Model pre-rigged (non-ART) --> import & animation application still fine?

Development Character & Animation
1

Hi everyone,

I’m newer to the animation section of UE4, looking to mainly use Matinee, and while I’ve been reading quite a bit of the documentation / watching tutorial videos on it…I’m still slightly confused.

I have a number of modeled characters that are already rigged / weighted, etc in 3rd party programs. Do I need to run these through ART to re-rig them (skeleton?) in order to properly apply animation data in UE4 and / or would it be a better approach overall? I understand that each skeletal mesh has a skeleton, but how smoothly retargeting & application goes between, say, a skeletal mesh with its ‘UE4-created’ default skeleton and trying to apply an FBX with just animation in it – that part is confusing me a bit.

I’m assuming that, for flexibility, it is better to apply the animation inside of UE4 instead of having it baked into the FBX skeletal mesh upon import; that way I don’t have to re-import the same model with every animation take?

Anyway, hopefully the above makes sense…and I apologize if a lot of this comes in a noob questions. Just linking me to articles / threads / videos that might address my issues / questions is a perfectly answer. :slight_smile:

Thank you again,

John

2

If you want to use UE4’s animations your best bet is to use the same skeleton. You can try to use the retargeting system though but it could wind up being a pain especially if your characters have different proportions (the UE4 rig has odd proportions - the legs are crazy long). Otherwise you need to animate your character and then import the animations as well.