4 - Animation Layer Interface and Linked Anim Layers - Bow And Arrow - UE5 Blueprints

[@vickylin9600]

I'm glad I didn't miss this video because of the length of the if, it's careful and in-depth.

[@XAHAK]

I hope this series never ends. thank you for all this tutorial🙌

[@Markandei]

I had been hitting against Lyra animation wall for a week as a beginner when I finally stumbled on this video. Hats off to you sir, perfrect explanation - it looks so simple now.

[@r60d23]

This is the best unreal tutorial I've seen so far.

[@augustforever7198]

I recently stumbled across your channel and I must say, you are a fantastic teacher. Very articulate and you explain things well. Hope to see more!

[@taehoson6804]

Your tutorial is the easiest one to under stand about multi thread and anim layer BP! Thank you!

[@SauloSoaresOliveira]

This is the best tutorial on Unreal I've seen in years!

[@Wrexthor]

This was excellent! Easy to follow, good pacing, quality editing. Please make more like this!

[@Llakar]

This has been a great tutorial series! I had the same issue with the node going bad around 28:31, but I was able to right click on it and "refresh node" it to fix it.

[@pedroricojr]

6:10 Thread Safe Setup 19:30 Linked Anim Graph Node 31:40 Animation Layer interface

[@THikkikomori]

It's so nice to find these kinds of topics I'm struggling with understanding covered by you. Thank you for being so clear and easy to understand

[@JacobMnasin]

Ive been looking for a straightforward explanation to this. Thank you

[@DireSwift]

Finally starting to fully grasp UE5 with both C++ and Blueprints and comfortable adding functionality without having to look up tutorials and copying others process thanks to your courses and these videos! It's a simple thing but instead disabling input I was able to implement ending the emote if the character moves, prevent firing while the emote is playing and re-enabling it after unlinking the emote as well as disabling and re-enabling rotation based on if the emote is playing or not. In addition to that ensure the character wasn't moving prior to attempting to play the emote. Now just to smooth the transitions and it will feel great and responsive. Finally reaching that Ah-Ha moment where I understand the engine and it's layout and where to find what I'm looking for.

[@CinematographyDatabase]

Thank you for explaining this! The Lyra animBP was terrifying when I first opened it lol.

[@gail_blue]

So... there's a bug in UE5.3.2 that prevents any properties (from access property) which are causing errors in the current thread safe function from appearing on the list (which is every single one in this tutorial). To work around this, you can to create a scratch threadsafe function, create the property access in there, copy it, and paste it into the function you want. Or you can delete the nodes with the error and then do the property access.

[@RictorScale]

Wow i bought your courses on udemy! I saw this threadsafe in the lyra project and you literally did what i was trying to do! No more event graph for ABP's!! Great tutorial

[@leetness13]

good tutorial, clear and concise. rare enough to be said

[@tonybowren3736]

This was a fantastic explanation of this workflow. Thank you.

[@Nexror01]

Great series! Probably gonna steal the stuff from the third video! Edit: maybe even from this one too

[@georgearida4144]

Believe me you deserve a Nobel prize for UE5

[@unrealdevop]

37:40 this step does not work for me, instance class still isn't an option on the Linked Anim Layer Node the node say "Anim Layer (self) and under details next to "Instance Class" it says 'Uses layer in this Blueprint.' and for the life of me I can't figure out if I am doing something wrong or if this is another dumb UE 5 bug.

[@StephenMinkin]

Great example! It was a total WTF with multiple anim bp. Simple stuff now with thread safe and input pose. Only thing that should be mentioned is that, as it appears, the input pose node will automatically work with one additional anim bp without actually linking it to the main anim bp with a link node. It just outputs the end result of the main bp. Just worth noting.

[@rmet255]

I CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR THIS VIDEO. THIS IS INSAEN!!!

[@hyunseungkim538]

Thanks for great explanation!

[@mustafa.celiktas]

This was great as usual. However if I may add, you could unlink those emotes by pressing any key. When you disable inputs while doing the emotes, the player simply stucks and has to wait for the emote to end. So if you bind unlink anim class layer to press any key, the player can stop the emote and go back to normal anytime. I'm a rookie so maybe I'm wrong but this is what I think we should have done. Thanks again for the great contents ❤

[@Jalupus]

Thank you so much, Stephen. Great content as always.

[@allenburtt6821]

Thanks heaps! Really good explanation of the UE5/Lyra animation system. Linked anim layers were doing my head in until I looked at your video : )

[@alexanderkartashov8776]

this is very cool, you never disappoint )

[@jidongyang2855]

Great tutorial! Easy to understand and quite practical.

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

Glad it was helpful!

[@YarikBright]

Oh... thanks a lot for this detailed explanation

[@jessexing3456]

what a wonderful tutorial thank you!

[@timowiest4580]

On tutorial and i understood this stuff. Every other documentations can go to the dumpster. Thanks so much.

[@YuuJer]

awesome! more anim BP tutorials pls!

[@CharlF932]

man what a valuable tutorial, that was an awesome work. Thanks a lot for this!!

[@dinosyr]

Amazing video. Exactly what i was looking for.

[@Fxiques]

Uff, totally changed my logic, thanks.

[@pops_nrthnrebel2314]

Love this Video.... Going to implement it into the Multiplayer Shooter course from you!! Great job and thanks!

[@grand3dgames]

That's what I need. Thank you!

[@jommjustonemoreminute6977]

Firstly, an excellent tutorial. Easy to follow, clear and no waffle. Loved the threadsafe stuff and cleaning up the graph but I'm struggling to see the benefit of the linked layer/ interface stuff which seems long winded over playing a montage to achieve the same thing?

[@rayloh8259]

Hey amazing work!!!! Easy To Follow and super explained!!!! I made the 4 Tutorials now by myself and now excuse me. I have to create my own ABP ;)

[@markbay9275]

Great tutorial. Very helpful.

[@JusticeArts]

Great series! I'd like to see more on Blend Masks and Blend Profiles. Lyra seems to use them often.

[@kimjustin9755]

Wow, awesome video. I can't wait next video.

[@kaiyumcg]

perfect! I love this series!!❤

[@hodainium]

Great tutorial. Subscribed. Thanks bro!

[@ThanhLongLe1410]

I absolute love this tutorial. It is so amazing

[@pedroricojr]

For the Link Anim layer, how do you set it up like in Lyra where the weapon determines which LinkedLayer is being used? Any pointers, docs, websites to check out would be appreciated

[@kingdaghost4558]

Thank you for these excellent videos🙏

[@FPChris]

Great series Stephen!

[@JWitty18]

would pay money to see someone put a video out about animating with different weapons in unreal

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

Check out my Udemy courses. I cover this.

[@unrealkitty]

pretty nice tutorials, useful and clear. thank you man.

[@StephenMinkin]

it just seems like a system in place so infinite large animations teams can be made sense of. Both animators and programmers. All can work at once on the same thing that hubs to one ruler anim bp.

[@YouWillDoAsYouAreTold]

amazing tutorial, thank you so much

[@StephenMinkin]

Workflow wise for all that reading. It's likely better to build to one anim bp then once it'a all there....optimize it across multiple anim bp and make them thread safe. Keep it simple and to phases...

[@alekseypetrunin9741]

Thanks! Very good video!

[@LincolnMargison]

Amazing tutorial

[@ace_ventura181]

Second, I was unable to call the input 39:07 "This graps inputs are read-only and cannot be edited".How to do it?

[@jhonnyappleseed1786]

In case anyone else doesn't see CharacterMovement in the drop-down for property access, it's because you need to add a CharacterMovementComponent variable named CharacterMovement to your ABP and set that in an overridden EventBlueprintInitializeAnimation. The default Manny ABP will show you how to do this.

[@ossywoo]

Having an issue where 5.0 version allows for linked anim layer, though in 5.1 that feature seems non existent/replaced with Anim Layer (self) - does anyone know why this is and how to fix please?

[@ithilien8103]

5/5 One of the best UE5 teachers out there. I see you have UE C++ course in udemy, but are you going to have a Blueprint version of it? Would definitely buy it.

[@Shahuang]

its awesome! so helpful video! Just one question: how add and use "start level montage" like in original asset , thanks

[@pkminpkmon]

This was the most useful tutorial for understanding linked layers, thank you!! Do you have any tutorials or tips on using Template Animation Blueprints, and if they can be used with Linked Layering in this style?

[@GeneralNovais]

This video is amazing

[@sarvilauditore]

im getting an issue with AnimLayerInterface.. whenever i create a layer interface and try to implement interface in AnimBPS, im not able to im able to add in inherited interfaces (present just below Implement interfaces) but im not able to add interfaces in implemented interfaces which is why my linked anim layer nodes r not refreshing.. pls help..

[@ossywoo]

I'm having the same issue - please let me know if you find a fix

[@RomanTimm]

Awesome stuff! When the animation layer is unlinked, will it be garbage collected?

[@Exsulator2]

Great tutorial but I struggle to follow how "this workflow" is better from just using one big anim bp, though there are a few statements here and there about that, but I wish there were more tangible examples of how this is better and exactly "what" this workflow enables us to do, which we couldn't already do in the "old way"

[@FroltBolt]

Very nice tutorial. I don't really see the benefit of using the Linked Anim Layers instead of simply playing a montage/sequence in this example. But I guess it may be useful if you need more complex logic, as it got its own anim graph.

[@Atl3m]

Another diamond 🎉

[@ItsBaffledd]

Thank you very much

[@stefanobizzi9863]

Awesome tutorial! A question tho: is it possible to somehow interpolate between the result of one layer and the next one? This would be useful when, for example, one decides to use this feature for things like root motion based movements.

[@spacerockgames]

Bump

[@DarkoSubotin]

Unfortunately i cannot get the Layer interface to work. I setup the separate blueprint, implemented interfaces on both of them, put the node in my main AnimBp and setup the linking in my character blueprint, but nothing happens when i press the input that links the class. Anyone else have this problem? I am using 5.1 preview 2. After testing it out on 5.0.3 it works. It seems like in the latest 5.1 preview 2 the linked layer node has no way of dynamically changing the class instance, so it seems to be a bug.

[@raccoon_05]

Have the same issue in 5.1. Have you found a fix?

[@ossywoo]

@@raccoon_05 Same here :(

[@shupaiwu9470]

Me too

[@ossywoo]

@@shupaiwu9470 This seems to be a bug that from what I can find we will have to wait for a fix from Epic Games - frustrating.

[@shupaiwu9470]

@@ossywoo thank you

[@MartenZander]

Hey there, first of all great tutorial! They way you broke down the essential parts of using and creating Animation Blueprints was very comprehensive. The benefit of using linked portions of Animation Blueprints is obviously super helpful when blueprints become more and more elaborated and complicated. However, I have a certain issue which I don't know how to solve. All this works great when working with one particular skeleton. What I would like to do is creating Animation Blueprints that could be used through out several different skeletons. I know you can create animation blueprint templates. You can also link them in the same way you do it with regular animation blueprints. BUT, once you create a child animation blueprint based on a certain Skeleton, you can not use AnimGraph Overrides to override sequences or Blendspaces that are used within linked animation blueprint templates. This is very unfortune, because that would make the system even more versatile if you could have one well elaborated animation blueprint system that works for multiple creatures or characters. I am still new to Unreal and it's animation system, so maybe there is a crucial part of information I am lacking to make this work. But so far, I didn't manage to figure it out. If you have a solution for this, I would really appreciate it if you could point me towards the right direction :) Keep up the great work!

[@Darkstar623]

Hi friend, were you ever able to figure this out?

[@MartenZander]

@@Darkstar623 Hey, bascially I ended up promoting all the animation sequences and blendspaces as public variables which I would then overwrite in each skeleton aware animation blueprint instance.

[@mugusevika6225]

should we replace the anim montages with Animation Layers ?

[@timlindberg3833]

This is value❤

[@F0t0n_dev]

can ı use this tutorial series for my commercial games?

[@StephenMinkin]

my only question with multiple anim bp tha to have it all in one graph is just easier. To make something thread safe within one anim bp only means a person makes it thread safe by making their own machinery code.... the advantage of that is that at least it's all in one place and can see it all.

[@mpbolton]

Great series! Is there a way to blend the animation on and off using a linked Anim Layer?

[@bilalrasheed9725]

Hello Stephen...I got an error in ABP where u calling custom event (Unlink Emotes) "Blueprint Runtime Error: "Accessed None trying to read property character". Node: Unlink Emotes Graph: EventGraph Function: Execute Ubergraph ABP Mannequin Base Blueprint: ABP_Mannequin_Base"

[@lolaswift111]

Hi, for simple animation sequence, the Linked anim layer works. However I tried Aim Offset, it didn't. Any idea? thx.

[@salimf6041]

god bless you 🌼

[@wilismatrix9847]

This aniation blueprints need a whole new level of logic knowledge ! damn,, too complex and lot of thing needed to know before jumping in

[@whozawhatzit0]

So I am extremely new to Unreal Engine and all of this in general. I'm still learning how to do basic things. Would the process of collapsing these processes into smaller functions and animation blueprints count as optimization? Would it help a game run a bit smoother/better? And what is the entire chain of "blueprints" or "bubbles" called? (I don't remember what those command things are called)

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

It would help with organization, but not optimization. The "bubbles" are referred to as nodes.

[@spacerockgames]

Dude this is amazing! Have you considered using animation blueprint templates? We've been playing around with them and they make working with multiple skeletons very smooth.

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

I use them in the new UE5 Ultimate Game Developer course!

[@zsomborpirok695]

Where can I get that? Just wanna buy it to support you!

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

@@zsomborpirok695 you can get it at Patreon.com/DruidMechanics

[@tommylee7102]

valuable tutorial

[@xeniacollins9514]

Isn't binding variables slow?

[@eligijuspranskunas3509]

nice video! but how to interrupt emote? let's say on idle starts playing emote animation, but when wanna start running, it should cancel that emote animation instantly.

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

You'd unlink it like it's done in the video when you start running etc.

[@shawnpatapoff5846]

Does RBAN work in linked ABPs?

[@jacobrose6661]

Hi! I would really be interested in how this works trying to do the calculation stuff in C++ and keep most of the heavy lifting out of the blueprint. I know you can override the Threadsafe function in the c++ class but how would you go about getting the property access in c++ I tried to read a bit and see if I could figure it out but I wasn't able to.

[@tylerclinton3475]

If I’m not mistaken, you’re looking for the FAnimInstanceProxy. That’s the C++ equivalent to property access node. It wasn’t easy to setup, and I only found ONE UE forum post that discussed how it’s implemented. I’ve built it into the ALS C++ system from GitHub. Took a while to wrap my brain around.

[@RictorScale]

Hey man did you ever figure this out ? I haven't looked but I assume we could copy the property accessor names from blue print?

[@Pharoah1224]

In lyra. I would like to switch from bow and arrow strafe movement to regular movements. Like orient controller rotation to movement not controller rotation yaw.

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

Those variables can be set directly on the Character in response to gameplay. The animations can be driven by anim BPs

[@Pharoah1224]

@@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment easier said than done with that set up they have. All movement is done through anim layers. I get this one glitch with an arm when i turn and a strange yellow warning across the sceen saying im using something wrong. No errors in code though. Im thinking of making a childbkueprunt that inherits lyra movement from parent. 🤔

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

@@Pharoah1224 I don't think it's productive trying to extend Lyra until you understand what's already in it. You're going to get frustrated.

[@Pharoah1224]

@@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment True. To true. Good advice. Thank you. Loving your work. Thanks for that also.

[@HarderEmbraceExcellence]

Can i play montages on linked anim graphs? I dont't find a method to load slots inside of linked anim graphs and play a montage. Is anyone having the same issue?

[@etherealregions]

I do like how the Lyra project is put together, and I have been tempted to start a blank project and implement and modify all the Lyra plug-ins and components that I like. But based off what I learned/ learning from Druid Mechanic's and Game Dev TV. Do you think it would be worth the time or not? 🤔

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

Lyra uses some more advanced stuff, including GAS. With some knowledge of GAS it could be useful. But reverse engineering the GAS in Lyra will be harder than just learning GAS first and then doing that.

[@etherealregions]

@@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment , that is true. Looking at Lyra again it is definitely impressive, but it see to be more of a showcase of what can be done. Rather than a guide on practical implementation by a single individual. Thank you for your insight and look forward to more courses and content from the best Unreal C++ instructor on the internet. 👍

[@max3116]

Scribed. Amazing. Question: Would you say this (Thread Safe) is good for grabbing variables from say the character to limit bottlenecks or still use a sequence off "Update Animation" to get variables from a weapon or character? This was a fantastic tutorial.

[@AL3XG8]

I had a quick question? Any chance you could do a tutorial with control rig while using procedural animations in C++ for a FPS?

[@AL3XG8]

As well as be able to replicate it for multiplayer?

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

Possibly

[@ThinDino]

Anyone who doesn't know inorder to disable the player movement you can just enable root motion on that animation it'll automatically disable the movement 🙂

[@Joydip.Chakraborty]

Can we use the thread safe function in c++ or how to make property access variable in c++

[@tylerclinton3475]

You’re going to be looking for the FAnimInstanceProxy class. I managed to find a single forum post discussing it, and the documentation barely exists. But, works as intended as far as I can tell

[@unreal_metronomus678]

I´m stuck with an anim layer problem. I´ve got multiple weapons, for example pistol and rifle and the character has different animations for these weapon-types. I thought I could insert the anim graph nodes for the pistol into one layer and the anim graph nodes for the rifle into another layer and then switch between these layers via linking/unlinking in code. The problem is that anim layer blueprints don´t have the ability to expose or bind variables like linked anim graphs do. In your video you are just showing a simple animation which is acting like a montage. Any ideas?

[@unreal_metronomus678]

Oh, I´ve found out how to access variables from the main safe thread in AnimLayers and everything works 😀

[@unreal_metronomus678]

@@safak2492 oh well, i am afraid i cannot explain how i solved it here, it is too complex. I recommend to Look at the lyra project and/or have a look at this youtube chanel. It is in Chinese, but you can follow along quite easily and he builds the lyra movement with weapon layers from scratch. kzbin.info%E5%82%99%E5%BF%98%E9%8C%B2%E6%9C%AC%E8%88%97 . Hope That helps! Good luck!

[@akashkv41]

@@unreal_metronomus678 can you do a video on how you did this. i m also facing same problem

[@unreal_metronomus678]

@@akashkv41 Unfortunately I don´t have the time to create a video. But this guy shows how to recreate the Lyra Locomotion : kzbin.infovideos . Hope that helps!

[@akashkv41]

Thank you for replying... I did it bro 😇

[@Seraian1]

Wont Animation montages suffice when using emotes?

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

Of course. The point was to show how linked anim layers with the simplest possible example.

[@Seraian1]

@@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment Right right that makes sense. I'm new to animations so I wonderd if there was some pro/con of either method ^ ^

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

@@Seraian1 yes to play emotes, probably just montages due to the simplicity :)

[@antiworldgames5480]

So are these usable across multiple characters terse as well?

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

Anim BPs are specific to skeletons, however there are now Anim BP templates. Maybe I'll cover those soon.

[@antiworldgames5480]

I did actually assume the skeleton to be the same say as set to the og new g epic one. I would imagine this should work as long as that occurs yeah?

[@DruidMechanicsGameDevelopment]

@@antiworldgames5480 it makes you choose the skeleton, but if the meshes actually use the same skeleton asset you can

[@derakon4791]

Tnx

[@juaecheverria0]

I'd rather have the emotes end when I am accelerating and you can do that with a simple branch Boolean "Is accelerating" or moving. It's much more like fortnite if that's what you're after.