Still haven't managed to get my character animated during the play mode. From the beginning, she has "slid" around to the w,a,s,d keys being pressed, as well as panned around to moving the mouse. Animation, though: just not happening. I continue to have skeletal incompatibility issues (more an iClone thing than an Unreal thing, I think), and constantly get "result was visible but ignored". And this after reimporting the meshes/animations, in hopes of eliminating the incompatibility problems! When exporting a character from iClone, you can load on all the animations/motions you want while the character is in 3DXchange. Upon exporting from 3DXchange, however, it arrives in your documents as separate characters, each with one animation, and obviously goes into Unreal in that form. Neutronux, who has been very helpful, suggested that I put all the animations on one skeletal mesh in Unreal, but I have had no luck finding out how this is done. Unfortunately, I MUST use this particular character, as I made her in iClone specifically for this game. The latest major issue I'm having is with the blendspace. As you can see in the attachments, I made a nice blendspace with idle, walk, and run animations. When I tried to drag it in, however, it said "incompatible skeletal mesh". So I made a blendspace with a different mesh, and I COULD drag this one in, but there were issues with that also, the worst one being that only a walk animation was available inside it. As for my state machine, as you can also see in the attachments, it will only let me connect entry to the walk animation. Nothing else in that screenshot will connect to anything else. I'm sure this is also due to incompatibility issues. So that's where I'm at! Maybe it's not fixable. If anyone does know how to fix this in Unreal, please let me know!
Thanks,
When you import a character into unreal, you import the mesh first, this adds the mesh plus a skeleton and a physics asset, if you choose to have the phys asset. Now when you import animations, you import them for that specific skeleton. You specifically select that skeleton on import. Now Unreal knows what animations works with that skeleton. When you import a skeletal mesh you can choose to only import animation from it if it contains the model and stuff. If it’s just a skeleton export, it should just know that you want animation.
I’ve never used these software you talk about so I don’t know the work flow, but it’s pretty simple what Unreal expects.
If you have a character inside Unreal, and you have a bunch of animations that you imported and it automatically just does all separate, then try exporting the animation from Unreal, then import it back in and see if you can import it for the skeleton of your actual character. If you have perfectly matching bones, it should work. If this works, then that’s your work flow. Unless I’m missing something about those other software. The point is, you need to isolate your character, and deal with only one skeleton “on import”. Of course the key thing is that from the mesh import to the animation import the skeleton needs to match 100% which of course they will if you exported from one rig.
The first screenshot shows that you did not select an AnimBP at the AnimClass:
&stc=1&d=1486669220 … your character would look like a static mesh that’s moved around in T-pose in the capsule (but never animates). Regarding your max walk speed 500 and 600 are usually too close together… but you would see that pretty soon if your character is finally using the anim BP
Thanks for the info! Unfortunately, when exporting from Reallusion 3DXchange, one character, one animation, the physics asset, and the materials arrive in your files packaged together (see image). I’ll try your second option, though, of exporting the animation out of Unreal, then reimporting.
If you have a character inside Unreal, and you have a bunch of animations that you imported and it automatically just does all separate, then try exporting the animation from Unreal, then import it back in and see if you can import it for the skeleton of your actual character. If you have perfectly matching bones, it should work. If this works, then that’s your work flow. Unless I’m missing something about those other software. The point is, you need to isolate your character, and deal with only one skeleton “on import”. Of course the key thing is that from the mesh import to the animation import the skeleton needs to match 100% which of course they will if you exported from one rig.
[/QUOTE]
I personally will never use iClone, 3DXchange and this stuff.
Those models are not meant to be used in games; not to tell that they always look like silicon robots, just like Poser and Daz models too, on contrary to a handmade model.
I also have no idea why these programs are so expensive when the results are not that much of a “natural look”.
I’m no fan of importing all together at one step (except some materials that usually have to be adjusted in UE4 anyway and does not matter that much at this step). I’ve setup my exporters for static/skeleton mesh and animations for Blender. I’ve modified my skeletal mesh literally hundrets of times after my first import. I only had to reimport the mesh (without any animation) afterwards. Even no need to tinker around in the anim-BP if I just fix some weightpainting or the shape of the mesh. And if I changed the animation then I just have to reimport that one animation and not yet again everything else. If you could sepereate the animations export from the mesh export somehow I would strongly recommend this.
Thanks for the feedback! Given the endless problems I am having (my being "programming challenged" not withstanding), I certainly can't argue the point about the characters not being made for gaming. Despite all the hooplah about purchasing 3DXchange Pipeline, so you can export to game engines, I have yet to meet a single other iCloner importing into the Unreal engine! Additionally, there are issues with export rights, since you make things from templates in iClone, and have to purchase export rights for this stuff. I cannot complain about Reallusion support, as Kai there had me send him my android character, with which I was having an export rights issue, transformed it into an .fbx file (though "nonstandard" character) and sent it back to me, for export into Unreal.
I have to say that iClone is my favorite program in the world, the only one with which I was able to teach myself animation, and with which I have been happily animating for the last 5 years, constantly learning new things. I paid $69 for my iClone 5, which I use to this day. I can't complain about 3DXchange either, as it has provided me with endless free SketchUp props from Google Warehouse. The Pipeline version, and exporting into game engines, is actually the first situation in which I've had any major difficulties.
As far as making characters in iClone, I can actually say, as a lifelong portrait/figure artist, that it is unparalleled for creating realistic avatars of real people. The real time animation is not a bad thing, either. I have my own store in the Reallusion Marketplace, and all my characters are of real people. Not every iCloner has been a portrait artist for 40+ years, however, and I know what you mean by "silicon robots", as many people make their animations with "stock" characters, just as they do in Poser and DAZ. I am attaching pics of a few of my characters, so you can see that iClone characters need not look like puppets. Excuse the nudity; I am a figure artist!
Thanks for the help!