Custom model require custom skeleton?

[Chimerainc]

Heyy everyone I have been searching aound for a while trying to find out how to make a custom character to play in 3rd person that is actually a different size than the UT3 Bone set. My model is a 3 foot tall alien like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-KX9WdfHMQ

I know how to rig /animate it, BUT,

Are there any tutorials that cover how to make a custom 'player' character with a different skeleton than the 3 epic provided or even by editing those?

I only found one on how to add a custom animated actor/ npc not PLAYER.

Also, I know their are 100 or so animations, all of which I could make in a few days, but how would you go about changing the player animations in ue3 once you exported them all from maya?

Basically- id like to establish a walk cycle so I can play my char in 3rd person.
If someone could show me the way to accomplish this then everything else will come easy.

Once the walk cycle is exported with actor x, how do you actually change the player walk animation and play the char?

Meaning, what would you do different from the other tutorials instead of just adding an actor to the scene in UE3 since your going to control it?

[geodav]

ok try scaling the UT3 (b_bone) rig down to the size you need and try that, then make your 100+ anims, don't forget these get called via code so if you don't have the anims then you launch.log will have thousends of errors.

you can set the animset via the Family code

[Chimerainc]

So if your character is the same height and is humanoid you dont need to make new animations

but if its smaller / half the height or non humanoid then you do?

Or can you scale the bones down and keep the same animations but just have a character half the size?

In that video I posted of that guys demon do you think he did 100 custom animations for that character?

[geodav]

well to be honest i haven't tried it but you could just do the model and rig as normal size and then scale it down in the code, but like i say not sure how to do it

[Chimerainc]

Ya cuz I was messing with the bomberman model and that thing is huge! I dont think too many ppl know how to do this yet or else he would be normal size lol.

Anyone else know about scaling custom chars ?

[kobra_k88]

- Quick and easy way without needing custom anims or rig. Change this setting in your custom family script.


DefaultMeshScale=1.000000

This does one to 1 scaling though so both width and height are affected equally.

- Using custom rig and custom anim. This is what I did for my Faraleth char. Technically there aren't 100 animations. About 25% are static poses. The major anims are, run cycles, crouch, jump, dbl jump, swim, a few hoverboard, and the taunts. You'll still be using Epic's animtree and offset anims so keep the animation names the same as what's used by epic. Also bone names and amount will need to be the same as what Epic uses. And the pivot points need to be aligned in terms of orientation to Epic's bones, which are the same and 3DSMax's biped. Here's an overview of the process after you export your animations.

1) Create a custom animset and import your psa file.
2) In your custom family script point to your custom animset:

Ex:

PhysAsset=PhysicsAsset'CH_GMK_Anims.Mesh.PA_GMK_Fe m'
AnimSets(0)=AnimSet'CH_GMK_Anims.Anims.AS_GMK'
Since your using a custom rig you'll need to create a physics asset as well. My tutorial on that physics asset tut (http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?p=25515900#post25515900)

This next section is only related to the character creation screen and not in game.


MasterSkeleton=SkeletalMesh'CH_GMK_Anims.Mesh.GMK_ Fem_MasSkel'
CharEditorIdleAnimName="CC_GMK_Fem_Idle"
For the masterskeleton just export you skeleton using the triangle trick. Don't export any body parts. The "CharEditorIdleAnimName" is the name of the character idle animation you import into your animset. It doesn't require any package reference.