Workflow from a Modular UE4 skeleton character to use UE5 Manny Skeleton

Development Character & Animation
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I have a dilemma, in that i’m using a base asset which up until recently used the UE4 skeleton, but has since updated to use the UE5 Skeleton in preparation for 5.4.

I have a modular character which was easily added to the project, all i needed to do was delete the UE4 skeleton it came with, and replace with the asset’s UE4 skeleton. All animations retargeted perfectly and automatically used the Anim BP.

Now i need to work out how to change my modular character’s UE4 skeleton, and rig it to use UE5 Manny so it can use the new Anim BP.

Importing the updated asset isn’t an option as i’ve made many modifications to the existing system and changes to BP’s that will be overwritten.

What are my options? Re-rig the modular character in Blender? Retarget UE4 to UE5 animations and switch out every animation for UE4 to UE5 in the Anim BP and use the new UE5 skeleton?

I’m slightly lost, and don’t want to mess up the entire project by going about it incorrectly!

Thanks in advance

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I’ve had the same problem in UE 5.3.2.

Not sure how it looks in 5.4 as I haven’t tried it there, but generally speaking you can’t retarget skeletal meshes (whch i don’t understand why, technically it should be doable using retargeters).

TLDR: you can retarged animations at runtime from an invisible UE5 mesh to older UE4 mesh using animation blueprint.

Full version: I’ve finally went with the following structure:

BP_Character (Actor)
  Mesh (standard UE5 manny)
    UE4_Mesh
      Head
      Chest
      Arms
      Legs

In the construction script I have used “Set leader pose component” where targets are “Head”, “Chest”, “Arms”, “Legs” and “NewLeaderBoneComponent” is “UE4_Mesh” (standard modular character setup).

In the “UE4_Mesh” animation blueprint there’s only single node “Retarget pose from mesh” with “Use attached parent” checked (Runtime retargeting from UE5 to UE4 mesh).

The default actor mesh (standard UE5 manny) controls all the animations, ik rig, etc.

Both UE5 manny and UE4 manny have “Visible” set to false and “Visibility Based Anim Tick Option” set to “AlwaysTickPoseAndRefreshBones”.

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In this case you should stick to the older skeleton system that works.

What benefit are you expecting / why do you want to transition to a skeleton with more useless bones?

Your model isnt rigged for the extra bones, thus its completely useless.

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I could stick with the current skeleton, everything else in the project works and its the easy option of course

Using the UE5 skeleton opens up more options with foot IK etc, which as far as i understand the new Motion Matching system pretty much needs. So for this reason alone switching out the character to a UE5 skeleton makes more sense in the long run

Is Re-rigging the current mesh an option in Blender? Bearing in mind its modular, so i guess each modular body piece will need to be re-rigged also (clothing also)

I’m thinking now that maybe the best option going forward will be to start fresh with a new UE5 player modular model already rigged to UE5 and use the new UE5 anim BP

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I’m also on 5.3.2 currently, and looking at options before making the upgrade to 5.4

The character is currently set-up the same with leader bone component, and i’ve looked at retargeting animations already.

But again its the same problem that the character is still using the UE4 skeleton just retargeted

I guess i could always test with retargeting in 5.4 to test out Motion Matching, but i’m pretty convinced without the UE5 IK bones, its not gonna be the same

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It is, but its probably pointless if all you want is the IK to work.
You can probabaly add virtual bones to your skeleton and avoid the useless bits found in the new skeleton alltogether.

It depends on what the new system does and uses, but realistically all you need is 2 IK bones to drive the adjustment.
They were already present in the original ue3 skeleton…