Adding animated FP Arms to TP Body

Hi everyone!

I need to do some heavy animating, but I don’t want to make two sets of animations for a FPS game ( the FP perspective and the TP mesh ). Don’t get me wrong, but having to do 10 animations for a weapon and then do them again for the whole character body is time consuming and exhausting.

What I want to achieve is simple in concept: I would like to know if there is a way to only animate the hands for the FP perspective, and then, for the TP mesh, use the same animations but only keep them working for the hands. You know, like you would do a layered blend per bone to have, say, reloading playing while running, jumping, crouching etc…

I’ll do the animating in 3DS Max, and I’ve already set up my arms using a CAT rig and a generic FP Arms Static Mesh.
My goal is a TFPS, the camera is in the character head, only the hands are animated when using a weapon (duh), the rest is blended with running, sprinting etc… animations.

Some other things are on my mind and can’t seem to wrap my head around them:

  1. Do I need to use the Epic Skeleton? If so, will adding IK helpers on the bones affect the final output?
  2. Can I retarget my animations using the CAT rig to the ones I use for the TP character?

Before you answer, I know about Maya Animation and Rigging Toolset from Epic, I don’t want to do anything in Maya because I do not have a licence for it and I am pretty experienced in Max.

I just want to know if it is possibile, if it is ok, looks good and realistic, and, if it is not impossibile to do, where can I read more on how to work on it.

Any ideas, suggestions, opinions on the matter are welcomed.

Thank you in advance!

Found a solution. For anyone who has this issue follow this tut: Tutorial | P90 Anim W/ Kubold's Anim Pack - YouTube