Training Livestream - Blender to UE4 - May 30 - Live from Epic HQ

[mzprox]

I think it doesn't do much as a script besides collecting and organising already available functions from Blender. (setting scale, export only deform bones and such). It gives an armature and model with the exact same resting pose and a bones as the ue mannequin with a very good control rig already set up. So it's very easy to make animations for the mannequin in blender.
The best would be if a method existed to import back animations from UE4 to this control rig somehow.

[cyaoeu]

If you've got bones on the same level, like root, IK bones or whatever, when the root bone disappears using the "armature" rig name fix, the root bone and IK bones are on the same level and you get the "Multiple roots detected" message. You need to make sure you've got a real root bone and make sure that no bones except the root bone don't lack a parent bone.

It should look like this in edit mode (in the top right outliner):

Actually instead of this you're better off having the IK stuff on the same layer as the root and just disabling deform on those bones, then exporting with only deform enabled.

[cyaoeu]

I'm interested in this workflow. Let us know if you find that time to make a script . thanks in advance

I didn't write a script yet but it should be possible. Here is the main idea:

1. Make sure the root bone doesn't move any strange bones. The root should be the only deforming bone on that layer in the rig, IK (all of them) bones should be set to not deform. If any IK bones further down in the hierarchy have deform they will enable deform for the above bones too it seems like.
You probably need to remove the ik_foot_root bone from the root bone parenting so it doesn't mess things up.

2. Make sure the imported animation doesn't look strange on the first frame, you can add a frame to the left and zero the rig out, if it isn't rotated the way it should be, rotate it back and set a keyframe.

3. Time to add constraints (don't forget to click Set Inverse after adding ChildOf constraints, remember that both rigs need the same transforms here (see 2)):
(UE4tools rig) root - ChildOf - (imported rig) pelvis, disable rotation, keep location. This is for free root motion!
IK bones - ChildOf - respective bones, IK hand goes to hand etc. Keep location and rotation both this time.
Pelvis, spine bones, clavicle bones, neck and head bones - Copy Rotation - respective bones.
Pole targets - ChildOf - calf for the leg pole targets, upperarm for the arm pole targets is what I set, but you can experiment.

4. If you play back the animation you should see the rig copying the movements of the imported rig.

5. Go to pose mode for the UE4 tools rig, press spacebar and do Bake Action. Select Visual Keying. Important is to set frame step to 1 so you start with all of the keys you had before.

6. Disable all of the constraints. You should now be able to play back the animation baked to the rig.

7. Remove unnecessary keyframes to make editing easier.

I messed up and copied Z rotation because I was experimenting with the pole targets, but this made the pose position and rest position different which isn't super good. But if you disable rotation on the root the root motion should hopefully work.

And if it does work you can use this method to add root motion to animations where you don't have it but the pelvis bone is moving. For example a running animation where the character isn't stationary.

[Alexander Paschall]

Archive is now up!

[YeHaike]

Hi, [MENTION=8]Alexander Paschall[/MENTION] .
The automatic captions(automatic subtitles) of this video are delayed for up to 6 minutes! (2017-06-02 09:53).

[AE_3DFX]

Dont know what is fuzzing around but blender and ue4 with factory settings have objects exactly in same size already which i like, that scale was problem lot of blender versions back.

[mzprox]

I didn't write a script yet but it should be possible. Here is the main idea:
...

Thanks for the write up, I'm too new to rigging, so not everything makes sense to me, but I will experiment a little.

[Alexander Paschall]

Hi, [MENTION=8]Alexander Paschall[/MENTION] .
The auto subtitle of this video is delayed for up to 6 minutes! (2017-06-02 09:53).

Oh wow, I have no idea why that is. I'll see what we can do for it, but it may be youtube glitching up.

[ghostllamasniper]

In the next video can you show how to do a animated character from scratch?

[kressdev]

1) are there any plans to get a .blend file import feature similar to unity?

2) can you show example import/export using alembic?

[Georjack]

Hi, how can I make this compatible with UE4_Mannequin animations from AnimStarterPack?
I tried to assign the skeletal to UE4_Mannequin, but it doesn't work.

[muchcharles]

On Blender 2.78 FBX export seems to behave incorrectly.

Make a grid plane object with 100 subdivisions on each side. Make it all smooth. No matter how you export and import it, with or without calculated normals, etc., you will get four times the verts compared to exporting from blender 2.76, and the mesh will have cracks when manipulated with world position offset. Exported from 2.76 tangent space it all works fine and around half as many verts as you have tris (with 2.78 you get double the verts as tris).

Anyone else see the same thing? Who do I report this to, Blender or Epic? It may effect smoothing in other coplanar scenarios, but I haven't verified that yet.

[cyaoeu]

On Blender 2.78 FBX export seems to behave incorrectly.

Make a grid plane object with 100 subdivisions on each side. Make it all smooth. No matter how you export and import it, with or without calculated normals, etc., you will get four times the verts compared to exporting from blender 2.76, and the mesh will have cracks when manipulated with world position offset. Exported from 2.76 tangent space it all works fine and around half as many verts as you have tris (with 2.78 you get double the verts as tris).

Anyone else see the same thing? Who do I report this to, Blender or Epic? It may effect smoothing in other coplanar scenarios, but I haven't verified that yet.

Seems to work for me.


You can share the .blend file you've got.

[T.Wright]

If you guys use the Rigify To Unreal script, change the newRigName to "Armature" and UE4 will automatically delete that as a bone which will give you back Root motion if you are using that. This is UE4 4.16.+ btw.

Also, you guys should understand that Unity does not use .blend files, it simply runs Blender's fbx converter for you (which is why you need Blender installed to use that feature). Just fyi... don't want you to think they have more Blender love than we do. :P

[motorsep]

If you guys use the Rigify To Unreal script, change the newRigName to "Armature" and UE4 will automatically delete that as a bone which will give you back Root motion if you are using that. This is UE4 4.16.+ btw.

What if I don't use Rigify to Unreal script?

My rigs are usually go as Armature > root > pelvis > and so on. So are you saying that now when FBX with such hierarchy is imported into 4.16+, UE4 will automatically remove Armature "bone" and I will end up with the following hierarchy: root > pelvis > and so on ?