Houdini character animation to Unreal Engine 4

[henrybullen]

Hi,

I'm trying to import a houdini character to ue4. I'm following Varomix's tutorial > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8A2U3jmng4. 

I can't seem to get any animation sequence when importing the simple female walk cycle, using identical settings as the video.

I've attached a screen recording of the settings.

If anyone has any tips for importing to ue4, that would be a huge help.

Thanks in advance

RecordingEdited.mp4

Edited December 8, 2017 by henrybullen
Adding attachment

[henrybullen]

If anyone else has this issue, finally figured out that the export works if you use the fbx rop rather than file export fbx. 

[Snappy_Darko]

Hi,

Was wondering if you can help. I'm trying to retarget a skeleton I made using Houdini Autorig in Unreal Engine, so i can control the character in 3rd person.  Struggling to do this since most tutorials seem more about importing animations in Unreal, as opposed to making a skeleton that will work in Unreal.  You seem to be one of the few people trying to work with UE4 and Houdini for animation purposes and I was just wondering if you have any suggestins/advice for what I'm trying to achieve.  I did have a look at the  Varomix tute, but again it's about importing animation cycles rather than retargeting.

 

Thanks in advance :-)

[henrybullen]

Hey,

Sorry I haven't had any experience with retarggeting yet. I found that exporting your model into unreal then exporting it solved a lot of problems.

I then used the auto-rig, on the ue4 exported mesh. I'd recommend trying that. If you export straight from houdini to ue4, even with compensation for scaling, ue4 still has trouble scaling the bones correctly. 

I was only able to get the physics system to work after using the ue4 exported mesh.

Also, the houdini artists facebook group is usually very helpful. Worth posting in there.

Hopefully that might help you.

Let me know how you go!

[Snappy_Darko]

Hi, and thanks for the quick reply!

Do you mean exporting the model back out of UE4 into Houdini and then back into UE4 and then making the skeleton in Unreal?

I'd not heard of the autorig in Unreal, do you have a link to it by any chance?  All i can see are Blender tutorials on Autorigging for Unreal.

 

 I will keep you updated if I have any success :-)

 

 

[henrybullen]

No sorry.

Export mesh from houdini to ue4. (Make sure its at the size you want it to be in ue4)

Export mesh from ue4 back into houdini.

Auto-rig in houdini. (The mesh will probably be massive but thats okay. Just scale up the controls after you make the autorig)

Then export skeleton and mesh to ue4.

Edited May 29, 2018 by henrybullen
Typo

[Psynema]

Hello all, 

Autorigs aren't UE4 friendly and via SideFX, should NOT be used for game engines.  Retargeting generally only works CONSISTENTLY if the bone names match.  The bone remapping feature in UE4 just flat out doesn't work.  

There's a tutorial I've got on the whole process at

"https://gumroad.com/products/nknEX/edit"


 

Edited June 2, 2018 by Psynema

[hallogero@gmail.com]

You can follow this tutorial here:

https://gumroad.com/l/nknEX

[mmmark]

Another great tutorial series for practical game engine character rigging is this one by Richard Banks on Udemy ++ a big added benefit is that you get some shelf tools/HDAs out of the class that speed up the whole process for later rigs. Highly recco!

https://www.udemy.com/game-character-rigging-with-houdini/