I am switching from Unity to Unreal. Can I legally use the the animations bought in Asset Store in Unreal? If yes, then how do I do that?

Yes, you can use Kubold animations from Unity Asset Store in other game engines. Unity EULA doesn’t say anything about those assets being tied to Unity Engine.

The animation packages from the Asset Store include animations in .fbx fromat, that can be imported to Unreal Engine by dragging ad dropping, just like any other .fbx asset. The skeleton structure and naming convention in the animations is identical to Mixamo animations (it’s called HumanIK and it’s a native skeleton of Motionbuilder and Maya).

Here’s a short tutorial showing how to retarget those Unity animations to the Unreal Skeleton in UE5.


I am completly new to UE4 and gamedev…

f you are new to gamedev or UE4, PLEASE, DO NOT BUY ANYTHING. But if you already did, then just proceed to watch the tutorials at the top of this page :)
If you haven’t yet bought anything, then just start learning UE4 using free tutorials and free assets available at UE Marketplace. When you know Unreal’s UI, what are Animations, what is a Skeleton, what are IKBlendspacesAnim Blueprints etc., and how to use them, you will be able to make an informed decision about purchasing animation assets (or any other assets). To make a good character controller, you will also need to know your trigonometry, vectors, sinuses, etc. Really, not joking :).

“But there are Blueprints, and everybody says I don’t need to be a programmer to make a game anymore…”

Not exactly. Thanks to Blueprint graphs, you don’t have to type in the code in text form, but you still have to construct the same code sequence using graphs. You don’t need to be a coder, but you still need to be a programmer. So that means you still have to think like a programmer and you still have to know all the code functions that UE4 has to offer, to make a game. The difference is just connecting certain graph nodes, that represent code functions, instead of copy-pasting the code sequences from the manual. Either way – you still have to know how to construct scripts, equations, how to count angles, use arrays, hash tables, bools, floats, vectors…For example, take a look at that Blueprint, taken from the “Blueprints” free demo pack, made by Epic:

Blueprint.jpg

If it’s perfectly clear to you what it does, then you are good – you can safely buy all the animations you need. But if it looks like black magic to you, it’s probably a sign, that you really shouldn’t rush in and buy anything. You should learn using the free assets and see if you even like being a UE4 game creator.


The new UE5 Manny Skeleton is different than the UE4 “Robot” Mannequin. Do I have to retarget all the animations now?

No, you don’t have to. Epic Games provided a Rigging tool, that allows to easily auto-retarget all the UE4 animations to the new UE5 Manny skeleton within seconds. Here is how it works:


But why did you not convert all your animations to the new UE5 Manny skeleton yet?

Because hundreds, if not thousands, of characters you can buy on the Marketplace use the old UE4 skeleton, and not the new UE5 Skeleton. Converting all my animations to the new UE5 Manny skeleton would make my Animsets less compatible with all the existing Marketplace content.

Eventually, in time (because I have a couple of thousands of mocaps to convert) I will update all the packs with animations duplicated on the UE5 Skeleton, so you will have both. But until then, please use the Rigging tool that will retarget all the UE4 anims to the UE5 skeleton, with one click. Watch the tutorial!


Can I use the animations in my commercial video game?

Yes. You can use those animations in a video game or a video, commercial or non-commercial. But the video game that you redistribute has to be compiled (“built”, “cooked”), so the animations can’t be reused by people who download your game. You can’t redistribute your project source files (for example on GitHub) if my animations are in there. You also can’t re-sell the animations to anyone, even if you modify them. What you bought is only a license to use the animations, and the license is for YOU only. It is not transferrable to other people or companies.

All this you can find in the Marketplace FAQ.


Why can’t I use the animations in whatever way I like, for example, re-sell them to someone else? I bought them, so they are mine, right?

You purchased a license to use those animations in your video games. It’s exactly like buying stock images on getty images or music tracks on audiojungle. You don’t own the full rights to those assets, you just purchased a license to use them in your projects - but it is about 100 times cheaper than producing the animations yourself ($60 instead of $6000).


What are you actually selling?

I sell animations, which are art assets, that are used to build a video game, using Unreal Engine.


I bought your animations and the character is not walking.

Animations are just art assets, just like 3d models or textures. If you want your character to respond to controls, you need to make a character controller, using programming in c++ or Blueprints. This controller will move the character model on the level and play the animations.


I don’t know how to make a controller, please give me a tutorial.

Here are two example tutorials. You can find more on YouTube.


Is there an animation Blueprint in the pack?

No. There are some demo Blendspaces, but no Blueprints.


I am trying to make your animations work in my game, but:

I can’t retarget / bones are exploding / Editor is crashing / They work in Blueprints previews but not on maps / characters fall through floors, etc.

Is it possible the animations are broken?

My animations are JUST ordinary animations. They are just like any other Marketplace animations: just a bunch of keys baked on the mandatory UE4 Skeleton, provided by Epic. There is nothing special about them at all. Also, those animations are heavily battle-tested now, owned by thousands of devs, and have been used for 7+ years now in hundreds of released games.

Your difficulties, most likely, can all be solved by thoroughly understanding how Unreal Editor works, by reading the manual and watching tutorials about:

1. Importing animations and referencing the skeletons
2. Correctly setting up your character Skeletons and retargeting the animations from one skeleton to another properly
3. Correctly constructing your Actors, Blueprints, Animation trees, Blendspaces, Montages, Event Graphs, etc.

This is A LOT of knowledge, despite those being the basics, so please be patient and take it slow. Those systems also change often with every new Unreal version, so you have to stay on top of it, if you are upgrading from older versions of the engine.

Common problems, like those listed in the question, usually have “user error” causes. For example, a Pawn that references a different Skeleton than the animation it is trying to play, or a Blendspace trying to blend animations that… reference different skeletons. Trying to retarget the animations to a Skeleton that is not properly configured for retargeting. “Exploding bones” can be caused by dropping only two animations into an AimOffset Blendspace, when it needs four, or using an AimOffset Blendspace on a character that …references a different Skeleton.

Every tiny little step, every checkbox, and every detail matters, I really recommend watching a lot of tutorials and reading the manual - everything will become easier and easier.


Can I order custom animations and how much would that cost?

I’m sorry, but I currently try to avoid working for a single client. Simply because having no boss is just amazing.

Now, as for the price of a single, exclusive set: about $10.000-$12.000. That information is usually hidden behind a “Call now for a quote!” text on all mocap studios’ homepages. I will try to explain why mocap is so expensive.

To make mocap, a studio invested in cameras, a 100m+ open space room, and software licenses (Blade, Motionbuilder). Even for the smallest mocap studio, it’s minimum $30.000 + room rent $1000/month. It can go up to literally tens of millions of dollars for a full-blown Hollywood-rate mocap. This investment has to keep returning, so small studios usually charge about $2000 just for renting mocap hardware for one day. To make a motion capture session, besides electricity bills and rent, you have to pay for at least one mocap technician for full day and a mocap actor for full day. The better the actor, the more he charges, so for example a stuntman would ask for $1000 + taxes (in Poland).

Now you have raw, uncut mocaps, presented as c3d points. They need to be cleaned up, cut to clips, and retargeted to a game character. Then, the animations need to be processed further – posed, timed, guns need to be snapped to hands, feet can’t cross the floor, etc. This can take up to a month per 100 animations. Assuming a skilled, experienced, valued mocap artist makes about $4000/month in Europe (more in USA), then this process costs about $7.200 for 180 animations set like Sword Animset Pro.

Now, I’m selling my sets for about $60. I can only do that, because there is a chance, that in a year or even two, an asset can sell 200 copies or more, which can make it worthwhile eventually.


Will you make a controller and include it with the package?

I’m sorry but no, I prefer to focus on animations.


How to change the model on the animations” or “how do I play the animations on my own model”?

Right now you can play any humanoid animation on any humanoid character inside UE4, using retargeting. Here’s the documentation:

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Animation/AnimationRetargeting/index.html
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Animation/RetargetingDifferentSkeletons/index.html


How can I modify the animations?

There are Motionbuilder FBX source files included, you can import them to Maya or Max, or open them in Motionbuilder. If you have access to Motionbuilder, I recommend it for the job. The .fbx animation files are .zipped in the …\SourceFiles\ folder. Note, that you can’t see this folder in the Unreal Editor, you must access it through your operating system, like Windows.

You can export the animations to FBX files from inside the UE4 editor (right-click on the animation, Export). Once the animation is in an FBX file, you can import it to any 3d animation software you want – 3ds max, Maya, Motionbuilder, Blender, etc., and modify it (you need to have some animation skills).


Will you work with us on exciting new indie game?

No. I’m currently occupied creating my own games and animations.


When I import the multitake FBX file to Maya/3ds max, only one animation imports

Only one animation at a time can be imported to Maya or 3ds max. When importing the multitake FBX file to Maya or 3ds max, you have to choose the Animation Take in the import window.

 
Motion_to_Maya_022.jpg

I will buy your animations, only if you promise to make [ some custom animations ].

I can’t make such a promise. Please base your decision on the current contents of the animation packages.


Where are the FBX source files in the pack I bought?

They are in [ProjectName]\Content\[PackName]\SourceFiles\SourceFiles.zip. This file is not visible from inside the UE4 Editor, because .zip format is not used by UE4. Please unpack it through your Operating System.


Some animations are missing!

No animation that you can see in the animation list videos is missing. If it is in the video, but you don’t see it in the files, please search again and you’ll find it. Note that some animations can have different names than you expect. For example, “Walking” sideways can be named “Strafing” in the files, so when you filter the animations by typing “Walk”, it will filter out the strafing.

My sets allow making a complete controller, but not every possible controller you can imagine – just the controllers, that the set is meant for. I do my best to provide every possible information about the product before you buy, including the lists of the animations and video previews, to make sure, you know what you pay for.

Please watch the videos of the animations BEFORE purchasing – if the animation is not on the video, then it’s just simply not included, because it was not necessary for the controller, that the set was intended for. Just please don’t assume all the animations you need are there. Please always check before buying.


Can you rig my characters or tell me how to do it?

I’m sorry, I don’t work for hire at the moment. There are plenty of rigging tutorials you can find through google though.


Can I use those animations in an FPP game? You wrote, they are only for TPP.

First, let’s precise – those animations are only for a TPP character, not only for a TPP game. There are also TPP characters in FPP games – enemies, NPCs, etc. (because you don’t see through their eyes). So yes, you can use my animations in FPP games, to animate enemies and NPCs. The animations are not suitable for the First Person Perspective view though, so you shouldn’t use them for the main FPP hero.


Do you have 3ds max Biped version of the animations?

No, sorry. The animations were made using HumanIK rig, not Biped. With some work, they can be converted to Biped in a couple of ways, for example using Motionbuilder’s retargeting, or renaming the bone names to fit Biped naming, export them to bvh format and import them to your Biped as mocap.


I bought your animations, so now guide me through making my game

I’m really sorry, but this is just an animation store. You can learn the engine on your own, using hundreds of tutorials, you can find through google (and also on the top of this page).


I bought a character model from [some other company], and it doesn’t work with your animations

There could be many, many causes, but the most common are:

a) your new model is not rigged – this means that the character model doesn’t have bones (joints) inside, that deform the mesh. Models have to have bones and skin to move their arms and legs.

b) the model is rigged, but the skeleton (the bones) is different than the one in my animations. You have to retarget the animations. Here’s how you do it:

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Animation/AnimationRetargeting/index.html
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Animation/RetargetingDifferentSkeletons/index.html


A rifle, that I bought from UE Marketplace doesn’t fit the hands in your animations – left hand is not holding the barrel, when I use AimOffsets

This is exactly why you have the IK bones in Unreal Template Skeleton. You need to turn on the IK on the left hand and snap the effector to the barrel of the gun. This way, the left hand will always be where the IK effector is – on the barrel. Read:

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Animation/IKSetups/index.htm


Will those animations work on Mixamo’s or Epic’s Paragon characters?

Yes.


Why are those sets not free?

Because making and selling them is my current job. I need money to pay bills and rent for my motion capture studio, buy food for my family, pay my mortgage, etc.


Let’s cooperate! I’ll use your animations in my controller, sell it on Asset Store and we will share the revenue!

I am sorry, but I don’t want to. I love keeping it small and working on my own. Besides, establishing a revenue share business model internationally, which is legal and enforceable in case of problems, would be very difficult and probably not viable financially.


Can you modify the set I bught? I don’t like the artistic style – animations are too stiff/too slow/too fast/too male/too heavy

I’m sorry, but no. You are buying a big mocap set for just around $60 instead of $6.000, but the downside is you don’t get to have it customized to your liking. When you buy pre-made, royalty-free assets from Marketplace, it’s pretty much “it is what it is, take it or leave it”. But it’s 100 times cheaper than having it custom-made just for you. However, every pack has the .fbx source files included, so you can easily adjust the animations in Maya or Motionbuilder:

 
 

You can even retarget the animations to a non-humanoid character:

 

How can I make two of your animation packs work together on one skeleton in UE4?

In UE4 all animations must reference just ONE skeleton FILE. Although the skeletons are identical in all packs, I can’t reference animation files to the Skeleton file, which is in some other pack. This is physically impossible. In UE4, it’s not enough to have identical skeletons. An animation must reference a specific Skeleton file and will work only using that Skeleton file. It doesn’t matter if some other skeleton file is identical, the animation must use just the one that it was imported to. That is how UE4 works. That’s why, if you bought 2 of my animation sets, and you want all animations to point to just one Skeleton file, you have to retarget one of the sets, even though the Skeletons are the same. Here’s how you do it, it takes 3 mouse clicks: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest…ing/index.html

If the 2 skeletons are identical (like in my animsets) there is another way to do this:

1. Choose the skeleton you don’t want anymore and delete it. It will tell you that there are still assets referencing it (all the animations, blendspaces, and skeletal meshes).

2. Use the “replace” option, and choose the remaining skeleton.

If all goes well, the assets referencing the deleted skeleton will now be swapped over. Then you can delete the skeletal mesh and materials too.


Can I use your animations in my Marketplace pack and sell it to people to make money (or give it out for free)?

No. I’m sorry, but such usage is not allowed. The license clearly says that the animations must be a part of a COMPILED game. It can NOT be a part of your asset pack. You can make money with my animations by selling a game made using them. Please, understand, that you can not sell someone else’s asset with your own asset.

You can use the animations in your game and sell the game on Steam or AppStore - that’s how you can make money :)


I’m switching from Unreal to Unity. Do I have to buy the set again on Unity Asset Store?

No, you don’t have to. Every set has FBX source files included (you can access it through Windows, by going to folder …\Content\[package name]\SourceFiles\SourceFiles.zip). Just drag and drop them to Unity and they will work.


I want to use strafing animations for non-combat movement (Movement Animset Pro), but the legs sometimes cross in my Blend Tree. How to fix it?

The first thing to realize, is that if you have 2 legs and you want to strafe in 360 degrees freely, while still walking casually, then there will unavoidably be 2 angles when the legs will cross if you change the direction of movement. Always. Even if you would produce 360 walking animations for every angle, there would still be 2 angles when the legs cross. Normal, unarmed walking is, in essence, crossing your legs.

Fortunately, the leg crossing can happen only in half of the walk cycle time, the other half is when the legs are apart. Please make an experiment in real life to better understand it. Try to strafe right and stop in the middle of the step, when your legs are crossed. Now, please try to change the direction of walking to forward from that position, by moving your rear leg forward. You can’t, can you? The front leg blocks the rear leg. Your legs are crossed and your rear leg would have to literally pass through your front leg. In real life it is impossible, but in a game, the legs just intersect and keep going. In real life, you would have to keep strafing right, until your legs are no longer crossed, and only then you can “blend” to walk forward. Also, notice, that people don’t strafe in casual situations in real life. They strafe in sports and combat, but notice, that sports and combat strafing poses are totally different and you don’t cross feet by design (like in boxing footwork).

So, in real life, you can’t change directions freely, when strafing using a casual walk. However, in computer games, the legs are not physical, so you don’t have that limitation. And the legs just intersect, because the Blend Tree doesn’t know that it is impossible.

What you can do to prevent crossing from happening:

  • you can resign from strafing in non-combat situations altogether, by using a more realistic system for casual movement. Strafing is something people do ONLY in sports and combat in real life. People are of course physically able to strafe like that, but they just don’t do it. In non-combat situations (Movement Animset Pro is a non-combat animation set), people just turn in the desired direction and walk forward to get there. If they need to look right or left while walking, they just twist their heads to look and still walk forward. That’s why all TPP AAA games do that (Uncharted, Tomb Rider, Assassin’s Creed, Witcher, etc.). Not only the movement will be more realistic, but also problems with legs crossing will disappear.

    Tip: if you want the character to always face, where the camera looks, just make the character twist his upper body to look at that direction with IK or/and additive animations.

  • you can “simulate” real-world strafing by using code/scripts/playmaker. Just stop the Blendspace from blending further for a moment, if
    a) the walk cycle is in the legs crossing phase,
    b) this is the angle at which the crossing can happen.
    When the walk cycle reaches the phase, when the legs are apart, or the angle changes, you can resume blending further. This solution will work well visually, but players will sometimes experience unresponsiveness of controls (just like they would in real life). But again – people don’t strafe in casual situations in real life. They strafe in sports and combat, but notice, that sports and combat strafing is totally different and you don’t cross feet by design. You just drag your other foot after your front foot.

  • use IK to prevent legs crossing. If you are in the angle when feet can cross and in the cycle phase when the feet do cross, then move one or both feet by a couple of centimeters for a moment, so they are apart. Mecanim has built in IK. This solution is a 50/50 compromise between responsive controls and visual quality.

Look at Max Payne 3 for example. This is a very good example of solving TPP combat with quite realistic movement patterns. Max essentially never strafes in classical meaning, while the player feels that he does. But he doesn’t really, even in combat – if you press left or right, Max will turn left or right, start running forward, while at the same time he twists his upper body and arms on additive animations and IK to aim where camera aims. When you let go of the button, he will stop running and quickly rotate in place to align with the camera. This makes the movement natural and eliminates the legs crossing problem.


I am switching from Unity to Unreal. Do I have to buy Unreal versions of the packages or can I use Unity version I have?

You can just import Unity animations straight to Unreal (and vice versa! Unreal versions of animations will work in Unity).


When I use AimOffset blendspace in Rifle Animset pro, the left hand is sometimes not holding the gun barrel, when the blendspace is between aim poses

Blendspaces and AimOffsets use FK (Forward Kinematics) animation. To simplify, this means, that the left hand has no idea where the gun barrel is, and it just blends straight from one pose to the other. When it’s halfway between poses, the rotations of every bone is also halfway between the key frames and the result may be not precise. This is exactly why you have the IK bones in Unreal Template Skeleton. You need to turn on the IK on the left hand and snap the effector to the barrel of the gun (in the Blueprint, not in the AimOffset blendspace). This way, the left hand will always be where the IK effector is – on the barrel.

Using IK is a standard solution in every AAA game, don’t be afraid of using it, it’s a great tool.

Read: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Animation/IKSetups/index.htm


Will you make [name of the animset you want]?

If it is a popular weapon or activity in games, then it’s possible that I will make it in the future, but please base your purchase decisions on the animations that are currently available.


I am a small INDIE game developer (not a huge company), can I have a discount?

My animation sets are often offered on sale at Unreal Marketplace and Unity Asset Store. Keep an eye out for seasonal sales!


Is there a discount if I buy all sets in a bundle?

I’m sorry, currently Marketplace don’t have an option of bundling the packs.


Can you help me with making animation blueprints or a character controller?

I’m sorry, I just make animations, I don’t code or make blueprints. You are welcome to watch the tutorials on the top of this page, but they are not made by me.


Can I use the animations I bought on the Marketplace in CryEngine or Lumberyard?

Yes, the Marketplace license allows to use the assets in other engines than UE4.


The animation is jittering/feet are sliding/is not precise

This may be caused by too heavy compression set up in the animation. You can change compression options, by double clicking on the animation inside UE4 and clicking “Compression” on the top bar:

 
compressionUE4.jpg

I have a problem with opening the FBX files with Motionbuilder/Maya 2015 and older

My newer animation packs are made with the 2017-2023 versions of Motionbuilder. Files saved with this version may not be openable with 2015 or older versions of Autodesk software. To open the 2017 source files with older software, you can download MayaLT, open the files and export them as FBX 2013. Some data can get lost though, since FBX 2013 does not support stuff like HumanIK 2016 rig.

You can also export FBX files from the UE4 editor.


The retarget pose in your animation packs is T-pose, while the default Epic skeleton is in A-pose. What’s up with that?

Before anything – if you want to retarget my animations to a standard Epic skeleton, you don’t have to do that. The animations already use Epic’s skeleton, you don’t have to retarget. You can simply ignore the already imported animations, and import all the animations to your desired Skeleton file straight from the source FBX files (they are zipped in …\SourceFiles\ folder).

But, if your character uses a different skeleton structure than Epic’s, then T-pose is the traditional and the only right pose for retargeting animations in that case. This comes from the fact, that when the character is in T-pose, anyone can clearly see if the hands are perfectly horizontal and the body is perfectly vertical. It is easy to pose two characters in t-poses.

When a character is in A-pose, it is way harder to tell with your own eye, if the hands are 45 degrees from the body. They can be 55, or 35 degrees, and it will look very similar. It is almost impossible to tell if both characters are posed with hands angled exactly 45 degrees.

So we use T-pose for retargeting, always. What you need to do to retarget characters correctly, is to pose all your characters in T-pose, not A-pose.

So where did the A-pose come from, and why is the default Epic character in A-pose? A-pose is a perfect pose for MODELLING and skinning (attaching the model to the bones) the character. In A-pose, the armpits and shoulders are evenly stretched, so the mesh will not bend strangely when animating later. Epic staff probably just left the character in that pose after importing it and did not put the character into the T-pose later, for whatever reason.

Bottom line: T-pose is the right pose for retargeting.

Tutorial:

 

I bought animations directly on your page before (pre 2016), can you transfer them to my UE4 account?

No, I’m sorry but I can’t do that. Epic Games did not have anything to do with my direct sales and they have no obligation to store packages bought outside of their official store.

A couple of years ago I was selling animations directly through this page because the submission waiting time in UE4 Marketplace was three to four months before packages could go live. Many people wanted the packs earlier. They could buy them directly from me, at a lower price. My direct sales had nothing to do with Epic Games, and Epic Games did not get their revenue share from those purchases (that is why they were cheaper). Also, you could buy the packages in a bundle, with every next pack added being even cheaper on top of that. The tradeoff was that the packs did not appear in your official UE4 account Vault, because Epic did not have anything to do with that sales. So in short words: you got the packs cheaper and earlier, but you had to store the downloaded files for yourself.

All the packages bought directly from me up to 2016 were up-to-date, and they still match the versions that are on the Marketplace now. There were no further updates from this time.


I can’t see root motion in animations. All animations seem to be in-place.

Animations using root motion are in Animations\RootMotion folder in the project.

In UE4 editor, you don’t see actual root motion movement in animation previews. This is for user convenience, so you can see (for example) looped motions, without the character walking off the screen. However, root motion will work normally if you use it in Character Blueprint and actual Actor.

There are also in-place animations in the project, named the same as root motion versions. Please be sure you are not using them instead by accident, if you want root motion in your game.


I don’t like the shaky camera in FPP Melee Animset, how can I make it less shaky or static?

You can stabilize the camera by constraining its rotation in Unreal Engine by code (for example by using look at constraint), or you can unparent the camera from the head bone and make it follow the head bone from code. This way you will be able to precisely control the camera behavior – dampen the local rotations, translations, add procedural camera shake, etc.


How do I look around using FPP Melee Animset? How to see my legs in FPP?

You should structure your FPP character in this order:

Capsule —-
|
Legs SkeletalMesh
|
VerticalRotator—-
|
Top Body SkeletalMesh

a) you look around left - right with the Capsule. Legs follow.
b) you look around up - down with the VerticalRotator (a null object, create it just for this purpose). Top Body follows, but legs don’t, so you can look at them.

This means you should have TWO Skeletal Meshes in your Actor, one for the legs, and one for the hands. In FPP Melee Animset, you can only find a few specific leg animations, like Kick or Slide. The directional walking, running jumping, etc. leg animations can be taken from my other TPP packs, like Sword & Shield Animset Pro, for example.


Why FPP Melee Animset animations look weird TPP?

Because if FPP games, swords are not held naturally, but always in front of the character’s eyes, so they are always visible. Shoulders are moved unnaturally low, so the camera can’t accidentally intersect with them. Also, most of the time, the hands are the only thing visible in the camera, so the legs are not animated or they assume weird poses (but players will never ever see that, they are outside of the camera view).

Btw., ideally, in “hands only” FPP animations like those from FPP Melee Animset, there should be no leg bones. In this case, though, they are necessary, so Unreal’s retargeting system can work.


Some of the Walk Stop animations have a _RU or _LU suffix in the name. What does it mean?

If you look closely at the feet movement in those animations, you can see that some start with the right foot in the air (RU, as in Right Up), and some with the left foot in the air (LU, as in Left Up). Your game should choose the appropriate Walk Stop animation, depending on which foot is in the air in the moment of stopping, to keep the feet movement fluid.

You can easily code that by measuring which foot bone is higher on the global Y (the vertical) axis at the moment with a simple script, and feeding this info to your animation tree.


I get bad results when retargeting Female Animset Pro (or any other pack).

Female Animset Pro is using a standard UE4 skeleton. You don’t have to retarget. Just unzip the included Source Files (.FBX animations) and import them to your UE4 skeleton.

If you need to retarget (for example, because of way different proportions) Here is a quick tutorial about how to retarget characters in UE 4.24. It is essentially the same as the previous tutorial you can see in this FAQ, yet many find this topic difficult and assume the Female skeleton is different (it’s not, it only has narrower shoulders, but as you will see this is irrelevant), so I repeat it with a different model this time.

Bullet points:

1. Both character skeletons' Retarget Pose must be in T-Pose (or at least must be the same; look up a few posts to see why t-pose and not a-pose)

2. Target character's skeleton Bone Retargeting Options must be set to "Animation" in root and pelvis, and to "Skeleton" in all other bones.

3. Both characters must use the same Retargeting Rig (set it up in Retargeting Manager).


Can I train my AI engine to replicate your animations, and then sell or license this AI engine or the animations it produces to other people?

No, sorry. The license doesn’t allow reselling my animations, even if you copy, modify, or retarget them to a different skeleton. If you want to make money selling assets for games, it’s a better idea to you to make your own, original assets. You will have full rights to those.

If you want to make money using my work, you can do that by using my animations to make a great video game that you will sell on Steam or the App Store.