Having previously exported a rigged model into Unreal Engine for my Character Creation module, and the comprehensive workshop video tutorials provided covered every aspect of exporting both character models and animations from Blender into Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), including file tidy up, creating a game rig from the control rig, exporting the skeleton and model, and how to transfer animations from the action editor and import these into UE5, in my case all initially went well.
To enable assets to be more easily pushed into GitHub, each time I completed a prop, I imported the Blender file into a UE5 project, from where the .uasset file could be simply migrated. As you can see from the viewport render below, even early in the prop creation process, the content within the project was substantial, and later, a total of 51 assets were pushed into GitHub.
Creating complex VFX effects in the UE5 Material Editor had also made the process of importing the player character quite straightforward.
However, then, with less than four days until submission, everyone within the animation lost work due to a team member unknowingly using a higher version of Unreal Engine. This meant that I needed to repush all 51 of my assets into GitHub, but given I had all the .uasset files in a separate project, I was able to do this quickly.
With the other team members repushing lost assets, including Sam who importantly needed to reupload her entire two-tier environment and manually fix or create collisions, before then importing her models and animations, as can be seen in the GitHub repository below, things were quite intense in the final two days of the project.
Therefore, as only one person can use GitHub at a time, understandably, I wasn’t able to gain access to upload the 15 animations I’d created for the player character until 5.45 pm on the day before submission.
However, it was only once I had uploaded and tested the first animation that I realised that the subdivision surface modifier was preventing the Blender shape keys I’d used to animate my character’s mouth from transferring over correctly into Unreal Engine. Remaining calm, I first tried to use a low-poly version, but with the geometry changed from quads to triangles during the import process, the mouth was considerably distorted. I then attempted to export the shape-keyed mouth asset as an Alembic (.abc) file and import it into Unreal as a geometry cache, but when that failed to work, I looked for an online tutorial advising how to create morph targets in Unreal Engine that might solve the problem.
Alembic (.abc) File Import Failure Message
Source: YouTube, 2022
When this tutorial also didn’t work, with time limited, I had to quickly think on my feet and come up with my own solution. Using my knowledge of Blender, I therefore copied the mouth mesh as a separate entity, disabled all the modifiers attached to it (the mirror, subdivision surface, and armature modifiers), and duplicated each mesh at its maximum shape key values. Then, having removed the shape keys, I reapplied the subdivision surface modifier, and using the ‘join as shapes’ option in the object data properties menu, I was able to export the new shape keys across into Unreal Engine as one object in an .fbx file. When imported, the shape key data automatically became morph targets in UE5, where they were applied to create the required mouth movements/emotions in my animations. Finally, the now fully functional animations were pushed into GitHub.
Although this sounds like a long and drawn-out process, I was able to problem-solve the issue, implement all the changes mentioned, and communicate to the Games Design Team that, as a result, changes were required to the character blueprint within an hour or so.
When the issue was solved, the final prototype for our ‘Brewtiful Therapy’ game was packaged, with the final walkthrough available below.
‘So, grab your cauldron, and step into the whimsical and enchanted apothecary of ‘Brewtiful Therapy,’ where as an apprentice alchemist, you’ll learn that the greatest magic comes from knowing what someone truly needs, not just what they want!’
Source: YouTube, 2025
References:
YouTube (2022). BLENDER to UNREAL Shape Keys and Morph Targets (UE4/UE5 tutorial) – The Game Dev Cave. [online]. [Accessed: 11 May 2025].
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U4nLRTRmUU
YouTube (2025). “Brewtiful Therapy” Group I Project: Walkthrough – Scott Moore. [online]. [Accessed: 12 May 2025].
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odij9wNwxhg