How To Animate in Unreal Engine 5 | Part 1

so you're seeing all these new cool

features from a real engine and want to

make your own short film animation or

fight scene but the problem is that you

animate in another program and sometimes

transferring over data from one program

to another can get pretty tricky well up

games has launched control rig and

ability to animate your characters

directly in the game engine now you can

make a character Punch Kick and fight

like those you see in your favorite show

or game but it's still a little scary

the first time you open up a real engine

this is going to be a step-by-step t

series on how to animate a quick fight

scene directly in engine with the

control rig my name is Cliff and I made

my own fight animations in un real

engine for over 7 years and this

tutorial series will help you get

started the plan is that at the end of

this series you will pick up the

knowledge and tools necessary to create

your own fight animation to start things

off I have created other fight scene

tutorials for Maya and blender and I'll

be breaking down those same tips here as

well in the blender series I created a

slightly more complicated short fight

scene than the one in Maya but for this

one we're going to go back to the symol

combo even though I will be breaking

down how to create an animation unreal

the principles here can be applied to

any program this is not a beginner

Unreal Engine course I will go slow and

explain everything that I'm doing but I

wouldn't consider this a how to an

onreal engine tutorial I'm also not

planning to go into any deep Advanced

features just yet like creating your own

control rig I really wanted to do

something simple that anyone can pick up

the environment I am using is the

stylized Boxing Club from leard Studio

one of the main reasons I transitioned

from rendering in my in blender in

strictly using Unreal is the environment

finding quality assets that fit together

creating in the environment and then

lighting that environment to make it

look professional and then is a huge

Time s no matter which animation program

you prefer not only do most if not all

Unreal Engine environments come with the

default stage that you can use to start

your environment it almost feels like

playing a video game when it comes to

building your own custom environment and

there's no best place to start than with

the series sponsor Le Art Studio they

offer a wide range of game ready assets

including environments characters props

materials and threein models so leard

has hooked us up with own discount code

Round Table animation 30 that you can

use at checkout from gumro for any of

the assets in the store for 30% off on

top of that they're running a limited

time Mega Discount of 19 high quality

packs that include the cyberpunk lab a

Roman Street environment and even a

tutorial on how to create levels each

one of these assets is probably going to

go for 50 to 60 to even $100 the entire

pack all included they practically give

away for $100 for the entire thing but

they reached out and really like what

we're doing over here with on real

engine and prepared us with our own

crazy discount code that doesn't take

only 30 but actually 70% off the entire

pack so you can get this entire thing

for just $30 make sure to use our

discount code rtsa 70 at checkout and

get some really high quality looking AAA

style environments not only do you guys

benefit but doing so supports the

channel the boxing club environment I am

using is a part of the pack but of

course you can use any environment for

the tutorial if you are Dow your

environment make sure to unpack it in

your un real projects folder double

click on the scene file select the

engine version and open up the scene

okay so once you have your environment

opened we need to go ahead and get some

rigs here so the next thing I'm going to

do is I'm going to open up my epic games

Tab and I'm just going to go

to the

marketplace and I'm going to look for

control break

now I have it already but what I want to

do is get this control rig pack which is

a sample pack which is free from epic

games I'm going to click on it and I'm

going to add to project right so when I

click add to project I'm going to pick

the project that I want to bring it

to

and

add all right and once everything is set

up our rigs or at least our basic rigs

is automatically going to be added into

the into the file so you can see now I

have my environment and my control rig

right in my file so from here as great

as this

sample look of our assets is we probably

want to make it look more like a scene

so in most files or most environments

that come within real engine they come

with like a sample version of how that

environment would look with all the

assets put together um so from here I'm

going to go into the boxing club folder

go into maps and then pick which one you

want so the overviews I believe was what

we have open here anyway right you can

see overview editor which is what this

is so you have a level day and level

night now you can pick either or I'm

sure the exactly the same besides the

fact that one's probably a lit different

but I'm going to pick level

day so from here you'll see that our

environment opens up and looks a lot

better than the overview look of what I

had before now you'll see all these

little um I guess buttons or different

icons and these are just the icons for

whatever is attached to the the asset to

the field so this means that it's

attached to the floor this one is the

lighting um well the the reflection

capture this one is another reflection

capture so every single one has a little

icon attached to it um I believe this

one that's probably the the ring

so so for here in order to not

necessarily see them right away I'm

going to click on um this hamburger icon

go down to the game menu and just kind

of click that so now that we have our

environment set up it's time to go ahead

and bring in our characters so from here

I'm going to go to boxing I'm going to

go back out and I'm going to just search

actually come back out to content now I

can go in here and look into my

characters now we have a couple of

characters right like you saw that

sample pack that has the mesh um so you

can go into your Rigs and look for the

control rig so this is one I'm going to

pick right so I believe there's a couple

of them but I believe this one has more

detail than the other this is more of a

basic version of it and this one has a

lot more details which is the one that

we're going to need for our fight scene

so I'm going to click hold and

drag and bring it out to

ourc right so now when I have placed a

character to the scene now that you see

him here uh a few menus popped up right

we have our secr menu which is going to

be um our way of kind of is

our is our dope sheet if you're from

blender um in a way to go ahead and see

all of the keys that we have so all of

our controls are down here and we'll be

able to go ahead and kind of see exactly

where the keys are on the tit line so

that's what the sequence and menu is

here this is our outliner just in case

if we wanted to go ahead and mess with

mess with controls or anything like that

this is usually at least from what I've

used so far um used in the rigging

process I'm sure it has some use with

the animation I just haven't got a

chance to see that yet everything I've

seen is just using the dope sheet um and

believe our outliner just showcased that

this is now onto the into the into the

scene so from here I'm G to do a few

things in order to go ahead and start

the animation process um the first thing

I'm going to do is we have at least in

this environment outline situation here

cuz look the 2D effect I'm going to

remove that uh it's a post process I'm

going look post and there there it go so

it's going to have an outline uh this

takes care of some effects but this is

the one I wanted to remove um that's the

first

thing then I'm going to change this to

24 frames per

second right and then we're going to set

our character up for

animation

so in order to set the character up for

animation um what that also entails is

when I removed the icons for game view

that remove the controls as well so once

I bring it back you'll see that all the

controls are are back but it's still

kind of messy R is still a little messy

and I want to clean it up just a bit I

haven't seen a way to go ahead and just

remove the other icons and leave the

controls as a way to go ahead and remove

um the control rate controls and leave

everything else out but not necessarily

reverse but I found a little workaround

for myself that works for

me what we're going to do is we're going

to just kind of put this away a bit just

bring this down bring this out it kind

of gives a little bit of a better view

uh we're going to animate right here in

this area and I'm going to take this

viewport is very similar to how I would

do it in blender or bio and I'm going to

combine the vi the viewport the same way

I would if I was animated to be side by

side right so from here now I have two

views two camera

views to see the

character I'm going to bring this one up

a little bit closer to our character

this is going to be my working file I'm

be going in and out with this file and

this is going to be exactly what I see

after the fact so I'm going

to add in a

camera so go up here cinematic and we're

going to add us a camera

right so once we add in a camera that

gives us another view of of actually

changing up what we see through that

camera and much more customizable than

the perspective view cu the perspective

view is going to give you just a plain

view of everything whereas the camera

view can actually give you a little bit

more a lot more actually control than

what you can nor

see so from here I'm going to switch

from camera from this perspective view

instead of the other views down to my

camera

view which going to show the some of the

other cameras that came in with the

scene but I just want to use our camera

view and moving that over to the side

here to look for my

character there we

go so now you can automatically feel

that it feels a lot

more cinematic right it's given like a

little bit more of a uh we're actually

looking through a camera lens because of

the um because of the uh the camera

setup so from here I'm going to now

remove

everything and I'm still that crazy

about um the lighting so let's see if we

can even increase the light a little

bit that's go to our directional light

to our details let's see have bring up

to

eight

nothing so directional light doesn't

change

anything all right so our Skylight has a

little bit more

control all right there we go that's

what I was looking for so sets of four

at first so let's change to

six 10 that's a little better that's

enough to give us a little better view

all right so another trick that is going

to be good at least for

me another trick that's going to be good

to be able to kind of view everything is

I'm going to activate the depth of field

to kind of just uh blur out this

background I'm going to go back and I'm

going to find my camera if there's a lot

of assets here and you're looking for

your camera I would just type it in

instead of looking for it let's look for

our camera The Cinematic camera that we

entered we're going to switch back to

our Focus settings and we're going to

change this Focus setting to about

55 now it looks like we just zoomed in

but what we did is kind of give the

option to go and separate the background

from the for ground this right now is

set to the standard of I believe a

million cm of f Focus I'm want to bring

that all the way down all the way down

there we go so a good way to also see

exactly how to separate the forward from

the back especially on real engine is to

kind of draw this debug thing um this

debug frame and what that does it

actually gives you a um like a

little plane that kind of of crashes and

let you know exactly where the camera is

registering um this Focus or not so if

we do ref from right behind the

character and then you you know change

it it kind of gives you just a better

view it may not be too too diff

different if you can want to see it

stable it's a little bit clear manual

may not necessarily see too much of a

difference um if you want to CH more of

a difference you can try

to

come in a little bit

closer right and then bring it more as

you can see a little bit Focus but

that's not going to be our working

animation view but for me it gives a

little bit um a little bit more

of a clear look of what we're going

through so now from here before we start

actually

animating and now that I have my

character here let's go ahead and start

animating

so I'm going to start with my fighting

stance but rotated and this is also so

you can see how it's snapping here we

want to remove that by just un

unchecking here so that no it no longer

snaps so you're going to have a nice

clear look and you can see it

automatically um updates on both sides

so we can see exactly what's going on so

I'm going to start my fighting sance I'm

going to start with my legs

here oh same thing here that's let's go

ahead and remove

this now open this up

send and we're going to start our

fighting

stance just bring the character to bend

a little

bit

and that's it's not so bad at starting

to POS that in Onre engine I think it's

it's a pretty intuitive system for the

control rig you can definitely get the

same type of feel as you would if you

were animating Anaya or

blender let see let's get this down

got angle to where our point would

be bring our shoulders

up

ah hello sing in

here

okay so now we should have a little bit

of a good

look before we go attack those fingers

of our pose of our first

pose but I'm going to get a little bit

of a stronger

stance

it's a little bit of a stronger stance

here to go to that fighting

po now from here we're going to go ahead

into the fingers get a little bit closer

there and these green controls control

the whole finger curve so it's going to

rotate

in or we can combine the

rest this gets a little bit of a wonky

rotation that should be

good

oh man so first one is done and I think

it looks pretty good if you look at over

here looks pretty pretty good here and

then we're going to do the same onto the

other

side

and we'll go ahead and curve this in I

actually don't like do it all curves

like that I might just I may just do it

individually

man not sure why on this one it's

curving at a different

angle there but once we kind of get it

adjusted it should be

fine that one I

wanted

C up this

thing

just make sure it looks pretty could

before moving

forward

good

okay perfect and that's our first pose

in un real engine than standard fighting

pose you know you can go ahead and tweak

it up a bit more you know it can bring

this um bring this up closer to his um

to his face if you

want but right now it's

pretty

it's pretty good like

this switches back to 24 good as s i

that before

but all right so now we have that we

going ahead and set our keys so I had

auto key I didn't have auto key on um

this is our auto key button so once you

click this at least now going forward it

will be able to go ahead and kind of

automatically place our keys once we

move a control so the first thing I'm

going to do is going to click on this um

going forward that way we can have our

keys automatically placed but you'll see

here that not all the keys are placed

all the ones that we moved already um

any the the finger ones but some of the

ones don't have keys and we want to have

keys on everything at least on a

starting frame because if we didn't move

the character any sort of way going

forward we don't have an established

starting point so then move to the top

and then you're going to see this master

control here um that on top of all the

controls and once you click that um it

sets a key for the entire character all

the way down so you don't have to worry

about that for now so now what I'm going

to do is go at least go by five

frames all frame five take it here I

believe can make this a lot small we

don't need all of these uh all these

these frames here let's go down to

here

50

so so now we're going to go into our

next post here will be our anticipation

post I start with the feet

kind of go forward towards a little bit

rotating

it

CH so rotating feet just a

bit and now that

I have turned auto key on you'll see

that it'll automatically start placing

some keys there

too

Y no sit home

fire

so we have a little bit of a drag

there just do it to a bit more and then

that way we kind of can really space out

out to get this punch pose and let's

bring up the arm a bit rotate it bring

it

back just another that character kind of

has a little bit

to

convey uh what he's about to do

it's so arm there I think look pretty

good if you look at it from one side to

the other we start from our first

framing going to here you see that we

have a little bit of our poses here

jumping from

one to the other

right

okay

so then from here we're going to go I

personally will just lock in all those

poses and do another um set there and

then go to frame 10 to do the last P

which is the actual punch

pose so we're going to have a

full rotation

hit

and we're going to do everything to

really kind of get that job right

across

back a bit keeping his head

forward

all right now here we now while we do

have a standard looking punch we're

going to go ahead and just give it a bit

more exaggeration onto the

poles really get

this Bend in here and rotation

sl's hitting more of the

center kind of get this out the

way and then now we have a much more of

a solid punch posst

here all right and look at that

anticipation punch and then comes back

see it it's very smooth like now I now I

know you can see some particles there if

if runers um and that's

just my graphics card and i' be able to

keep up but if you even have it on unlit

has a much more of a clear way of

showing the pulse and even you can use

this as a working model but for me the

depth of field kind of brings it out a

bit or it's kind of cool to see exactly

what it looks like at the same

time

but right there you

go now so what we're going to do to

finish this pose is just to kind of copy

the keys that we have here and just kind

of bring it back so even though right

now I'm kind of just dragging it back

but what we get do is have the same idea

for those poses um to do it on its

own so from here we're going to collapse

all of this to bring it up to these just

three key posers right one two 3 right

so if I wanted to do extra keys in the

middle there I can but we're going to

keep these key poses we're going to take

this middle

one and duplicate it

and just drag this

out so now if you look he brings it back

a bit right um we'll do 15 for now but I

feel that it's going to be a very

uniform

look or it could be pretty Snappy

actually depending on the look of it

actually it's a pretty Snappy

punch and for the final

po

duplicate click

drag made to frame

20 so that's a very and if we bre it all

the

way to the top I would say that is a

very uniform looking pose and to Loop we

click here to loop our

Playbook so even if I at least gave it a

little

bit so from here if you're familiar with

any other animation programs you will

know that you can be able to adjust the

speed and timing depending

on the keys here so if I want a quicker

punch right I'll move this up

one I'll bring this up one probably keep

this here and then bringing it low so

that way at least the launch is

quicker and then it comes back and this

is kind of more of how to do in fighting

games right you kind of want to give the

opponent the least amount of time to be

able to recover so you kind of have

those poses come pretty

quick and that's how I love how look I

already love how smooth it kind of looks

right you kind of bring it back so even

if I want to bring this up one he kind

of can as well

and that probably looks the best right

boom comes back pretty quick back to the

star and

post all right and that's our first

pose all right and that's our first

combo in Unreal Engine in the next video

we're going to add in more moves and to

make this a full combo I'll see you guys

there