Replacing Third Person Controller

Hello, everyone. I recently start working with Unreal Engine 4 after 3 long years in Unity Development. So I started here and I bought a Paladin model from the marketplace (he is rigged and ready to use). For my first tests I wanted to use the default UE4 third person controller with my paladin model. I have watched some tutorials on YouTube but when it comes to copy and then paste the data from the event graph from one to another, my engine crashesh.

If you have any idea how to fix this problem or you just know an easier way to do that, please tell me.

Thank you!!

Third person controller or character?

I want to add the default Third Person Controller from UE4 standard assets to my Paladin model. Can I do that?

If you just want to test your paladin model then you can just swap the mesh and animation blueprint of the default ThirdPersonCharacter class. Just go into the blueprint, select the mesh component on the left panel, then on the right panel select your Paladin Skeletal Mesh and animation blueprint.

If you want to create your own Character and Controller class then you need to do extra stuff.

I have changed the model itself now, but he stands in Tpose. I guess that is because I need to make a Paladin’s Animation Blueprint?
If so, can you guide me on how to do that.
Thank you!

Here’s how to do an extremely simple animation blueprint.

  1. Right click on your content browser, go to the animation menu and select animation blueprint
  2. This makes a new window pop up where you should select anim instance as the parent class and your Paladin Skeletal Mesh, then click ok
  3. Double click the newly created file and go to the Anim Graph tab, and from your asset broswer tab (the one inside the animation blueprint) look for an animation and drag it into the graph.
  4. Connect the animation node to the final animation pose node, hit compile and it is done

This should display the animation in game.

Note that there is no state machine here nor anything else in the event graph driving this animation, so if you want behaviour like transitioning between idle walking and running, doing attacks and such, you are gonna need to do some scripting. The ThirdPersonCharacter Animation Blueprint that comes with the template already shows how to do the Idle Run Walk switching plus Jumping, so you might want to check that out.

The below video will show you how to replace the mesh and animations of the default third person mannequin.

Conceptually, the steps are:

  • create a “retargeted” copy of the animation blueprint used by the third party mannequin (this will convert all the animations to work with your paladin character)
  • replace the animation blueprint in the 3p controller with your retargeted animation blueprint
  • replace the skeletal mesh with your paladin

Details are in the vid: Character Creator 3 Tutorial - Animation Retargeting in Unreal with Auto-Setup Plugin - YouTube