HOW TO USE AKEYTSU WITH UNREAL ENGINE:

HOW TO USE AKEYTSU WITH

UNREAL ENGINE:

A report concerning the searches about the possibility of using UE4’s retargeting and Akeytsu (available

with UE 4.15.2).

CREATE A CHARACTER EASILY USABLE IN UE4:

1 – On Akeytsu, import a mesh and click on “Create UE4 Skeleton” button of the JOINT Tab.

2 – You now just have to put all the joints at the right place on your mesh. You can delete useless joint as

eyes, fingers or toes, retargeting will also work.

3 – Then, skin the right half of your character by selecting all the joints (without the root one) and the

mesh, and click on Bind Skin on the SKINNING Tab.

4 – Check and correct the skinning and when it’s ok, select all joints and click on Mirror Skin button on the

SKINNING Tab.

5 – Now you can create animations and export it to Unreal.

With this process, you will be able to retarget your animations in other models or take animations from

them easily with Unreal.

IMPORT A FILE FROM AKEYTSU TO UE:

1 – Export your character in FBX format by clicking on “Export…” button on the main menu of Akeytsu or

pressing CTRL + E.

Give a name and choose a location for your file.

2 – In Unreal Engine windows, click on “Import” button of the “Content Browser” tab.

⚠ Don’t use the import button of the main menu. It must create a rotation issue on your file!

Now your file is well imported.

IMPORT A FILE FROM UE TO AKEYTSU:

You can export an animation in Akeytsu to modify it. You must know that Unreal Engine can export

only one animation at the same time.

1 - Drag and drop your animation in the viewer:

2 - Change the 3 location values in Transform tab to 0.

3- Click on your character (on the viewer) and export it by selecting “Export Selected…” in the main

menu:

Your file is now well exported.

RETARGET AN ANIMATION ON OR FROM ANOTHER CHARACTER:

1 - Import your two characters FBX file on your UE’s project.

⚠ As second character, you can use

Animation Starter Pac

k, which is in UE’s “Market” tab. After downloading it, you must go in the “Library” tab and

click on “Add to project” button.

2 – Retarget your skeleton with the humanoid rig of UE. To do that, you have to double-click on

your skeleton (it’s the blue object):

3 - In the new window, you must click on “Retarget Manager”.

4 - Then, in “Set up Rig” tab, you have to select “Select Humanoid Rig” in the suggesting list of

Select Rig’s option:

A list of bones must appear below the “Select Rig” list. This list allows you to link which bone of

your skeleton is matching which bone of the standard humanoid skeleton of UE. With the UE4

sample rig of Akeytsu, you don’t have to do anything with it because all bones are well named, so

you just have to click on Save button at the top left of the Unreal Window.

Finally, you must do the same thing (step 2) with the skeleton used for the animations (here it will

be SK_Mannequin in AnimStarterPack->UE4_Mannequin->Mesh).

5 –You will be able to retarget animations from UE’s Mannequin to yours. First, choose the

animation you want to retarget and right-click on it, then select “Retarget Anim Assets” and

“Duplicate Anim Assets and Retarget”:

6 - You must see UE’s Mannequin in the [Source] part, you just have to select your skeleton on the

list to see it in the [Target] part. Then click on “Retarget” button.

⚠ If you don’t see anything in the [Source] part it must be because you forget to retarget and save UE_Mannequin’s skeleton with “Retarget

Manager” as it’s explained in Step 2.

⚠ If there is no skeleton available in the list. It’s because you may forget to retarget and save your skeleton with “Retarget Manager” as it’s

explained in Step 2.

Finally, you will be able to see the new animation besides your skeleton and note that your

Akeytsu’s animation is not broken.