How to Setup "Master Pose Component"?

[DAkAR]

Hey there everyone,

I am trying to have a customizable character in my multiplayer game. I set up an inventory system so I can pickup new gear, like armor, clothing, different accessories and so on.

Now the one thing I can not figure out is how to setup the modular pawn.
I dont have to much coding experience so I want to do this with blueprints only.

I tried using the “set master pose component” node, without any success.
How do I setup my character? Do I have to skin the full character to a complete bone hirarchy or do I need to skin every clothing item to its corresponding bones only ?
Where do I implement the master pose component node structure? and how do i set it up?
I have more questions than answers but I couldn`t find any helping documentation on this.

Is there anyone who might have done this and is kind enough to provide some info?

Best Regards

DAkAR

[DAkAR]

never mind, I figured it out.

[anonymous_user_586d8a2c]

Could you elaborate?

[DAkAR]

Hi MaxSMoke

I did this in 4.7 and for testing purposes only. I didnt implement this in a game yet so you will need further testing as for how it works with a loot and inventory system. There might also be a better way to do this.

First you will need a character mesh made of seperate pieces.
I seperated the head, left arm, right arm, torso, hip+legs, left foot and right foot.
Each mesh was skinned to its corresponding joints only. if you have multiple meshes per joint chain, skin them aswell.

So for example: You want to swap arms in UE4, you`ll need at least 2 set of arms, but they need to be skinned to the same skeleton. To export, select the mesh and all its corresponding joints as well as all joints in the chain including the root joint. For an arm it would be the arm joints, shoulder, spine and pelvis (pelvis is the root). This is important because you can only have 1 root joint, so all pieces need to have the same root !

Export piece by piece except the head, which will be the “master bone component” in this case. I exported the head mesh along with the whole rig (!)
If you want exchangeable head, this might become an issue.

Import all pieces into unreal, starting with the head. For all the pieces in the import window select the head skeleton. Setup your character blueprint. The head will be the inherited skeletal mesh component. Setup additional “skeletal mesh components”, one for each piece or character slot and assign the appropriate skeletal mesh.

Now you just need to setup you construction script like this:

You can now assign any other skeletal mesh (as long as skinned to the same rig) to your skeletal mesh components in the components tab. You might need to adjust translation in the blueprints viewport.
If you have animations for this skeleton, all pieces should follow just fine.

I hope i recalled all correctly, its quite a while ago now and i havent touched it since.

Best regards
DAkAR

[Tom_H]

To add to the above - if you have a component directly under the Master component in the component tree, it will not accept the morph, though it will accept the pose/animation. To accept the morph it must either be at the same level or a couple of levels below, for example you could add a Scene component under the body and add the clothes under that.

lith

[anonymous_user_d71e4270]

Could you please show us your way? Thanks

[lorgycorgi]

Thank you for your responce! I have tried to do these with your way and it seems that I have some problem with importing these parts of the mesh into the UE4. I am using Mixamo rigging and animations, after i downloaded Mixamo’s rigged mesh i tried to import it to unreal engine by parts and it seems like UE4 thinks its an animations! Why would it be? I have searched some places and spmebody said it might the issue of unskinned mesh, like the there is only rig inside it. I thought it might be it, because Maya dont think Mixamo really skin something ro its rig, so i tried to skin it aaaaand it didn’t work out.

[Roy_Wierer.Seda145]

I see you figured it out, but people would like some more information on the topic.

• UE4.26
• Attaching equipment requiring a skeletal mesh

Goes like this:

[Roy_Wierer.Seda145]

Important to note is that in my example my item used the same skeletal mesh as my character