Questions about Skeletons/Rigging

[R2D5]

Hello
I’m wondering if the UT 3 Skeleton/Rig files that are provided for ut3 are working with udk? How can I use custom Rigs? What type of rigs are supported, character studio, cat, Bones Pro?

[awakeningfromobliv]

I would like to know this as well, particular dealing with Softimage 2010, like what is the proper way to build a custom rig, full body and first person arms.

Thanks

[badkangaroo]

This could be quite a long thread, but pretty much any skeleton can be supported in udk, only restriction would be bone count for a single character is 255, and I dont think you can include bone scale in your animations.

[jernst]

hello!

you can use any kind of skeleton you want, with any nomenclature. However, as mentioned, 255 is max bone count, and anything over 75 bones will make for another draw call I believe.

Also, while you cannot have bone scaling in the anims themselves, you can use the anim tree to do this. You can use the single bone controller and use the bone scale on there, in accordance with the meta data in the animsets.

The meta data allows you to select a class(you'd probably want keyframe) and then allows you to specify a skel control name(from your tree) and the times and values you want for scale etc. This can also be used to animate any other skel control node in the anim trees, like IK nodes etc.

[Locutus3d]

What about using helper objects to control fingers? Can they be used in the rig as well?
Would control objects count against the bone count limit?

[Jay Shadow]

Before you export animation to use in the UDK, you can collapse the animation down to your base skeleton so there's a key for every frame. Having a key on every frame means the helpers are no longer needed and you can export just the bones that drive the character's mesh.

I'm not sure where to do that in other programs, but in 3DS Max you go to the Motion>Trajectories tab, set your range, select the bones you want to key, and press Collapse.

That's how the example skeletons were done. They used Character Studio and helpers to drive a skeleton made of regular bones, then collapsed the animation. That keyed all the bones themselves and you can leave the Biped and Helpers behind.

Hopefully there's searchable info out there to describe how it's done in other programs.

[Denny]

In Maya you can use helpers even on export. ActorX only samples joint objects and their current values. You can even have several joint chains and exclude them through naming conventions. (*_ignore, *_noexport)

Regarding draw calls it's 75 bones with influence I believe. So you could have 100 joints with 25 non-skinned bones and 75 skinned bones before the new drawcall. Non-skinned bones could be used for things like camera bones or attachments.

[Locutus3d]

Before you export animation to use in the UDK, you can collapse the animation down to your base skeleton so there's a key for every frame. Having a key on every frame means the helpers are no longer needed and you can export just the bones that drive the character's mesh.

I'm not sure where to do that in other programs, but in 3DS Max you go to the Motion>Trajectories tab, set your range, select the bones you want to key, and press Collapse.

That's how the example skeletons were done. They used Character Studio and helpers to drive a skeleton made of regular bones, then collapsed the animation. That keyed all the bones themselves and you can leave the Biped and Helpers behind.

Hopefully there's searchable info out there to describe how it's done in other programs.

Great information, it was very helpful, thank you.
So then.......export of the character rig is still handled using Actor X?

[Locutus3d]

Also....does anyone know if UDK will export a Puppetshop rig?
Sorry about all the questions and I really appreciate everyone's answers.

[geodav]

as mentioned above any rig should be supported, but don't forget you still need all your anims + physics assets.

your best bet is just to try something basic and see if it works

[The_Nameless]

Awesome information, I didn't know about the 255 limit. One question though , I know we need the root joint but do we need those IK_Gun, or IK_Root joints in our custom rig? or do they need to be there at least and this goes for the roll joints on the ut3 provided rigs.

[crapageddon]

Also looking for a good tutorial on building custom characters and rigging them in Maya, ready to then export into Unreal. From there these video tutorials cover it well:

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/VideoTutorials.html

...but before this is what I'd like to see more of. I've found this but it seems to only focus on Max, not Maya.

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UT3CustomCharacters.html

Any help on creating Rigged Models in Maya for Unreal (getting them up to the point where they are ready for import) would be greatly appreciated.

[hoek]

Also....does anyone know if UDK will export a Puppetshop rig?
Sorry about all the questions and I really appreciate everyone's answers.

No problem with that. Just export the rig to Max Bones (from puppet shop), and you will see clean baked bones in your viewport. Then you can delete the original rig. I use to have 2 max files. 1.- the original rig 2.- the baked bones (to export it)

[hoek]

hello!

you can use any kind of skeleton you want, with any nomenclature. However, as mentioned, 255 is max bone count, and anything over 75 bones will make for another draw call I believe.

Also, while you cannot have bone scaling in the anims themselves, you can use the anim tree to do this. You can use the single bone controller and use the bone scale on there, in accordance with the meta data in the animsets.

The meta data allows you to select a class(you'd probably want keyframe) and then allows you to specify a skel control name(from your tree) and the times and values you want for scale etc. This can also be used to animate any other skel control node in the anim trees, like IK nodes etc.


Hi Jernst!
I was looking to do this for a while, and I figured out how to scale manually trough a single bone controller. But I got lost with the "classes" 'cause I really need to control this scales on my animations.
How can I specify times and values?
As a animator, the ideal thing would be just scale the bones (max or maya) and activates the "magic switch" in UDK to see the real animation. It's hard to try to emulate this animations in UDK...kind of rough...
THANKS! :D