Beginner's question : do I need to animate a custom model/rig before importing it to UE4?

Hello everyone,
I’m new at UE4 and I’m currently learning how to use the engine, blender, maya etc. I’m slowly getting a hand on sculpting environments and scripting events, but I have trouble with the animation/rigging/custom model import process. I tried to gather a few informations, and this is what I think I learned :

“When you rig a 3D Model in Blender or Maya, you can’t just export it to UE4 and expect the animations to work on it. You have to animate the skeleton in Maya/Blender before the export and then only, in UE4, you can cut the said anim into several parts. These individual animations are now usable for this skeleton/model and can be attributed via scripts.”

So my question is : is this true, or am I completely in the wrong direction ? And if so, is it possible to import UE4’s animations to Blender/maya ?

Sorry if it may seem obvious, I’m really learning from the start and couldn’t find a specific answer about that anywhere. Anyway, thank you very much if you take the time to help me.

no, you can do it! :slight_smile:
ok you have a rigged character ( skeletal mesh )
you can export skeletal meshes in ue4 first (without animation)
and then in maya blender ecc
you can make animation related to the skeletal mesh
now you can export in ue4 the animation you just make
by selecting the correct skeletal mesh (that you have imported before)
warning : skeletal mesh and animation has to be FBX !

UE4’s animations to Blender/maya ?

for what I know, it is not possible to animate skeletal mesh
in ue4. You can create blendspace and animations blueprint!(classes to control animations)
blendspace: - YouTube
animation blueprint: - YouTube

this can help you: Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial [German/Deutsch] - Animation/Character - #007 - YouTube

Andrea