Rigging and Animating Horse with Rider on top?

[anonymous_user_80179538]

Hi I am new to UE4 and really new to Maya and rigging/animating in general, but I have a game where it is in first person perspective while riding a horse the whole game.

Now the player won’t have the ability to leave the horse and it is in first person perspective so I want to show the players hands moving as you ride your horse and such.

How would I rig this scenario?

Do I need to rig both the Rider and Horse together at the same time, connecting them with a root bone, then animate them both together?

…or do I just rig them separately and then import them into UE4 separately? Problem with this is I don’t want the rider to have physics applied to him as he’s riding the horse.

I’m new to 3D in general, would I need to rig both the rider and horse separately then I somehow parent the rider to the horse and then sync both their animations to match or something?

Please help, this type of question I can’t find easily an answer…

thank you.

[anonymous_user_e04677f5]

1. Technically it would be easier to have the horse and FPS as one character in ONE skeleton.
2. You can always animate the character getting off the horse if needed the transition afterwords would be tricky.

Let me know if you have questions on how to rig this or integrate it.

[anonymous_user_6001ab80]

@Alexander Hush;710298

1. Technically it would be easier to have the horse and FPS as one character in ONE skeleton.
2. You can always animate the character getting off the horse if needed the transition afterwords would be tricky.

Let me know if you have questions on how to rig this or integrate it.

+1. Rig them together.

[anonymous_user_80179538]

@Alexander Hush;710298

1. Technically it would be easier to have the horse and FPS as one character in ONE skeleton.
2. You can always animate the character getting off the horse if needed the transition afterwords would be tricky.

Let me know if you have questions on how to rig this or integrate it.

Thanks for the reply back. Okay so if I was going to rig them both to the same skeleton, I would have to connect both meshes with a root bone in Maya?

Another question, I only need to have a few animations at the moment. A few variants of the riders hands riding and controlling the horse in first person view and the horse moving it’s legs as it moves…would I be better off using Unreal’s ART plugin for rigging and animating, or should I just do it by hand in Maya the regular way?