Create quick animations for prototyping?

[MenDAKE]

I'm currently learning the unreal engine -- doing a lot of experimenting. I'd like to experiment with creating a simple melee system, and I was wondering if it's possible to create some simple animations on an actor using the UDK. In other words I don't want to have to get into creating the animations in a 3D application just yet, so I can focus on the code. is there a way to create an animation such as a kick or a punch using the UDK? I'm not seeing many tutorials about character animation, so I'm not even sure if it's possible.

[JohNLA]

I don't think you can animate a character without an outside app. If you are just working on a weapon why not use the default character animations.

[MenDAKE]

Well, what I want to do is have the player throw punches and kicks and use a Trace for hit detection. However, as far as I know the default character doesn't have any of these hand to hand combat animations, does it?

[mikepurvis]

You can make your own animations in the Editor. I'm not very good at animating but I've done it. Search on making Anim Trees. you can create your own blends of existing sequences, and/or take control of bones directly.

It's probably faster to do it in Blender or Max though.

[Denny]

Now now, don't go confusing people. You're not actually making new animations, blending animations in the AnimTree isn't quite making new ones if we should be picky.

[Jonny T]

Saying that - if you're looking to prototype animations, the pipeline is SO smooth and fast from Max, it's as simple as:

Create reference pose and import into engine via Actor X plugin then:

Create animation > Export to PSA > (keep UDK open with actor window open on model animtaionset) Select Import PSA > Import and Play anim to test.

Simples!

[MenDAKE]

Okay, I'll just go ahead and create the animations in Max. Thanks for the info, everyone.

Just out of interest, though, is it really technically possible to manipulate bones to essentially create new animations, or can I only use blend animations? I'm not very clear on that.

[Dreadnought]

What if we are using mudbox or zbrush to do our detailing? Is it possible to take a model from, say, mudbox and put it back into max for animating?

[syntaxerror22]

What if we are using mudbox or zbrush to do our detailing? Is it possible to take a model from, say, mudbox and put it back into max for animating?

You should always be animating the low poly version, high poly models will normally only be for normal and height maps. If you wanna do the high poly first that is fine, but be sure to drop it down to reasonable polys before rigging/skinning and animating.