Through the development of our January Jam submission Sketboard we encountered an issue with skeletal mesh selective simulation. We seem to have no way of having our skeletal mesh have physics-simulated bones while it’s under our physics simulated root component.
Here’s how our pawn is currently set up:
[root] Capsule Component
-Simulating physics
-Driven by blueprints for our character’s movement
Character Mesh
[INDENT]-Skeletal Mesh
-Kinematic
-Detaches from Capsule when the player falls
-Animated
Spring Arm and Camera
Skateboard
-Static Mesh
-Kinematic
[/INDENT]
Here is a screenshot of the setup.
What we tried doing is, in the physics asset, setting everything but the arms to kinematic. If the Capsule simulation is turned on, the skeletal mesh detaches and its transform is in worldspace. If the Capsule is changed to kinematic, the simulation on the arms works, but our character cannot move since our movement is physics based. We also tried using a Scene component root and unparenting the skeleton from our capsule, then using a physics constraint. This doesn’t work, though, since the skeleton has kinematic bones necessary for rigidity.
If there is a way of achieving this, please let me know, however I expect that this is a limitation of the component system in UE. If so, please consider this a feature request!