If you're having issues with Skeletal Retargeting with this in 5.2, just download 5.1 and do the mentioned steps then transfer your work into your 5.2 project. Skeletal Retargeting is having some issues in 5.2. Thanks for the videos everyone involved, solved my Synty issues and biggest gripe with their products. 😄 Hoping they make their skeletons more compatible with UE out the box in the future.
@@louthinator I haven't tested in 5.3 as my project is in 5.2 still but I imagine if it's bugged still in 5.3 that same process would likely work as well. Worth noting 5.4 will have some changes in retargeting solutions in it so that might be worth looking into as well! UE5 is constantly changing so who knows what process will work best for 5.4 too. Best of luck!
If you’re having trouble with the legs twitching in 5.2/3 while walking/running, move the calves backwards by like ~15/20 degrees and it should solve it.
Thanks for the refresher! :) As a side note, once you copy the IK Rig from the UE4 Mannequin and replace the preview mesh to the Synty one, check the IK Settings on the legs, the preferred angles are a bit different on Synty (Thigh and Calf, they bend on Y and not Z like UE4 bones). I ended up remaking the rig from scratch since for some reason the IK golas were not aligning with the hands... The rest of the settings can be copied from the UE4 rig since they're pretty much the same (i.e. rotation stiffness on spine and clavicles).
Thanks for this great tutorial Jay! Can't help but feel 'if this happens to you ... and refresh bones' is for my benefit, after the trouble it gave me in 5.0 😁
I hear you! I held off on so long learning 5, so I only had a couple of weeks and then 5.1 came out. Can't believe how many little things have already changed between the two, I'm almost glad I didn't jump on it when it was in preview. Unreal Engine development does happen at a somewhat staggering pace.
UPDATE FOR ANYONE WHO RUNS INTO THIS: My 3rd Person Character didn't have an ABP set by default. If I set it on Quinn's Mesh (ABP_Quinn) after adding the the Synty Skeleton, no animations would work. I had to remove the Synty skeleton, set the ABP on Quinn's mesh, and compile. Then after a successful test of the animations, I could add the Synty Skeletal mesh and set the Synty ABP on it. TLDR: Make sure Quinn's mesh has her animation blueprint set before adding the Synty Skeletal mesh. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Followed this tutorial as closely as possible (I think) but animations aren't playing when I go to test in a level. The preview animations work in the retargeter, but there are no animations playing when testing; the character only moves around in the A-pose. I am referencing the BP_ThirdPersonGameMode in the level and the BP_ThirdPersonCharacter is the Default Pawn Class. In BP_ThirdPersonCharacter, setting Quinn's AnimClass to either None or ABP_Quinn_C (as it looked like was set in the video before adding the Synty skeletal mesh), only changes the pose from A (none) to a relaxed pose (ABP_Quinn) but no animations happen. The Synty Skeletal Mesh has the ABP_Synty class set for its AnimClass. The Synty Animation Blueprint compiles but with warnings about some bones not being found (as was mentiond in the video). The IK Retargeter references Manny as the source, and the IK_Rig_Synty as the target. Bones have been repositioned an preview animations all work here. The Synty IK Rig has had all the bones fixed and there are only warnings about the missing bones. Animations for Quinn work only if the Synty Skeletal mesh is removed. If the Mesh is there, no animations work. This is using Unreal 5.1.1 on Windows. Any ideas of what to check? I've tried this from start to finish 3 times now and end up with the same result each time; something must be a little off in my project. All ideas and help are greatly appreciated.
Thanks for showing this! I love UE5's retargeting system! I want to move my project to UE5 but I cant' use Apex Destruction and will have to figure out how to use Chaos to get the same results. Also if you picked up Syntys western set, which didn't include a horse, you can use Malbers Animations Horse Animset asset which includes a low poly horse!
That's right, I remember buying the Malbers horse but haven't tried it in UE 5 yet. So much to explore! I haven't looked at Chaos and Niagara yet either, I hope they're easy to figure out. I did manage to work out the new Enhanced Input controls though, that's a start I guess.
@@WPguru I can't wait to finish this project so I can dive into using the Synty ones! I'll be using UE5 for that one. Right now I'm working on horse taming. 🙂
@@WPguru I'm so bummed, my horse doesn't have the bucking (yes this is spelled correctly! lol) anim I need for the taming part, the horse that has the anim is poorly made and has no root. I tried to add one in Blender but all it does is override the Hips bone?? I found a quadruped retargeter for UE5 (I can email you the link if you are interested in it) but I can't use it with no root bone. I tried setting the Hips as the root but then it has no hips, lol. I guess I'll have to refactor the taming bit. 😵💫
This was really cool, great explanation! Are there any performance implications of having the two meshes secretly there? Does this scale well vs retargeting assets or is this something you would really only want to use for a player character?
Not that I can see, but I'd like to do a test. I remember doing something similar with the UE4 mannequin and a heavy environment (City Park), and it comfortably spawned and animated 250 instances: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-w420zbkCM_4.html Let's see how many Synty characters I can spawn with this method. Watch this space!
Great tutorial! Especially when it came to modifying the angle for the target! Do you have any recommendations when it comes to putting together the modular aspects of Synty guns? Their packs usually separate the magazine as a separate skeletal mesh from the main body of the rifle or pistol, which makes retargeting gun animations very frustrating
Thank you! I've only used the non-modular guns so far, which pack has a modular gun? I'm happy to loko into it. I've just recorded a couple of videos in which I'll show how to put the modular characters together and how to randomise them. Perhaps modular guns will work the same way.
I followed this in UE5.4, Manny to Synty (Mech Pilot) and it worked, but I've got a couple of bugs on the elbows and left leg (like one frame snaps out), but it works fine for you. Anyone have any ideas?
Synty have recently changed the skeleton for many of their UE packs, it could have something to do with it. I've not had a look what they've actually changed about it though, so it's just a guess.
@@WPguru These bugs are strange, but they do impact your tutorial if you follow exactly what you say to do. The arms and legs don't precisely match up the Synty mech poly humanoid model. So I follow your instructions. They bug on various frames. Don't want that. So, Retargeter > Root Settings > Blend to Source > Blend to Source: Set to 1.0 > Root Settings > Affect IK > IK Vertical: Set to 0.86. This will remove the bugs and the feet will be parallel with the floor, but your Synty mech poly humanoid model will be hovering 7.6 above the floor. Transform > Location > Blue: -7.6. That solves it 100%. I've noticed that the Foot IK doesn't work on the Manny (the front of the feet go into a sloped 45 degree upwards platform when you're standing on it), so I'm going to make a custom foot IK that will fix this in the Anim Graph. Good tutorial and I was able to adapt this to the Mechs to get them working, so thanks. :]
Is this in 5.4? I've seen it being spurious with the preview vs final output (I actually had the opposite, where despite me switching the UE Manny invisible, it was still showing in the blueprint preview but worked fine in gameplay). Just double check you've selected the UE Manny in your blueprint, and over on the right hand side search for "visible". If that tick box is switched off, you've done it correctly. If it still doesn't work it I don't know.
@@williambbq We may be talking about two different sections in UE. Hidden in game is on the Details Panel with the main viewport showing. I was referring to the viewport inside the blueprint editor. If you change it there, it'll remember for subsequent instances you drag into the viewport.
Yeah they’ve changed the Edit Mode Button in 5.3, click on the three dots next to “Run Retargeter”, here’s a screenshot: x.com/versluis/status/1699569694393393561?s=61&t=qEkFiUQ0Efavs8pus0qknA I have the Samurai Pack also, and my meshes are in a t-pose.
Yeah that's an issue with UE 5.2 it appears EPIC made some undesired changes. It still works fine in 5.1, and opening projects created there behave fine in 5.2. Hopefully the next point release will address this problem.
Hallo Jay. Hope you are doing good. I had ran in a issue while exporting Daz Charcater to UE with Daz to Unreal Plugin. Some of the morph dials on transfer dials back to zero and as I result the imported mesh in UE becomes the base mesh, with the morphs (as I am transferring skeletal mesh with morphs). I export the mesh with those morph targets locked in Daz and the skeletal mesh imports in UE in desired way, but the locked morphs sliders are not imported in UE. I remember, in one of your videos you have guided us on a way, where we can set the applied morphs as default morphs of the character (in that process the morph dial that we set as 100 % becomes 0 as default) but I do not remember that process. I am also not able to find that video of yours. Can you please guide me with that process? or you could guide me to the link of that relevant video please. Regards, Utpal
You can set default values on the slider itself in the Parameters Tab. Click the gear icon, then for the Default Value, type what you need (say 100%) and click OK. The slider colour will now be grey at that value, and when you reset it with ALT Left-click, it'll take on that value. I don't know if this will help with the bridge, but it's worth a try. Good luck!
@@WPguru I am in his Discord channel for a long time. I did ask him, and what he has to suggest is " You can't have the morph be both dynamic and baked in. Skeletal meshes in Unreal don't have an option for the morphs to default to something other than 0. "
I haven't experience any downsides yet, just smooth sailing. Since the host mesh/skeleton is invisible, there's no render penalty. I'm no expert though, so please don't take my word for it.
The source Quinn/Manny Blueprint is driving the one for the Synty character. If you want to add any logic to it (like crouching, shooting, swimming) you need to do this on the original player Blueprint. For the third person template, that's ABP_Manny (ABP_Quinn is a child of that).
@@WPguru So any animation that I want to import I should select the UE5 Skeleton (SK_Mannequin) in the Importing window, and not the Synty one? For example animations from Mixamo.
Have you tried this since 5.2 came out? Or the preview? I followed along exactly, twice, and the same result where the knees are really off. They jiggle when you run in the preview, and after doing the animation blueprint the left leg kinda drags along and gets really weird when the right leg goes up a slope. Posting both here and Discord in hopes of finding a solution. And thank you for the video, very informative, just wish it worked for me. Not sure what is going wrong.
Sadly 5.2 is a bit of a disaster in this regard. The whole IK Rig thing has changed (yet again) and the chains for the fingers can't be setup as I've shown in this video, so this is only applicable to 5.1. I'm sure by the time we figure out how to do this in 5.2, it'll be outdated in 5.3. I genuinely hate this about Unreal Engine: whatever we learn today will be useless tomorrow. 😔
@@WPguru That sucks to hear. I am only doing game dev as a hobby so the animations being a little off isn't too bad (I got them to look decent after some work), but it would be nice if they got better, and it didn't constantly change up like this. I think I will just stick with 5.2 and stop upgrading for a while (I just needed the PCG feature to help with world building). Anyway, thank you for the reply and for all the videos you do!
@@OkerlundTV You're very welcome! Sometimes it's good to have more than one version of UE installed, thankfully they make that possible. Like in this case, you could rig the character as shown here with 5.1, then open the project in 5.2 and keep working on it that way. Not ideal, but at least we have options.
