Unreal Engine 5: Advanced Game Design

Name: Unreal Engine 5: Advanced Game Design
Author: Ken Geary

Import animated characters, create AI patrol, detection, and chase code

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Course: On-Demand

Hello. Welcome to this lesson in Unreal Engine. In this lesson we will import a 3D character and animations into Unreal Engine. Before we do. Launch Unreal Engine. We'll create a new project. Select a games category. In the third person template. And make sure starter content is unchecked. Browse for your project folder. And we'll name this Adventure Game. Click Create. Once launched, open a content draw, and in the content folder create a new folder named NPC. NPC stands for Non-Player Character. We'll also create a maps folder and a blueprint folder. Next, we'll download our NPC or non-player character assets. Open a web browser and navigate to mixamo.com. Log in or sign up for a free account. Then log in. With Mixamo you can select a character and assign motion clips to it and download what you need for your project in the FilmBox FBX format. You can also upload a 3D character you created in a 3D app such as Maya or Blender. For a third person adventure game that we'll create we want an enemy non-player character or NPC that will not only patrol a level using artificial intelligence but will also sense when your player gets close and start chasing the player. Click on characters. We're gonna select a mutant character. The selected model will show in the preview window. Next we'll click on animations. We'll type in mutant. And we'll select a mutant idle. We will use this as our character at Export. We'll be saving our separate character in separate animation clips. Click download. The format will be a FilmBox. We'll leave that as is. We'll leave it at 30 frames per second. We'll leave it with skin. We'll leave key frame reduction to none. So now this will download the skin or the skeleton of the character as well as animation which is the idle animation. Next we'll select the mutant walking. We're gonna use this for patrolling. This looks really good but we won't let Unreal Engine move the NPC around. So we're gonna have this animation animate in place. Once again I'll click download. Except this time no skin. We just want the animation and we'll click download. Finally, we'll find a run in the mutant run. This will be when he chases our player but again we want this in place so check that on. He's running in place. We'll download. Without skin. Just the animation and download. We'll go back to Unreal Engine. Open the NPC folder. Right click. Import. Go to our downloads. First one you want to import is a mutant idle. This is one with the mesh. You gotta do this one first. You also wanna check on import animations. This does come with the idle animation. And import all. Now in the NPC folder, we have the mesh, skeleton, the idle animation, and textures. Now we'll import the walk and run animations. Right click import and then select Run and shift select walking. Open. Very important you check the mesh skeleton. That's set at mutant idle skeleton. That's why we imported it first. And import all. Unreal Engine has an option in the play menu to simulate. This allows you to run your game in editor and you can adjust settings while simulating. Click three dots next to play and select simulate. We'll drag in our mutant idle skeleton animation. We'll focus in on it. And because we're simulating it's running but we could still edit items in this level. In the details panel, in the animation section, we could change the animation on the fly because we're on simulate mode. So I'm dragging the run and the walking. This is a quick way to test that your assets are coming in properly and you have all the animation clips working. Stop play. We're gonna un-dock the content browser. Just by clicking the X. And we'll save all. Save selected. In the next lesson, we're going to import a free asset to use for our game level in Unreal engine. Thanks for watching.

Advanced Provider : Ken Geary 4 Lessons · 30m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

In these lessons you will import a character and several animation clips from the Adobe Mixamo website, then create a Non-Player Character (NPC) that patrols, detects, and chases after a player within a certain defined range. These lessons will go step by step in exporting characters and animations from Mixamo and importing them into Unreal Engine as animated skeletal meshes. We’ll go over how to place target points around a patrol area, as well as how to use Blueprint codes to create arrays and randomize which target point an NPC walks to.

You’ll also learn how to create a Character Blueprint from the imported skeletal mesh and animation clips, then use Blueprints to create an AI for making an NPC patrol a NavMesh, detect the main player character from a distance, and chase after the player.

What You'll Learn

Import characters and animation clips from the Adobe Mixamo website into Unreal Engine as animated skeletal meshes
Import levels or maps and place target points around a patrol area
Create a Character Blueprint from imported skeletal meshes and animation clips
Use Blueprint code to create arrays and randomize which target point an NPC walks to
Build AI that makes an NPC patrol a NavMesh, detect the player from a distance, and chase after the player
Set up an AI detection zone for non-player characters

Key Takeaways

The course walks step by step through exporting characters and animations from Mixamo and importing them into Unreal Engine.
Character Blueprints are used to turn imported skeletal meshes and animation clips into non-player characters.
Blueprint code can create arrays and randomize which target point an NPC walks to during patrol.
AI built with Blueprints can make an NPC patrol a NavMesh, detect the main player character from a distance, and chase after the player.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I build in this course?

You will import a character and several animation clips from Adobe Mixamo, then create a Non-Player Character (NPC) that patrols, detects, and chases after a player within a certain defined range.

Which tools and engine does this course cover?

The course covers Unreal Engine and importing assets from the Adobe Mixamo website, using Character Blueprints and Blueprint code to build NPC behavior.

What topics do the lessons cover?

Lessons cover importing non-player characters and animations from Mixamo, importing levels or maps, setting up AI for NPC patrolling, and setting up an AI detection zone.

What skills will I gain?

You will gain skills in character animation, working with a game engine, and using Unreal Engine, including the Unreal Development Kit and UnrealScript.