UE5 Retargeting: IKRetargeter setup for Unreal Engine 5 with Uefy 2.5

[@RakizFarooq]

IMPORTANT: This tutorial follows after kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5jbeIBmbcd2oaM where we setup the IKRig objects used in this video. Be sure to review that video before following along with this one.

[@yoyobird8427]

i dont know if you still read comments on your videos but i had a question. when a character has shoes but I want them implimented in the game to be wearable what is the workflow for that? what i mean is adding the shoes bumps up the location information as the character is no longer on the ground. so do i rig the character barefoot and impliment it in ue5 as equipment and the chage wont be much of an issue or do i need to rig the character with and without shoes? i just dont want a floating character or one stuck partly in the ground and still have root motion work for the animations.

[@RakizFarooq]

@@yoyobird8427 You can implement a system where every 'shoe' object has a height value that can be added to the character mesh Z value in the blueprint character capsule. That could be one solution of many, ultimately this is a design decision in the engine side. You will need to figure out how you want to approach it. If you want to break up your character into parts or keep it in one mesh depends on your project needs.

[@yoyobird8427]

@@RakizFarooq I will try that. For know i am having issues getting my character to work now. I used the manny89 rig preset in blender and matched it to my character applied scale and generated a rig. i skinned it. and then when doing the build skeleton I cant control the rig... before I build the skele I can with the control rig. not sure what is going on. do you have a video about making your own rig and not just modifying another characters rig? i am just a bit confused when it comes to an actual character without a rig. i don't know I am a bit lost. any help would be awesome

[@RakizFarooq]

@@yoyobird8427 You can not use the manny89 metarig for skinning the character. If you have a static mesh in object mode use Shift + A -> Uefy Script -> Reference Skeleton -> Basic Posing Skeleton or any of the other skeletons in that list to skin your character before using rigify. This will serve as your initial skeleton. Then follow the usual rigging method with manny89 or the other metarigs to create the rig. Uefy will transfer the weight paint from the initial skeleton to the final export rig so you don't need to weight paint it twice.

[@sidney6582]

I can't thank you enough. This pipeline is full of so many mine fields, but these videos cover it all

[@dreambadger]

I'm just getting started. The whole modelling, painting, animation pipeline felt like a nightmare to get my head around, for example there's so much overlap between products that I've had trouble figuring out what to do in which piece of software. Now I'm thinking, Blender for Modelling, Sculpt, Retopology, UV Unwrap, Rigging with Rigify, and then UEFY tool and then retargeting inside Unreal. And Substance painter softwares for the texture/materials part. That's as far as I've gotten so far, anyway. I'm sure there will be other bits to figure out, like triggering animations depending on button presses or situations, blending animations together and all the other fun.

[@AdORRsAaOo-zj7zf]

do you have a discord server or something?

[@RamanandP]

Keep up the awesome work!

[@ChuckstaGaming]

Thanks for this, very useful! Subbed :)

[@rudolfdyr1797]

Hello! Very curious about your addon. Right now I am starting with gaming developement in UE 5, but have been already animating in Blender with rigify for quite some time. I want to ask, if it is possible, to use your addon for my rig even after I have already animated a few actions in Blender. Or do I have to animate everything again after optimising the rigs with uefy. Thank you for answer in advance!

[@RakizFarooq]

Uefy doesn't automatically convert existing rigify rigs. Because the addon makes changes both before and after 'Generate Rig' button is pressed and preexisting rigify rig will not have those initial changes. So you must remove rigify and setup a new metarig to build an operational rig. However in Blender, animations curves are applied to bones/controls based on their name only. If your prebuilt animations use the same control names as the new rig then those animations will continue to work.

[@RakizFarooq]

Even so you will need to account for the default pose and changes in position/scale for the controls. During the rigging process using Uefy we usually change the reference pose to be the same as the UE mannequin. This might make it different to your existing animations.

[@rudolfdyr1797]

@@RakizFarooq Thank you for the reply! I see. I have to study much more about this gaming rigging as it easily gets quite complicated for an amateur like me :D

[@wolfwirestudios]

I have a question. How can I transfer a skeleton from UE4 manny to any 3D Character model ? With proper blend weights etc. How to do it using UEFY?

[@pawpotsRS]

is the rig on that non-standard sk character was also generated from rigify?

[@RakizFarooq]

Yes .. it is made with rigify + uefy

[@Zatellia]

So quick question, im following along, retargeting from a ue4 to a ue5 and everything lines up perfect exxcept the shoulders of the ue5 look smushed in some of the animation mainly over head animations... all the bones are alined correctly but on the ue5 skelly it looks like the shoulders bones are lower then the ue4 with the head at the same height. any idea?

[@RakizFarooq]

You can probably fix that by changing the pull chain-alpha on the hand IK target and/or the clavicle rotation stiffness in the IKRig object. See kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5jbeIBmbcd2oaM around 6 min 30 sec onward.

[@Zatellia]

@@RakizFarooq yeah i just tried to play around with all of those, they show tiny differences but nothing enough to make it look normal... thank you for the response, ill have to keep playing around until i find it

[@brandenl]

what about root motion animations? The root bone isn't moving with the animation for me. Root motion is enabled. The pelvis moves but the root bone does not.

[@RakizFarooq]

Root motion animations are supported and work just fine. In rigify the root controller is the large circle on the floor with the four directional arrows. You are probably moving the torso control which doesn't move the root bone.

[@RakizFarooq]

Or did you mean with the IKRetargeter? The setup shown in the video was tested with root motion and works correctly. You need to make sure you did not miss the root bone in the IKRig Setup in kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5jbeIBmbcd2oaM or the settings in the Retargeter. Also make sure the animation you are retargeting actually has root motion.

[@brandenl]

@@RakizFarooq yeah i followed this and the previous video to a T. the animations come from the "Protector" animation pack. It is labeled as Root motion and has root motion enabled. However I'm noticing as mentioned before that the root bone isn't moving with the animation. So when it's used in game the character moves forward but snaps back to where the root was. I might just retarget in ue4 and import them into the ue5 project

[@RakizFarooq]

You don't need to retarget in UE4, this works fine in UE5 itself. In the IKRetargeter go to 'Chain Mapping' panel and select the root chain. Then in details panel set the Translation mode to "Globally Scaled" or "Absolute". You need may need to ensure the root bone retargeting options in the skeleton are set to animation or animation scaled prior to retargeting. Afterwards you will also need to setup a correct anim blueprint with root motion enabled on the retargeted animation.

[@brandenl]

@@RakizFarooq hmm ill take a look again. Thanks I'll let you know how it goes later today!

[@primefx1977]

hey can you please show us how to export quadruped from blender to unreal

[@Oskar-sl6zx]

what about the rigify face?

[@RakizFarooq]

Uefy supports the older rigify superface rig. Currently there is no support for the newer face bones. However you can still use superface as shown in kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3u4iH2ud9-Kabs The rigify superface rig is overkill in most cases. You can also add basic_copy type bones for simpler jaw movement as shown in the Uefy metarigs for daz and cc3.

[@wellweldedgames]

Is it possible to retarget to metahuman skeleton with this tool?

[@RakizFarooq]

The UE5 default mannequin skeleton _is_ the metahuman skeleton. It doesn't contain any face bones but otherwise it is the same. I don't use metahumans because they are not suitable for my projects. But I have seen people mention successfully using this process with metahumans in the UE forums. This is something only for experienced users.

[@crossman1611]

I'm just getting started with Unreal Engine. I've been modeling characters in blender now and want to import them to to UE5. Is this app still relevant? I see a lot of the videos are from 2 years ago or so. It seems promising but I don't want to drop $30 on an app that isn't relevant. Can anyone confirm that this is still the best way to go to getting a character from Blender to Unreal? Thanks in advance.

[@RakizFarooq]

Uefy v2.5 added support for Unreal Engine 5, so yes it is current and you can use it. The workflow remains the same as it was before. Therefore for custom characters you would still use kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5iaZp6JoLCeq8k to rig characters. The difference is you now have more options including UE5 specific metarigs and controls for metacarpals etc. If you will be rigging your own static mesh characters. Please be aware you need to add an initial skeleton and weight paint before using the addon. There are some reference skeleton in Uefy you can use for auto weights and fixing manually to get that initial skeleton. Afterwards it is same as following the process in the linked video.

[@RakizFarooq]

Also be aware that the primary function of the addon is to fix the rigify export from Blender. A lot as changed on how to retarget and manage animations in Unreal Engine 5 versus how simple it was in UE4. All of that work including most of the details in this particular tutorial are Engine side and have nothing to do with the addon. You will be expected to refer to UE5 documentation for Engine side related queries.

[@aerrichs3ds418]

Ue5 comes with a finished ik rig + retargeter for ue4 and ue5 skeleton so you don't actually have to create them by yourself.

[@RakizFarooq]

Uefy 2.5 can export with Unreal/Maya based joint rolls in which case you can use the existing UE5 rig as is. But my preferred workflow is with Blender based joint rolls for maximum compatibility with Blender. In this case an updated rig and retargeter is needed as shown in this tutorial.

[@RakizFarooq]

Also some of characters used don't match any ue5 mannequin skeleton. This tutorial can be used as a guide to setup non standard rigs too.