Unreal Engine Experimentation

Animating in UnReal Engine - Bungee Man

(01 May 2024 - ?? ??? 2024)

Previously, I only experimented with UnReal Engine as a render engine for my Maya animations, but after some research into it, I found it has some capabilities for in-app animating. Since I am more proficient in Maya and have experimented in Blender, I felt this would be a good way to expand my scope across another industry-relevant application.

Finding Rigs

Finding rigs for UnReal Engine was a lot harder but more intuitive. Typically in Maya, I would have to find rigs online through sites like AnimationMethods or AgoraCommunity. For UnReal, there are rigs available on the Epic Games Launcher Marketplace. Most of the rigs were paid and there were some free ones; but as an animator specialising in cartoony and stylised characters and animation, this limited the choices I had even more. Between the Stylised Character Male01 and the BungeeMan rig, I decided to go with the BungeeMan rig to explore poses and exaggeration.

Setting Up Project

Since UnReal has different controls and setup processes than Maya, I followed this tutorial on setting up UnReal for animation and a similar Maya setup using: TRS Gizmos for better viewport navigation, project preferences, and familiarising myself with UnReal Engine's hotkeys.

Setting Up Project

Since UnReal has different controls and setup processes than Maya, I followed this tutorial on setting up UnReal for animation and a similar Maya setup using: TRS Gizmos for better viewport navigation, project preferences, and familiarising myself with UnReal Engine's hotkeys.