[Bug Report] Editor Highlights Wrong Bone

Build Type: Github Source

Version: 4.12.3


in Persona: Editor, clicking on a bone highlights the clicked bone, but instead of selecting that bone name in the SkeletonTree, it selects its child, and any transformations are applied to the child bone, instead of the highlighted bone.

this is not very intuitive, and I believe this is a bug. (or possibly 2 bugs, highlighting the wrong bone, and selecting the wrong bone are probably separate problems in code.)

i believe the highlighted bone in the viewport should match the highlighted bone name in the SkeletonTree, and rotations should be applied to the highlighted bone, rather than its non-highlighted, never-clicked-on, child.


Repro Steps:

  1. open persona editor.
  2. select a bone.
  3. press E for rotation widget, and drag to rotate.
  4. notice that using the rotation widget affects the child bone, rather than the highlighted bone.
  5. notice that the selected bone name is not the highlighted bone, but instead its child.

101109-parentbonehighlighted.gif

Hi Scott,

I’ve entered UE-34232 for this. I’d like to note that there is some inconsistency with various 3D software on this. 3DS Max appears to work the same way that UE4 does, where Maya works the way you’re expecting. 3DS Max and UE4 actually consider the connection between upperarm_l (parent) and lowerarm_l (child) to be part of the child bone. Which, if you follow it to the last bones in the heirarchy, makes sense.

However, I do see how it can be a little misleading in practice, so I entered this for evaluation from our engineers. Thanks for reporting it.

thank you for entering the bug report, but i disagree that this is similar to how 3DS max posing works.

3DS max does not work anything like this. when you select a bone in 3DS max, it allows you to rotate the selected bone, as you would expect, and the highlighted bone matches the bone name in the outliner list. in UE4, it rotates a bone that is not being highlighted, and the highlighted name does not match the highlighted bone.

here is evidence that 3DS max 2014 does not have this selection error:

you can see they click on the foot, it highlights the foot, then they rotate the foot, and the name of the selected bone matches the highlighted bone in the viewport.

i have animated in Max Maya and blender, and i have never seen any software rotate the child bone instead of the highlighted bone.

That’s a rig. Import a bare and select the joints. This is what I see in 3DS Max 2015:

101695-3dsmaxboneselection.gif

i have used 3DS max 9, 2010, and 2012, and i have never seen their bone selection behave that way, and here is a video of 3DS max 2013, where it doesn’t have that error:

does this behavior only work like that for imported joints? because i usually built bone rigs from scratch or used CAT in Max, instead of importing FBX skeletons. i cant imagine anyone would prefer to select objects adjacent to the thing they want to manipulate, so it seems like a technical problem with room for interface improvement.

maybe it usually doesn’t cause a problem, because riggers sweep the problem under the rug, but even if that’s how the engine deals with joints under the hood, there is no reason to not make the editor interface more user friendly. when i click on a clavicle, i want to move the clavicle, not the upper arm.

We’ll evaluate it and decide whether it is a high priority for us to fix. Thank you for reporting the issue.

Hi Guys - im having this issue in the 4.15 release, and it also seems to have gone down the chain and its happening in my 4.14 engine as well. I have tried copying my backup files over the skels in question to see if they had been corrupted but there was no change. Both the default skel, and the skel_mannequin are doing it and its pretty confusing as to why.

I also am having trouble (not sure if its related) with applying root motion to my animations. The default skel will accept root motion and apply it to the animations but the skel_mannequin simply refuses. It will play the anim but not the root motion. This means i have to re-import everything in my game again to the default skel, as opposed to the generic shooter template skel which me and my team have been using to date… funnily they are both the same skel but for whatever reason its being fussy with the root motion. If this is in the wrong section ill be happy to move it.

If you guys find a solution - ill be all ears ---- thanks in advance ---- Stace

Hey SykoStace,

If you check the public issue tracker (the link with the jira number in my answer), you’ll see that we deemed this to be expected behavior. If you have any other issues (root motion, etc), please post them in a new thread.

lol we will see if its a high priority to fix? well i think selecting a bone in a “bone editor” which gives you the wrong bone is a pretty high priority to fix, no? which bone should i be referencing in the other parts of the unreal engine? the bone i want or the bone next to it?

lol we will see if its a high priority to fix? well i think selecting a bone in a “bone editor” which gives you the wrong bone is a pretty high priority to fix, no? which bone should i be referencing in the other parts of the unreal engine? the bone i want or the bone next to it?