Conclusion

Here you can see my final animated character, she can move around whether she is holding the weapons or not, she can also now swap her weapons and preform attacks.

I feel like I worked well through out this unit, I learned all about animating a character in UE4 which is something that I had no idea how to do before I started this unit so I've definitely come away from this unit with a new skill set for developing video games that I never had before.

Stage 7 - Special Attacks

For stage 7 I began by adding new combo variables to each of the combo styles that I have already got.

Next I created a boolean and called it CanSpecial, I then created a custom event and I called it ResetSpecial.

I then created a branch and set up a blueprint to do a combo with my great sword in a special attack as you can see below.

I then connected every one of my attacks to the play anim montage node and I also like the Att Montage node I created earlier to it.

I then went back to the anim montages that I created and added a new notify called Especial for each one.  I then called on these notify's and set the can special variable to true.  Then from the character blueprinted I dragged a pin and got my new custom event Special Enable and connected it to the Especial animnotify I created.

And finally I created 3 new anim montages for a sword and shield attack/slash and set the body slot and reset animation for all 3 of the anim montages.

Stage 6 - Combos for Both Sword Attacks

Next I created 3 anim montages for my great sword attacks and basically just set them up the same way I set up my sword and shield anim montages.  I then created a blueprint that would allow the user to switch between my combo systems as you can see below.

I then set up my rules for attacking so that the player can attack while switching weapons and can change the weapons during a combo.

Stage 5 - Animation Montage and Combos

To begin with I created two variables, a Boolean named Sword2Mode and an Anim Montage called AttMontage, next I set 2 of my Sword2Mode variables and connected them the the set hidden in game nodes that I have set to show for both my sword and my great sword.

Now I created this script so that whenever I left clicked it would start an attack that could be continued into a combo attack.

Next I created 3 anim montages for my sword and shield attacks.  For my first attack I set the combo attack notify to the point of the animation where it should attack the enemy and then made a reset notify at the end of this anim montage and my other two anim montages.

I then set up the reset chain for my combo attacks

I then linked my attack combo and combo reset into my character blueprint as shown below.

Stage 4 - Booleans and AnimNotify's

Next I created two new custom events and called them "Switching_On" and "Switching_Off" and also created two new boolean variables called "SwitchingStateMode" and "Switching", I then used those custom events and booleans to create a blueprint in witch the player could switch weapons by pushing R.  Here you see how I did this in my blueprints.

I am now going to create my Anim Notify's in my Animation blueprint.  I created a new notify for DrawSword1, DrawSword2, SheathSword1 and SheathSword2.  I also created two notify's for my two swords called SwitchOn.

I then called the animation notify's into the animation blueprints event graph and created four custom events referencing each component that I added to my character.  I then created 8 Set Hidden In Game nodes and separated them into two groupsbe hidden and one for the asset to be s, one for the asset to shown, here you can see how I connected all of these nodes together

Next I called on the custom events that I just created and the called on the switching on and switching off nodes and connected to my character blue print, I then created a blueprint for switching modes on and off as you can see here.

Stage 3 - Switching Modes and BlendSpace 1D

Next I created the BlendSpace 1D using the idle and walk animations that I downloaded from Mixamo.  Within the run node of the anim graph within my characters animation blueprint I added my newly created blendspace and I then added the speed variable to the final animation pose.

Next I created each state that I needed so that my character will be able to change the weapon from the sword to the great sword and vis-versa, I then linked them all together.

Next I created a new boolean variable and named it "Sword2_On" and connected it to "can enter transition" in the first path from run.  Next I did the same thing on the path from Sword_2 to SheathSword2 however this time I put a NOT boolean between the two.

Next I opened Sheath_Sword1 and got Draw_Sword_1 from the asset browser, I then connected this to the final animation pose node and carried out this same process for the rest of my animation states.

Task 2 - Implementing Sword and Shield

Next I am going to apply different weapons to different sockets of my character.  I started my quickly creating a sword, a great sword and a shield in Maya.

Next I selected the skeletal sockets that I wanted to apply my various weapons to and positioned them correctly.

Next I created 2 static meshes for each of my characters weapons, one for when they are using the weapon and one for when they are sheathing the weapon.  After spending some time positioning my weapons on my character I tested the weapons and it worked.