Is there a way to play animation in editor?

Development Character & Animation
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1

Hi,

I was wondering if there’s a way to play animation right in the editor view, without jumping in game or starting simulation (also without matinee)? I vaguely recall that this was possible in the earlier versions, but I could be remembering it wrong.

Thanks!

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2

I would also like to do this. Ideally for me to play an anim blueprint live in editor, even if it was a little hack in the source code to loop compile per editor frame refresh.

3

Hello,

Why do you not simply use persona? That is the animation editor that handles your skeleton and animation and allows you to view your animations separately. The other question is why not play in the editor to view it? You could right click near your animation and choose the option to " play from here. " Then you could look at your animation.

4

Im doing a very specific live connection to another software and would like to adapt the world while characters live animate. Doing it in simulation and “keep changes” is not a great method. Finding some trick to play animation life in editor would just be so helpful.

5

Im doing a very specific live connection to another software and would like to adapt the world while characters live animate. Doing it in simulation and “keep changes” is not a great method. Finding some trick to play animation life in editor would just be so helpful.

6

I am not aware of a way to do what you are asking without first changing code and the structure of the engine itself. If you are using another software then perhaps you can write a plugin for this other software. I understand you would like to see this update live in Unreal while making your changes in an external software. The recommended workflow, of course, would be to make your changes in that external program and then import the changes. This is a slower workaround but currently the functionality that you want does not exist within Unreal 4.

7

Thanks for the reply, I knew it wasnt natively possible but was not sure if there were any source or other methods to make it work. No matter, this can be marked as closed then.

8

hi, did you ever manage to find a solution for this? I would like the same thing… thanks!

9

Sadly no. I have been exploring getting ticking in editor with c++ but had no luck so far, as well as the anim-blueprint update tick, which does run in editor to some degree, but no, had no luck so far.

10

You can start the skeletal animation of your character in Sequencer and set up in a timeline.

11

You can start the skeletal animation of your character in Sequencer and set up in a timeline.

12

where is “persona” ??? in ue4 editor ?

13

you may use “editor utility blueprints” or “editor utility widgets” for this.

  1. Click “add new” in the content browser
  2. Select “Editor utilities” > “editor utility widget”
  3. Make your ui and code.
  4. The code section provides a “tick” node which ticks at editor time (without play) !
  5. (select “Always Register” in the “class defaults” settings on the code page)

then right click the widget in the content browser and click “Run editor utility widget”.
After the widget is opened, it will tick.

I use this for timelines and camera control in editor time.

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14

There is a funtion in USkeletalMeshComponent

	/**
	* Sets whether or not to force tick component in order to update animation and refresh transform for this component
	* This is supported only in the editor
	*/
	UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, Category = "Components|SkeletalMesh", meta = (DevelopmentOnly, UnsafeDuringActorConstruction = "true"))
	void SetUpdateAnimationInEditor(const bool NewUpdateState);
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15

I assume SetUpdateAnimationInEditor would be called via CallInEditor function or something after construction. But it doesn’t seem to work for me. when I put a breakpoint on that function, it never gets called. Im calling it at edit time, not runtime
If I try enabling that bool on the sk mesh, it immediately turns itself back off again.
image

Perhaps I’m missing something?

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