UPDATE: This video is not for Uefy 2.0 (Pro Edition). The script has been replaced with Uefy 2.0 ( th-cam.com/video/6laZFauJiRA/w-d-xo.html ). The new version is more advanced and is not limited to bi-ped characters. You can rig any kind of creature or machine or even standalone parts for modular characters. www.rakiz.com/uefy
In Uefy 2.0 (Pro Edition) while in object mode you can do Shift + A -> Armature -> Uefy Script -> Reference Skeleton -> Basic Posing Skeleton. It will build you a skeleton with already correct names and rolls. You just move and rotate the limbs into place in your mesh. In other words the first half of this video is about 2 minutes with the new system.
You are correct however more often than not the rolls on chains of bones like spine etc are all in the same direction. With the tool I can fix multiple bones with one click, often fixing a whole skeleton is just a few clicks.
Thank you very much for doing this. I am still learning exactly how to use your script, but from what you have shown, i can tell it is the hidden pot of gold i have been looking for! you asked in one of your videos if anyone would be interested in a detailed weight paint video for the face.. i know i sure am! thanks again, please keep up the great work
Sorry one more question! 38:24 When I click the "Generate Rig" button I get an error message "RIGIFY ERROR: Bone 'thigh.L': Heel bone not found. Incorrect armature for type 'leg'", any Idea what that could mean? I do have a heel bone in place.
This is a rigify error. It means you edited the metarig in a way that is not workable for rigify. Probably the heel bone is not parented correctly to the leg. Or possibly you added additional bones and rigify can't tell which one is the heel. I only use the default human meta rig that is provided with blender and modified with uefy as shown in the video.
Start by checking following possibilities: You did not attach the mesh to the armature with Alt + P -> Deform Or your mesh is not weight painted to the armature Or your mesh was weight painted but you detached it and changed the bone names in the armature so now the vertex groups in the mesh don't match the armature bone names Or it could be something else you will need to figure it out.
Uefy v2.0+ has a prebuilt Basic Posing Skeleton with already correct names and rolls for this purpose. You don't need to build it yourself. You can also use the mannequin skeleton it needs to be imported correctly so the bones align to each other and it has extra bones like IK and twists which may need to be managed. But if you know what you are doing you should be able to use it too.
I successfully exported my first Character that was only a mesh to begin with Blend 2.8 Uefy 1.3 & UE 4.23! Very concise video - Thanks! QUESTION: At th-cam.com/video/MRhDDbU0zdE/w-d-xo.html you clicked Pose MetaRig which matched the pose of the MetaRig to the character. HOWEVER, looking at the video and my character, the face rig disappeared from the MetaRig (no doubt because Remove Face was checked)! Now that I want to go to the next step and add a face and follow your other video at th-cam.com/video/mJUWJxBzW3Y/w-d-xo.html . How can I get that Face Rig back? Do I need to get a fresh MetaRig? Is it hiding under some bitbucket somewhere...?
You will need to re-rig the character with a new metarig. While it is possible to add additional bones to a character like shoulder pads etc like in the Paragon Wraith rigging video but the facial rig is just too complex to slap on an existing rig while using the script.
@@RakizFarooq Thank you for your quick reply. It may behoove anyone watching this video to fork their character and save as another version before they click on Pose MetaRig so they still have options ahead of them if they want to pursue them in a more straightforward way (if it is at all possible, which I surmise may not even then be worth the effort, reading your comment above). I surmised before your reply that there may be an issue when I looked specifically at line 1184 of the 1.3 script. Thankfully, the character I am working on as my trial through your script is a puppet-like character. So though I think I'll try setting up a second metarig as an exercise (starting at th-cam.com/video/mJUWJxBzW3Y/w-d-xo.html where you appear to start with connecting the face to the rest of the body bones) to see what problems I confront and maybe can overcome but will probably, because it is a puppet, ultimately go a faster though not as concise route of shape/morph keys for the jaw, blink of the eyes, and eye and eyebrow expression. I do not want to discourage viewers from following your tutorials or purchasing your script as I believe they both save much time and one learns so much (did anyone else gasp the first time they had their character do the A pose in this video?). I think with subtle tweaks to your script this issue too can be overcome and one can take a mesh and make a full rig with a face rig together in one session (I hope my purchase can go toward that effort). Thank you again for your time and efforts on making this easier for all of us!
Also, at 25:06, if your mesh isn't symmetrical the easiest fix, in my opinion, is to use the mirror modifier. So, make sure your mesh is centered with the origin, select the entire right side of the mesh (left side with it facing you), save, and delete it. Make sure that when you do this, you've selected everything to one side of the center edges/vertices/faces of your mesh. Add mirror modifier, check "Clipping" under options on the modifier, and to ensure that your center is actually... center... select the entire mesh (which should be half of the mesh now) in edit mode and move it slightly opposite of the side being mirrored (so if you've followed, move it to the right). When you do this, all of the vertices in the center ought to stay where they are. After this, switch back to object mode, apply the modifier, boom: Symmetrical Mesh. In case you're worried about duplicate vertices, you can go the mesh menu>clean up>merge by distance. Pretty basic thing to do in Blender while modeling; Mirror is probably the modifier I use most. But if you didn't know and you've come this far in the video, that's how you do it. Good luck out there everyone!
Not all characters are meant to be exact copies on both sides. Especially when clothing is concerned or there are accessories attached to the main body. By editing and moving the vertices into place manually. You can retain that uniqueness and still have a working rig.
Hey Rakiz, do you have a full and comprehensive page on what the single components do, or in general tutorials in a written format? It's quite a chore skipping through the videos all the time.. :S
I purchased Uefy 2.0! Very happy! But at 15:46 where I'm supposed to find the Uefy script... I unpacked my zip and don't see any named just uefy.py. For 2.0 is there a different name for the script?
This tutorial is for Uefy Script v1.3 you don't need this. If you are using Uefy 2.0 please follow ( th-cam.com/video/IZSj17gGrzw/w-d-xo.html ). I have not made the static mesh tutorial for Uefy 2.0 yet. But in the new version you don't have to manually create a whole skeleton. It is built for you and you just move it into place. It already has correct names and rolls.
I use the addon mb-lab and your script for my project. I use the generated characters, bones and weights from mb-lab with some changes for Uefy. This addon and script save a lot of time. Thanks! BUT it would be super cool if script Uefy will work with this addon directly!!!
Awesome job! Can you explain me about the roll and position for the IK and twist bones to match the UE4 one please? I want to include them as well in the character
The inital base skeleton is just the get the character in the right pose. Uefy Script will automatically add the twist and IK bones etc as per selected options. You just need to add weight painting to the twist bones after the rig is built on the correct layer as shown in 39:30
In your original character skeleton when you rename bones like I do in the video. Manually rename the original twist bones to have the same name as they do in the Epic Skeleton. That will transfer your original weights to the new twist bones after you run the script.
I'm getting an error when I try to generate the rig: "RIGIFY ERROR: Bone 'spine.004': Cannot connect chain - bone position is disjoint. Incorrect armature for type 'chain_rigs' " Do you have any suggestions that might fix this? I checked that the 'spine.004' bone was connected to the other spine bones, but I'm not sure what else to try. Thanks for making this awesome tutorial! Your videos are very clear and I'm learning a lot!
In it's default settings rigify requires that the spine and neck bones head and tail overlap at the exact same position. You can fix this by making sure you move spine.003 and spine.004 at the same time so they never have a break. Another way to get around this is to select spine.004 in Pose mode -> Bone Properties -> Rigify Type -> Options -> Connect Chain to Off. This will get you working even if the spine and neck are not at the same place. But this is a somewhat new feature not fully tested with this version of the script. I'll be doing a more through review before the next update for the script is released,
@@RakizFarooq Wow, thank you so much for replying so promptly! I applied your solution and put spine.003 and spine.004 in the exact same position and it worked! Thanks again! Your script is an enormous time saver!
this doesnt work for me when you get the boxes and blocks and circles part im not able to know why i cant go but after i rig it, deform the things i cant animate the character or see anything else :c
When I click "pose character" the mesh isn't attached to the rig...bones move but mesh does not. And clicking "setup character bone names" gives me an error: "Bone Not Found. Target might already have updated names or Wrong Character type was selected" any advice?
I'm guessing you probably tried to rig the mesh earlier and now the script is running into changes it made previously. You should keep multiple backups as you go through the rigging process so you can reload earlier steps if need be.
I use the script as part of a rigging process for characters to use in Unreal Engine 4. The rest pose is updated to match that of the unreal mannequin. It simplifies retargeting and sharing animation sets. Saves me a lot of configuration on the engine side.
@@RakizFarooq allright I understand. I was wondering specifically if it is so that the code recognizes the bones better in the mannequin-rest-position, or are there other things that this step acomplishes? Just curious :) very great work by the way with the videos too!
@@RakizFarooq an estimated time until the weight painting video is going to be uploaded? Amazing Content Btw. Really saved me a lot of time and effort.
When i click 'Pose Character' everything snaps correctly, except my character's entire left leg and foot, it moves back and angles itself. Why would it be doing this? I'm using blender 2.83.3 and Uefy script v1.3 EDIT: A close inspection seems to indicate that the arms and right leg also don't match the mannequin exactly, and aren't symmetrical (i.e. the left arm is slightly lower than the right arm) It definitely is closer to the unreal pose now, but not exact.
You can improve the result of Pose character by editing your original armature to be more like the mannequin. In this video th-cam.com/video/mg75kSkKkug/w-d-xo.html around 14 and half mins I make a lot of edits to the original armature to get a very good result at the end of the video. That video is using Uefy 2 but the same can be done for the lite version.
I purchased the 1.3 script awhile ago. I was just about to begin this tutorial, and then I was hit up with the notification for the new update. I now have updated to the new Uefy Script 2.0. However, my predicament is as this video describes: that I have a bipedal character with no skeleton and I have to rig it manually. What is the best practice in this particular scenario with the new Uefy Script 2.0? Please advise.
It is pretty straight forward. Instead of creating the basic skeleton one bone at a time. You use Shift + A -> Armature -> Uefy Script -> Reference Skeleton -> Basic Posing Skeleton in object mode to get a prebuilt skeleton into the scene. You position this skeleton appropriately into your mesh and weight paint it. It is the same as in this video just less work. Afterwards just follow th-cam.com/video/mg75kSkKkug/w-d-xo.html for the new workflow.
It is actually quite easy once you done it at least once. The next time I rig a character I just take the basic skeleton I built here and reuse that from there on. It hardly takes any time at all.
@@RakizFarooq oh its just the first time is rough? Do the bones have to be in the center of each spot? Im trying to do fingers and cant get them in the exact middle
You want them in a position where you can get a good enough result. There is no perfect right answer here. Adjusting bone locations is something you have to do when rigging even without the script.
Create a third person sample project from the unreal launcher. Find the mannequin in content folders. Right click -> Asset Actions -> Export to get the fbx file.
instead rescale the unit scale in blender , do u have any method to maintain unit scale 1.0 ? because i have problem to work with other 3d software such as 3ds max..
UPDATE: New version of Uefy Script v1.3 released. Added two new tools to assist in rigging static meshes. You can check the ue4 forum post for details.
@Android Guy Use the same download link from the original email you received. It'll get you the latest version. If you have any issues getting the updated file send a reply to the email and I'll sort it out.
Not sure if this has been addressed in the comments before, but at 30:48 when setting up the metarig in Uefy the UE4 Mann slot has "root" typed in but is highlighted in red (my character armature is selected in the top slot and the metarig is slected in the bottom slot) and when i hit "pose character" it says "Invalid Source" and tells me to refresh the list. Not sure what im doing wrong
You need to click 'refresh list' and select the name of the unreal mannequin's armature in the UE4 Mann slot. It is usually called 'root' but might be different if you already had an armature named root in the scene. The script is telling you it can not find the mannequin.
Rakiz Farooq Ah I see I went to select the unreal mannequin (in this case it’s named “armature 002”) armature and I got a few errors, it showed a trace back saying the location is unknown I didn’t export the UE mannequin from UE itself I downloaded the mannequin off the internet would that effect it somehow? Because of this the bones might not be named properly like how you shown. Also thank you for the quick response.
Yes .. you don't know what changes if any are in the random mannequin. Export your own copy of the mannequin from the engine itself. Only use the mannequin provided in the default 3rd person template.
With Uefy 2 (Pro Edition) you don't need manually create the whole skeleton as shown in this video. You can use the prebuilt 'Basic Posing Skeleton' and simply position/rotate it into your mesh.
So in conclusion, you can either set the character to work with your own animations only, OR to work with UE4 based Animations ONLY? Not sure if I got that wrong. If you export the character without "Set Original Bone Rolls" (43:59) can it still use UE4 animations as well as my own animations made in Blender?
You can "always" use your own animations and/or retarget existing animations to your character. Both with and without set original bone rolls. The difference is that in one case your character will have its own unique skeleton OR it will use the original skeleton for the mannequin. Characters exported from Blender can not normally use the original mannequin's skeleton. But Uefy Script will let you do that. This is important because Blueprint AnimInstances are tied to specific skeletons. If you want to reuse existing code. For example: th-cam.com/video/4Dh5k4ATHYU/w-d-xo.html in this video I export a character with original bone rolls to unreal and it is a drop in replacement for the mannequin skeleton's based ALS controller. I can sttill make new animations in blender and retarget them to this character. It is about code reuse. However in my project I write my own controller code hence I don't bother with set original bone rolls. I export a blender based Mannequin to my project with it's very own skeleton. Then all future characters exported from blender are exported using that skeleton for the same animation sharing effect. I can then retarget marketplace animations to that skeleton and export my own animation directly from blemder. Since Uefy Script will make the same hierarchy as the original mannequin with the same pose. Retargeting is basically just a click away without any extra effort.
Hey, i have gotten my character and my armature, and i have attached them together with automatic weights, but i can not do the weight painting thing and if i don't animations look super weird. Is there an estimated time until the weight painting video comes out?
The weight painting is done using Blender's built in tools. You can check information from any source to use them. I will eventually make the videos because the script provides some tools to speed up the process but at the moment I am working on Uefy 2.0
hey i have a question please , recently i bought frank rpg dual from epic marketplace the problem the skeleton mesh of this is it has extra bones compared to ue4 mannequin ,it has same scale and same retargetting bones but it has extra bones for the animations , can uefy script do the job to copy bones from this mesh to another mesh bought from marketplace
You can add some types of additional bones (shoulder pads / weapons / hair etc) to the rig made by the script as shown in th-cam.com/video/2xVF9QFu-Bw/w-d-xo.html . You'll need to add these yourself however the script is not aware of outside rig designs.
i really liked the first half of the video. then you suddenly start selecting and deselecting stuff while switching through edit modes and clicking buttons amd scripts without proper explanation and i totally lost faith that i could reproduce what you did there. is the second part with the meta rig even needed when you just want to use shared animations? or is that only needed to be able to create custom animations with this character in blender to export later on?
In the first part of the video we just create a simple skeleton to help us pose the mesh and metarig to look the same as the unreal mannequin with help from the script. Secondly we use the metarig to create the animation rig, that is a much more complicated thing than our skeleton with hundreds of dynamically generated bones. Lastly the default generated rig we get from the metarig is not compatible with unreal, so we use the script to make it usable in the game engine.
I can't select any bones to fix the characters feet after generating and scaling the metarig then clicking setup character bone name and clicking pose character. From here in pose mode, when I click on bones the don't get selected.
If you select multiple objects for example character and metarig to use in a mode. Be sure to 'deselect' both of them before you start working in another mode, with only one of them selected. Otherwise blender will do weird things like not letting you select items without any clear indication as to why. This seems to be a quirk of Blender rather than anything to do with the script.
32:53 if you try to apply the copy modifier to the bottom bit with shape keys you get "cannot apply modifier with shape keys" i need a work around plz help!
Blender doesn't allow applying modifiers on armatures with ShapeKeys. Make a copy of the character with shapekeys. Delete the shapekeys, rig the character and then create shapekeys after that or transfer back the shapekeys from the original copy. Blender has data transfer tools to let you do this but unfortunately it is a little complicated. You can search on stackexchange and also see this thread on unreal forum forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/animation/1623830-blender-2-8-beta-morph-targets-and-modifiers
Just bought it and got to 38:28. When I click generate rig under rigify, it gives me an error. Using blender 2.8. The error is: invalid rig structure on bone: f_index.01.L. Incorrect armature for type 'simple_tentacle'. Is it because my model has three fingers only?
I've rigged characters with three fingers or no fingers without problems. In this video th-cam.com/video/kuqeG6oGQJM/w-d-xo.html the character did not have any fingers at all. Check if the finger bones are parented correctly to the hand and to each other.
@@RakizFarooq Thank you!! i did not delete the excess fingers and tried again. Imported just as advertised. Now I can start working on importing my animations.
Excellent! I have an old character model I made that I have been using since before blender 2.8... but it has issues now with UE4 4.25 and bla bla bla... So basically I am going to re-rig it and start fresh and just... Re... Animate. But at least while I get it up and running I can share animations with UE4. I'll have to get uefy! Thank you! And so if I wanted to add bones for a helmet visor, backpack and some hip stuff for weapon sockets, I would do that on the layer you show towards the end of the video? @ 40:00? But wouldn't I have to re-weight paint everything?
That layer is just for the facial rig. I show how to add extra bones like shoulder pads etc in this video th-cam.com/video/2xVF9QFu-Bw/w-d-xo.html If you have a character that is already rigged you don't need to repaint anything. You can just reuse the old vertex groups with the new rig. There is a new update in the works that will greatly simplify adding extra bones.
You can review the paragon character rigging video where I add additional bones like shoulder and kneepads etc. th-cam.com/video/2xVF9QFu-Bw/w-d-xo.html
Hi there I bought your script this week. I got the UE4 mannequin by exporting it to fbx in UE. When I imported it into blender the armature was disconnected from the model by quite a distance and I couldn't figure out how to re-align them. Will this affect the later stages or can I still use the armature of that mannequin for the stage at 30min? (if not where can I get an fbx of the mannequin that will work?) Also my model's hands are facing backwards, does this change the X direction of the wrist? Thanks
@Robert Kingsbury I find the unreal engine mannequin in the editor's content folder. Then right click -> Asset Action -> Export. I use default settings for the export that means FBX 2013 format and no change in any option. This gives me a mannequin that is centered and always work. If you use different export options it might not be supported by Blender. Also I suggest you try th-cam.com/video/RAS4uZJcJ_o/w-d-xo.html before following this video.
If your character's hands open towards the back the x-axis would also point that way. But even if you rotate the axis correctly you might still end up with trouble because your pose it too different from the default mannequin. I suggest you remodel your character to better match the mannequin. So only minor orientation corrections are required.
Good explanation, but felt kind of frustrating going back and forth between 3 different armatures / skeletons. Let's say someone has a properly named skeleton with correct bone axes and properly weight painted, in correct pose - it's still a long way to go from there. Is there a simpler process? Up until 32:35 everything makes sense! Felt confusing after this (except applying the rest pose).
I use characters from many sources. They might have a skeleton or be a plain mesh or be in the wrong pose or many other incompatibilities. Following this pipeline process I can ensure I get them into Unreal Engine and working without problems whatever their initial condition might be.
Sorry for all the comments, but comments do mean engagement which is good for your channel! Anyway, when the rig is generated at 38:25 everything is fine except that the spine bones are tiny, probably do to the meta rig being scaled 900% when matching the armature. Also the applied weight painting seems to be my original unmodified weight painting without the fixes. Did I miss a step?
Okay I went back a few steps, scaled the spine meta rig bones up by 95 and everything is fine now. I was also able top edit the weight paint so it is all sorted, I can see the light at the end of this!
As shown in the video you have to apply scale on all meshes and armatures so it ends up (1,1,1). This includes the metarig. After you resize the metarig you have to apply scale on it or you will get issues.
31:05 - when I hit "Pose Character" only the left arm correctly snaps into place, but the right arm is stuck in place and I get this error: location: : -1 AttributeError: 'Context' object has no attribute 'evaluated_depsgraph_get' any help?
@@RakizFarooq nevermind! got it figured out, I was using the blender 2.80 beta haha my bad!! also is the skeleton of the original mesh supposed to have "ORG" in front of the name?
Thank you for this useful tool. After symmetrizing, the rotations get flipped on the right side of the models armature (the direction of X does not appear to be symmetrized as well?). Any ideas on why this occured? Looks like I can go to each bone and use your Bone Roll Tool to correct this, but avoiding it occurring to begin with would be ideal if possible.
This is normal and correct. We build the left side only, with specified names and rolls as in the video and use symmetrize to build the right side. The right side rolls may not match the left side but if you built the left side correctly everything will work.
I did not get around to it unfortunately. There are some expected new features in the next update for the script. I'm focused on that, there won't be more general blender usage or animation related tutorials until it is done.
@@RakizFarooq No worries, Rakiz, thank you for letting me know. Please will you let me know when V1.4 is available and the associated tutorials are ready? Thank you and keep up the great work =]
Great tutorial, it was very helpful! There were a few times where you repeated yourself several times though, but overall I was able to learn what I came here for. I'm still waiting on that weight painting video, by the way!
Great video,I done this before and worked just fine, did it again for another character and now I keep getting "imported bone transform is different from original" when importing, and animations will show up completely blank. Any idea as to what might be causing this?
Common reason is forgetting to change rig name to "Armature" this is required for Unreal Engine to import armatures correctly from Blender. If you don't do this unreal does not recognize the correct root bone and you get that message.
(Edited) Shift+Left click with the mouse. You have to be careful though as you can miss the bone and accidentally apply weight paint to the surrounding mesh. I used the R key to rotate after selecting the bones. Press T to bring back the left side panel with buttons .
@Stephen Harper I made a mistake in the last message, sorry about that. It is Shift + Left Click to select bone and Shift + Right Click to select only vertex group.
At 31:04 when I pose the character it puts the upper arm bones up too high and they don't line up with the shoulders any more. Should I manually adjust them? [correction] I adjusted them as close as possible before running the script but it destroys the shoulders no matte what I do
The script matches the rest pose of the mannequin. So it is working correctly. The problem is the default pose of the mannequin has shoulders pulled too far back for most characters. You'll see this issue even in Paragon characters from Epic. th-cam.com/video/2xVF9QFu-Bw/w-d-xo.html around 10 min mark I talk about the shoulders and how they put the character in a weird pose. In that video I adjust the bones of the shoulders to get a better base pose. However this is not necessarily the best option. I could also have left it as it is and just adjust the pose when I start making animations. You may get better retargeting results with either way depending on how your character is built. Due the weird rest pose for the default mannequin you have to experiment and decide which approach provides the best results for individual characters.
For the weight paint, could you just use data transfer modifier and transfer all the weight / vertex groups from mannequin to your custom karakter? that way saving lot of time?
Yes you can and their are ways to copy weights like that. However it is unlikely to give any better result than just letting Blender auto-paint your character. There are specialized weight paint scripts but they not much better either. You need to manually weight paint your character, it is just part of the development process.
@@RakizFarooq Thanks, one more question fast, when I press " Pose Metarig " it will scale UP to 1000x or so and go under the grid line. What is the fix for it or where did i miss that in the tutorial?
I have some issues with the toes they get distorted and the character pose of the meta rig is also not working. I tried to redo everything but it didn't work. I followed your steps but it is not working. One possible problem could be the toe axis orientation but I couldn't figure it out.
If the problem is in Unreal Engine make sure to set Translation Retargeting as shown in 44:30 beyond that make sure you made only the left side of the character skeleton and use symmertize to get the right side. Lastly if you manually updated the weight paint make sure only the toe deform bone has weight and none of the rigify controls or other non-related bones are affecting the output.
Armature and Mesh are separate objects that need correct rotations applied to them individually. Disconnect your armature from the mesh. Rotate both objects into the correct position and apply rotation/scale etc on both of them. Now you can reattach the armature to the mesh.
Blender doesn't allow applying modifiers to objects with shapekeys. You can create blender shape keys after you have rigged your character. But if your original character already has shape keys you need to delete them, rig the character and copy them back. While this is possible it is not easy and may require additional scripting.
@@RakizFarooq I can get the script to work (thank you for creating it btw, really speeds things up) but when I right click on a bone, I don't get that context menu. I have to use the spacebar search for things like symmetrize.
I just downloaded latest blender (2.82a at this time). I have no additional addons enabled. If I right click on a bone in Edit mode. I get a context menu with symmetrize and other options. Try resetting your preferences to factory default.
Great tutorial.i it was easy to absorb and to follow to the end. I'm having one odd behavior when applying animation from ue4 model to mine.it seems to stretch my model to the size on the ue4 model.so my model moves correctly but ends up looking distorted.is there some step I missed to keep the size correct?
@Manuel Padua If your issue is in unreal editor, then you probably need to adjust Translation Retargeting options on your skeleton as around 44:11 in the video. Scale problems in Blender are usually about people not setting the Unit Scale to 0.01 at the start of the project. This needs to be done else scaling issues will follow you straight back into the engine even if the rigging part works.
Okay, I have entered into a whole other world of problems. So I have what I believe to be is the latest version of Uefy which has some added features. For instance, when the spine needs to be aligned at 34:34, the rest of the rig is hide, or rather it is enlarged so it isn't in the way. This is resolved when you generate your rig. UNLESS you need to make some last minute adjustments like the arms that aren't matched up in the demo model. Now this is especially bad because when I go to generate my rig it is off a bit, in fact I would say it is off the same amount as the demo rig. My model was fine in previous steps when it came to matching up the two arms, so this is a bit of a pickle. Did I mess something up or is the script offsetting for the demo rigs mistake?
Not sure know what you mean by last minute adjustments. But following the steps as they are in the video gives me correct results every time. We use the script to align the limbs but the spine needs to be aligned manually because rigify requires a connected spine that is as straight as possible for optimum results.. If you are moving the limbs after they you might get strange results.
@@RakizFarooq The spine is fine, but my right arm is not lined up correctly when I generate rig. In the video, you correct the right arm at 37:03. I am trying to adjust the the right arm bones but they are no where near the rig and it is hard to line them up correctly.
In the video I create only the Left side of the skeleton. Then I correct the names and rolls for only the left side. Then I use symmetrize to auto-build the right side. Did you also follow this order? Or did you build the right side yourself? If you did the later your rolls will be incorrect as the axis get flipped for the right side. Then when you pose the character the right side will be totally incorrectly placed.
@@RakizFarooq It seems I might have messed with the right side in the posing phase and it is not symmetrical anymore. I will have to adjust and be careful in the future. Thanks for answering my questions
In Blender go to Edit -> Prefrences -> Addons and make sure Rigify Addon is enabled. You can check the first few minutes of this video th-cam.com/video/RAS4uZJcJ_o/w-d-xo.html where I show how to do that.
I can't understand why you have to create the Human meta rig if you have already skinned your character with your custom rig. Let's say that I'm only interested in retargeting animation bought from the store... and I don't want to create my custom animation with blender... should I go through the Human meta rig step anyway?!
@@IndieGamesWTF Yes you should. The basic skeleton we add is for posing the limbs only. The actual epic skeleton has more bones like the twist and Ik bones etc. Uefy Script will create all those extras for you in addition to adding a facial rig like th-cam.com/video/mJUWJxBzW3Y/w-d-xo.html depending on the options you choose. There is a difference between a skeleton and an animation rig . A skeleton like the one we create is not enough to create new animations. You need a proper rig like rigify. But rigify is not compatible for use with Unreal Engine 4. In this video we use Uefy Script to make rigify work with unreal. I am not an animator, I use the script to get a consistent skeleton across all my characters. Then I import them to the engine and retarget marketplace animations on the characters knowing that everything will just work because all my characters have the Epic Skeleton. Since I also have a full rig in blender I can create new animations to fill blanks in the marketplace content.
Perhaps you imported previously where you did not rename the rig .That will change the default mannequin's skeleton for that project. Try it with a new unreal project and make sure the export is only done with the renamed rig..
UPDATE: This video is not for Uefy 2.0 (Pro Edition). The script has been replaced with Uefy 2.0 ( th-cam.com/video/6laZFauJiRA/w-d-xo.html ). The new version is more advanced and is not limited to bi-ped characters. You can rig any kind of creature or machine or even standalone parts for modular characters. www.rakiz.com/uefy
I bought the first one, an I download this one too?
@@HPLins yes
In Uefy 2.0 (Pro Edition) while in object mode you can do Shift + A -> Armature -> Uefy Script -> Reference Skeleton -> Basic Posing Skeleton. It will build you a skeleton with already correct names and rolls. You just move and rotate the limbs into place in your mesh.
In other words the first half of this video is about 2 minutes with the new system.
I really need to read the comments first T___T
Ngl rolling the bones using ctrl+r then +/-90 is a lot easier than having to manually press a button with the mouse to roll them.
You are correct however more often than not the rolls on chains of bones like spine etc are all in the same direction. With the tool I can fix multiple bones with one click, often fixing a whole skeleton is just a few clicks.
Rakiz Farooq yeah I guess so
What about non-humanoid characters? A cat, for example.
The new version Uefy 2.0 can rig cats, horses, sharks, doors, dragons anything you can think of. th-cam.com/video/6laZFauJiRA/w-d-xo.html
Couldn't generate rig at 38:28, I'm using the Uefy 2.0 free version. Error says thigh.L missing heel
Thank you very much for doing this. I am still learning exactly how to use your script, but from what you have shown, i can tell it is the hidden pot of gold i have been looking for! you asked in one of your videos if anyone would be interested in a detailed weight paint video for the face.. i know i sure am! thanks again, please keep up the great work
I'm also interested in a detailed weight paint video for the face
@@dragonwarriorz1 Weight paint the face ? Why ? To make facial expressions ? If that's the case, you might wanna check into Shape Keys.
just saying... u left the foot details out . . . . . .
i do everthing but my bone heat weighting fail everytimee
Sorry one more question! 38:24 When I click the "Generate Rig" button I get an error message "RIGIFY ERROR: Bone 'thigh.L': Heel bone not found.
Incorrect armature for type 'leg'", any Idea what that could mean? I do have a heel bone in place.
This is a rigify error. It means you edited the metarig in a way that is not workable for rigify. Probably the heel bone is not parented correctly to the leg. Or possibly you added additional bones and rigify can't tell which one is the heel.
I only use the default human meta rig that is provided with blender and modified with uefy as shown in the video.
HOLY...I am too old to understand these tons of tips and it have broken my brain and I have to rest right now!
Very nice and and useful feature
I know this is an old video, but when i click pose character, the armature matches UE4, but my mesh stays the same
Start by checking following possibilities:
You did not attach the mesh to the armature with Alt + P -> Deform
Or your mesh is not weight painted to the armature
Or your mesh was weight painted but you detached it and changed the bone names in the armature so now the vertex groups in the mesh don't match the armature bone names
Or it could be something else you will need to figure it out.
can you not duplicate the rig, unbind the mani, rotate the rig, bind, weight, pose, save bind pose?
Uefy v2.0+ has a prebuilt Basic Posing Skeleton with already correct names and rolls for this purpose. You don't need to build it yourself.
You can also use the mannequin skeleton it needs to be imported correctly so the bones align to each other and it has extra bones like IK and twists which may need to be managed. But if you know what you are doing you should be able to use it too.
Why doesn't my Armature have the option human (meta-rig)
Make sure you enable Rigify addon in Blender's preferences.
What uefy actually does?
I successfully exported my first Character that was only a mesh to begin with Blend 2.8 Uefy 1.3 & UE 4.23! Very concise video - Thanks! QUESTION: At th-cam.com/video/MRhDDbU0zdE/w-d-xo.html you clicked Pose MetaRig which matched the pose of the MetaRig to the character. HOWEVER, looking at the video and my character, the face rig disappeared from the MetaRig (no doubt because Remove Face was checked)! Now that I want to go to the next step and add a face and follow your other video at th-cam.com/video/mJUWJxBzW3Y/w-d-xo.html . How can I get that Face Rig back? Do I need to get a fresh MetaRig? Is it hiding under some bitbucket somewhere...?
You will need to re-rig the character with a new metarig. While it is possible to add additional bones to a character like shoulder pads etc like in the Paragon Wraith rigging video but the facial rig is just too complex to slap on an existing rig while using the script.
@@RakizFarooq Thank you for your quick reply. It may behoove anyone watching this video to fork their character and save as another version before they click on Pose MetaRig so they still have options ahead of them if they want to pursue them in a more straightforward way (if it is at all possible, which I surmise may not even then be worth the effort, reading your comment above). I surmised before your reply that there may be an issue when I looked specifically at line 1184 of the 1.3 script. Thankfully, the character I am working on as my trial through your script is a puppet-like character. So though I think I'll try setting up a second metarig as an exercise (starting at th-cam.com/video/mJUWJxBzW3Y/w-d-xo.html where you appear to start with connecting the face to the rest of the body bones) to see what problems I confront and maybe can overcome but will probably, because it is a puppet, ultimately go a faster though not as concise route of shape/morph keys for the jaw, blink of the eyes, and eye and eyebrow expression. I do not want to discourage viewers from following your tutorials or purchasing your script as I believe they both save much time and one learns so much (did anyone else gasp the first time they had their character do the A pose in this video?). I think with subtle tweaks to your script this issue too can be overcome and one can take a mesh and make a full rig with a face rig together in one session (I hope my purchase can go toward that effort). Thank you again for your time and efforts on making this easier for all of us!
hi, do you have a discord ?
Me: Still waiting for that weight painting tutorial since I can't for my dear life fix weird deformations on pelvis/buttocks ;_;
Also, at 25:06, if your mesh isn't symmetrical the easiest fix, in my opinion, is to use the mirror modifier.
So, make sure your mesh is centered with the origin, select the entire right side of the mesh (left side with it facing you), save, and delete it.
Make sure that when you do this, you've selected everything to one side of the center edges/vertices/faces of your mesh.
Add mirror modifier, check "Clipping" under options on the modifier, and to ensure that your center is actually... center... select the entire mesh (which should be half of the mesh now) in edit mode and move it slightly opposite of the side being mirrored (so if you've followed, move it to the right).
When you do this, all of the vertices in the center ought to stay where they are.
After this, switch back to object mode, apply the modifier, boom: Symmetrical Mesh. In case you're worried about duplicate vertices, you can go the mesh menu>clean up>merge by distance.
Pretty basic thing to do in Blender while modeling; Mirror is probably the modifier I use most.
But if you didn't know and you've come this far in the video, that's how you do it.
Good luck out there everyone!
Not all characters are meant to be exact copies on both sides. Especially when clothing is concerned or there are accessories attached to the main body. By editing and moving the vertices into place manually. You can retain that uniqueness and still have a working rig.
@@RakizFarooq Ah! That makes sense. :D
Hey Rakiz, do you have a full and comprehensive page on what the single components do, or in general tutorials in a written format? It's quite a chore skipping through the videos all the time.. :S
I purchased Uefy 2.0! Very happy! But at 15:46 where I'm supposed to find the Uefy script... I unpacked my zip and don't see any named just uefy.py.
For 2.0 is there a different name for the script?
Oh, nevermind. Didn't have to do that in order to see the Script Panel and such when using 2.0; my bad! Built in!
This tutorial is for Uefy Script v1.3 you don't need this. If you are using Uefy 2.0 please follow ( th-cam.com/video/IZSj17gGrzw/w-d-xo.html ). I have not made the static mesh tutorial for Uefy 2.0 yet. But in the new version you don't have to manually create a whole skeleton. It is built for you and you just move it into place. It already has correct names and rolls.
Cool Script. Unfortunately i'am just a student with no money so i guess i just have to get everything in manually :/
I use the addon mb-lab and your script for my project. I use the generated characters, bones and weights from mb-lab with some changes for Uefy. This addon and script save a lot of time. Thanks!
BUT it would be super cool if script Uefy will work with this addon directly!!!
For those that dont have the human rig option in add armature, make sure you have rigify enabled.
Awesome job! Can you explain me about the roll and position for the IK and twist bones to match the UE4 one please? I want to include them as well in the character
The inital base skeleton is just the get the character in the right pose. Uefy Script will automatically add the twist and IK bones etc as per selected options. You just need to add weight painting to the twist bones after the rig is built on the correct layer as shown in 39:30
In your original character skeleton when you rename bones like I do in the video. Manually rename the original twist bones to have the same name as they do in the Epic Skeleton. That will transfer your original weights to the new twist bones after you run the script.
I'm getting an error when I try to generate the rig: "RIGIFY ERROR: Bone 'spine.004': Cannot connect chain - bone position is disjoint.
Incorrect armature for type 'chain_rigs' "
Do you have any suggestions that might fix this? I checked that the 'spine.004' bone was connected to the other spine bones, but I'm not sure what else to try.
Thanks for making this awesome tutorial! Your videos are very clear and I'm learning a lot!
In it's default settings rigify requires that the spine and neck bones head and tail overlap at the exact same position. You can fix this by making sure you move spine.003 and spine.004 at the same time so they never have a break.
Another way to get around this is to select spine.004 in Pose mode -> Bone Properties -> Rigify Type -> Options -> Connect Chain to Off. This will get you working even if the spine and neck are not at the same place. But this is a somewhat new feature not fully tested with this version of the script. I'll be doing a more through review before the next update for the script is released,
I did a quick write up on this you can see the article with images at www.rakiz.com/blender-2-83-lts-and-uefy-script/
@@RakizFarooq Wow, thank you so much for replying so promptly! I applied your solution and put spine.003 and spine.004 in the exact same position and it worked! Thanks again! Your script is an enormous time saver!
great video dude, any updates on the weight painting tutorial? my character twists weird in animations.
this doesnt work for me when you get the boxes and blocks and circles part im not able to know why i cant go but after i rig it, deform the things i cant animate the character or see anything else :c
Kobe Bryant
Please tell me how in the world I am supposed to snap my character into a pose if I don't get the plug-In because I do not see a pose button 31:01
When I click "pose character" the mesh isn't attached to the rig...bones move but mesh does not. And clicking "setup character bone names" gives me an error: "Bone Not Found. Target might already have updated names or Wrong Character type was selected" any advice?
I'm guessing you probably tried to rig the mesh earlier and now the script is running into changes it made previously. You should keep multiple backups as you go through the rigging process so you can reload earlier steps if need be.
Rakiz Farooq Okay thanks
@@RakizFarooq I did the whole thing again, it does not give me the error but still the mesh does not move :/
Very helpfull and well explained. Thank you!
why did you adjust the rest pose for the mesh in the first place? is this necessary for rigify to work with the uefy script to work correctly?
I use the script as part of a rigging process for characters to use in Unreal Engine 4. The rest pose is updated to match that of the unreal mannequin. It simplifies retargeting and sharing animation sets. Saves me a lot of configuration on the engine side.
@@RakizFarooq allright I understand. I was wondering specifically if it is so that the code recognizes the bones better in the mannequin-rest-position, or are there other things that this step acomplishes? Just curious :) very great work by the way with the videos too!
i did what you said all the steps worked for me till the rigify thing then it shows me mistakes on mistakes
Is it possible to do the pose character part with multiple different materials in the object
The Pose update is done on the armature. It can have any number of meshes and materials attached to it.
@@RakizFarooq oh okay thanks
Used this before a while ago but now using it again there is no "bone rename tool" in the drop down any idea as to why this is?
You are probably using an older version. Uefy Script v1.3 is the current version at the time I am writing this.
@@RakizFarooq an estimated time until the weight painting video is going to be uploaded? Amazing Content Btw. Really saved me a lot of time and effort.
When i click 'Pose Character' everything snaps correctly, except my character's entire left leg and foot, it moves back and angles itself. Why would it be doing this? I'm using blender 2.83.3 and Uefy script v1.3
EDIT: A close inspection seems to indicate that the arms and right leg also don't match the mannequin exactly, and aren't symmetrical (i.e. the left arm is slightly lower than the right arm) It definitely is closer to the unreal pose now, but not exact.
You can improve the result of Pose character by editing your original armature to be more like the mannequin. In this video th-cam.com/video/mg75kSkKkug/w-d-xo.html around 14 and half mins I make a lot of edits to the original armature to get a very good result at the end of the video.
That video is using Uefy 2 but the same can be done for the lite version.
Thank you so much! great video! :)
Great work!!!!
I purchased the 1.3 script awhile ago. I was just about to begin this tutorial, and then I was hit up with the notification for the new update. I now have updated to the new Uefy Script 2.0. However, my predicament is as this video describes: that I have a bipedal character with no skeleton and I have to rig it manually. What is the best practice in this particular scenario with the new Uefy Script 2.0? Please advise.
It is pretty straight forward. Instead of creating the basic skeleton one bone at a time. You use Shift + A -> Armature -> Uefy Script -> Reference Skeleton -> Basic Posing Skeleton in object mode to get a prebuilt skeleton into the scene. You position this skeleton appropriately into your mesh and weight paint it. It is the same as in this video just less work.
Afterwards just follow th-cam.com/video/mg75kSkKkug/w-d-xo.html for the new workflow.
wow thanks for the video, this process seems so painfully time consuming...
It is actually quite easy once you done it at least once. The next time I rig a character I just take the basic skeleton I built here and reuse that from there on. It hardly takes any time at all.
@@RakizFarooq oh its just the first time is rough? Do the bones have to be in the center of each spot? Im trying to do fingers and cant get them in the exact middle
You want them in a position where you can get a good enough result. There is no perfect right answer here. Adjusting bone locations is something you have to do when rigging even without the script.
where do i get the mannequin?
Create a third person sample project from the unreal launcher. Find the mannequin in content folders. Right click -> Asset Actions -> Export to get the fbx file.
instead rescale the unit scale in blender , do u have any method to maintain unit scale 1.0 ? because i have problem to work with other 3d software such as 3ds max..
We only change the unit scale because unreal importer needs it to be 0.01. If you are targeting a different software leave it at 1.
UPDATE: New version of Uefy Script v1.3 released.
Added two new tools to assist in rigging static meshes. You can check the ue4 forum post for details.
do you have a work around for shape keys? 32:53 i am stuck here
i bought earlier version of this script.How can i get this new version without paying again?
@Android Guy Use the same download link from the original email you received. It'll get you the latest version. If you have any issues getting the updated file send a reply to the email and I'll sort it out.
Not sure if this has been addressed in the comments before, but at 30:48 when setting up the metarig in Uefy the UE4 Mann slot has "root" typed in but is highlighted in red (my character armature is selected in the top slot and the metarig is slected in the bottom slot) and when i hit "pose character" it says "Invalid Source" and tells me to refresh the list. Not sure what im doing wrong
You need to click 'refresh list' and select the name of the unreal mannequin's armature in the UE4 Mann slot. It is usually called 'root' but might be different if you already had an armature named root in the scene. The script is telling you it can not find the mannequin.
Rakiz Farooq Ah I see I went to select the unreal mannequin (in this case it’s named “armature 002”) armature and I got a few errors, it showed a trace back saying the location is unknown I didn’t export the UE mannequin from UE itself I downloaded the mannequin off the internet would that effect it somehow? Because of this the bones might not be named properly like how you shown. Also thank you for the quick response.
Yes .. you don't know what changes if any are in the random mannequin. Export your own copy of the mannequin from the engine itself. Only use the mannequin provided in the default 3rd person template.
Rakiz Farooq Just wanted to let you know I used the imported mesh instead and it worked immediately haha thanks for the help and the script!
such a well done tutorial! currently working through it and adapting it to diversely posed and shaped character models
With Uefy 2 (Pro Edition) you don't need manually create the whole skeleton as shown in this video. You can use the prebuilt 'Basic Posing Skeleton' and simply position/rotate it into your mesh.
So in conclusion, you can either set the character to work with your own animations only, OR to work with UE4 based Animations ONLY?
Not sure if I got that wrong. If you export the character without "Set Original Bone Rolls" (43:59) can it still use UE4 animations as well as my own animations made in Blender?
You can "always" use your own animations and/or retarget existing animations to your character. Both with and without set original bone rolls. The difference is that in one case your character will have its own unique skeleton OR it will use the original skeleton for the mannequin.
Characters exported from Blender can not normally use the original mannequin's skeleton. But Uefy Script will let you do that. This is important because Blueprint AnimInstances are tied to specific skeletons. If you want to reuse existing code. For example: th-cam.com/video/4Dh5k4ATHYU/w-d-xo.html in this video I export a character with original bone rolls to unreal and it is a drop in replacement for the mannequin skeleton's based ALS controller. I can sttill make new animations in blender and retarget them to this character. It is about code reuse.
However in my project I write my own controller code hence I don't bother with set original bone rolls. I export a blender based Mannequin to my project with it's very own skeleton. Then all future characters exported from blender are exported using that skeleton for the same animation sharing effect. I can then retarget marketplace animations to that skeleton and export my own animation directly from blemder. Since Uefy Script will make the same hierarchy as the original mannequin with the same pose. Retargeting is basically just a click away without any extra effort.
Hey, i have gotten my character and my armature, and i have attached them together with automatic weights, but i can not do the weight painting thing and if i don't animations look super weird. Is there an estimated time until the weight painting video comes out?
The weight painting is done using Blender's built in tools. You can check information from any source to use them. I will eventually make the videos because the script provides some tools to speed up the process but at the moment I am working on Uefy 2.0
hey i have a question please , recently i bought frank rpg dual from epic marketplace the problem the skeleton mesh of this is it has extra bones compared to ue4 mannequin ,it has same scale and same retargetting bones but it has extra bones for the animations , can uefy script do the job to copy bones from this mesh to another mesh bought from marketplace
You can add some types of additional bones (shoulder pads / weapons / hair etc) to the rig made by the script as shown in th-cam.com/video/2xVF9QFu-Bw/w-d-xo.html . You'll need to add these yourself however the script is not aware of outside rig designs.
i really liked the first half of the video. then you suddenly start selecting and deselecting stuff while switching through edit modes and clicking buttons amd scripts without proper explanation and i totally lost faith that i could reproduce what you did there. is the second part with the meta rig even needed when you just want to use shared animations? or is that only needed to be able to create custom animations with this character in blender to export later on?
In the first part of the video we just create a simple skeleton to help us pose the mesh and metarig to look the same as the unreal mannequin with help from the script.
Secondly we use the metarig to create the animation rig, that is a much more complicated thing than our skeleton with hundreds of dynamically generated bones.
Lastly the default generated rig we get from the metarig is not compatible with unreal, so we use the script to make it usable in the game engine.
I can't select any bones to fix the characters feet after generating and scaling the metarig then clicking setup character bone name and clicking pose character. From here in pose mode, when I click on bones the don't get selected.
If you select multiple objects for example character and metarig to use in a mode. Be sure to 'deselect' both of them before you start working in another mode, with only one of them selected. Otherwise blender will do weird things like not letting you select items without any clear indication as to why. This seems to be a quirk of Blender rather than anything to do with the script.
32:53 if you try to apply the copy modifier to the bottom bit with shape keys you get "cannot apply modifier with shape keys" i need a work around plz help!
Blender doesn't allow applying modifiers on armatures with ShapeKeys. Make a copy of the character with shapekeys. Delete the shapekeys, rig the character and then create shapekeys after that or transfer back the shapekeys from the original copy. Blender has data transfer tools to let you do this but unfortunately it is a little complicated. You can search on stackexchange and also see this thread on unreal forum forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/animation/1623830-blender-2-8-beta-morph-targets-and-modifiers
You're a legend, thank you.
Just bought it and got to 38:28. When I click generate rig under rigify, it gives me an error. Using blender 2.8. The error is: invalid rig structure on bone: f_index.01.L. Incorrect armature for type 'simple_tentacle'. Is it because my model has three fingers only?
I've rigged characters with three fingers or no fingers without problems. In this video th-cam.com/video/kuqeG6oGQJM/w-d-xo.html the character did not have any fingers at all. Check if the finger bones are parented correctly to the hand and to each other.
@@RakizFarooq Thank you!! i did not delete the excess fingers and tried again. Imported just as advertised. Now I can start working on importing my animations.
Excellent! I have an old character model I made that I have been using since before blender 2.8... but it has issues now with UE4 4.25 and bla bla bla... So basically I am going to re-rig it and start fresh and just... Re... Animate. But at least while I get it up and running I can share animations with UE4.
I'll have to get uefy! Thank you!
And so if I wanted to add bones for a helmet visor, backpack and some hip stuff for weapon sockets, I would do that on the layer you show towards the end of the video? @ 40:00?
But wouldn't I have to re-weight paint everything?
That layer is just for the facial rig. I show how to add extra bones like shoulder pads etc in this video th-cam.com/video/2xVF9QFu-Bw/w-d-xo.html
If you have a character that is already rigged you don't need to repaint anything. You can just reuse the old vertex groups with the new rig. There is a new update in the works that will greatly simplify adding extra bones.
@@RakizFarooq thank you so much for your time and contribution to the community! :)
Hi .how can i add extra bones on my character?For example my character is a sub with diving fins and l want animate them .
Thanks
You can review the paragon character rigging video where I add additional bones like shoulder and kneepads etc. th-cam.com/video/2xVF9QFu-Bw/w-d-xo.html
Hi there I bought your script this week. I got the UE4 mannequin by exporting it to fbx in UE. When I imported it into blender the armature was disconnected from the model by quite a distance and I couldn't figure out how to re-align them. Will this affect the later stages or can I still use the armature of that mannequin for the stage at 30min? (if not where can I get an fbx of the mannequin that will work?) Also my model's hands are facing backwards, does this change the X direction of the wrist? Thanks
@Robert Kingsbury I find the unreal engine mannequin in the editor's content folder. Then right click -> Asset Action -> Export. I use default settings for the export that means FBX 2013 format and no change in any option. This gives me a mannequin that is centered and always work. If you use different export options it might not be supported by Blender.
Also I suggest you try th-cam.com/video/RAS4uZJcJ_o/w-d-xo.html before following this video.
If your character's hands open towards the back the x-axis would also point that way. But even if you rotate the axis correctly you might still end up with trouble because your pose it too different from the default mannequin. I suggest you remodel your character to better match the mannequin. So only minor orientation corrections are required.
Good explanation, but felt kind of frustrating going back and forth between 3 different armatures / skeletons.
Let's say someone has a properly named skeleton with correct bone axes and properly weight painted, in correct pose - it's still a long way to go from there.
Is there a simpler process?
Up until 32:35 everything makes sense! Felt confusing after this (except applying the rest pose).
I use characters from many sources. They might have a skeleton or be a plain mesh or be in the wrong pose or many other incompatibilities. Following this pipeline process I can ensure I get them into Unreal Engine and working without problems whatever their initial condition might be.
@@RakizFarooq Thank you for your prompt reply.
And ... do I have to add the twist bones manually ?
Twist bones along with other additions are generated by the script.
Sorry for all the comments, but comments do mean engagement which is good for your channel!
Anyway, when the rig is generated at 38:25 everything is fine except that the spine bones are tiny, probably do to the meta rig being scaled 900% when matching the armature.
Also the applied weight painting seems to be my original unmodified weight painting without the fixes. Did I miss a step?
Okay I went back a few steps, scaled the spine meta rig bones up by 95 and everything is fine now. I was also able top edit the weight paint so it is all sorted, I can see the light at the end of this!
As shown in the video you have to apply scale on all meshes and armatures so it ends up (1,1,1). This includes the metarig. After you resize the metarig you have to apply scale on it or you will get issues.
31:05 - when I hit "Pose Character" only the left arm correctly snaps into place, but the right arm is stuck in place and I get this error:
location: : -1
AttributeError: 'Context' object has no attribute 'evaluated_depsgraph_get'
any help?
Are you using an older version of blender? use Blender 2.80 final release with latest version of the Uefy Script.
@@RakizFarooq, I'm using Blender 2.80 with the Uefy 1.3 script, anything wrong?
Blender 2.80 beta, is there a difference with the final release?
@@RakizFarooq nevermind! got it figured out, I was using the blender 2.80 beta haha my bad!!
also is the skeleton of the original mesh supposed to have "ORG" in front of the name?
Thank you for this useful tool.
After symmetrizing, the rotations get flipped on the right side of the models armature (the direction of X does not appear to be symmetrized as well?). Any ideas on why this occured? Looks like I can go to each bone and use your Bone Roll Tool to correct this, but avoiding it occurring to begin with would be ideal if possible.
This is normal and correct. We build the left side only, with specified names and rolls as in the video and use symmetrize to build the right side. The right side rolls may not match the left side but if you built the left side correctly everything will work.
@@RakizFarooq Thank you for clarifying
Where is your 'Weight Painting Tutorial Link', please?
I did not get around to it unfortunately. There are some expected new features in the next update for the script. I'm focused on that, there won't be more general blender usage or animation related tutorials until it is done.
@@RakizFarooq No worries, Rakiz, thank you for letting me know.
Please will you let me know when V1.4 is available and the associated tutorials are ready?
Thank you and keep up the great work =]
Great tutorial, it was very helpful! There were a few times where you repeated yourself several times though, but overall I was able to learn what I came here for. I'm still waiting on that weight painting video, by the way!
Great video,I done this before and worked just fine, did it again for another character and now I keep getting "imported bone transform is different from original" when importing, and animations will show up completely blank. Any idea as to what might be causing this?
Common reason is forgetting to change rig name to "Armature" this is required for Unreal Engine to import armatures correctly from Blender. If you don't do this unreal does not recognize the correct root bone and you get that message.
@@RakizFarooq Woops, silly me. I did forget that step. Everything is all good. Thanks :D
At 26:43 you switch to weight painting the model and all the button props disappear. What are you pressing that lets you grab the bones?
(Edited) Shift+Left click with the mouse. You have to be careful though as you can miss the bone and accidentally apply weight paint to the surrounding mesh. I used the R key to rotate after selecting the bones. Press T to bring back the left side panel with buttons .
@Stephen Harper I made a mistake in the last message, sorry about that. It is Shift + Left Click to select bone and Shift + Right Click to select only vertex group.
is this supposed to work with Unreal 4.23?
works just fine.
At 31:04 when I pose the character it puts the upper arm bones up too high and they don't line up with the shoulders any more. Should I manually adjust them? [correction] I adjusted them as close as possible before running the script but it destroys the shoulders no matte what I do
Figured it out, had to copy the ue4 models bone roll of -173.966 for the shoulder
The script matches the rest pose of the mannequin. So it is working correctly. The problem is the default pose of the mannequin has shoulders pulled too far back for most characters. You'll see this issue even in Paragon characters from Epic. th-cam.com/video/2xVF9QFu-Bw/w-d-xo.html around 10 min mark I talk about the shoulders and how they put the character in a weird pose.
In that video I adjust the bones of the shoulders to get a better base pose. However this is not necessarily the best option. I could also have left it as it is and just adjust the pose when I start making animations. You may get better retargeting results with either way depending on how your character is built. Due the weird rest pose for the default mannequin you have to experiment and decide which approach provides the best results for individual characters.
For the weight paint, could you just use data transfer modifier and transfer all the weight / vertex groups from mannequin to your custom karakter? that way saving lot of time?
Yes you can and their are ways to copy weights like that. However it is unlikely to give any better result than just letting Blender auto-paint your character. There are specialized weight paint scripts but they not much better either. You need to manually weight paint your character, it is just part of the development process.
@@RakizFarooq Thanks, one more question fast, when I press " Pose Metarig " it will scale UP to 1000x or so and go under the grid line. What is the fix for it or where did i miss that in the tutorial?
You need to apply scale on the metarig like I show in the video around 30:15
I have some issues with the toes they get distorted and the character pose of the meta rig is also not working. I tried to redo everything but it didn't work. I followed your steps but it is not working. One possible problem could be the toe axis orientation but I couldn't figure it out.
I forgot the distortion is happening in unreal engine in the animation menu
If the problem is in Unreal Engine make sure to set Translation Retargeting as shown in 44:30 beyond that make sure you made only the left side of the character skeleton and use symmertize to get the right side. Lastly if you manually updated the weight paint make sure only the toe deform bone has weight and none of the rigify controls or other non-related bones are affecting the output.
@@RakizFarooq I solved the issue i painted the whole foot with weight paint. It seems that the toe is not working with the mannequin.
my armature rotation is fine but my models is 90 but when i change it he goes on to his back? any way to fix this?
also my character mesh doesn't move whatsoever when i click pose.
Armature and Mesh are separate objects that need correct rotations applied to them individually. Disconnect your armature from the mesh. Rotate both objects into the correct position and apply rotation/scale etc on both of them. Now you can reattach the armature to the mesh.
Posing requires building a base skeleton with correct names and rotations as shown in the video in the same order.
Blender shape keys are compatible?
Blender doesn't allow applying modifiers to objects with shapekeys. You can create blender shape keys after you have rigged your character. But if your original character already has shape keys you need to delete them, rig the character and copy them back. While this is possible it is not easy and may require additional scripting.
@@RakizFarooq I read is more a thing how blender works.
I was looking for this :D thanks
I'm not getting the right click menu when I click on a bone, I'm assuming there's a plugin I don't have.
Script works with default blender distribution. You don't need anything other than Rigify enabled in preferences (already included with blender).
@@RakizFarooq I can get the script to work (thank you for creating it btw, really speeds things up) but when I right click on a bone, I don't get that context menu. I have to use the spacebar search for things like symmetrize.
I just downloaded latest blender (2.82a at this time). I have no additional addons enabled. If I right click on a bone in Edit mode. I get a context menu with symmetrize and other options. Try resetting your preferences to factory default.
That's probably it, I still have the original release of 2.8. I didn't even think about that, thank you
Thank you for your work sir!
Great tutorial.i it was easy to absorb and to follow to the end. I'm having one odd behavior when applying animation from ue4 model to mine.it seems to stretch my model to the size on the ue4 model.so my model moves correctly but ends up looking distorted.is there some step I missed to keep the size correct?
@Manuel Padua If your issue is in unreal editor, then you probably need to adjust Translation Retargeting options on your skeleton as around 44:11 in the video. Scale problems in Blender are usually about people not setting the Unit Scale to 0.01 at the start of the project. This needs to be done else scaling issues will follow you straight back into the engine even if the rigging part works.
Okay, I have entered into a whole other world of problems. So I have what I believe to be is the latest version of Uefy which has some added features. For instance, when the spine needs to be aligned at 34:34, the rest of the rig is hide, or rather it is enlarged so it isn't in the way. This is resolved when you generate your rig. UNLESS you need to make some last minute adjustments like the arms that aren't matched up in the demo model.
Now this is especially bad because when I go to generate my rig it is off a bit, in fact I would say it is off the same amount as the demo rig. My model was fine in previous steps when it came to matching up the two arms, so this is a bit of a pickle.
Did I mess something up or is the script offsetting for the demo rigs mistake?
Not sure know what you mean by last minute adjustments. But following the steps as they are in the video gives me correct results every time.
We use the script to align the limbs but the spine needs to be aligned manually because rigify requires a connected spine that is as straight as possible for optimum results.. If you are moving the limbs after they you might get strange results.
@@RakizFarooq The spine is fine, but my right arm is not lined up correctly when I generate rig. In the video, you correct the right arm at 37:03. I am trying to adjust the the right arm bones but they are no where near the rig and it is hard to line them up correctly.
In the video I create only the Left side of the skeleton. Then I correct the names and rolls for only the left side. Then I use symmetrize to auto-build the right side. Did you also follow this order? Or did you build the right side yourself? If you did the later your rolls will be incorrect as the axis get flipped for the right side. Then when you pose the character the right side will be totally incorrectly placed.
is your mesh symmertical? The same on left and right side?
@@RakizFarooq It seems I might have messed with the right side in the posing phase and it is not symmetrical anymore. I will have to adjust and be careful in the future. Thanks for answering my questions
what is ¿shift in? 23:00
Shift + N
and where can I get Epic mannequin?
In Unreal Engine find the mannequin in content browser. Right-Click -> Asset Actions -> Export
I don't get the metarig
me neither
In Blender go to Edit -> Prefrences -> Addons and make sure Rigify Addon is enabled. You can check the first few minutes of this video th-cam.com/video/RAS4uZJcJ_o/w-d-xo.html where I show how to do that.
@@RakizFarooq I think these guys mean that they don't know why you are applying the metarig (as per my previous comment)
Great tutorial! and great tool :)
I can't understand why you have to create the Human meta rig if you have already skinned your character with your custom rig. Let's say that I'm only interested in retargeting animation bought from the store... and I don't want to create my custom animation with blender... should I go through the Human meta rig step anyway?!
@@IndieGamesWTF Yes you should.
The basic skeleton we add is for posing the limbs only. The actual epic skeleton has more bones like the twist and Ik bones etc. Uefy Script will create all those extras for you in addition to adding a facial rig like th-cam.com/video/mJUWJxBzW3Y/w-d-xo.html depending on the options you choose.
There is a difference between a skeleton and an animation rig . A skeleton like the one we create is not enough to create new animations. You need a proper rig like rigify. But rigify is not compatible for use with Unreal Engine 4. In this video we use Uefy Script to make rigify work with unreal.
I am not an animator, I use the script to get a consistent skeleton across all my characters. Then I import them to the engine and retarget marketplace animations on the characters knowing that everything will just work because all my characters have the Epic Skeleton. Since I also have a full rig in blender I can create new animations to fill blanks in the marketplace content.
@@RakizFarooq Oh I see... you are completely right sorry, I wasn't thinking about IK and twists..
46:30 when i do this is appears a error "falied to merge bones"
Most common reason for this is forgetting to rename the rig object to "Armature" before exporting from Blender.
@@RakizFarooq oh thxs that is it
well i think it was it. there is the same problem even after i change the name
Perhaps you imported previously where you did not rename the rig .That will change the default mannequin's skeleton for that project. Try it with a new unreal project and make sure the export is only done with the renamed rig..
@@RakizFarooq it worked but the scale is messed up, some animations are in the correct scale but some not, i am using the avanced locomotion project
This is the best tutorial, in anything, in all of youtube, or even the world.