Hello. Ricardo here. 

Throughout this series, I've shared the ups and downs of wrestling with animations in Unreal Engine 5.

Today, I'm happy to report a breakthrough in my quest to conquer my previous animation issue.

After a lot of experimentation and a bit of desperation, I stumbled upon a solution that finally brought my characters to life in the way I envisioned. Funnily enough, it was my other teammate that found the solution while messing around in the Animation Instance Blueprint. 

It makes total sense, I don't know how I couldn't have thought about it before. If you are using Blend Per Bone for your animations, of course they won't play right, even with root motion enabled. Duh! 

I don't know how I didn't come to realize this, but this is what ended up solving my problems.

Before:

After:

That's it. That's all it took. Connecting one node to another and completely ignoring the Blend Layer Per Bone box. I've decided that for blended animations, that require the character to move while attacking or anything similar to that, will be handled in a separate Animation Instance.

That way I can make my characters move how I want, when I want, to where I want, with the conditions I want, you get what I mean. 

I HAVE THE CONTROL BACK!

This is such a relief, that I'll make this one brief.

Here are some tips for other game devs out there stumbling into this post.

Embrace Modularity: Consider separating complex functionalities into different blueprints. It might save you a LOT of headaches!

Test Rigorously: Never underestimate the power of thorough testing. Even if something doesn't make sense, try it. You may be sleep deprived. I know I was...

Document Everything: Keep detailed notes on everything you do. Don't trust yourself to remember what you did. That way, you start checking off what you tried and what you haven't done yet. 

Animation issues can indeed be a REAL pain, but they also push us to find creative solutions and improve our skills. I hope that by sharing this series hopeful end, you navigate similar challenges swiftly and with ease. 

I encourage you to keep pushing the boundaries of what you can achieve in Unreal Engine.

Thanks for following along, and remember, sometimes the solution requires us to think outside the box-or in this case, bypassing the box.

Stay animated, get plenty of sleep, and as always, YOU GOT THIS!

BELIEVE IT!

By Ricardo Rodríguez (06/07/2024)