueprint, and animated sequence, etc im just lost complete.

capbegin.JPG


Your help will be most extremely helpful. I’m just trying on this basic example test but i want to use this to figure out how to transfer animate weapons and vehicles into UE4 from maya and play different animations like reloading, pumping a shotgun, etc.

So after I make the mesh, and place the bones/joints. I selected the mesh group and the beginning joints and i went to Animation>Skin> Smooth skin and applied flood on to the joints with paint weight i wanted them to have 100% control of.


And than this was my hierarchy, i didn’t use any parent constraints or any other constraint at all. just completely skinned. As well as all my animations have been keyed on the rig and moves exactly how it should.

it’'s animated. and this is how it looks when i export it with the settings.

than i import into UE4 exactly like the video shows and it works just like it shows, but i try to get it to play in the level and it wont. i flowed this video Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial: skeletal mesh matinee (english) - YouTube for the rest of the way and no luck. did everything as instructed and mesh won’t move in level but will play in the skeletal mesh previewer. idk what to do, and i have have gone through the UE4 Engine docks with no luck in telling me what i need it to do. What do i do to fix this?

33185cd0aa8085aea790ef34cbc21785f15bfe7a.jpeg

Have you definitely placed the matinee into the level editor and attached it to an event node?