I have been trying to use the default UE4 skeleton (from the Mannequin) to my custom character for three days and I’m forced to give up. Whatever I do, the mesh is always deformed and looks weird. I love UE4, these all useful features, but really I go crazy when I try to work with skeleton retargeting. I use only OpenSource. I know MakeHuman has an uengine skeleton, but this skeleton has no twist bones (mesh is deforemed), for example, and in general looks different. Dear Epic, couldn’t you do something similar like in Unity? Retargeting is extremely easy, T-pose, A-pose, different skeletons etc. All works like a charm.
Really, improved skeleton retargeting system would make our (I mean game developers) MUCH easier. I did the amazing thing with foliage on the terrain and now a huge tarrain can be done quickly. UE4 has many advanced features, but some simple things are missing. Please do something with that.
I know that UE4 has animation retargeting system, but the main problem is that I can’t use the UE4 default skeleton for my characters. MakeHuman has an uengine skeleton but not the same (no twist bones), so if animation is more complex, the custom characters’ mesh doesn’t look good. I exported the default UE4 skeleton from the Mannequin to Blender and tried to parent it to my custom character. No success.
So I ask you what to do to use the UE4 skeleton for my characters in Blender.
I’ve made animations designed for the UE4 skeleton work on a MH based skeleton.
They were not perfect, but I didn’t put much effort into it - was just seeing if it was basically feasible.
I think with more effort, it would work fine, albeit, missing the twist bones.
One thing that is important to get right is the translation retargeting, especially for the fingers.
Yes, it’s not perfect, especially with more complex animations like throwing a grenade, swimming. Retargeting such an animation for my character make some weird results in its mesh, especially in upper arms. I made animations using the default UE4 skeleton and it looks nice on the mannequin, but not good after having retargeted for my character from MakeHuman and Blender. The default skeleton works great for Mannequin, but not good for custom characters. Weight painting in Blender doesn’t fix the situation. I have never had such problem in Unity. Making a custom character and retargeting have always been with no problems. My idea is to have a similar system in UE4. By the way, we can fix the problems with A-poses, T-poses and other things. You can find many threads on the UE4 forums about problems with skeletons that experienced UE4 users. The uengine skeleton in MakeHuman doesn’t solve all problems. I think a good retargeting system in UE4 is really needed.
After some research I found that Unreal is built upon two different coordinate methodologies and the UE mannequin doesn’t fit these standards. . . but the features are base around the mannequin like control rig. Unreal isn’t going to touch this because their entire skeleton and animation system is broken. They don’t show any intention of creating a legit import system for fbx files. My best advice would be, use your own system base off of your own skeletons or use Unity. Unreal will only become more broken as they continue to neglect many important game dev features that are necessary, just so they can push needless extra addons like a broken water system or lumen which effectively destroys game deving on a regular system, cutting out a large population of game devs. Take this lesson as the writing on the walls that Unreal is destined and designed to fail the people trying to leverage it as a tool to make games. TLDR: find a new engine. Unreal gives 0 fs.
