Complete Game Animators Pipeline From Blender To Engine

Make and take a professional game ready character rig, and a full set of hand keyed movement animations into engine.

What you'll learn

The complete game character animation pipeline from Blender to Unreal

How to make professional complete game ready animation sets for an in game character.

Create a professional game ready animation rig from scratch.

Tips and tricks on creating better walk cycles, and using animation layers to build up compeling movment.

How to set up animation graphs, blend states and more in Unreal engine 5

Create a game ready character that can walk, run, jump, strafe and more!

Learn the correct way to set up a character rig, and correct export and import settings from Blender to Unreal engine.

Requirements

No experience needed. Follow along and create the animations from scratch, or use the included animation files, and learn the theory of creating a full set of game ready animations and how to set them up in an animation graph in Unreal Engine 5.

All software needed for the course (Blender and Unreal engine 5) can be downloaded for free, and the included character mesh and animation files means everything is included to complete the course. If you have never done animation before, the course will guide you through each step, in easy to follow sections.

Description

This course was created to help students or anybody learn the full game animators pipeline from Blender to Unreal. You will learn how to create a professional custom animation rig, and animate by hand, a full set of idle, transition and movement animations, and how to export correctly, and bring them all into the Unreal engine. From there you will learn how to set up an animation graph and character blueprint, and create a custom character controller that will allow you to walk, run, crouch, jump and more. No experience required, the full process is walked through in easy to follow steps broken down into logical sections, each building on the last, with lots of tips and tricks to make your animations work correctly as a complete set as used in a modern AAA game.No coding knowledge is required as everything will be created in Unreal's blueprint system using nodes, just simply follow along and build up the character controller bit by bit, and by the end of the course, you will have a fully playable character that can move around the game world, with the satisfaction and knowledge that you created the whole thing from scratch. So lets get started!

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Introduction

Section 2: Download and install Blender

Lecture 2 Download and install Blender

Section 3: Setting up the animation rig

Lecture 3 Importance of scale

Lecture 4 Download the course resources

Lecture 5 Setting up the animation rig

Lecture 6 Setting up the foot control bones and leg IK

Lecture 7 Setting up the hip, spine and head control bones

Lecture 8 Setting up Custom Bone shapes

Lecture 9 Creating finger drivers using animation actions

Section 4: Adding the character mesh to the armature rig

Lecture 10 Quick basics of weight painting

Lecture 11 Part 1: Adding the character mesh to the Armature

Lecture 12 Part 2: Adding the character mesh to the Armature

Lecture 13 Part 3: Adding the character mesh to the Armature

Lecture 14 Part 4: Adding the character mesh to the Armature

Section 5: Creating the main idle animations

Lecture 15 Section introduction

Lecture 16 Animating the main stand idle animation

Lecture 17 Animating the main crouched idle animation

Section 6: Animating the walk cycles

Lecture 18 Section introduction

Lecture 19 Animating with motion extraction in mind

Lecture 20 Creating the forward walk cycle part 1

Lecture 21 Creating the forward walk cycle part 2

Lecture 22 Creating the left walk forward cycle

Lecture 23 Creating the right walk forward cycle

Lecture 24 Creating the backwards walk cycles

Lecture 25 Creating the 45 degree walk cycles Part 1

Lecture 26 Creating the 45 degree walk cycles part 2

Section 7: Exporting The Armature and animations

Lecture 27 Setting up the idles ready for export

Lecture 28 Exporting the main skeleton

Lecture 29 Exporting all our animations so far

Section 8: Animating the Run cycles

Lecture 30 Section introduction

Lecture 31 Creating the forward run cycle part 1

Lecture 32 Creating the forward run cycle part 2

Lecture 33 Creating the left forward run cycle

Lecture 34 Creating the right forward run cycle

Lecture 35 Creating the 45 degree forward right run cycle

Lecture 36 Creating the 45 degree forward left run cycle

Lecture 37 Creating the run back cycle

Lecture 38 Creating the run back left cycle

Lecture 39 Creating the run back right cycle

Lecture 40 Creating the run back right 45 cycle

Lecture 41 Student challenge: Creating the run back left 45 cycle

Section 9: Student challenge: Exporting the run animation cycles

Lecture 42 Student challenge: Exporting the run animations

Section 10: Animating the crouched walk cycles

Lecture 43 Section introduction

Lecture 44 Creating the forward crouched walk cycle

Lecture 45 Creating the left forward crouched walk cycle

Lecture 46 Creating the right forward crouched walk cycle

Lecture 47 Creating the crouch left forward 45 cycle

Lecture 48 Creating the crouch right forward 45 cycle

Lecture 49 Creating the backwards crouched walk cycle

Lecture 50 Creating the crouch right back cycle

Lecture 51 Creating the crouch left back cycle

Lecture 52 Creating the left and right back 45 crouched walk cycles

Section 11: Student challenge: Export the crouch animations

Lecture 53 Student challenge: Export the crouch animations

Section 12: Creating pose assets

Lecture 54 Creating pose assets and using the Blender asset browser

Section 13: Creating the idle transition animations

Lecture 55 Creating the transition animation from stand to crouched

Lecture 56 Creating the transition animation from crouched to stand

Section 14: Creating the soft stop from Run transitions

Lecture 57 Creating the run fwd to stand soft stop

Lecture 58 Creating the run left fwd to stand soft stop

Lecture 59 Creating the run right fwd to stand soft stop

Lecture 60 Creating the run fwd 45's to stand soft stop

Lecture 61 Creating the run back to stand soft stop

Lecture 62 Creating the run back 45's to stand soft stop

Section 15: Creating the soft stop from crouch transitions

Lecture 63 Creating the crouch fwd to crouch soft stop

Lecture 64 Creating the crouch back to crouch soft stop

Lecture 65 Creating the crouch left fwd to crouch soft stop

Lecture 66 Creating the crouch right fwd to crouch soft stop

Lecture 67 Creating the crouch fwd 45's to crouch soft stop

Lecture 68 Creating the crouch back 45's to crouch soft stop

Section 16: Creating the soft stop from walk transitions

Lecture 69 Creating the walk fwd to stand transition

Lecture 70 Creating the walk left and right fwd to stand transition

Lecture 71 Creating the walk back to stand transition

Lecture 72 Creating the walk back 45s to stand transition

Lecture 73 Creating the walk fwd 45s to stand transition

Section 17: Student challange: Export All the transition animations

Lecture 74 Student challenge: Export all the transition animations for the main character

Section 18: Creating the turn on spot animations

Lecture 75 Section introduction

Lecture 76 Creating the stand turn left 90 animation

Lecture 77 Creating the stand turn right 90 animation

Lecture 78 Creating the Crouch turn left 90 animation

Lecture 79 Creating the crouch turn right 90 animation

Section 19: Creating the look around blends

Lecture 80 Section introduction

Lecture 81 Creating the stand look around blends

Lecture 82 Creating the crouch look around blends

Section 20: Creating the jumping and landing animations

Lecture 83 Section introduction

Lecture 84 Creating the jump and land animations

Section 21: Creating our playable character in Unreal

Lecture 85 Section introduction and resources

Lecture 86 Download and install Unreal engine 5

Lecture 87 Import the character rig

Lecture 88 Import the animation sets

Lecture 89 Create the movement blend spaces

Lecture 90 Create the soft stop animation blends

Lecture 91 Create the look around blends

Lecture 92 Create the animation blueprint

Lecture 93 Create the character blueprint

Lecture 94 Create the variables for the character blueprint

Lecture 95 Create the variables for the animation blueprint

Lecture 96 Set up the control input mappings

Lecture 97 Set up the character BP : Part 1

Lecture 98 Set up the character BP : Part 2

Lecture 99 Set up the animation BP : Part 1

Lecture 100 Set up the animation BP : Part 2

Lecture 101 Set up the animation BP : Part 3

Lecture 102 Adding the animations to the animation graph: part 1

Lecture 103 Adding the animations to the animation graph: part 2

Lecture 104 Adding the animations to the animation graph: part 3

Lecture 105 Wrapping up and final thoughts

Beginner game developers interested in learning how to create professional game ready character animations, and how to implement them into a game engine.,Students wanting to get a better understanding of the full pipeline required for a games animator.