I'm at a loss, guys. I've googled for hours on end, almost as much time as I spent trying to find out how to actually manipulate models' bones in UE4's engine, rather than Autodesk Maya or another program, but I have no idea where to go to at this point. None of the friends that I have that know how to use Unreal Engine 4 will talk to me about any topic even close to this, so I'm beseeching you people for help.
Where the hell do I find the names for every bone for Unreal Engine 4?
Source has its own bone hierarchy: ValveBiped, where every bone follows a certain naming structure so that the engine can use that information and group these bones together logically. UE4 appears to have the same, but wherever I go, wherever I look, I find nothing. Bobkes. Every time I try to search for the UE4 skeleton names I get redirected to "How to work with skeleton assets!" "How to make a skeleton!" "How to use Autodesk Maya in order to make an animation!" "How to make a character model!"
I'm losing my mind. Can someone please just concretely tell me or give me a hint where to find the naming conventions for Unreal Engine bones so I can finally stop trying to torture myself with bricks and hammers like Source Filmmaker and make better quality digital art?
Does this help?
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/4bc638a0-830c-4774-bb53-06950b583953/Bones.jpg
thank u i love u
I'm a bit confused. You can create custom skeletons in UE4 pretty easily, it's sort of fundamental to game production, and even the default skeleton had a number of changes over the course of the engine releases. You could even import Valve's biped skeleton if you wanted to use source engine compatible models.
The issue is, considering I don't want to use UE4 for game production but rather for digital art and scene posing (because going through countless loopholes for SFM's buggy mess when it comes to WoW imports is just too much for me), that the models I'm importing are barely even understandable, skeleton-wise. With a full bone hierarchy, I can simply rename the essential bones on the model's already existing skeleton, rather than going through the process of re-rigging everything from the ground up. When it comes to general design, I'm still an amateur, truth be told, and cutting corners at the moment is the best way for me to set something as "simple" as 3d digital art up.
The model I'm importing currently, too, is generally a biped, but I needed a full list for the sake of naming conventions and that only. I tried searching and searching and couldn't find a reference to go by, but Matze's picture is an excellent point of reference to go by.
I'm still confused. You can use any rig you want. If your model is already rigged and has animations, you're 99% of the way there. UE4 can use any skeleton you provide it, so you don't have to alter the existing models to fit with what UE4 has built in, because by default, UE4 has no built-in skeleton you're required to use. Default UE4 lacks any kind of restriction like that. If you import Valve bipeds and Valve animations, UE4 will let you use and play them without having to fit it to any existing standard, because UE4 doesn't have a standard. In fact, in most of the templates, the default skeletal mesh has a number of not-necessary bones for cloth and hair and such, which obviously doesn't apply to 99% of meshes. The only rule UE4 has is that the root of the skeleton has to be at origin, not like Source's which are the pelvis, but other than that, there's really no restriction. Import any model with any skeleton and if you have animations, you can play them without any sort of issue at all. You can have any naming conventions you want and any hierarchy you want.
Now I'm actually getting confused, too. You know about the animating tool in the engine, right? That obscure "Animation" tab hidden in the ControlRig plugin that you have to enable first? I activated it, expecting to just get going, but — nothing. I'm not sure if I have to pre-determine a set of bones for the system to actually recognize it or not, considering the video I was looking at made it seem as though simply clicking on the button would, in some way, work. That's why I, at first, thought it was a rig problem, too.
The video used that generic UE4 biped placeholder model, the pure white android-looking on with a dome-head and the Unreal logo on its chest. From what I recall, that one used that skeleton — or at least something similar to it. I should probably apologize if I'm sounding like a complete retard, but learning how to use UE4 for the things I'm doing is like learning Source Filmmaker all over again, even though it's even more complex than that.
So ART is a bit odd, and doesn't get updated as often as it should, and it probably gives the wrong sort of impression. It's not a requirement, or even something you should use beyond beginner level stuff. It's a tool for getting started, particularly for prototyping, but not super useful when you have anything specialized, especially non-bipeds. The plugin is actually meant for Maya but I guess they fit it into the editor too. Not ideal in either case.
It's more a tool for fitting meshes into what UE4 considers a "simple base skeleton," about as close to a "UE4 biped" as you can get, but UE4 has very few built in animations for that skeleton to make use of in templates, so its far from necessary. If your meshes are already rigged, and you have animations, or want to simply pose the mesh, you don't need to use it at all. Import the skeletal mesh, as is, with whatever bones and rigging it has, without changing anything besides ensuring the root of the mesh is at origin, and everything should work. You don't need to use the plugin at all. Do animations in Maya or Blender, or import them, or use the pose editor for simple poses.
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