How To Easily Animate Characters | Blender & UE5

today I'm going to be showing you how to animate  your game characters and import them into blender   as well as Unreal Engine 5. I wanted to make  a tutorial for people who might not have a   budget for animation software or mocap suits  I'm going to be using a software called casca   dare cascader have been around for around about  10 years you might be familiar with it already   sorry they have created a tool called the auto  posing tool which means you can quickly create   animations as well as poses by just moving  a couple of joints of your character now   you might be thinking well that's not that  special well one we're going to do it in a   matter of minutes and two we're gonna do it using  completely free software this isn't a replacement   for mocap suit or animation software at all but  it's a good viable alternative if you don't have   the cash 2 Splash I'm going to be starting out  with accurig and rigging our character's mesh   in here we're then going to export our characters  rig 2 where we'll start doing a very basic idle   animation so you can learn the interface and  a bit of the software I'm then going to show   you how to export that animation you've made and  apply it to your character in blender as well as   unreal5 and then at the end of the tutorial I'll  show you where you can grab free mocap data and   then blend it into your animation so enough of  this and more of this let's get on with a show   ouch I think in this tutorial I'm going to be  using the basic version of cascadea if you head   to the link directly down in my description this  will take you to the download page as you can see   cascadeur is compatible with Windows Linux and Mac  so if you don't have a character's mesh to use do   not worry you can use a sample one from Cascada or  you could jump over to miximo and go and choose a   character from there and just download the fbx  of the mesh of the character or go to sketchfab   there are plenty of free models there as well but  if you do you just need a 3D character it doesn't   matter if it's got a rig or not we're going to  deal with that in a second before jumping into   Cascade air one thing we need to do with our  bespoke character is generate a rig this rig   needs to be supported by cascadea and the best  program I found for this is accurate it's an auto   rigging tool and it's free to download install  and load up accurate when you're there click   on choose file and select your fbx file you might  have downloaded from miktomo or might be your own   bespoke character click on open that will load  your character's mesh into accurig now click   on rig body these circles here are where accurig  will generate the joints for your bones the first   thing we want to do is check symmetry so we're  only working on one side and if you click any of   the joints you'll notice here on the right hand  side you get a guide showing you exactly where   you should be positioning your joint on your mesh  down on the bottom left hand corner you will find   tools to allow you to rotate and move around your  character and then on the top left toolbar here   you can switch elevational views as well for your  character if you click on this really colored Cube   you can switch to wireframe mode which makes it  load easier to position the joints on places such   as elbows and knees once you're happy with all the  placements of your guides just come down to the   bottom right hand corner and click rig right hand  we've got five fingers and we're going to click   next and then we just repeat the same process as  we did on the body remember to check on the top   top right hand corner for the guide to show you  where to place those joints if you come up to the   preview motion window you can check the animation  on every body part it's always good to check the   fingers as well make sure they Bend correctly I'm  just going to ensure that she's in an a pose or a   t pose before you export your file just click on  upload to act cool because we're going to be using   that later on and then click on export and Export  fbx I'm going to make the target application Maya   because Cascada I believe was originally based  around the settings from my imports and then we   just check embed texture and click on export now  we also want to save another base mesh off as an   fbx but this time change the target application  to blender I bring this mesh into blender later   down the line and I will use this as a base mesh  to then append any animations to it remember to   check embed textures here as well load up cascader  and go to a new scene and go up to file import fbx   and we're going to go model and I'm just going  to import that file that we just exported with   the Maya settings straight away it should ask  you if you want to enter rig mode and to this we   say yes on the rig mode helper dialog click on yes  click OK on the next dialog and then finally click   on ADD rig elements at the bottom of the quick  rigging tool dialog and then on the last dialog   click on the generate rig button if for any reason  the quick rigging tool did not automatically start   just go up to this button rig mode tool and click  yes and then click quick rigging tool and then you   can follow along from here let's start off with  navigation to rotate around your character hold   down alt and your left Mouse button to pan around  your character hold down alt again and then hold   down your middle Mouse button to zoom in and out  and just use your middle Mouse wheel if you use   to 3D software interfaces you will take to Cascada  like a duck takes to water over here we have our   outliner so our character and all its bones over  here we have all the different point controller   modes you can switch between different rig view  modes depending which you prefer to work in and   then down here we have our timeline to split the  screen into two different viewports just press   spacebar on the keyboard press spacebar once  again on the keyboard just to get back to one   viewport the auto pose tool should be activated  automatically if it's not to activate it just come   over here and click this little Auto pose button  Cascada will automatically calculate the position   of your control points in your rig when you're  moving your character around this is automatically   updated and makes posing an animation of  characters really quick you'll notice that   the control points that you move turn blue once  you've moved them essentially you're pinning that   control point to turn those points back to green  and so they're being controlled by calculations   rather than where you pin them hit this button or  hit shift Z in this part of the tutorial I'm going   to show you how to create a simple idle animation  from a couple of keyframes the first thing I do   is switch over to the point controller so I have  more control over the overall rig and then just   select the feet control points and hit r on the  keyboard This locks those points into place I want   the feet to remain static in the animation for the  first pose I just go in and move and rotate those   control points the hotkey for move is W on the  keyboard and to rotate the control points it is e   first keyframe she's leaning over to the right  I've squatted her down slightly I'm now going   to add a second keyframe on frame 10. click on  this key icon to set a keyframe down and with   the second keyframe selected what I want to do is  have her hand open and close in the animation so   to have more control over the fingers I'm going  to switch to the Box controller mode each finger   joint is represented by a square so I'm going  to double left click the first square and that   will select all the fingers in that hierarchy I'm  going to hold down shift and continue double left   clicking each finger until I've got all four  fingers leaving out the thumb I'm now going   to select the tail mode which is this button here  which will allow us to rotate the bone structure   of our fingers and I'm just using the rotation  tool to just bend them around remember hotkey   e to switch to rotation turn the tail mode off  once you finish I now want to copy that pose of   the closed hand onto the other side of the body  all you need to to do is use the mirror tool by   double left clicking the top hierarchy of the  arm chain that you want to paste onto and going   to mirror tool and we're on the X-Plane and the  mirror on current frame I'm going to switch back   to the point controller mode now what I want to do  is duplicate the first frame on to frame 20. so to   do that I'm going to click the first frame hold  down shift and the middle Mouse button and drag   that frame to frame 20. so all I want to do now  is flip that pose so she's facing the other way   I'm going to use the mirror tool once again to  do this select all the control points here not   the feet because I want those to stay static I'm  going to go to mirror tool again X-Plane which is   through the middle and mirror on current frame  so if we just review our free key poses we can   see she goes from right to Middle to left we are  now going to add interpolation to this animation   which will automatically create animation  between our keyframes that we have created   to do this left click the first frame and drag  to the last frame that you want to create the   interpolation between if you click on the expand  button next to the interpolation tool then select   the blue bezier curve interpolation method you  now notice the intervals between our keyframes   have turned blue this shows Cascada has added  its own animation between those keyframes if   we trim the timeline here so we get rid of these  frames so we can preview this animation hit play   okay so our animation looks terrible because  it's too fast we don't have enough frames in   our animation to slow it down we want to create  an ease in and ease out effect and to do that   we need more games so if I come down here and  extend the viewing area of my timeline I've got   200 frames here that I can view up to you can  increase or decrease that amount depending on   how long your animation is remember in the free  version you only get 300 frames so just going to   extend the viewing area for the timeline click the  last frame and hold down the middle Mouse button   and simply move your keyframe to its new location  in my case it's frame 70. I'll just repeat that   step with the middle keyframe and move that out to  frame 35. you can now see we've got loads more new   frames in the intervals between our keyframes  this will now make our animation a lot slower   and a lot smoother to complete the animation we  just want to repeat these two keyframes again in   the timeline so I'm just going to extend the  timeline so I can see what I'm doing and I'm   going to take the first frame here and copy it  to the last frame so the last frame my animation   is going to be 145 so I'm going to click on the  first frame hold down shift and the middle Mouse   button to copy and move that keyframe to 145.  I want to copy the second keyframe as well so   I'm going to hold down shift and middle Mouse  button and move that to 110 and now if I select   those keyframes and put a bezier over the  top of them and trim the timeline down so   we can see the entire animation and hit play  you can see this is the animation thus far the final thing I like to do is go through my  animation playing it and just checking where I   can improve on every other keyframe I'm moving  the shoulder and chest up to give a feeling or   motion of breathing once you're happy with your  animation it's important to create a loop for   idle animation so what we need to do the first  thing is to ensure that our first and last frame   are exactly the same which in my case they are if  they're not just shift and middle Mouse button and   drag the first frame to the last frame and that  will ensure that they are the same frame I need   to extend the timeline I just want to move this  last keyframe over by one frame just select the   last frame move it over by one frame so reason  being is we don't want to include this Frame   into our cycle because we have two frames that  are identical it will create an obvious skip   so we just want to take the frame before it and  include that into our cycle so I'm going to left   click select every single frame but that last  frame that is very important okay so now we're   going to click on this pink create cycle button  and it will create a pink border around all those   selected frames indicating these frames are now  looped the last keyframe we excluded out of the   loop we don't need to delete it all we need  to do is reduce the keyframe amount to 145 and   there you have it a very basic idle which we can  now export into blender and Unreal Engine we're   now going to export this character's animation  to blender to do that we're going to go to file   export fbx and Export scene I'm just  going to name that export to blender   I've just loaded up blender I'm just going to  delete anything in that current scene and go   to file import and fbx and just navigate to  that file I just exported out of Cascada so   I'm just going to keep all these settings as  default but I'll just open them up so you can   see mine I haven't changed anything in here and  then click import fbx so now we've imported the   animation we want to import the mesh that we're  going to append the animation onto we now need   to import the file we exported out of accurate at  the beginning with the blender export settings I'm   just going to switch to material preview mode and  I'm just going to select the first Armature which   is our animation and just move her over here I'm  just going to come down and make sure that the   timeline is on one and with the character with the  animation selected we're going to come down to the   timeline and right click on the keyframes copy  and then select the second Armature which is our   mesh and go to her timeline right click and paste  and this will copy all the animation frames onto   this mesh you can now delete the character that  you imported from Cascada one thing I'm going to   show you now is how to turn that animation into an  animation track which means when you're creating   Idols Run cycles and walk Cycles you can blend  them and combine them all into one animation to   come down to this watch icon here and then click  on non-linear animation from here you should see   your animation there and just give it a name I'm  just going to call mine idle underscore one so   you know what it is and then click this push  down action button this has now turned those   keyframes into an animation layer this is handy  when you have multiple animation tracks in your   timeline you can blend them into one another if  you come over to the strip tab down here this is   where you can control that animation layer come  down to action clip and you can actually speed up   or slow down the animation here as well as put  in the piece obviously it's a loop so you can   Loop it indefinitely if you really wanted to I'm  now going to show you how to export from Cascada   to Unreal Engine 5. I'm just going to load up a  new blank project so the first thing we're going   to do is come down to the content drawer down here  and then click on the contents folder then in the   contents folder right click anywhere and create a  new folder you can call that whatever you want I'm   just going to call Minecraft character you're  then going to go into your folder and this is   just to keep things organized now we're going to  again right click anywhere in this space I'm going   to click on import again I'm going to be importing  the characters 3D mesh that was rigged in accurate   earlier click open we've got all the default  settings it doesn't actually have any animation   on at all and I'm not going to change anything  here but I'll just show you my settings just   in case yours is different I'm going to click on  import all and if you come to our content drawer   we can see all the materials and the mesh have  come through I'm just going to select the skeleton   and drag her into the scene we just need to rotate  her around go to her transform tools and type in   180 in her said actually that's who she's facing  us so I'm just going to jump back into Cascada   and Export that ideal animation for Unreal Engine  just go to file export fbx and without measures   I'm just going to call this Idol Banning and  click save we're now going to import that idle   animation from cascadeus so to do that we're going  to click on our content drawer right click in any   empty space come up into import two and then click  that idle animation fbx and click on open so we're   going to just ensure that on the skeleton that  you have it assigned to the accurate export mesh   skeleton which we do there so that's good and that  we have our animation length at exported time and   that's pretty much it another click on import all  that animation is now living in our content draw   if we come here it's there and we're just going  to assign it so what we need to do is add a level   sequence so if you come up to this clipboard here  I'm going to click on ADD level sequence this will   allow us to preview our animation on our character  so we're going to select this character here and   just simply drag it into this new level sequencer  down here this is our timeline for our character   we're now going to add that idle animation so  you can see this animation button here click on   the plus animation button and you can see our  idle animation you can ignore that one that's   actually came in from the original import I didn't  uncheck animation doesn't matter don't care I'm   gonna click on idle animation and it's added it  to the timeline here you can imagine you'll be   adding multiple animations onto your character  I'm going to just move the end of the timeline   there and just hit spacebar and have a play so she  should be looping in your animation if you've done   everything correctly so there you go that's  importing to blender and unreal if you do not   have time to create your own bespoke animations I  can show you somewhere where you can get some for   free you can either use these animations as they  come or you can actually edit them and make them   your own in cascader if you head over to actacore  Dr reillusion.com the link is in the description   as usual we can go to this free section over here  I'm going to just let the catwalk free animation   and just click on the download icon here and  then just going to check out and then download   into my inventory if you can't see anything in  your imagery just make sure up here the motion   tab is selected rather than the actor okay we can  now download this walk cycle so I'm going to click   on download from here you can select your target  character earlier in the tutorial when we were in   accurig I told you to export your character  into ACTA core and if you've done that you   should go over to this tab over here to uploaded  characters or uploaded actors and then you'll see   your character there accurig and ACTA core are  developed by the same company so seamlessly work   together if we click on next and from the options  we click on target application and going to select   Maya again because we're importing this back into  casket there to edit if we want to and then the   frame rate is going to just be 60. and click on  download and then once the zip has downloaded into   your downloads folder just extract it and then  you should have emotions folder and in here you   will have your fbx I'm actually going to be using  this Loop one here so I'm going to jump back into   Cascade so we're now going to apply that catwalk  animation to our Cascada character so we need to   make a new scene for that so go to this house  icon and then from this splash screen press new   scene so you actually see here you've got two tabs  so you can actually switch between projects here   which will be very handy for us in a second so I'm  going to go to file import fbx and import scene   and then click on that catwalk Loop fbx and click  open and you can see import scene has imported   you've got a green tick so where is it what you  need to do is change view modes go over to the   Joint mode and there it is now you just want to  select all your jaunts so they're all yellow and   left click and drag and select all those keyframes  and click edit copy interval now I'm going to jump   back into our other project here I can't remember  how many keyframes there are but select the amount   of keyframes you've got all over I'm going to  just assume it's over 190 and then select all   the joints I mean all the joints and then go to  edit and paste interval and there your animation   is I'm just going to trim that down here so  we can have a look at our character animating we're now going to export this animation into  blender and we do that pretty much how I showed   you earlier in the tutorial go to file export  fbx scene and I'll call it walk so we just hop   back into blender go to file import fbx and go  click on walk import I'm just going to go into   that character and select the Armature here  it's already selected and then just type walk   anime Loop or something like that so I  can recognize it push that down on the   nla editor and then I can simply right click  on that Armature and delete and then click this   character create another nla Track by clicking  shift in a this is where we're going to put that   walk Loop and then hover over the timeline  shift in a I'm going to walk or type in walk   and then Loop and there it is if I click on the  animation track here we should be able to see the   strip editor so come down I'm going to repeat  this uh so she's walking quite a bit in a loop   I'm going to bring it over here and I want to  blend it in with the idle animation we created   in this tutorial I'm going to hit spacebar  on the keyboard that's our idle animation   and then she goes into a walk it wasn't a  Perfect Blend but hopefully you get the gist that my friend was quite a long tutorial  sorry about that there is so much more   I could of got into there is the physics  setting says ik in FK I would like to do   another video diving more into Cascadia  as well as always the written tutorial   for this can be found on the problem to Muse  website and please join our newsletter it's   absolutely free I would really appreciate  it if you subscribe and liked and share   this channel that's all I ask from you thank  you so much and Gigi that would do it goodbye

Channel: Prompt Muse

Views: 49,330

Keywords: unreal engine, blender, 3d character animation

Id: ScQTV2Xb--0

Length: 23min 34sec (1414 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 20 2023