Comments and critique welcome!
I have animated premade assets (the arms and gun) in Blender, imported them into Unreal Engine 4, and created a prototype first-person animation system. I was aiming to create something that would fit a semi-realistic, casual shooter. My main focus was on the animation, but I also did some work on audio effects for a more immersive experience.
The animation blueprint includes five states: Draw, Idle, Fire, Reload, and Holster. The sounds are triggered by the animations through anim notifies. The shells are physics-driven and controlled through the character blueprint.
In future gun-related projects I would like to focus more on how firing the gun feels - especially firing it continuously. A more complex animation system is needed, where the longer the trigger is pulled, the closer the gun comes to the camera and the longer it takes for the character’s hands to return to their idle position. Some randomness in how the gun kicks back could help too. Additionally, a premade shooting audio loop could sound much better than the one sound on loop that I have used.
Character blueprint: Character Blueprint posted by anonymous | blueprintUE | PasteBin For Unreal Engine
Animation blueprint: Anim Blueprint posted by anonymous | blueprintUE | PasteBin For Unreal Engine
Assets used:
https://www.videvo.net/sound-effect/very-bright-pistol-co-pe406302/260768/
Several sound effects from Zapsplat.com