changing skeletal mesh actors

Posted by: @chris

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hi all 

hope u are all well its been a while and i forget if i asked this before is there a method i am not getting i want to change the mutant dog with my own dog mesh but the animations arent working after i replace skeleton and use my own mesh can someone please help me with the method to do this

regards to all 

chris

Hey Chris! When you change the dog's mesh, the animations won't automatically work with your new model because it uses a different skeleton...You have two options: either retarget the existing animations to your new dog's skeleton or create new animations for your dog model.

@hosna hi there ok thank you let me have look and see 

hey there so i tried to retarget the animations ended up that both didnt work after that i do have my oen animations now but i really dont wanna mess around can i have a few pointers if its possible what am i doing wrong what i used to normally do is just replace the skeleton and it would work 

regards 

chris

@chris Yes, that's because the zombie enemies in the framework use the default Unreal Engine skeleton, so replacing their meshes wasn't an issue.

However, for dogs and other monsters added in V2, things are a bit different... Since their skeletons can vary, you'll need to either retarget the animations or use animations made specifically for your new mesh.

Retargeting non humanoid enemies can be tricky because their skeletons are often very different from each other, unlike humanoid characters.

So, here's what I'd recommend:

1- Replace the default mesh with your own.
2- Create an AnimBP and a locomotion Blend Space for your new mesh.
3- Add the Blend Space to your AnimBP to handle movement. You can use the existing setup in the framework as a reference.
4- Create Animation Montages for attacks, hit reactions, and death animations, then assign them to the appropriate sections in the framework.

I hope this gives you a better idea of how to approach it!