Dear colleagues
In our bilingual (language A and B) game we want 2 versions of our characters (A and B), with 2 sets of visemes & gestures because we want to avoid overcharged biligual actors (with the double of waves and animations in their skeleton). Our tentative approach:
(starting from character A composed of: 1 skeletal mesh (mshA) + 1 skeleton (skA) + 1 ActorBP (acA) + 1 animation BP (anA)):
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Duplicate the skeleton of A: skA + SkB;
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Duplicate the animation BP of A (using “Retarget Anim Blueprint – Duplicate Anim BP and retarget” into skB): anA + anB.
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Duplicate actorBP of A: actA + actB and redirect the animBP of actB (in the details of its CharacterMesh component) to anB.
The problem with this method is that when we duplicate skeletons the copy (skB) looses its connection to the original skeletal mesh (mshA): “Opening” this skeleton asset opens the anB where Mesh is “none” and the viewport remains void.
To regain the mesh we can switch (in the anB) to skeleton edit mode where will be albe to clik “import new mesh to this skeleton“ (upper button “import mesh”). BUT this implies to reload again the skeletal mesh from the FBX file as if it were a distinct one, overloading our game asset pool. Why can’t we just reload (reference) mshA into the new copied version of the animation blueprint (anB)?
Can someone help? Is there a different way to duplicate characters into 2-language versions in order to split their animations into 2 distinct sets (skeletons)?