UE4: Control Rig - First Steps

This is my very first tutorial video for an experimental series of videos about me learning rigging and animating with the help of Control Rig in Unreal Engine.
Unreal Engine Version: 4.25.1
Blender Version: 2.82
I briefly talk about my background, what Control Rig is and how to prepare your model in Blender.
We then import the model, enable Control Rig and check out the Control Rig Editor.
At the end we create one control and use the Distribute Rotation Solver to move the scorpions tail.
There is a brief outlook what comes next.
Also check out the Control Rig Mannequin Project on the Marketplace for further studies:
www.unrealengine.com/marketpl...
#UE4 #gamedev #Animation #ControlRig #Rigging

[@AndiDev]

I am still trying to find time to update this series. Meanwhile I made an official video that goes deeper into the auto walk in a much better way using Full Body IK solver. I hope to move this over to the scorpion soon. kzbin.info/www/bejne/kGnIopR8fJyfkLM

[@osakanone]

Do you have the scorpion mesh somewhere so I can follow along and perform a sanity check? I am attempting to follow with my own model, but for some reason the unit vectors of the imported object are not behaving appropriately despite matching the Blender file's use of them (Y forward, Z and X as secondary vectors) and following your import settings and I do not understand why this is happening.

[@AndiDev]

@@osakanone try x as main and -y as secondary axis on export.

[@MaxCrow]

Thank you for a great tutorial. I built my first simple skeleton today, imported it as an FBX and was able to bend all the bones. A small step but a huge boost to my confidence.

[@AndiDev]

That’s great to hear! I also like it a lot when you do something first. I still remember the first time I moved a sprite over a screen.

[@kuro2ck]

Instant Sub! Looking forward to the rest of the series! Keep them coming.

[@Gavrev]

Congratulations man.. you've become the first person I've found to cover this matter from first principles, and in a way that's very simple and clear. I hope you can find the time to continue this!

[@maxhuk]

Thank you for making these videos! This format of shorter videos is much better for actually remembering stuff than hours long sessions 🙏

[@JannerBros]

That's really informative Andi. Thanks for your amazing tutorial! Also looking forward to see more Advance tutorials in similar topics.! Thanks again Andi! ~JannerBros

[@DeeOdzta]

Really great, have wanted to learn more about the control rig animation methods so thanks for these tutorials, new sub :)

[@FrostbiteCinematics]

Thank you!! :D Very good explanations :) I'm pretty excited to see the control rig tool evolve. Looks pretty cool. I'm not really good at rigging when it comes to Maya and I haven't even touched the more technical programming side of it, so having everything laid out visually in UE4 is SO cool!

[@Adama_Now]

I am just jumping into Unreal (and loving it) and am very interested in this process. I have been frustrated with so many animation programs, but I think Unreal is going to take me to my next level!

[@moleytv]

Hi Andi. Your video looks very interesting. I've brewed some coffee, cleared space in my calendar and I'm going to go on this journey with you! Thanks for taking the time to make the videos

[@ShaileshYadav__]

thanks mate! you really did well with your first video. Your tutorial helped me a lot.

[@wink3319]

Nice! Cool Stuff! I always wanted to get an intro into how to use this module and you make it very accessible. Thank you!

[@Imphenzia]

Great, makes me want to play around with UE for a bit =) Love the gizmo library and the control they provide in the viewport.

[@AndiDev]

I might dive into it more in a later episode adding own hand made gizmos. All because I could learn Blender from your awesome tutorials and challenges!

[@nowlog502]

Very nice introduction to topic. Great video!

[@StevenDiLeo]

Thanks for making this video! I can't wait to watch more. Also can't wait to dig into control rig! 🤩🎉🤩

[@pitouithekid]

Thanks a lot Andi. I was struggling on the how to do that. and Control Rig and your clear explanation made it possible.

[@scaredyfish]

This is great! I’ve been trying to decide whether to rig my model in Blender or Unreal, but I can already see Control Rig is going to be the best choice.

[@xrcryptodev]

Thank you--awesome tutorial, great pace, I learned a lot. Looking forward to more great teaching.

[@AndiDev]

The reason I wasn't extending this was that I was working on a official one for 4.26, which got released today: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r2O6q4Gsf7-eZqc

[@Menelaz]

Wonderful! Thank you so much, looking forward to see more from you!

[@hbirtt]

I had no idea that control rig was... this. Thank you. It's nice to get a description from a programmer. I'm in the same boat. Been trying to learn modeling and plan to learn animation from blender for ue, and that toolchain is not simple. This looks like something that could be very helpful for people like me. I imagine it will seem like added complication for experienced animators, but for people like me (us?) these look like useful tools.

[@Cazaq]

Lovely work, mate!

[@badanos]

Subbed! looking forward for this to continue!

[@luciedpyt]

Thanks a lot for this tutorial ! It's pretty clear and very helpful !!

[@maniacb0y]

Pretty interesting. Eager to see more on the Control Rig. :)

[@stefanguiton]

Great stuff! Subbed. Looking foward to more

[@card00r]

Really informative video Andi! Easy sub sir You seem really hard on yourself :P Don't be! You explain things very clearly and concisely. Seriously great stuff! Keep it up!

[@teher1k]

Great content, Andi! I needed this exact approach from zero to still being very very simple and comprehend-able. I hope you appreciate a little side note from a fellow countryman; it's not IKEA without the A / it's actually OKAY with an I instead of O. Just can't help but making sure you sound even more professional! ;)

[@alonsoriera7066]

Great video! Thumbnail: 11/10

[@GamedevTeacher]

Great tutorial! Thank you so much!

[@marlo3d288]

This is awesome! Thank you for the nice video!

[@MrShroombot]

This is wonderful! I am using this to create a control rig for a gigantic crawler crane. Cheers!

[@UnchartedWorlds]

Hi Andreas, thanks for making this. I'm subscribing thanks to this tutorial! Make more! :)

[@samueljean3111]

Great stuff, thanks so much for the video

[@manuelfishers]

thanks for the tutorial! good luck with your new youtube career :)

[@AndiDev]

Haha.. Thanks. I do not intend to build a career here but video works best for this and youtube is a better host for this kind of stuff than an own blog or just tweets.

[@AndiDev]

The reason I wasn't extending this was that I was working on a official one for 4.26, which got released today: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r2O6q4Gsf7-eZqc

[@gnomesoffibberton]

This is great. I really do hope you continue with these tutorials, they are very detailed and straight forward.

[@StoneDesignsChannel]

Hi @AndiDev I'm having an issue with a portion of my control rig that's based on your "Using Control Rig In Unreal Engine" Video that you posted on UE official KZbin. It seems that when I create an effector using the Basic IK, all of the bones above the effector change their rotation to zero and none rotate properly. I've shown my issue in the following video. It's probably something super simple but any advice would be great! Thank You! kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4LLc4evp9F-gpo

[@AndiDev]

@@StoneDesignsChannel Finally saw it. But hard to say why this goes wrong. Two things I would check. Your chain is not a straight chain of bones. You have the rotator bone there from what I can see. Have you tried to use FABRIC or CCDK just for testing? This would be a good case for a FullbodyIK setup. I just made a video about it. But that's only in 5.0 early access. There is another one in 4.27 and maybe worth a try. Second thing is checking the bone orientation of your skeleton. It is preferred to have them X as main axis. If you maybe have different orientations on your bones, it can cause this kind of behavior.

[@ColdSphinX]

Thanks for the great video!

[@ivanvakulko3999]

Thank you! Nice tutorial!

[@mch43856]

Thank you amazing tutorial!

[@violentpixelation5486]

Great series about #ControlRigs in #UnrealEngine . Thanks alot!

[@Femador]

This is awesome!

[@juniorcarvalho4289]

This video is awesome. Thank you. I want to see more.

[@AndiDev]

There is an official one for 4.26 now: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r2O6q4Gsf7-eZqc

[@realadnoh]

Danke Andi! Gut erklärt!

[@Birdman_Animation_Studio]

thanks for the excellent content

[@robbie_]

Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

[@TheKitneys]

Well done Sir... well done.

[@marc0matic]

Really Helpful Tute. Thanks so much

[@LucianoJacomeli]

very nice i hope see more videos about it.

[@alessioalonne4333]

You are a very goood teacher, I really like your approach, very clear!

[@artemkabin764]

keep moving forward!

[@bilelchenchana1011]

nice video man

[@notnA51]

THIS!!! I was so frustrated when I was trying to import my test character into UE5. The IK rig for the legs just came out wonky and wrong. Exporting the FBX with the correct primary and secondary coordinates was really helpful.

[@metafoyfoy6194]

big fan ... my mentor !! sensei !! thank you soo much this video is really helpful for me .. thanks a lot .. :-)

[@adamodimattia]

I really like your content and the way it is presented. The official Unreal channel video was a little bit cloudy and rushed but this is great. I also don’t mind no editing. Maybe unedited is better.

[@da_cat]

awesome man, thx

[@MarkOfArgyll]

Cool stuff! Subscribing was a no brainer :D

[@successblue]

Thank you very much!

[@SonaliSingh]

Interesting Video. I'll be looking forward to the next one. I saw your scorpion rig demo on twitter and really loved the lag that you've introduced in the hands through transform interpolation. I'm also exploring it and sharing tutorials on my channel from an Animator's point of view. As I don't have as much experience as yourself, not even close 😅I'm sure i'll learn a few things from you and maybe we can collaborate.

[@AndiDev]

I plan to make one episode only about the mathematic simulation nodes used for that.

[@SonaliSingh]

@@AndiDev That would be great.😊

[@AndiDev]

I saw yours now. I am not through yet. But very well done! And you might have more rigging and animation experience than me. So I am sure I will learn a few things from you. As someone new to video editing I can see how much work yours is. Very impressive. Keep up the good work! Looks great!

[@RuiManuel]

Thanks!!

[@shadowzain]

Thank you!

[@ZerofeverOfficial]

I subscribed and belled, I need to do some mountain climbing in a game and am going to use Control Rig to do all the anims and this will help so much!

[@AndiDev]

That sounds like a nice use case! Oh I just released the second one about Basic IK. I think that is what would be interesting for you.

[@pixelsurfergames]

Thanks Andi!

[@aboodealtikrity2850]

Before Watching the Video i sub because its looks like awesome thanks thanks

[@user-yh7so2wb3m]

good job

[@mokshithpb7991]

Nice Video

[@manuelglez9347]

Would love to see a tutorial in how to rig something for unreal

[@hbirtt]

Same. It seems like something that would be well described all over the place, but I haven't found anything that does a good job explaining how to setup a rig with the Epic Skeleton in Blender. Mr. Mannequin Tools is helpful for getting that rig. This video is the first that I've seen that simply covered the export settings. I get the impression from most of the Blender to Unreal tutorials that the people making them aren't sure about the export/import process. They always seem to only cover parts of it and there is a lot of "these settings seem to work."

[@deepelements]

Sweet thanks. . I curious if you could use this to make existing animations in unreal more stylized.

[@AndiDev]

As far as I understand not in the current status. It is quite a mathematical endeavor to reverse calculate the controls from a pose as far was I understand it.

[@nickgooch77]

Thank you so much for making this tutorial! Have you found a way to export the animation from the sequencer to an actual animation file? I can’t figure it out!

[@AndiDev]

Right click the control rig in sequencer. There is Save as Animation Sequence.

[@vexedev]

Hey man, very glad I found your channel, saw your video on the Unreal Engine channel and wanted to learn more! Was just curious about Root Motion with control rig, so in order for me to animate something that takes advantage of root motion, I just literally have to animate or affect the 'root' bone? (of course I still have to enable Root motion in the animation sequence etc but just asking purely from an animator perspective)

[@hiQer]

Hey nice video! I played with the demo but would not understand (and there seems to be no documentation yet) how to use this for my own character. Question: When using this system is it meant to be used for cutscenes or also for creating animations for characters in the world? And if both how do we approach that? I would love to learn this. Thanks for the effort, you explain it well and did awesome editing already!

[@scottownbey8041]

Keep rocking just subscribed. Will you be doing any update videos on this subject with 4.26?

[@AndiDev]

The reason I wasn't extending this was that I was working on a official one for 4.26, which got released today: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r2O6q4Gsf7-eZqc

[@MarkReisch]

I saw that as you rotated your control rig circle, all the rotation axis were changing when it should have only been rotate x? Is that just because when you brought in your rig that the rotations weren't set to zero? Thanks for this tutorial! Great stuff!

[@AmranSidek]

never know this..yup..subscribed thx...

[@openworldgamedevjontyin2242]

THANK UUUUUU ..

[@KavanBahrami]

I would love to see a little bit on your blender animating, I'm having tons of issues getting a clean model that doesn't warp all over the place when IK is setup in Control Rig. Do you have any recommended resources?

[@SectorZeroGP]

How could i create my own gizmo in unreal? :O (sorry if it seems a stupid question, but i would like to know it if its possible please) :3

[@-OFICH-]

Cool)

[@LEGIT134]

Hello, I am James and for weeks I have been having issues with Control Rig. I keep at it because once I get it I can make all sorts of games. at 15:48 in your video I setup Distribute Rotation and I can't find Start Bone or End Bone. I am using 4.26 is the version you are using 4.25?

[@aeli_tan_art]

hi there! wondering if you managed to solve this?

[@CdeeqFilmmaker]

Help plz ...I am trying to figure out how to use the absolute function inside on sequencer inside unreal engine? I want to be replace the animation below with new keyframe then ease back. now the character just slides off

[@SuperMontana2008]

more control rig stuff would be great in Ue5?

[@ninomancuso7021]

A quick question on the distribute rotation node you added; has that changed? The current node in 4.27 doesnt have any boxes for start and end bones...

[@ninomancuso7021]

for anyone finding the same issue, the solution in 4.27 is to select the bones you want to use, drag them onto the graph, and they create an Items list for you. Plug that into the Distribute Rotator items list. Then you can add Controls to individual Rotations... (thanks aelien!)

[@knerf999]

is there a playlist on this? I found it really helpful but hunger for more

[@AndiDev]

There is an official one for 4.26 now that goes further. kzbin.info/www/bejne/r2O6q4Gsf7-eZqc

[@knerf999]

@@AndiDev awesoime!

[@26allanr]

How do you reference the created control rig in animation blueprint, everyone seems to gloss over this and NONE of the online docs match 4.27s flow

[@jdvroum]

Hello, can you explain how you create the skeleton in blender ? Did you merge all meshes ? How when you are in edit mode, can you select only the leg if all the meshes are only onle object ? Thanks for your help.

[@AndiDev]

Yes. All meshes are merged into one. With "L" you can select only connected parts in edit mode while hovering the mouse over a part of it.

[@paulmaloney9037]

I'm trying to learn how to animate Lamborghino car door with the hyrdraulic pistons working properly. Would you know how to do a tutorial on that?

[@SeanLake3D]

You mention at 03:28 to change the scale to 0.01, but could you maybe change the Length setting to Centimeters and keep the scale to 1.0? Just curious.

[@Cronofear]

Does control rig work on runtime, can i control a rig while playing the game? Also, subbed. This tutorial is superb!

[@AndiDev]

Yes. It is not optimized yet. But I plan to spend at least one episode on it.

[@oskar7063]

Where do you have this cool 3d model from?Great tut btw

[@AndiDev]

Happy you like it. It is actually the first proper model I made.

[@oskar7063]

@@AndiDev Nice work dude👍

[@jimmyt_1988]

I've made my armature with a structure of "Armature/Armature/root". The armature is the parent of the mesh. I only have 1 bone. When I export, that bone is not picked up correctly. Any thoughts?

[@garageman2236]

This is amazing! Is this model availiable somewhere?

[@AndiDev]

No. It is my first model and the topology isn't very good. I am thinking of taking the time and do it proper. There are several requests and I think about releasing it when I find the time to make it "proper"

[@ShaneReuter]

Hey! I can't seem to be able to open the animation by double clicking it. Every tutorial I've seen has the animation window come up but it doesn't work for me. Any thoughts as to why?

[@AndiDev]

mmh. Hard to say. Maybe try to reset your editor layout. Windows->LoadLayout->DefaultEditorLayout

[@RobCardIV]

11:55 for making a Control Rig. he left clicks in the blank area below all the rigging bone names to deselect any bones, and creates a new control right. probably. ive no idea tbh. im as lost as any one

[@blakearndt3771]

As of 4.26.1 control rig is now in beta, which means they will support all current functionality moving forward. Also, I think it's weird that this video didn't touch on the Blender/UE4 Bridge. Also, Distribute Rotation node is different now, darn it.

[@jackthewhite12]

this node has changed in unreal engine 5 still trying to figure it out

[@hotsauce7124]

Hello, how would I get a float variable of the Controllers translation?

[@alekjwrgnwekfgn]

In Blender, when recalculating the roll of the bones in a limb. (Armature > Bone Roll > Recalculate Roll> ...) Is there a recommended orientation for Unreal? Or how does your choice affect the fbx output options?

[@AndiDev]

It does. Blender uses the right hand coordinate system with the Z axis pointing upwards. UE is left handed Z up. In export it is recommended to set primary axis to X for UE. and secondary depends a bit what you want and how your bones are orientated in the amature. I try to have Z as "up" or pointing outside and in the same direction for the whole hierarchy so I can easily switch (-)Z and (-)Y on export if that doesnt give me the wanted results. Most important is consistency within the hierarchy from what I saw so far.

[@alekjwrgnwekfgn]

@@AndiDev thanks so much for you response and work on KZbin. There really is so little information for solo-devs (generalists looking for in-depth explanations). If you had the time to make a step-by step paid tutorial series on Gumroad, you would do really well (because there is nothing). I'm just finishing Creative Shrimp's Hard-Surface Rigging course, and that is one of the best courses I've ever done. An advanced course by him and you taking it to Unreal, would be awesome.

[@snakeeyesdeclassified]

AWESOME .............. THANK YOU I SUBSCRIDE AND FOLLOW

[@DarkEdgeDesign]

When i hook up Transform Control to my Transform Bone (root) the model jumps backward...how do i fix this?

[@peter486]

hey andi what are the benefit´s creating a rig, wouldent you animate in another software

[@OnyeNacho]

How do I package my game with ControlRig? Errors bombard when I try to package.

[@IconicProps]

When you said you choose yours as Y. You selected -Y. Is there a difference?