L3 Games Modular Characters Manual
Hello and thank you for purchasing one of the assets from this line. In this manual you can find technical details and explanation to some Unreal Engine 5 features which will help you to integrate any asset purchased from this series in your project.
Table of contents
Table of contents
Additional articles
Introduction
Animation system overview
How-to retarget guide
FAQs
Will there be a male counterpart to this?
Any way to use it with Unreal Engine 4.x
Is there facial animation?
I need source files, any way to get them?
Is there any more packs?
I get blurry textures and memory error
Customer support
💬
Additional articles
Mesh Merger Plugin usage - How to combine multiple meshes from one or multiple packs together into a single mesh
Introduction
All female characters are built on top of the standard female mannequin Unreal Engine 5 skeleton, carrying the same proportions and bone structure. Base model which you also get with a pack is made with cross-compatibility between packs in mind.
You can take a look at BP_PreviewPawn (or BP_ExamplePawn) which is located in Blueprints folder to see an example integration. Other blueprint, BP_*project name*_Cosmetic is made in mind with an easy integration into the Lyra Sample.
Model is split into parts for easy swapping between them when building a custom character.
Example base model looks like that:
List of all of the available slots by design:
Of course you can more/fewer parts if you so desire.
There are usually a few pre-assembled characters for you to try in case you don't want to mess with the parts:
Animation system overview
This character runs on the expanded UE5 skeleton with additional bones. You have an option to live retarget any UE5 Mannequin animation to it using RTG_MannyTo*project name* IK Retargeter located in /Rigs folder. For example, RTG_MannyToTess or RTG_MannyToLiberty
However, custom skeleton can play default animations just fine. Animation sharing between skeletons is enabled using Compatible Skeletons feature.
To access this feature go to the skeleton asset:
And click Window - Asset Details.
In the window that appeared you wanna select the skeletons you want to share animations between
Same has to be done other way around. Now you can access default SK_Mannequin animations on Tess skeleton.
Please note, this will work only for the skeletons with the same underlying hierarchy.
Keep in mind, some characters use 2 version of the shoes and different offsets for the feet bones:
If you play default animations on modified shoes it will look not very pleasant causing a visual bug. To fix it, you can either live retarget at runtime, or retarget animations to the separate assets using IK Retargeter.
We will be back at it in the following chapter.
For now lets take a look at what happens in the BP_PreviewPawn.
As a base animation it uses regular Mannequin skeleton with no mesh attached, just like it is done in the Lyra sample and default Third Person anim BP. You could run any animation system you want here, ALS v4 for example, Lyra animation system, anything from marketplace, or custom built one, it doesn't directly interact with our skeleton.
One step down from there is the invisible character as well, but this is the actual skeleton of our model:
Thats where live retargeting happens.
Skeleton looks like that:
Besides copying the animation we also apply deformation correction, anim dynamics for tie and ponytail and a facial animation sample:
You can double click on any of the nodes and see how it is done, it goes little bit beyond the scope of this guide.
Last portion of breakdown is the parts themselves, they're simply attached using Set Master Pose Component function in the Construction Script.
Feel free to just swap any of the parts, it will work just fine.
Only keep in mind to change InvisSkeleton to the approriate base skeleton.
Optionally you could merge the meshes here at runtime to reduce draw calls, but the function will have to be exposed using C++. You can read more about various ways of working with modular characters here on Unreal Docs .
Also, there's a little node which handles the offset of the character, you need to enable it and specify the offset for anything custom:
What is does is sends a message over to the animBP to put an offset in the control rig. IK is handled by the control rig and without this little piece of blueprints shoes would always clip in the ground. You want to turn it off whenever the model is using regular skeleton
How-to retarget guide
If you want to bake your animation assets to this pack's custom skeleton you need to do following.
Select the animation you want to retarget, right click and select Retarget Animation Assets - Duplicate and Retarget Animation Assets.
Select the source model (has to be UE5 skeleton, otherwise you'd have to set up IK retargeter yourself), select target model which matches your desired base skeleton. In this case I've selected one with high heels and no dynamic bones:
Type in all the options you want and click Retarget.
IK Retargeter window looks like that:
It uses default IK_Mannequin IKRig asset. Sometimes Unreal may have a bug with dynamic bones so I suggest you not giving it an option to mess with them. It will be fine, just retarget your animation with the version of the model which doesn't have them.
FAQs
I anticipate some questions based on the other pack I've developed.
Will there be a male counterpart to this?
Yes, there is. Check it out here: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/slug/68c86bae581a407e800c9b7f03f0e065
Any way to use it with Unreal Engine 4.x
Not really, it is relies on the new features a lot. If you want to do the work - sure. Otherwise, not really.
Is there facial animation?
Yes, there are ARKit blendshapes. Write me an email if you need access to the facial rig in Maya, or want face redone with the bones. That will cost extra tho.
I need source files, any way to get them?
Write me an email.
Is there any more packs?
Check out this one:
I get blurry textures and memory error
Of course you do, some textures might be too high of a resolution to practically use. Downscale the textures, or increase video memory pool size by doing something like r.Streaming.PoolSize 3000
Customer support 
Anything support related please send an email at lilly@artemb.art
If you want something done for your project write at freelance@artemb.art