Piston animations in characters

Darth_Biomech

I have an robotic character, who have lots of pistons in his limbs. Now, on the animations themselves it is fairly easy - just bake the constraints to the FBX. But the problem arises with using of state machines and such - when two animations blend together in the engine, or a procedural layer is added, the pistons start to glitch and rotate incorrectly, passing through each other.

I thought that it can be solved with the LookAt Skeletal Control Node, but the bone I apply it to refuses to look at it's target correctly, always being off. So, how could I fix that situation in general? Do I moving in the right general direction, or is there easier ways to fix the blends?

lotet

can you set up all the movement restrictions in engine instead or is there to much complicated motions?

Darth_Biomech

Well, this is exactly what I'm trying to do, replace baked piston animations with restricted procedural one, but LookAt refuses to work... Or I didn't understood you.

Obscura

It should be the look at. You can try rotating both pieces of the piston with the look at. Showing your anim bp setup and the settings of the look at would help us determining whats wrong with it.

Darth_Biomech

Yes, right, that. I pasted that node at the very top level, since it is supposed to be on constantly, and regardless of the animation playing.

Obscura

This would be really hard to debug from here. Does it turn at all? Try playing with thr value of axis.

Darth_Biomech

It seems to be linked to the interpolation, not the aim itself, tho... Does the alignment of the bone in T-pose matters? since I exported them already pointing in desired direction...

Obscura

I don't think it should, since you define the up axis manually. Try playing with that and to align it properly compared to the initial rotation. Though, I think you will definitely need to update both parts of the pistons to make it properly aligned at the end.