This summary of the video was created by an AI. It might contain some inaccuracies.
00:00:00 – 00:14:44
In this video, Justin Blesser guides viewers through the initial stages of creating a game inspired by Elden Ring or Soulsborne in Unreal Engine 5, emphasizing learning flexibility as he is not a professional. He begins by setting up a third-person project, importing a free weapon pack, and organizing assets in a project folder named 'Rune Retriever.' Key steps include duplicating and renaming an animation blueprint to 'ABP_RunePlayer,' adding sockets to the character's mesh for weapon attachment, and correctly positioning a sword and shield.
Justin demonstrates the creation of blueprints for equipment and defining an `add equipment` function to associate items with specific sockets and spawn them correctly. After successfully attaching and testing the sword and shield in-game, he integrates custom animations for various actions, such as holding a great sword, blocking, diving, and swinging.
Subsequent parts focus on refining the animation blueprint, including the use of cached poses and the 'Layered Blend Per Bone' node to blend different animations. This process allows complex animations, like holding a great sword on the shoulder, by applying specific animations to selected bones. The video concludes with a brief on future enhancements involving more animations and inputs to further develop the character's abilities.
00:00:00
In this part of the video, Justin Blesser begins a series on replicating an Elden Ring or Soulsborne-style game in Unreal Engine 5. He emphasizes that he is not an expert and advises viewers to remain flexible as the process may change. The initial step involves creating a third-person project with C++ enabled and downloading a free weapon pack linked in the description. He creates a project folder named ‘Rune Retriever’ to organize essential assets. Justin then duplicates and renames an animation blueprint to ‘ABP_RunePlayer’ and relocates it to the new folder. Following this, he modifies the skeletal mesh by adding sockets to the left and right hands to attach a sword and shield. He adjusts the orientation of these sockets to ensure the character holds the weapons correctly.
00:03:00
In this part of the video, the creator discusses positioning a shield correctly into a character’s hand by adjusting the rotation and moving it for better alignment. They also demonstrate how to create a blueprints folder structure in Unreal Engine, organizing it by creating an actor blueprint for equipment and further subfolders. Subsequently, they create specific blueprints for a greatsword and a shield, assigning skeletal meshes to them. Finally, they add a new function called `add equipment` to the third-person character blueprint, which involves adding input parameters for socket name and equipment, getting socket transforms, and using a spawn actor node to place the equipment correctly.
00:06:00
In this part of the video, the creator demonstrates the process of attaching equipment (a sword and a shield) to a character in Unreal Engine. They explain how to link the spawn transform to the socket and attach the actor to the component. Important steps include setting the mesh parent input and specifying socket names (right hand socket for the sword, left hand socket for the shield). The creator then compiles and tests the setup, showing the character holding and moving with the sword and shield.
Additionally, the creator mentions a downloadable zip file with four custom animations: holding a great sword, blocking with a shield, performing a dive roll, and swinging a sword. They describe adjusting the alignment of the sword in the “hold great sword” animation by tweaking the socket position to ensure it fits the character’s hand correctly.
00:09:00
In this segment of the video, the speaker focuses on setting up the animation blueprint for a character. They open the animation graph and make adjustments, first unhooking the output pose and organizing the different elements. They create and name several cached poses, such as “standard pose,” which can be utilized throughout the animation process. They demonstrate how to blend these poses using a “Layered Blend Per Bone” node, which allows different animations to mix together. Specifically, they blend the “standard pose” with an “anim hold great sword” pose, enabling the character to perform complex animations like holding a great sword on their shoulder.
00:12:00
In this part of the video, the presenter demonstrates how to use the “layered blend per bone” function to apply animations to specific bones of a character’s skeleton. They explain how to select a particular bone (in this case, the right arm) and apply the desired animation to that bone by adjusting settings in the animation blueprint. The process includes copying the bone name, pasting it into the animation blueprint, compiling the changes, and selecting the appropriate animation class in the character’s blueprint. This results in the character holding a great sword over their shoulder. The presenter concludes by indicating that future videos will expand on this base by adding more animations and inputs.