Replace UE4 Mannequin with Blender rigged Character for ALS

[@MikeDBoing]

This script of yours is amazing. It fixed the worst problems we ever faced and i cannot thank you enough. There where also some seldom seen tidbits of information in your video series that I haven't found anywhere else like the hand/finger bone rotation specification. That one had me stumped and you nailed it. Now I am faced with a new issue and this one is also a head scratcher. I switch characters during run-time with a node setup in the ALS Base Character blueprint with some keyboard keys. The issue is, because they have different height, some float above the floor. I have tried many ways to add local offsets to individual characters but the thing is, when i switch back to characters that do not need that offset, they are now inside the floor. Have you ever had that problem?

[@RakizFarooq]

You could try changing the Translation Retargeting options on the default unreal mannequin. The defaults will already have the root bone on 'Animation' and pelvis on 'Animation Scaled'. As you can see in the video both the troll and survivor characters have wildly different scales but their feet are planted on the floor with these defaults. I made my own controller and I don't use ALS for this purpose., so I can't really say what to do. In my setup, every character is a Blueprint with a different mesh and offset options etc which all inherit from the same Base Blueprint that contains all the gameplay logic. When I switch characters I don't switch the mesh I replace the whole blueprint. That means that any offsets like Weapon holster locations and IK corrections for each individual character are automatically updated while I only every need to write code once. Maybe something like that will work with ALS too? You'll need to come up with a solution that works with this system.

[@MikeDBoing]

@@RakizFarooq Thanks for the quick reply, while that way did not fix it , it did make me wonder about another blueprint that adds an offset and rotation to the manequin, then the light bulb went off. I just added that offset and rotation to the ALS Base Character after the reset transforms node. That worked so i just copy/pasted the whole thing to the other characters and adusted the height offset and, blammo!! problem solved. Thank you for the wonderfull work you do and keep making those videos, it allways sparks creativity.

[@la_dragonstudios2670]

bro thank you for this, i was looking everywhere on info for this and i cant seem to find any.

[@cVcYoutube]

yo this is great! Can you do a tutorial on adding animations like aiming and shooting from mixamo with the locomototive system

[@Supergab85]

the simplest tutorial! thanks

[@jamesmccracken1045]

Nice video dude! Can you make a video of how to replace the gun of alv4 with other gun. Like cg trader or sketchfab guns? Please mannn 🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@bluethumbbuttoneek9465]

So what part do we add in the last bit ( the rolls) like before creating unreal skeleton ? Wasn't clear since u already had it on

[@bluethumbbuttoneek9465]

The joint rolls

[@josiahfennell]

this is so close to being exactly what I need. I just have one problem, when I change the skeletal mesh in the blueprint my mesh is completely distorted. The legs are stretched horizontally, everything's floating in midair, it's completely unrecognizable as my character mesh. All my bones are named properly, the scale is correct, and importing to unreal yields no error messages. I've spent hours trying to figure out a process that works, if anyone knows something that may help please share!

[@RakizFarooq]

Make sure you set translation retargeting options in the unreal editor after import. Check kzbin.info/www/bejne/g4PLdXeYipWtmqc around 44 mins 30 sec mark. You need to set these so characters of different sizes can work off the same animation.

[@micahpharoh]

Do all of the ik bones work too? If you walked on the uneven ground with your troll would the foot placement be correct?

[@RakizFarooq]

Uefy Script outputs all IK bones as in the unreal mannequin. Foot placement works correctly. Good foot placement depends on more than just the IK. For large size characters capsule size and other factors must also be taken into account within the engine. However the script outputs the character with all IK bones as they are in the Epic Skeleton.

[@micahpharoh]

@@RakizFarooq It looks like you've kept adding features over time. That's awesome! Do you have a roadmap of features you're currently planning?

[@RakizFarooq]

There is no roadmap per se. I use the script for my own project so it really depends on what I need. Currently a new version will be out in a week or so. Beyond that there are a couple of additional things I would like, will need to see how that turns out.

[@micahpharoh]

@@RakizFarooq Well, you convinced me. Now I can't figure out how to use your tools on a human metarig that I created. There doesn't seem to be a preset. Shouldn't that be the most common use case? What about converting an existing rigify armature using your tools? Thanks!

[@RakizFarooq]

The script makes changes both before and after rigify's "Generate Rig" button is clicked. Since characters already rigged with rigify without using the script won't have those initial changes the script can not automatically update them. In this case like most others you have to follow the tutorial in kzbin.info/www/bejne/oabUlnpspKyEgK8 to update bone names and rolls for the basic character skeleton then use the script to pose and autogenerate the complete bone hierarchy. You need a character with 6 bone spine, 4 bone limbs and 3 bone fingers. If you have a plain static mesh just add those bones yourself. The upcoming script version has a tool to speed that up. If you are updating an character rigged with rigify. I suggest you export it to the unreal engine then reimport it to blender to get rid of rigify controls and work with just the export bones using the above mentioned tutorial.

[@ScifiSiShredaholic]

Heya Rakiz, does this work with characters that use the rigify face rig?

[@RakizFarooq]

Yes .. The face rig is just attached to the head bone it will simply move along with the head bone. This works the same for any other bone attached to the main hierarchy like shoulder pads, backpacks etc.

[@bortuda]

Thanks

[@MickaelDaniel]

Hey, thanks for the tutorial and uefy, it's really working well ;) I recently rigged a custom mesh using uefy 1.3 and tried to import on the skeleton for ALSv4 (with bone rolls). Did you try with v4 ? It has some extra virtual bones, and everytime I try to import the mesh using als skeleton, I get a crash in the engine with the error: Array index out of bounds: 77 from an array of size 77 If I remove the virtual bones, I can import but some of the features of ALS are then not working anymore. If anyone has a fix (other than deleting the virtual bones), I'd be glad to hear it! Thanks!

[@RakizFarooq]

I have just tried with a Mixamo character ( kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5iaZp6JoLCeq8k ) and the unreal mannequin rigged in blender. Both work just fine. I used Uefy 2.0 but the Lite version will work correctly too. However this seems to be a bug in the unreal engine. If the skeleton has virtual bones attached and try to import a character with a non-default number of bones greater than the mannequin then that error can occur. So it seems until the engine is fixed, you have to stick to characters with exactly the same bone hierarchy as the mannequin if you want to use ALS.

[@MickaelDaniel]

@@RakizFarooq Yeah, it definitely sounds like a bug in the engine. Thanks for your response though!

[@MickaelDaniel]

Temporary fix: Remove all virtual bones from ALS mannequin skeleton, do the import, and manually re-add each virtual bones with correct source and target. It's not ideal but works for me ;) Here is a list of all the bones I found on ALS discord: cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/671140338521341952/690605602161950770/unknown.png Thanks again for uefy @Rakiz Farooq, I had no idea how to rig a character correctly for ue4 epic skeleton and it was really helpful!

[@leftblue12]

So this is like Artv1 for Blender?

[@RakizFarooq]

The combined effect of Blender + rigify + uefy is pretty close to ART. Not quite as versatile but good enough for my needs. Without the $1500/yr price tag of Maya!

[@bluethumbbuttoneek9465]

@@RakizFarooq maya is free if ur not a landlubber