Need advice on how to make and attach a "claw" weapon to my character

I hope this question isn’t out of scope for this forum. Well here it goes.

I want to create a 3rd Person character that has an ability that basically allows him to grow “retractable” claws out from each of his fingers and thumb on each hand.

I’ve made a mock up in Blender 2.79 and I’m wondering if I would have to Import each individual claw in as a separate mesh and attach each or if I could just make it kind of like another hand with bones that line up with the character’s hands?

The second idea seems a bit…clumsy and redundant yet I’m pretty much a noob at this so I’m not sure how to efficiently go about this.

I also would like to make it so that when a button is pressed the claws come out or retract. I’m pretty sure I could just scale them up and down then either show or hide them in game, also disabling or enabling a Capsule Trace or something on the whole area of space the claws occupy.

I’m just not sure how to go about the attachment. I would appreciate, if possible some advice on this. Thank you to anyone who would provide me with a good bit of advice on how to go about the design/attachment and also let me know if I have the right idea when it comes to extending/retracting the claws.

Have yourselves a great day and keep on being awesome!

any update on this? I’m interested in the same procedure. I’m looking to have a basic mesh (claw) come out like wolverine with squeeze of the trigger

Hello, the procedure is more simple than you would expect :slight_smile:

First Attaching the Claws to the right hand (just repeat for the left hand

  1. Head into the UE4 Mannequin Skeleton (or whatever skeleton you are using) \n
  2. In the skeleton tree find the right hand (hand_r)
  3. Right click the bone and press “Add Socket”
  4. Rename the socket that just appeared to "claws_r)
  5. Right click it and choose “Add Preview Asset” and select your claws.
  6. The claws are properly rotated and scaled wrong, so now you scale, move and rotate the socket so it fits. (You rotate, move and scale the ‘claws_r’ socket, not the applied preview asset. \n
  7. Head into your character blueprint
  8. Add a static mesh component and select your claws mesh. (If your claws are a skeletal mesh for animation your would apply a skeletal mesh component instead.)
  9. Attach it to the mesh simply by selecting the static mesh component and dragging it onto the skeletal mesh component of your character.
  10. Select the static mesh component containing your claws. Turn off collision or set it to overlap as having it collide with the skeletal mesh of the character can create issues.
  11. Under the sockets tap, still inside the claws static mesh component, press the little search icon next to parent socket and find the socket we created earlier called ‘claws_r’.
  12. Bam! now the claws should be attached inside the actor and be seen in-game as well.

To make them retracable:

  1. In the main window (outside the blueprint) go to Edit → Project Setting → Input → Add and input by pressing the + icon. Call it something like R_retract and set it to the R-button on the keyboard.
  2. Head back into your Character Blueprint.
  3. If you now search for the name that your gave the R-button (R_retract) a action input should appear.
  4. Select it.
  5. Add ‘Flip/Flop’-node and drag from the Pressed node.
  6. Select your claws static mesh component in the component list and drag it in.
  7. Drag out from the claws component node and get the ‘Set hidden in game’
  8. Copy the ‘set hidden in game’ so you now have 2 and drag the A option into the first and the B into the second
  9. Check ‘New Hidden’ in the Set Hidden in Game attached to option B.
  10. Compile and it should work.

When you now press R inside the game it should hide the claw and pressing it again should reveal it.

Tell me if you have any questions :slight_smile:

This did not work for me. I’ve tried it in the VR template, The advanced VR framework and the third person template. I am able to get the claws on the hand, but the retractable aspect does not work. Once I did get it to hide/unhide but the claws were on the floor and large. I got them on the VR hands, but need them to hide. Maybe I am putting the code in the wrong blueprint… thanks for the advice in advance alt text

I was able to do this in third person using the ALS template, but can’t achieve it in VR

So the simple setup for hide/showing claws with a Flip/Flop should be like this.

I Went on and made them with an animations so it looks like they extent out from the hand as well. That setup looks like this:

And the Timeline just have a linear function which controls the alpha:

Wow. This might be a silly question, but in the advanced VR framework template. Where would I add this scripting? In the event graph of the skeletal mesh/blueprint of the hands?

Wow. This might be a silly question, but in the advanced VR framework template. Where would I add this scripting? In the event graph of the skeletal mesh/blueprint of the hands?

That would be inside the blueprint of your possesed actor yes, in this case your hands :slight_smile:

I’m trying to implement this with the basic unreal VR template just to get it working. I have gotten the claws to retract and emerge with sound. The scale is off because they seem to grow in the two planes (x/z). I don’t know how to make them just grow in one plane (from proximal to distal). Would this process be relatively the same for VR hands? I’m stomped but appreciate all the help!