Hi, I’m a VFX artist with 8 years of experience, and I’m just getting into Unreal (ridiculous sounding, I know). I want to make an animated, transforming gun similar to the ones from Vanquish. Here’s a video:
https://youtu.be/WEQc7p3X4HM?t=25
In the last engine I worked in, I would simply build and animate the gun in Maya using separate pieces of geometry for the individual gun parts. Then, I’d export the whole thing, gun mesh and animation included, into a single file that I could import into the engine. I would then slave the animated gun file to the character’s hand. The animation could be played at any time.
How would you approach this in UE4? I assume I would make the weapon a blueprint, but how could I create the animation and bring it into the engine? Would I need to use Sequencer? Timelines? Would I have to rig the gun and create animations similar to the way characters are done? Is there an easy way to make an animated object in Maya and then use it directly in UE4?
Thanks in advance!