Included with some of our animations are a set of supplementary files. These files include the animations in various different formats beside our core fbx files. Some of these we have retargeted to specific skeleton that we feel may help speed up certain pipelines on certain platforms.

With unreal it is possible to import our main 'awesome android' FBX files, but to do so requires retargeting the mocap animation to the unreal skeleton with animation software, or retargeting it directly inside of unreal using the tools they provide. Given the extra complexity involved in retargeting with root motion in place we decided where possible to included a set of animations already retargeted to the unreal skeleton.

Please note that due to potential licensing issues we have created our own mannequin with similar proportions to the unreal mannequin, however when you import the skeleton into unreal without the mesh you will be able to visualize it on the standard unreal model.

If you wish to edit the animation before import, the unreal fbx files we provide for import do include the model to help with visualization purposes. The animations should be relatively easy to transfer onto the original unreal mannequin if you prefer to work with that as well do to the skeleton being the same. You will also find a T Pose file of our character with the supplementary files to help with retargeting and setup in various programs.

A quick note on file size and compression before we start! Before we start I also want to bring to your attention that unless specifically stated, the animations we provide are not compressed. If you plan to use these animations in a project for release you may want to reduce the frame count before upload or compress the animation inside unreal using its built in compression tools.

Short Video Tutorial



Steps to import into unreal...

1. Drag one of the unreal fbx files from your purchased product folder into your unreal project.

2. On the window that pops up uncheck the 'import mesh' checkbox
( Unless you want to import our mannequin for some reason )

3. Now select the UE4_Mannequin_Skeleton from the drop down list. You will also need to make sure that the 'Convert Scene' checkbox is ticked so that unreal converts the scene settings from the animation file into unreals. If you do not do this the animation may not work as expected.

4. Before import you should also roll out the Animation tab and check the 'Use Default Sample Rate' checkbox. This will ensure the animation imports at the correct sample rate (30 fps for our unreal files) otherwise it will ignore this and import a huge file with many more frames than it should. I am not sure why it does this, but checking this appears to fix it.

 

5. Now wait a bit while unreal imports the model. This can take a bit of time if it’s a large file. You can also drag multiple files in together or include multiple takes in one file and Unreal Engine will import all of them.  Sometimes it can take a while to import so you might want to make a cup of coffee.

 

6. Once imported you should see the animation in your project window. You can drag this into your scene if you like to check how it looks. As long as you did not import it with our model attached you will see the animation performed on the unreal mannequin. Note whilst the animation has been retargeted with root motion. By default when you import it this will be disabled. If you wish to use root motion you will need to activate this within your project.