HEAT Animations with State Machines

How to use HEAT Animations with State Machines in Unreal Engine

When trying to utilize HEAT animations within a State Machine you may run into issues with the skeleton of the animation not being compatible with the state machine. Follow these steps to resolve:

1. Make sure you have imported a HEAT animation properly by either drag and dropping the animation from the plug-in window into your scene or into an animation sequence. Use the 'Unreal Mannequin' import option when bringing in the animation. The HEAT animation will now appear in the Content Browser at 'All -> Content -> HEAT_Animation'.

2. In the content browser you can open your newly imported animation and see that, while it is retargeted to the SK_Mannequin skeleton, it is targeting to a SK_Mannequin skeleton within the HEAT directory. We need to change this to be compatible with a system wide Unreal SK_Mannequin skeleton.

3. With the animation asset window open click the 'Skeleton' button () at the top of the window.

4. Now in the 'Skeleton' window navigate in the top menu to 'Window -> Asset Details'.

5. In the 'Asset Details' window click the + sign next to 'Compatible Skeletons' and using the drop down choose the correct skeleton with the proper file location. In this situation we are looking for 'SK_Mannequin' within the 'Game/Characters/...' directory.

6. HEAT Animations pulled in on the mannequin skeleton will now work properly with state machines.

choosing the proper compatible skeleton within the asset details of the animation skeleton