[Blender addon] Rig any character with the UE5 Manny/Quinn skeleton

IMPORTANT LINKS:
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❖Game Rig Tools
toshicg.gumroad.com/l/game_ri...
Blender Market: blendermarket.com/products/ga...
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❖Send to Unreal video
• [Blender to UE] Custom...
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❖Voxel Heat Video & Addon
• Blender: Voxel Heat Sk...
blendermarket.com/products/vo...
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❖1 Click Rig
artempoletsky.gumroad.com/l/F...
❖UE to Rigify
epicgames.github.io/BlenderTo...
github.com/EpicGames/BlenderT...
❖UE to Rigify - Templates (Manny/Quinn)
epicgames.github.io/BlenderTo...
❖Uefy
www.rakiz.com/uefy/
❖Quick Rig
blendermarket.com/products/au...
❖Character used in the video
Support CGDive:
❖Patreon:
/ cgdive
❖Gumroad (get 20% off using coupon code "cgdive")
gumroad.com/toshicg
RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS
❖Rig Anything With Rigify (coupon code "cgdive" = 20% off)
toshicg.gumroad.com/l/rigify
Alive! Animation course in Blender
www.p2design-academy.com/p/al...
❖The art of effective rigging in Blender (coupon code "cgdive" = 10% off))
www.p2design-academy.com/p/th...
❖Hard Surface Rigging In Blender
blendermarket.com/products/ha...
❖Auto-Rig Pro
blendermarket.com/products/au...
❖RBF Drivers
gumroad.com/a/348001395/XzWpB
❖Bonera
gumroad.com/a/99062899/oXuxm
0:00 What is Game Rig Tools and Unreal Module?
0:58 Download & Install
2:39 Unreal Module Intro
3:28 The 3 Armatures Explained
5:00 Aligning the bones (Tweak Armature)
9:54 Assign Weights
11:25 Switch to Unreal Armature
13:10 Export to Unreal
18:49 Cartoony Character example
19:35 Copy Additional Bones
21:56 Export to Unreal (cartoony char)
23:23 Fixing Cartoony Characters in UE5
24:19 IK Tweak Solution (?)
30:05 Unusual Example #2
31:40 Creating a Control Rig in Blender
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[@chaver28]

you have no idea how much i love you after this video and your send2ue video as well :D i have now subbed because i have been really struggling with rigging for like a month now but this way worked flawlessly... you have all my respect dude because you just made my life much more enjoyable haha

[@CGDive]

Awesome and thanks for subbing!

[@skeletonking4119]

I will gladly give it an try! From what I see so far it’s indeed an “MUST-HAVE-ADDON” for blander + unreal users! I am in my learning in blander, after it I will jump into unreal! Thanks you all for hard work and yes! Cheap price !

[@activemotionpictures]

Another marvelous explanation from CGDive! Great video! I can't wait to try this on my U5 project. Thanks for the update!

[@CGDive]

Very welcome!

[@samsunga5634]

@@CGDive can you make a tutorial how to change the characters in lyra using the cartoon animal for example

[@CGDive]

@@samsunga5634 I'll keep it mind but I haven't even looked into Lyra yet.

[@DJDub4321]

I have tried so many different tutorials and this is by far the most reliable. Thanks for walking us through it! Also, very interested in a solution to the arm clipping/frog thing if you can. 👍🏽👍🏽

[@JoySenseKO]

You are just simply amazing! Will support your plugin definitely!❤

[@ronioclarenzo6137]

Great tutorial, fantastic addon! Thanks for everything!

[@CGDive]

You're very welcome!

[@bill43208]

Thank you so much this video was much needed, incredibly helpful, and easy to follow. I have been needing this exact setup for my game but haven't been able to find anything like this until now.

[@devinmcphee8890]

Extremely helpful. Thank you, man.

[@lildevilgamer]

Yesterday I found out and watched your video about the addon for UE4 and was like 'This is awesome. I wonder how long till we get an addon for UE5"

[@michaelderosier3505]

Best $15 asset for game development. It does everything he promised, with additional editing features to fine tune your model. I have searched so many tutorials and they always manage to skip over a major detail. A few recommendations to the Developer; keep your tutorials up-to-date with each update and add a feature that imports the textures with the model. Thank you brother! I look forward to seeing your next application.

[@CGDive]

Thanks for the nice words! I admit that we need to keep the tutorials up to date. The UE addon is actually fully covered, I think. The tuts for the Core GRT addon need an update tho. As for textures, the addon does not currently handle export and import so this is not planned for now.

[@9b8ll]

Thank you so much. I gotta try out UE5 really soon

[@BotGamingUefn]

Ive been rigging lego characters and it was not importing properly from the epic fig rig addon but this video helped massive and its imported to unreal and working

[@tommylee7102]

now im in love with this guy

[@kawaiistef]

Very useful, thank you!

[@mathaimoua]

You saved my game, thanks!

[@MrCaipa]

this helped me so much!!! Thank you!

[@yybu2]

thank you for the tutorial,this is what i looking for

[@blockcreationz1]

Great add-on. Thank you.

[@CornRecords972]

That Voxel Heat Diffuse skinning addon is incredible things for mentioning it.

[@CGDive]

Glad you like it. I have a video just about it kzbin.info/www/bejne/h6CuqJ2sqr2Vb6s

[@sulivarace7138]

Here it is all good on my side, I managed to solve all the errors that I encountered, even the textures, it was a model that I had created and therefore there were two UV maps, there just had to delete the one that wasn't used. Now, I'm going to find out how to correct the weight errors, I mean by the weight painting which is not optimal but you made a video on the question so I know what I have to do :)

[@nolca]

Only this tutorial tells you how to do the "Fix" part, I love this!

[@CGDive]

Nice!

[@amigoface]

definitely check this out when i have a chance

[@NickFair16]

Great tutorial! A few things have changed since this release in Unreal Engine 5.3.2, but this was very helpful in figuring out some issues I was having with IK bones being pulled too far, etc. A new tutorial with UE 5.3's new retargeting system would be monumentally helpful!

[@mikeo2413]

what up hope this works fo me had nothing but trouble with the other again THANX FOR YOUR WORK

[@RetroGenetic]

I really like this business model, as right now I need something like this for some quick testing but if I were to end up in positin where I need to use it in something proper, well I'd say at least double of the asking seems like fair price

[@CarloMercadoJudgementProject]

I think with the Uefy pluggin you dont need to use too much or your addom, mainly the bones positioning tools, because the Uefy set the rolls for UE5 compatibility, maybe if you can pass the the skeleton of the Uefly tool to your exporter tool that can be another plus too. and another problem is like procedular bones that need to be animated in Unreal base in another bones, they dont have a easy way to changed to Unreal rolls so they are easy to setup in unreal. if that can be done with your addon in the future can be really useful. One example imagin an armor bone in the lower arm that need to be rotated relative to to hand rotation to avoid penetrations, or a Shoulder pad armor that ajusted relative to the shoulder and Upper arm bones, basically to this one to works better in unreal they need to have the same bone rolls orientation of the parent bone in the case of the Shoulder pad is the Clavicle bone. for solving this problem I got a trick that copy the bone orientation when I apply the Unreal rolls to my custom procedular bones, but the problem is that is copying the orientation for a existing order I can not create one

[@qadirqureshi7805]

Thank you very much; your tutorials are excellent. Can you tell me if, after rigging the mannequin for Unreal Engine 5, retargeting Mixamo animations onto the root armature, and exporting with the Send2UE addon or manually as FBX, will the animation work properly in Unreal Engine 5 beyond the 3rd person setup, or is the root armature only suitable for the 3rd person setup?

[@mikeo2413]

really bless you for being you love you great job we need people like you your appreciated!!!!!!!!!

[@CGDive]

Thanks, Mike!

[@Ravend6]

Thank you very much!

[@danq2656]

Thank you so much for this. I cant get AutorigPro to work with UE5 but your stuff is basically better. Cheers!

[@cotyclark]

Great video! Is it possible to go back and tweak bones once you've applied rig and weigh painted? I originally made the shoulder bones too high and want to edit them without rigging from scratch.

[@javissupreme]

u saved me - and for that, i thank you sir!

[@CGDive]

ha, Awsome!

[@gerhardbotha8793]

Thank you so much I have tested it already and it works like a charm! Well done with this addon. Is there any chance in the future for a control Rig to come to the addon. Also a video dedicated to creating a control rig for this Mannequin would be awesome. That being said this addon is already very usefull! Thanks agian!

[@learnit8169]

Really nice guide! Was going to ask how to adjust the bones after applying rig, is it possible just to go back and edit a bone, or do you have to restart all over again?

[@CGDive]

It's safest to start over. In the future, I hope to make it more robust so that you can tweak things as much as you like.

[@yoyopanda8362]

Amazing

[@jhonysteak5512]

Well, I ended up getting there on several characters to memorize your workflow well, No errors to encounter, verdict, voxel heat diffuse skining is essential. Now I have to find how to import my skin shader and for the deformation of the body it is always present but this time if it only appears in Unreal engine when I control the character. In the viewport everything looks correct. This time I can't find info on this other problem, deformation, for the textures I should manage, there's a lot of info available on it.

[@technologic3739]

Hi, this tutorial is awesome but what if you don't want fingers? Do you edit the tweak rig and delete the fingers, or simply just ignore the fingers? Also, when I edit on the deform rig, it becomes a different rig and doesnt align with the body, is there a way to fix that? NVM just had to apply rig

[@wulf1540]

Thank you

[@surreality2008]

Great video, thanks! Quick question: if I have a character that is already weight painted to a Daz3D rig, what do you think I could do to transfer those weights to the GRT-UE5 converted character? Your demonstration works well with characters that don't already have a skeleton, but I'd like to match the weights as closely as possible to the original.

[@CGDive]

Yeah, I understand but it's not something we support at the moment. I'll add it to the list of ideas tho!

[@surreality2008]

@@CGDive Okay, I'd also like to learn how to convert a rigify character to an unreal skeleton. In other words, I'd like to keep the rigify rig for animating but be able to send that work to UE5.

[@CGDive]

@@surreality2008 Yeah. I don't have a definitive solution for that yet but there are some leads. There is an addon called "one-click rig" that might do the trick. Also, Epic's UE2Rigify could be used for that purpose. I am just not 100% sure at this point. And it might be possible to integrate Rigify into our addon but it's not a priority right now.

[@surreality2008]

@@CGDive I didn't know about one-click rig. Thanks, I'll start experimenting. We're getting closer now. Amazing how difficult it is to get a solid character pipeline working well. I just went back and watched your entire weight painting course yesterday. I really appreciate all the efforts you've put into this domain.

[@CGDive]

@@surreality2008 Oh, nice! And thank you. It is a lot of effort but people appreciate it so it's worth it!

[@IsabellaFrancoo]

Awesome!

[@CGDive]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@OkaToka]

Great addon. I'm using it for quite some time now, but recently I encounter one problem with a project, where I have worked with metahuman character. I was needed to attach metahuman head to custom body and I wasn't able to do it currectly this skeleton. Because it's simple version of manny. Metahuman requires full many skeleton version with all these additional torso bones. They used to properly attach head to the body. It will be great if full manny skeleton will be also available in the future.

[@CGDive]

Yeah, we are considering that. Thanks for the suggestion!

[@awoidf]

I love the addon and could add some additional bones for the face but the position of my shoulder was wrong and I wanted to adjust it after the first export but am unsure how to handle this case because you have to apply the transforms before you export but this will **** up the UE5 rig after the adjustments and reapplying the changes. So, any tips on the workflow if you have to make edits?

[@CGDive]

Adding bones is covered in the video. 18:49 That is the only way I recommend doing it.

[@epicsucker3388]

Thanks a lot !!!!!!!!!!!

[@icelemon201]

Nice thing! You should make Metahuman presets next, its hard to weight new clothes for them.

[@mzprox]

A question if you don't mind: what would be the best, least painful way to rig a character to ue5 skeleton while keeping existing weigths and facial bones or shapekeys? (like from a daz character). I tried to use quick rig, and edited the ref bones to be more in line with the standard (6 spines, 2 twists etc), but the result is bad. It's not even perfect with ARP ue5 spec rigging from 0-but then I would need to transfer the facial bones/shapes somehow. Note what I wrote is about using the default skeleton in ue5, I haven't actually tried to retarget yet, that could work.

[@CGDive]

I am not sure about that sorry. Maybe you should just retarget in UE. The unreal retargeter is quite powerful.

[@activemotionpictures]

One thing that I'd like to ask: The first character is in A pose, the second character is in T pose. What happens if I rig using the U5 mannequin from GRT, but adjust the arms to be at 65º A pose angle? will they work? (I'm rigging a human character).

[@CGDive]

In my tests the pose of the character did not affect the result even when animations are applied in UE.

[@yancatv]

Excellent video. When do you think you can do the riggify part using this method? I'm having a hard time finding a solution

[@CGDive]

Not sure yet, sorry.

[@navjyotsingh9580]

Thank you for this awesome addon. I am facing a issue, When I parent the rig to the character using automatic weight paint the mesh gets deformed very badly. do you have any solution for it ? trying to fix that issue for days now.

[@themachotaildrop]

When I add an animation to my character in ue5 the feet seem to slide around a bit. They also go through the floor in certain animations. What would cause this? Also will mention my characters body was different than the UE mannequin so I had to move the bones around a little.

[@xeoncat]

This is the greatest thing ever!! It's easily the best workflow for UE skeletel meshes I have just two doubts: 1. When making animations, I should animate on the Tweak armature, right? 2. I assume this does not have an impact on the Blendshapes animation export? Since it's object data, Unreal should read them from the mesh, although I'm not sure this works across different meshes...

[@CGDive]

Good questions, I should have addressed this 1. The tweak rig is not a "control rig", it is not meant for animation. Currently, there is no simple solution for creating custom animations. I'll try to cover how it could be done at some point. 2. Shape keys should work.

[@xeoncat]

@@CGDive Creating a Control Rig in UE5 and animating in UE's Sequencer is also a possibility. It's just that Blender is a lot easier for animation

[@PretendCoding]

The model has since been deleted, and it took some tracking down, but for anyone curious, the model he used in the video did not have a skeleton/armature before he started using the addon.

[@triangularantiprism8010]

I have followed your videos for creating a rig in Rigify for my humanoid character. I downloaded the voxel heat and your game rig tools add-on. Finally got my mesh weighted nicely and I'm trying to get it into UE5. I don't know if you have a video where you show how to convert the Rigify rig into the GRT Unreal Module. I was trying to follow with this video and just use the generic rig but when I generated the game rig my control rig no longer deforms my mesh. The game rig does, I can deform it with the game rig that's now seperate but I lost my control rig functionality. Am I doing something wrong? I'm not an experienced rigger but I do appreciate your video guides.

[@CGDive]

There is no workflow to convert Rigify to a UE rig or vice versa. For now. It is possible but the workflows are not something I can explain in a short comment. And I haven't figured out all the details as I like to do...

[@re1]

Fantastic upload! thanks! Autorig pro workflow next :)?

[@CGDive]

What workflow do you have in mind?

[@re1]

@@CGDive Maybe going from GRT to ARP to making a control rig inside unreal would be fantastic. I loved the closing the gap series and I would love to see what you can create with those topics. Thanks for the reply.

[@CGDive]

@@re1 Hmmm, what do you mean by going from GRT to ARP? If you mean creating an ARP rig based on the UE bones, that's possible with Quick Rig (paid extension addon for ARP) and it's very easy. Will cover it.

[@re1]

@@CGDive Awesome, yes. Creating the rig with Quick Rick, then exporting custom animations to Unreal and making a control rig there. I'll have to check Quick Rig. Thanks!

[@lucascavallari8489]

Thank you for making this available, I'm having some issues, the head doesn't seem to rotate even though I've weight painted everything (it is a separate mesh and is conjoined when exported). And I can't use the mannequin 5 physics asset because it says it doesn't have the head bone. But the head bone appears in blender. Any suggestion?

[@lucascavallari8489]

The issue was actually “name clash”, fixed by renaming my character’s head mesh to another name besides head. Kinda different the way unreal deals with names, even though they are different kind of things.

[@CGDive]

Cool, glad you solved it!

[@Black-Cow]

problem solved!!!!!! thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

[@UNDERKING_UDK]

This is the tutorial I was looking for. You brought me out of hell. Thank you teacher :) !!

[@CGDive]

Happy to help!

[@CanalDojogames]

My send to ue wasnt working because i followed another tutorial,on yours you teach something, the python settings inside project settings and the dialogue show menu, it helps a lot for me! thank you. now i need to manage the texture (materials too) and join face with body (im using vroid model so it is separatedly exported)

[@Wrexthor]

Excellent tutorial! A tip for everyone having problems exporting to unreal, try the better fbx exporter plugin, it fixes all the fbx issues with importing morphs, bones being rotated etc when using fbx as a format. Something i would want some tips on is using the workflow in the video for clothing. If i do everything for a character that i want separate clothing meshes for (that will be separate from the character but needs the same skeleton/weightpainting), what would be a good workflow to set up the clothing meshes (im using daz stuff).

[@CGDive]

For cloths the Data Transfer modfier can be used to get the weights from the main body onto the cloths. I will make a tutorial about that soon.

[@nathanp.3909]

Where can we find this fbx exporter plugin? That is where I hit a wall, the new version of pipeline :send to unreal , says "push assets" and then nothing comes up in unreal after? Please help me ahhh

[@mostafaahmed9441]

​@@nathanp.3909 You must apply transforms first before exporting it

[@nathanp.3909]

@@mostafaahmed9441 Thank you!! got past that one but ever have "multiple roots are found in bone hierarchy" error with this rig? is it the rig causing the error?

[@YellowBear592]

@@nathanp.3909 I'm having the exact same issue, any fixes?

[@janemedvedieva7650]

But how do you actually use it? Can I attach it to the animated rig? Is there any module to work with these rigs or are they only made to export the A-posed model to the engine?

[@jackb8468]

Successfully followed this tutorial and appreciate your excellent work. But I have a question... not sure where to ask it... probably not here ... but can I make new Actions with the Root skeleton provided from this add-on somehow? When I try to add a keyframe it gives the unhelpful error message of, "Keying set failed to insert any keyframes"? but it looks as if thre is a lot of additional functionality to the add on

[@Tenchinu]

loved the last version of this add-on... and this just makes it even more useful!!! Really helpful for imports. gotta test for mocap tho... but is super cool ur still supporting it. Thnk u so much :) Any hope you guys will make a face rig, or 52 face key frame tut on it?

[@CGDive]

Will think about it. I think there may be a workflow to make your character metahuman-compatible which would be cool :)

[@Tenchinu]

@@CGDive one question about the scaling. Should the Unit scale inside the Scene Properties still be 0.01? Or the add-on compensate for the terrible scaling that damages the physics asset if its not 100 scale going into Unreal?

[@CGDive]

@@Tenchinu I always keep the World scale to 1. Setting it to 0.01 is too crazy. Bless Send to Unreal for solving these issues.

[@Tenchinu]

@@CGDive thnk u!! the world scale (in Metric) is the Unit Scale, right? u have no idea how many headaches this conversation thing has caused me. It messes EVERYTHING in UE5. Thnk u again for the tutorials! they always help me out!!!

[@CGDive]

@@Tenchinu Sure! But if you want to keep Scale to 1, make sure you're using Send to Unreal :)

[@activemotionpictures]

It would be awesome to see Uefy to U5 rig from Blender.

[@CGDive]

Yeah, uefy looks good and I bought it a long time ago but I found the learning curve a bit steep. So I never went too deep into it.

[@chaver28]

i have found 1 issue with this which im hoping you could help with :) when finishing the tutorial if i go back to blender to change some stuff, i switch parent armature back but then when i and done and switch parent back (using the button) all the bones under root are really really tiny and i am not sure why

[@CGDive]

Once you press Apply Rig the scale of the bones is applies so you can't really go back to the previous step. You have to be fairly confident in the bone placement. The current system has some limitations. I am hoping to revise it in the near future.

[@chaver28]

@@CGDive thank you for the reply ☺️ I over came my problem now though as I'm quite new I didn't know I could edit the bones in ue5 so I was able to make slight adjustments. Final question I promise (I think) with the rig applied in blender can I change the mesh without any problems?? My character is looking abit thin

[@CGDive]

@@chaver28 Slight changes to the mesh should not cause problems.

[@chaver28]

@@CGDive thank you 😘 love you

[@statebeyond373]

Hey this one worked perfectly for a cartoony character. All the retargeting worked and the animations work in play mode but I am having problems with a singular animation which is the “land” animation. the scaling of the character multiplies by almost x10 and then it revert to normal after that animation is over

[@CGDive]

It sounds like a scaling/squash/stretch problem. I am not sure why it happens in your particular case but I have a video which might help you understand the issue. kzbin.info/www/bejne/boG2m5JnYqpsq7s

[@thelastdev]

which armature would I go to, to delete fingers?

[@CGDive]

Deleting parts of the rig is not something that is officially supported. Do so at your own risk. You could delete then in the "root" rig. Also when weighting the character with the Deform rig make sure no weights are assigned to the finger bones. That can be achieved by removing the "Deform" bone property in the Bone tab.

[@hotsauce7124]

Hello, does Game Rig Tools do corrective blendshape keys and Bone corrective shape controllers work in UE5 Control Rig? For example, when you bend an elbow/shoulder the inside of the elbow/shoulder will use corrective blendshapes to correctly deform the elbow/shoulder when it bends in UE5 Control Rig?

[@CGDive]

Game Rig Tools does nothing regarding blendshapes but they do work. Make sure the driver is pointing to the Root armature (the one you export). Also if you use Send 2 UE, there is a sepcial workflow for exporting blendshapes. Make sure you read the docs.

[@eritumakafakafo3008]

why i cant pick any of mannequin? Dont have a bar to select one like u in 3:10. EDIT: Turns out i had some confilct with i dont know what to be honest but after i deleted "game_rig_tools_Unreal" Folder from addons list in %appdata% folder and installed it again it works now. I can pick the Quinn5 or Manny4

[@level10gnollwarlock]

I have used ARP's quick rig shown at the end of this video. i have made my first idle animation but i then realized i created the control rig for the DEFORM armature instead of the Root/Game armature. How badly did i mess up? i am trying and failing to bake/move/copy the animation that's now on the control/deform rig to the root/game rig so i can export it to unreal to test. i'm at my wits end right now

[@alexpoc]

first 20 mins i was like wow this is a lot easyier.... 4 mins later..... i'm dooooommmeeed :))) i'll figure it out :)))

[@CGDive]

Haha, what's the problem?

[@light-zf4dp]

Is it possible for one to use the mannequin animations, but adjust the animations for each imported character by keyframing in ue5? I understand it may take a little longer than your solution in the video, but i would find it more accurate - especially for characters with legs that arent straight, such as a minotaur/fawn/satyr

[@CGDive]

It might be with the control rig and all the cool tools that UE has these days. I am yet to do a deep dive into these tools.

[@yoyobird8427]

maybe someone here can help me out. My question is this: when making a character that can change shoes for a game. Do I rig the character bare foot and at 0 on the z scale and then when I rig the shoes I move the armeture up to fit the shoes? or do I have to rerig the character or what is the workflow for that?

[@AmjoodBasha]

Thank you so much! I have a question: what if the character has an armor. Do you have a tutorial on how to skin it after using this tool?

[@CGDive]

I don't sorry. The best I can offer is my general tutorials on weight painting. Once you learn how it works, you can paint armors, cloths, etc. kzbin.info/aero/PLdcL5aF8ZcJsFEdlMJ7To0Iu9s-XCFV3W

[@famesaro65]

hey thank you for this video and tool, have a question is there a way to use the same rig for several other armature/meshes cause tried to transfer the weight and the root but seems not working. thank you

[@CGDive]

All characters will be rigged with the same type of rig (the UE4 or UE5 mannequin skeleton). I am not sure how you approach and what the problem is. Just rig each character individually in a separate Blender scene.

[@famesaro65]

@@CGDive thank you for the answer. have different character/meshes practically the same, and I want to retarget one and copy the same somehow to the others

[@unrealdevop]

So I have some what of a problem, you never covered bone orientation in this video so I winged it....soon discovered that changing the pose on one doesn't seem to effect the others and I'm concerned that changing to bone orientation may not effect the others either. I believe I tried doing this on the Tweak rig and saw no changed on the deform so I tried it on the deform hoping it would effect the Unreal one but at least the Pose I can confirm does not get set when doing this. I can't confirm the bone roll yet because when I set the rest pose to the new pose on the Deform rig it caused the bone to be offset on the other two. Does setting the Bone Roll on one effect the other? If not do we just wait until we are completely done on the Tweak and Deform rigs and then set the roll and pose only on the Unreal? Update: I just went back to the version before I applied the rest post and discovered that no, the Bone roll adjustments I made were not carried over to the Unreal Rig and are incorrect, causing the fingers to rotate diagonally.

[@unrealdevop]

Update 2: It seems that any bones added to the rig don't get properly oriented on the UE Rig. So it seems like either way you are going to have re-orient a lot of bones. I'm wondering if It would just make more sense to export the Deform Rig....why do we need a UE Rig anyway when we can simply set the Bone Orientation on export to what Unreal is Expecting?

[@CTRLsway]

​@@unrealdevopim having a similar issue, my mesh is all disfigured around the arms shoulders and hands! I don't understand what im doing, are the unreal bones supposed to all stick out instead of looking like an actual skeleton, its confusing

[@awoidf]

@@CTRLsway yes. unreal and blender have a different bone orientation (can't remember why exactly). So the UE5 bones have to default bones have to be oriented weirdly (this way all the animations from the marketplace will work) any other bones you add can have whatever orientation you want

[@CGDive]

Honestly, I am not sure what you were trying to do. What the addon is meant to do is shown in the video. It creates a rig with orientations exactly like on the UE rig. If you need to re-orient something for some reason, good luck but it's just not part of the addon.

[@STANNco]

do you need to use their mannequin models?? Can you not make a custom rig with the base plugin and import into unreal, or is it special in some way?

[@CGDive]

Hi. You don't need to use the mannequin. It's just that it's a standard skeleton and there are many animations and blueprints for it. You can absolutely make a custom rig. Here is my workflow for that kzbin.info/aero/PLdcL5aF8ZcJvS4rui1CyKuFQLBGE4rnas

[@PPp-fg3ps]

I have a question about finger joints. I have been starting the finger bones with the knuckles. But I saw one where joints were being placed above the knuckles and near the wrist. Do you put joints above the knuckles near the wrist? (I've been putting joints on the knuckles, because that works, but was just wondering if I was doing it wrong)

[@CGDive]

If it's near the wrist that's probably not a finger bone. I must be metacarpal bones (the bones inside the palm of the hand). If there are 3 bones, just place them inside the finger. If there are 4, then the first one is most like likely a metacarpal bone.

[@PPp-fg3ps]

@@CGDive At 9:01 in the video above, there are joints on the metacarpal joints, so maybe I thought that is the correct way of doing it because that is what I saw on your video

[@CGDive]

@@PPp-fg3ps Hi. Are you asking about Unreal or about rigging in general? I am getting a bit confused. :)

[@PPp-fg3ps]

@@CGDive for unreal ^_^

[@CGDive]

@@PPp-fg3ps If it's for UE5 then just follow this guide. Both metacarpals and fingers should be placed correctly to get good deformations.

[@BozBundalo]

first of all, thank for you for this.. I'm trying to find a good workflow for custom metahuman bodies and your tool is a key step here as I am doing UE5 manny import with mesh, then retargeting to Metahuman. So I'm close, however i"m having issues. I followed everything to a tee in this video but 2 issues. Send2UE in Blender 4.1 gives tons of errors, and when I try to export to FBX I'm getting huge circles on bones and the rig doesn't work in UE5 when previewing skeleton. Now, it does import without errors, it's just an issue with bones. Could Blender 4.1 be the cause here? EDIT: Nevermind I figured it out. I was doing the all transforms apply when I didn't have to do that since I'm exporting directly to FBX.. missed that little info in the video before you started exporting to Unreal. Works flawlessly now and it's even simpler than I thought. Just adjust the UE5 skeleton you generate to the character, easy peasy, bind, switch binding to UE skeleton and export to FBX.. couldn't be easier. Thank you so much for this.

[@timjroughton9931]

Yeah, I've the same issue with Send2UE something must have changed somewhere as I'm also using 4.1, the never ending curse of "A new update is available to break everything" .. "all transforms apply" I did this too, how do you roll back that or is it destructive and you have to start again?

[@gaeson]

What might be a potential reason that the body parts, joint tweak, fingers and finger tweak as wella s reference skeleton buttons don't exist?

[@CGDive]

What is your Blender version?

[@Somordorp]

Thanks for this tutorial! I hope ull answer because i cant find any solution.. My character has wraps around his hands. With the Deform-Rig it moves all along nicely but if i switch to Unreal Armature it becoms buggy and doesnt move with the character. Do you know why this happens ?

[@CGDive]

There shouldn't be a difference between Deform and Unreal rig deformations. If you can share your file, get in touch with me via email or discord. See here: cgdive.com/contact/

[@RahzZalinto]

what in the world lol. Trying as a "demo" for now cuz I can't get auto rig pro to give good results. Uh.... if I import the unreal model for example, quinn or manny, they come in fine about the same size as my character. This addon is making the skeleton about the size of their boot. I have my document unit scale set to 0.01 as seems recommended by most things, do I need to change my document settings and scale of everything for this to work or something? xD EDIT: Okay so I just went through with your tutorial but with two changes, I Scaled up all 3 skellys at the start to just match the size of my dude, and then at the last step I applied all transforms setting the skelly and the mesh to 1 again instead of 0.01 skelly and 100 on the mesh. NOT sure if I'll run into other issues but I will say that being able to customize the bones position better has led to a perfect looking result with both idle, walk and running animations retargeted from quinn and/or manny. I do worry about other issues that might result from having the initial skelletons importing so tiny and not relative to the document scale or whatever...not sure.. I'm a bit of a noob, but knowledgeable enough to know that any little thing can lead to a problem later down the line so if you have any insight on that lemme know :P

[@CGDive]

Hi, glad that you go promising results. Regarding the unit scale: no, you should keep it to the default of 1.0. I know many sources suggest this as a solution but I find that creates problems in Blender itself so I want to avoid it at all cost. So do not change the Unit scale, maybe I should have said that explicitly. What to do with the scale of the armature is explained in the video: -keep it to 0.01 for manual FBX export. -apply the scale if you use Send to Unreal (which I like and recommend)

[@sakurinorth8238]

can I still make and use shape keys and such and will that be reflected in unreal? I have shape keys I need for the hair and the shoulder. (my model is somewhat retro low poly, kinda in between n64 and ps2 style but wanted to add functions such as putting up a hood for example)

[@CGDive]

You probably have this bug/issue. You should start over kzbin.info/www/bejne/jJSqfmRqm8Zpe5I

[@KulTheSwordsman]

For fixing "Bone Heat..." warning without another add-on; select your mesh, enter edit mode, select all of the vertices, from menu Mesh - Merge - By Distance; and then parent it. If you still get same warning, change merge by distance's distance by deleting a zero after the comma on tool options; and then parent with auto-weights.

[@TommyGunsXL]

But this will merge vertecies that are close together and destroy your topology and UV map. The bone heat issue normaly appears on high poly meshes, or when vertecies are placed too close together. I avoid this by changing the scale of my scene, to make my mesh 10 times bigger before I parent it to the rig with auto weight. Then I scale it back down with export options.

[@KulTheSwordsman]

​@@TommyGunsXL I am currently testing to find a workflow from Blender to Unreal Engine 5 with default mannequin skeleton; and right after seeing your comment i checked my UV islands of my "merged by distance" mesh. There was no weird stretching or merging on UVs, nor any topological problems. I used "0.001 m" distance at most ( 0.0005 m also worked) while testing and had none of those problems. I am using Game Rig Tools & Voxel Heat Diffuse Skinning Addons; and for hands/fingers or any close parts of the body it is better to be weighted by Blender's native auto weight for the best result on my tests. One of the addon solves bone error with Surface Diffuse Heat Skinning, but that gives worse results than the native auto weight. I'll keep "scaling" tip in mind just in case, but i really dont want to mess around with scaling, especially after parenting. Unreal barely accepts my models without giving warnings and i dont want to add more by playing around with scaling while it is already working. Thanks for the warning though.

[@griseldaflores6362]

@@TommyGunsXL Just relax all the vertexes, thank me later. I didn't even have to merge anything! (Maybe once for a clean up?)

[@TommyGunsXL]

I'm also still looking for an fast and easy way to export UE5 skeleton based rigged charachters from Blender to Unreal 5. I bought Auto Rig Pro for Blender and it works very good so far. I Didn't change the scaling in Blender to match Unreals unit system and it exportet it in the correct size, without the bone heat issue or anything else. It also auto renames all bones when you export with Unreal settings. I added custom bones for some testings (bouncing breast bones... for the sience) and it also worked. Very promising so far, but it's not a free addon. And if "remove by distance" merged vertecies on the default value, you most likely had some bad geometry. I think the default value is 0.0001 m which would be on a microscopic level.

[@KulTheSwordsman]

@@TommyGunsXL If you do not have watertight one continueous mesh; which is the usual case where your character has layers of clothes/leather parts/metal parts and bags etc. on top of each other, some vertices can exist really close, that does not mean it has bad geometry. That is also the reason you need voxel heat for weights of those seperate parts unless you dont mind manual weight painting which i am avoiding to have a fast workflow. Auto Rig Pro have it's own exporter for Unreal but i do not use that one for rigging, so i use native Blender fbx export.

[@TheNbCz]

I tried to follow this so many times and doesn't matter what I do, It simply will not work properly. 1) Pipeline can't find the Unreal Window even with remote ticked and everything set up. 2) As soon as I add my Skeletal Mesh to BP it gets locked into a T-pose and bones will not move, character just moves around like a scarecrow??

[@lullebeul]

thanks!! Im trying to find how to offset some bones zo my arms and legs are not clipping like in your frog eqample. How would that be done? I cant seem to find how :(

[@CGDive]

Can you keep a secret? I don't know exactly off the top of my head :P

[@toodoo44]

If i have character with blender rig (rigify, autorig or something), do i need to follow UE convention and rename bones, or i can use my blender rig in UE?

[@CGDive]

You don't need to follow the conventions. Using the existing Manny hierarchy just speeds up some workflows by letting you reuse existing animations and blueprints.

[@MPOBVIOUSGAMING]

what do you do if it doesnt work? i got this to work before but i dont know whats happening. root exe is enabled, add-ons enabled and even did a restart. any ideas?

[@stephenjones8114]

Excellent tutorial and plugin. I do have a problem that my mesh once imported into UE5.1 and animated has distorted shoulders. All the anims are working. The legs, hips are fine. But the shoulders are square rather than sloped, and wider than they should be. Even the imported mesh inside the blueprint is fine and as it was when exported from Blender. The shoulder bones in Blender seem to be placed upon the shoulder joints, so I am at a loss.

[@CGDive]

Hi, thanks! Play around with the position of the clavicle bone. A bit higher/lower or towards the inside/outside of the body. If nothing works, feel free to send me your file. I'll take a look when I have some time :)

[@stephenjones8114]

@@CGDive Ended up importing Quinn and marking where her skeleton matched my mesh, then placed your bones thus and this fixed the issue. I have another question. If I duplicate the deform rig and append IK bones to control it for animation inside Blender, I suppose I should delete the twist bones even though Blender reads them as Deform bones?

[@lezardseventhbible564]

excellent work! BTW, it seems there's samll problem with the initial UE4's skeleton, when you generate ue4's skeleton, the spine bones and leg bone's joint are not connected,wondering if this is a samll bug? (UE5's skeleon are all connected

[@CGDive]

I suspect it's just a difference in the rigs but I will check tomorrow. Thanks for reporting! :)

[@CGDive]

Oh, I see what you mean. As far as the function of the rig is concerned, that's not a problem. In the end, you have to export the weird UE armature with bones pointing all over the place anyway. :) But I see how if I connect up the bones in the deform rig, it would "look" better. I'll consider that for a future update.

[@lezardseventhbible564]

@@CGDive Thanks dude~

[@CosmicComputer]

Ooh I can’t wait to get this, looks like an awesome time saver, what rig do you use to make animation actions with? Edit: just got to the end lol sorry

[@CGDive]

I didn't make any animations, actually. I am just reusing the ones that come with UE5.

[@beyawnko290]

I actually just bought ARP, but I picked this up to play with as well since my goal is a Rigify armature to UE5 manny. Is there a way to convert an existing rig to UE5 with this?

[@CGDive]

Ah, no, that is not the purpose of the addon at this time,

[@connorjade5460]

Hi, I followed the instructions and everything works fine, but as soon as I replace the quinn model with my own, her Upper body works perfectly but her lower body gets messsed up. The legs gets raised up in the air like she's doing yoga in mid air😂😂

[@creamsoda923]

During the joint tweaking, is there a way to not mirror to the other side when adjusting?

[@creamsoda923]

in the active tool section, disable "x axis mirror" if anyone else was wondering

[@alex-qn5xp]

Can I use the tweak rig to apply this to a T-posing model? or do I have to alter the model to fit an A pose?

[@CGDive]

The pose of the unrigged model doesn't matter. T pose should work great.

[@alex-qn5xp]

@@CGDive I used your addon on my T-posing model and it worked fantastically, after a bit of weight painting it looked perfect in engine. Thank you for this brilliant addon.

[@CGDive]

@@alex-qn5xp Nice!

[@daniloB225]

31:25 how can I do this arm offset? thank you cgdive you a legend bro

[@kenalpha3]

Tip: someone released "Blend File Importer" for free on the UE marketplace. If you want to review it, or if it imports better for workflow, or if it can help you make your plugin better. A comment already said that UE doesnt update the textures if changed in Blender?

[@CGDive]

I saw it. I think it's for static meshes only. Still need to test it.

[@theburlapchap3644]

how do you avoid issues with the IK bones? They tend to be automatically assigned weights using your workflow

[@CGDive]

I don't think you are following my workflow. The Deform skeleton does not have the IK bones so no weights should be assigned to them.

[@theburlapchap3644]

@@CGDive ah i see

[@thumbsstan5727]

Im having an issue with the export portion, i followed the instructions (which were extremely clear good on you) but when i apply the mesh to the skeleton the right leg is all messed up.

[@CGDive]

Hmmm ... "messed up" is not sufficient as a problem description, to be honest. :P " apply the mesh to the skeleton" > do you mean when you parent with Automatic Weights? Try to describe the problem in more detail and add images or videos. You can use imgur.com/ to upload images or post on our Discord discord.gg/YFH5HUv

[@MatheusFelipe-ki1mx]

when i click "automatic weights " my character becomes giant and stays in a horizontal position, as if he's layed down on the floor, and the armature stands still. Can someone kindly explain why this happens?

[@CheesyX2]

Just wanted to mention that it does not work out of the box with models from Mixamo, Send-To-Unreal throws a bunch of error messages because it can't create the needed textures. This is NOT a fault of your plugin or Send-To-Unreal but with Mixamo because they are to stupid (as per default with products from Adobe) to correctly pack the models in the first place. Just a heads up if anyone runs into problems with models from that site.

[@CGDive]

Thanks for the info!

[@hotsauce7124]

Hello, does the Auto Rig Pro face bones export to UE5 with this addon?

[@CGDive]

I haven't tested that yet so I am not sure.