How to bake animations into the IK Bones using Control Rig in UE5

[@tuatec]

I'm working on a similar series currently where I also show how to fix a lot of issues when it comes to character integration into Advenced Locomotion System. Even if you don't use ALS it might be helpful to you, ALS Secrets - UE5 Manny Integration kzbin.info/aero/PLslFX7TZAr88b729zX47MFyiCS9V10k_A In case you want to learn how to use Git with the workflow, start watching this playlist that comes with extra Git sessions. ALS Secrets - UE5 Manny Integration + Git Workflow kzbin.info/aero/PLslFX7TZAr8_kS1zdzEvrjBXI1gMRckZE

[@Cloganart]

This is great, thank you for sharing!

[@tuatec]

In case someone is reading it. I went way further and now also have ControlRig support already done. It supports ik bones as well and virtual bones. TTToolbox - ControlRig Animation Helper UI from a Beginner for Beginners | #UE5 Devlog #8 kzbin.info/www/bejne/mHK5dqqpf659f7s

[@CinematographyDatabase]

Thank you so much for showing this workflow. I’m going to use it to help clean up MOCAP for two handed weapons.

[@genbosc]

This video is perfect. Answered the EXACT question I had. thank you so much.

[@kyleb3094]

TRUE LIFE SAVER. so concise and clear!

[@MartenZander]

connecting the ik_hand_gun to the right hand works for animations where the chracter is not holding any gun, but How would you retarget an animation that is supposed to hold a gun with a certain offset to hand_r for example.

[@Cloganart]

Interesting. I would note down the offset and create a relating socket to the hand_r for the target skeleton in the editor in that case! That could work. Let me know if that helps!

[@MartenZander]

@@Cloganart I was thinking about that too, but in my case the offset is not static, it may animate as well. Imagine the following: you have a wrench attached to ik_hand_gun and the ik_hand_r animates relative to it. Then you have an animation where you throw the wrench up in the air and eventually catch it back with the right hand. in such case, the offset between ik_hand_gun and ik_hand_r is changing over time/animating. I somehow need to retain this information during my retargeting process and I just don't know how.

[@Cloganart]

​@@MartenZander I see. Here are few solutions that may help; Additional Bone; - I personally like this solution. You'll have more context with this - Add an additional bone to the skeleton that you can literally animate after the animation is retargeted. This way once you bake the animation back to the FK control rig, you will see the bone and can easily manipulate its keyframes. (You CAN animate the IK bones for this purpose as well) - You can use Anim Montage events and notifies to swap the wrench to the other hand once the asset "lands" in that particular hand. This will require set up but not very difficult. Additional SK mesh for the Wrench (or prop); - A little more cumbersome, but this will allow you to do different things with the wrench as well (individual wrench animations etc.) - Create your "flipping" animation. - Attach to the Hand_r/l in the character as a component. - You can combine this with the previous solution and layer on more anims etc. still using the Anim Montage notifies/states.

[@sgtbooz]

Wow dude, finally I found your video. I mean, wth, none of the "huge" channels mention that stupidly simple thing that literally solves everything.

[@PandemonicHypercube]

There's also an alternative way to do this. There's an Animation Modifier that comes with Unreal now that allows you to copy the pose of one bone to another. It's very easy to create a derived version that defaults to copying over all the IK bones. If you're on an older version it should be reasonably straightforward to write one. I had one that worked with some specific 4.x versions. I stopped maintaining it though because it was a pain to update it every time I updated to a new version that significantly changed the animation code.

[@AKThem06]

[@markoleptic4501]

I was editing animations using control rig with the IK switches under the "global_ctrl" section checked, but they still weren't getting baked to the sequence. But this fixed it! Thanks.

[@mihaiwilson]

Thanks! I didn't realize UE5 had that functionality. Looks like this would be a good way to fix retargeted ALS animations that have the typical incorrect IK bone placement.

[@Cloganart]

It's been most useful for messed up retargetings!

[@gartd7496]

So IK bones repeat the action of FK right? but can I animate actual IK hand?

[@Cloganart]

This is good for having the IK bones on the skeleton be retargeted to the position of the respective hand, yes. But if you'd like to animate the IK bone separately, you can still do it this way. For example, if you'd like to use the IK bone for gun, and let's say you want to do an airflip of the pistol in an animation, this would be a good way to set that up, so it will land in the correct position.

[@salsascripter]

Life saver man! Amazing vid!!!!!

[@Cloganart]

Glad you found it useful!

[@ConsolePCGaming]

would really help if you set up the project from scratch so people can see where you got the animations from , how you loaded them in etc. So many tutorials on UE5 just assume that people already know how to do this and miss the most fundamental parts of the tutorial out

[@Cloganart]

Agreed & Great point! Wanted to keep the video concise, but may have to do a full walkthrough from the very beginning to show the exact animation pipeline.

[@maahisingh7181]

This is an Awesome trick !!! to fix IK bones. The problem I am facing is whenever I Edit with the Fk Control rig its shoulders of Manny become weird any solution for that?

[@Cloganart]

Hmm, interesting - i did see some similar bugs in this case on other people's engine builds. Does it show weirdly in the sequencer or in the export?

[@maahisingh7181]

@@Cloganart it looks wierd in sequencer and after export also

[@stfirefly]

Great tutorial! Just one thing. When snapping your Ik bones to parent I found that Snap Rotation needs to be checked in order for it to work correctly.

[@illyay1337]

Shouldn't you also snap rotation?

[@Kher.mp4]

Amazing! Thank you :)

[@Finijtzu]

thanks for this!

[@williamtolliver749]

So I think i found the answer to my question but I wansted to ask it just to be sure: Can you BAKE animations sequences that are retargeted for example FROM MIXAMO, TO the Metahuman or Manny CONTROL RIG? Everytime i try to, the animations never show up in the menu. And when i watch tutorials, its ALWAYS animations that came with the Metahumans. No one has detailed about this issue so far, at least that ive found.

[@Cloganart]

Yes we can! Make sure to retarget the animation to the skeleton ahead of time using the new IK rig (it's a bit tricky but you can watch a few tutorials on it here on youtube) kzbin.info/www/bejne/rYCWfX2bqZujf8U&ab_channel=GorkaGames

[@Sebastian-k3e7u]

Yea but you cant do it at baked control ring

[@DawnBriarDev]

I hate to say "just".. But just make a python script to do this in one click in blender, for every animation, including preserving offsets when a weapon is weilded. Look, I'm a solo developer, and I'm self taught. I spent the time to learn many languages just for applications like this. Because, if you put things into perspective: How many times across a title are you going to have to do this? How many animations will you be doing this to each time? You're going to spend 400 hours breaking your fingers this way. Or.. Spend 30 hours to learn how to make a Python script, and in the process, make 60 other addons you needed now that you know how. This works if you're just retargeting the Mannequinn or one Mixamo character one time. It doesn't work in a broader context. If you read this far, I'll even share my own python script for snapping bones. You just gotta either: A- Have the same bone names. or B- Change the bone names at the top of my script to your own. I wonder if youtube will actually let me post a python script as a comment. I'll find out if someone asks.

[@Cloganart]

That would be wonderful! Feel free to add it as a link!

[@DawnBriarDev]

@@Cloganart Sorry for third update. I re-recorded the video to make it's use more clear (as well as show how to solve all of Unreal's inbuilt bugs relating to retargeting and reimporting animations in three simple steps.) Addon is on gumroad, video title is "Unreal Engine: Snap Retargeted IK Bones AUTOMATICALLY", they link to each other. Addon batch snaps every animation in one click, regardless how many hundreds of animations you throw at it in one go.

[@caesium8349]

@@DawnBriarDev I can't find the video and the addon. Can you share the link?

[@forge7973]

Hey chares i Love you have a great summer , i was just thinking how i coud use the rig to "fIX" some animations but i have no idea how to set it up :) +1 sub

[@naivrat]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bF6klZ5sf7WEbrs this video has slightly better solution, as there is no need to edit ALL the source animations.

[@Cloganart]

Thank you for sharing this! This is a great solution that I actually use on my projects as well, but for those that do not want to create a new IK subsystem for their needs, retargeting the IK bones back to their position may work for some quick two bone functions. The new ways are much better especially with UE5 however. I would fundamentally say having an IK system that does not rely on the IK bones of the skeleton is a much better solution. Like you said, otherwise you'll have to do this for individual animations.

[@tuatec]

Does this solution also cover the ik_hand_gun bone?