custom character with udk skeleton

[andrea_at]

Hi all,

I was wondering if i could import my custom character made in blender and to attach the skeleton of SK_Crowd_Robot to my character in order to use the animations related to this skeleton in particular? And if I have my own character attached to an skeleton made in blender, could i link it to the animations made in UDK? Im new at all this, try to understand me :p Thanks in advance...

Andrea

[DAW[ELOPER]]

Hi :D

Google shows lots of tutorials in this topic.
There are tutorials for UT3 editor, they are good to understand the UDK's custom character cretion methods and the Mastering Unreal Technology books will also help you a lot.

Try these first:

http://camink.com/UT3/UT3CustCharTutorial01.html
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UT3ModHome.html
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UT3CustomCharacters.html

UDK exporter for blender: serach for: export_udk_PSK_PSA.py
(But it is not working very good on my computer, The Google Sketchup UT3 exporter is better then this. 3D MAX has ActorX exporter for animated meshes.)

And nice to see girls (women) in this industry.

Good luck!

[geodav]

no you must create the skeleton rig in your 3d app then export it.
if you maintain the bone naming you'll be able to use the UDK character anims

[MaximilianPs]

you mean b_root, b_hips, b_leftleg and so on ?
can i use directly biped and rename his meshes ?

[geodav]

you mean b_root, b_hips, b_leftleg and so on
yes


can i use directly biped and rename his meshes
if you can re-name the biped bone then why not

[andrea_at]

Well hello! Thanks for all the replys! Im gonna follow all the tutorial steps and then ill tell u guys how it went... I got to do some tests... See ya!

A woman starting in this industry ;)

[syntaxbrn]

Ok, so I've figured out how to import my skeletal mesh, but I don't know if im properly packaging it for actual use. Every time I try to launch from front end it just says " disconnected from host" and then goes back to the main menu. Any suggestions?

[syntaxbrn]

And for those that were also confused by all the other weird steps, Just put your character on top of the skelatal mesh you can download from http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UT3CustomCharacters.html, I did it inside 3ds max and its working awesome, and you export it using the actor x plugin. Then you might be closer to being stuck where I am.

[Hyper_Shado]

http://steam-punk-pirates-mod.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/TutorialCode/CustomChar/UT3SimpleRig.blend

Here is a blender version of the default skeleton. Just stick your model on top (probably scaled by 100 though) and then apply the bone weights, and then you will be able to use the default Unreal animations as soon as you import the character. It's nice.

[geodav]

@syntaxbrn, not realy sure whats gone wrong, please when starting out go step by step as i did in my basic UDK tutorials then we might be able to help

[syntaxbrn]

ok, im trying to figure out how to actually create the animtree, that i need for the custom character. I have my character imported as a psk. I have my character in as a skeletal mesh. How can I make sure to get all of the default unreal animations working, and make my character playable?

I was trying to follow fishi's tut at http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=717339
and i was trying to figure out what
Choose File -> Import PSA and open your Animations.PSA means... How does one create psa files for animations? and do you need these to make your character work at all or is it agian built in? Im really stuck at figureing out what I need to do next just to use my character.

[geodav]

ok first you need to export your anims from your 3d app, if you watch my weapon videos you'll see how its done in max, you just need to do the same thing for your character.
in Ued create a new animset and then import your psa file.

[Patrick87]

This topic seems to be talking about the same things that we are wondering about at work. So in a nut shell if you import your own character into UDK can you use there animation set for it.

And, if you are a company making a game using UDK than by using those animation sets would that be considered breaking the copyright law.

[eAlex79]

Why? We can use all but the delievered skeletal meshes.

[UnrealEverything]

http://steam-punk-pirates-mod.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/TutorialCode/CustomChar/UT3SimpleRig.blend

Here is a blender version of the default skeleton. Just stick your model on top (probably scaled by 100 though) and then apply the bone weights, and then you will be able to use the default Unreal animations as soon as you import the character. It's nice.

Thank you so very much for posting that; was searching for over a year and could only find files which weren't working correctly as some of the Blender import script are outdated...

[andrea_at]

Hey there, i did one single mesh of my character in Blender and added the skeleton suggested in this thread. The rigging and animations i did in Blender works but when i import the mesh and skeleton as a .psk format into the UDK it turns out something weird like this:

http://yfrog.com/0zdibujowrrj

Why does it happens? Please make a suggestion... Thanks in advance :)

P.S.: All the pivots (mesh and skeleton) are on the center of the grid. The skeleton has a b_root that is the father of the b_hips. The b_root is also the parent of other b.ik's that dont have weight painting over the mesh.

[andrea_at]

the image again into the UDK:

http://yfrog.com/j1dibujorg


where u can see the arms, hands and a little bit of the legs got a distortion... :(

[desigpa]

Looks like a skinning issue. Are all of your verts correctly weighted with no unexpected influences?

[UnrealEverything]

lol
Yours looks pretty good, mine is completely broken! :( I didn't check all the pivots and rotations yet...

[UnrealEverything]

Hey, hey,
I fixed it :)!

What you need to do is go to editmode for the Armature and select b_root. As you should notice it's three times bigger then the other bones. All you havt to do is resize the bone to a length (scale) of 1 and the skeletalmesh will be fine in UDK! I knew this had to be a problem with bonescales;
note: all the bones must have the same size, but not necessarily 1.

Good luck

[andrea_at]

And yes, it was a skinning issue. Thanks for all the suggestions!

[Chathura]

does anyone have the Deafault Skeleton for Maya.... please.... I am stuck with that IK_Gun thing.... :( Please help me..