Hello!
I’m working on a grab animation between two actors, where one actor does the grabbing and the other actor reacts to being grabbed. In my animation software the actors line up perfectly at (0, 0, 0).
However I’ve noticed that the actors do not line up perfectly when I assign the actors to transform to the same position within UE4. There are some small offsets like the smaller of the two actors is slightly off the ground and the smaller actor is pushed a little bit too far back into the player character.
To test what the issue may be, I put the actors on a flat plane and only assigned the X and Y locations to be the same, allowing the Z locations to remain the same as what they spawned onto the plane with. Doing this fixes the issue where the smaller character is too far off the ground. So I think there is some issue with how the engine reports actor locations.
I’m kind of lost at this point though and was wondering if anyone else has had this issue? Or if anyone knows a simple solution.
I think I have a path forward. I’ll explain my thought process and how I’ve solved the Z axis alignment.
First, based on my above findings I am now going to assume that UE4 returns the location of an actor based on the CENTER of the capsule component. Why? Who knows haha.
Based on that assumption, I wrote some blueprint logic that finds the difference in capsule height and subtracts that from the smaller actor’s location.
I would use timed animations and root bone animation on the grabber to insure his position is accurate to the object being grabbed.
Because the 2 animations are paired, you can essentially move an IK bone like IK foot Root into the position of where the grabber needs to be for the animation to work in tandem, then use that bone in engine to move the character that grabs into the perfect position.
this has the benefit of preserving any twist you may add to the animation, which on something like a hip throw is vital.
My issue was with how UE4 reports actor location and getting the actors to line up properly. All of your suggestions are great, but aren’t usable if one of the actors is floating a foot off the ground
What? The whole point of my suggestion is that where things are really doesn’t matter.
You always align with the position determined by the animation of the thing being grabbed no matter what.
Right, but you need two separate animations… One for the grabber, one for the actor being grabbed. If you play them in random locations on the map, how well are they going to line up?
