Im trying to make 8 root motion animations for the character walking in various directions. Problem is that I cant rotate the root, because unreal also takes in root rotation (which cannot be disabled). I also cant make all of the bones parented to a child of the root because, that breaks the rig entirely. I cant rotate every bone excluding the root bone because, it messes up the animation. So my question is, how do I rotate the entire rig, excluding the root and without breaking the animation?
You don’t- you make one single walk, forward, and then rotate it in Unreal
The only way to rotate the animation in unreal is also by rotating the root, which as I stated I cant do. Any form of root motion besides location I cant perform, in blender or outside of it.
Why can’t you rotate the root in Unreal? That’s the standard way of approaching this
I’m not aware of “magical option #4.”
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Because, I am working on a game where the player is forced into looking at a boss (root is constantly facing the boss in the z axis). If I rotate the root, then the rotation wont get applied because its being overwritten every frame, so the animation wont rotate. Which is why I want to rotate all the bones excluding the root.
Thanks for all the support! Really appreciate your comment!
But my point stands- if you’re always looking at the boss, you’re always looking forward, so you still only need one walk animation? Just have it in place and then do the location in Unreal. You don’t need any rotation at all.
If you really do need rotation for some reason, you’ll need what is often called a “fake root” bone that is for exactly this. In Auto Rig Pro, it’s the c_traj bone. What rig system are you using? I don’t think Rigify has this
This is my rig, I need strafing left / right / backwards left / backwards right etc since the player is orbiting around the boss. So for your point I do need more than just 1 walking animation. And C_traj affects the root, thats what I was using. I initially made the directional animations by rotating the c_traj different degrees, then adding the location and facing the head forward. Which doesnt work, and makes all of them face forward/backwards because of the rotation lock per frame. Maybe its possible to make a separate bone a child of the root, like your saying though?
C_traj is independent of the root, it’s exactly for this purpose. It was designed for use in game engines for translations and rotations independent of the root. Check out the docs for this:
https://www.lucky3d.fr/auto-rig-pro/doc/ge_export_doc.html#unity-generic-and-unreal-engine
See also:
https://www.lucky3d.fr/auto-rig-pro/doc/rig_behaviour_doc.html#extractrootmotion
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I have been banging my head at this for hours, ur right this is exactly what im supposed to do lol. Thanks for actually sticking with me and helping unlike that other guy. Really appreciate it!
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No worries, it’s hard to wrap your head around. I’m glad you’re using ARP, though, I have no idea how to do this in Rigify
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