New to... everything.

Development Character & Animation
1

Thanks for stopping by.
I’ve never made a game before, but spent some time in unity and cryengine.
I decided I like Unreal the best, so I stayed here.
I’ve made my way though most of the tutorials and now I want to try my hand at animating.
There is a problem though.
The “Introduction to UE4 Animation and Rigging Tools” tutorial series is made for someone who already knows what they are doing in Maya and UE4.
Right off the bat I am loaded with questions that the series doesn’t bother to cover.
I cant expect people on the to answer every question that I have, so I will simply ask this.
Where can I go to learn what I need to learn, to be able to follow along with this tutorial?
I need to know everything from how to actually move joints (it looks like he just clicks and drags, but all that does for me is select things) to how/if I can import a skeleton that is already in UE4 (like say, something attached to a model that was purchased in the marketplace).
I want to make sure I don’t waste my time animating a skeleton that has too many arm bones or something, and it wont work with any meshes.
Is it possible to import animations that are already in UE4, so I can experiment and see what happens when I try to change things?

Really, I just need to know where I can find this information. Something to fill the gaps so I can follow along with the official tutorial.
Thanks.

2

You right mouse click on any asset in the editor and export it as an fbx file to be opened in your 3D program, preferably Maya as that’s what they were made in. -But 3dsMax and Blender will import these as well, but maybe with a few glitches. So, you can export an animation from the editor and open it in your 3D program. If you export an animation only, in Maya you will see just the joints, but they will animate if you hit play. You can also export the skeletal mesh to see how that is set up. There you will get the mesh skinned to the skeleton. That way you can see how its all assembled. From there you could make a simplified version that you can retarget in the editor is as long as your basic skeleton is set up in the same general way.

Aside from that, if you want to “get your feet wet” right away, you can just follow these tutorials using epic’s assets to learn the basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWbd0Wowwnk&list=PLZlv_N0_O1gaCL2XjKluO7N2Pmmw9pvhE&index=59

3

Thanks for the quick reply ,
The third person blueprint tutorial is the most recent tutorial I completed and what led me to want to make my own animations.
I will try importing things from UE4 into Maya and see if I can get them to work.