One of the issues we faced in the initial setup phase of our project was animations and skeletons in Unreal. The issue started with the assets we chose to be the main character. Initially we had a different character model choice for our main character, but the problem we encountered was how all animations were incompatible with the model we chose. Looking into it, it has seemed that none of the animation assets we were provided can be used on the model we chose, which happened to be a Infinity Blade model we found on the asset store. This was confusing at first because I was under the impression that humanoid skeletons were compatible with humanoid animations. Our temporary solution was to pick a different model entirely and use the provided animations with the asset, but this was not a permanent solution. 

Instead, I have begun to look into how we can retarget our skeletons. I wasn't entirely wrong in my assumption that humanoid animations can be compatible with humanoid skeletons, but there is some work in between to get these two assets to work together. From what I have learned so far, the way to get these animations to work with different skeletons is using the Retarget Manager in Unreal. Some rigs can be identical to the Unreal Skeleton that is provided, but an issue is created when Unreal does not understand the connections between bones in separate rigs. The solution to this is to remap the bones on the source and destination skeletons, effectively making them compatible with each other. It is also important to pay attention to the default poses that come with these skeletons, as starting in the incorrect pose will throw a wrench in the machine and Unreal will not know how to retarget the bone structure.  Using this newfound information, we are now able to make our animations universal to any skeleton we choose to import into the project, making this process a lot smoother down the road if and when we decided to add more assets to the project!