UnrealOni/Tutorials

Animation editor

Editing an animation for offset corrections

• Open a montage (or directly an anim), click on a montage group, right-click an anim, choose to open asset.
• In the animation select root bone, disable other axes (eye symbol), click big "+" button. Edit the key... Click arrow symbols to adapt diagram.
• https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/editing-animation-layers?application_version=4.27

Material editor

Character textures

For character materials activate "Used with Skeletal Mesh" property in Usage section. If disabled a gray checkerboard texture will be displayed on the character.

Importing/retargeting animations

geyser (talk) 10:28, 23 May 2018 (CEST)

The following is a step-by-step tutorial intended for THESE (all of Oni's animations, optimized for retargeting and compatible with ALS), but it will work with other characters and their animations too.

1. There are three "mannequins" adapted from the TRCM of Oni's level0_Final: bip_konoko.fbx, bip_comguy.fbx and bip_striker.fbx (.blend files are for those who may want to tweak their poses)
2. Open UE4, and drag-and-drop the .fbx mannequins into your project (ideally into a separate folder like Content/OniTRAM): in the FBX Import Options dialog, set Mesh/Skeleton to None, make sure Animation/Import Animations is checked, and then click Import (or Import All if you're drag-and-dropping several mannequins at once).
3. Open each of the imported Skeleton assets in Persona, and do the following for each of them (in order to be able to retarget the animations later):

   a) in the right-side tool panel, in the tab Preview Scene Settings, under Mesh/Preview Mesh (Skeleton), click Apply To Asset.

   b) in the right-side tool panel, in the tab Preview Scene Settings, under Animation/Animation, select the bip_*_Anim animation (A-pose).

   c) in the left-side tool panel, in the tab Retarget Manager, under Manage Retarget Base Pose, click Modify Pose, then Use Current Pose.

   d) in the left-side tool panel, in the tab Retarget Manager, under Manage Retarget Source, click Add New Retarget Source and pick the skeleton asset.

   e) in the left-side tool panel, in the tab Retarget Manager, under Set up Rig, go to Select Rig and pick Select Humanoid Rig.

   f) save the Skeleton asset as prompted (large floppy-disk icon in the upper-left corner); also save the Mesh, Animation and Physics assets (although that's optional at this point).

4. find and open the UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton asset; in the left-side tool panel, in the tab Retarget Manager, under Set up Rig, go to Select Rig and pick Select Humanoid Rig; save as prompted.
5. make some folders for the animations, for example Content/OniTRAM/bip_comguy_anims , Content/OniTRAM/bip_konoko_anims and Content/OniTRAM/bip_striker_anims
6. make subfolders for the extra "LocoLoops" animations (pairs of single-step animations stitched together for convenience): Content/OniTRAM/bip_comguy_anims/LocoLoops , etc
7. drag-and-drop the animations for each mannequin into the corresponding folder/subfolder; in the FBX Import Options dialog, set Mesh/Skeleton to the correct Skeleton and then click Import (or Import All if you're drag-and-dropping several animations at once).
8. save the imported animations (although that's optional at this point).
9. right click any animation (or select several animations and right-click any of them), then under Animation Sequence Actions pick Retarget Anim Assets/Duplicate Anim Assets and Retarget

   a) if you did all of the above, then in the Select Skeleton dialog, you should be able to pick UE_Mannequin_Skeleton, and then both the [Source] and [Target] characters should be visible and A-posed.

   b) bottom-right, under [Target]/Folder/Change..., select an appropriate destination folder where the retargeted copies of the animations should be placed (create new folders/subfolders as needed).

   c) bottom-left, click the Retarget button.

   d) save the retargeted animations (optional).

10. After all the above steps, the retargeted animations should become available for the UE4 Mannequin or any other characters using UE_Mannequin_Skeleton. If not, feel free to ask.