UDK - Helper Joints and "SDK"

Rigging
1

Hey folks.

I recently got on-board a UDK game as an animator/rigger, but I haven’t had much to do with UDK before this. I’ve been reading up on a lot of things and have been able to get skeleton and animations into UDK.

I’m wondering how you guys work with helper/deformation joints or morphtargets to help deform the mesh. I’m not talking about twist, as I’ve figured out how to do that in the AnimTree, but for corrective work on the crotch and shoulder for example. I’ve found the SkelControlSingleBone node in the AnimTree Editor and I’m thinking that this could be used as a simple SDK-node. Would it be possible to have a joint rotation drive the blend of this node?

How would this compare performance-wise with morphtargets? Do you use helper joints at all for in-game meshes? If any of the methods were to be used joints would be more versatile when it comes to using it across multiple characters I would think.

All views, tips and hints on this would be much appreciated!

I use Maya and thanks for reading. :):

2

Hey again folks.

After some research and tests in the AnimTree I thought that the SkelControlSingleBone node would give me the ability to constraint objects using translation or rotation from other objects.

Therefor I setup a rig in Maya where I used a point constraint to translate a joint that sits in front of the thigh and this pulls my cloth up and forward when the leg is raised. See here for demonstration in Maya: https://vimeo.com/49486489

I’m also using an aimConstraint to rotate the joint. The aimConstraint I can find easily in UDK, but with the SingleBone node I found it acts like the helper joint is parented under the joint. When the parent joint is rotated the helper joint is translated accordingly. This I don’t want. I’m looking for a way to replicate the point constraint in Maya. Is this possible?

  • Mathias