Title: “How to Make INSANE Procedural Animations with Control Rig in Unreal Engine 5 – YouTube”Video Transcript: “What if I could show you the exact workflow to create insane procedural animations with control rig in Unreal Engine 5? Well, I can because today I brought on one of the best control rig creators in the whole Unreal Engine 5 community, Andrew Miller. This guy is the number one when it comes to creating procedural animations right inside the Unreal editor. And today he’s going to show you his entire workflow, all his control rig nodes, all the tools that he uses, Blender rigs, tips that I’ve never heard of, and he didn’t hide anything. So, if you want to create the most insane procedural animations using control rig, this video is the one that you need to watch. So, Andrew, how you doing today? I’m good. That’s quite the intro. My name again is Andrew Miller. I’m a tech artist and tech animator and uh I was previously working at a company called uh Treehouse Games on a game called Voyages of Nerra. Um and that’s sort of where I really was able to dig into Control Rig and figuring out how it can actually help us as a small very small art team um get a lot of content out. Uh, and control rig is an incredible tool for that sort of thing because it really helps automate a lot of the process. Once you build one, you can apply it to a bunch of other uh assets and characters. So, um, yeah, that was as far as control rig goes. Uh, that’s why we decided to use it because it really helped us get the job done. Wow, that’s amazing to hear. And yeah, I’ve se I’ve been seeing the game Voyagers of NRA and I mean, if you guys want to check it out on Steam, go ahead. It is truly amazing. Like overall, I think the team has made a an incredible job. I was seeing the scene trailer looks super beautiful and of course your creatures with control rig really stand out over there. So yeah, congrats on all your work so far on everything and yeah, I’m excited to maybe check out the game as well. Seems really cool. I appreciate that. Yeah, please do. The more the marrier. Yeah. So, here we are in Unreal. I believe we shipped on 5.4. Um but uh control rig I don’t think has changed aside from a couple new features in later versions. But um yeah, so here’s a little test level of some uh other examples of control rig that I’ve u put together. But the uh the I’d say the bread and butter of this setup is that it’s control rig is super super awesome for generating rigs quickly. Um it gives you a lot of flexibility that is a lot more difficult in traditional um software like 3D Max or Blender or Maya. Um it has a lot of stuff that you can very very quickly get yourself into a really like awesome place. So for slithering creatures and uh you know very smooth movement um we’re able to get it to do exactly what we needed to do and do it in real time as opposed to you know baking out animations. So, uh the beauty of control rig here is the um is our ability to have procedural uh animation that will allow us to with traditional rigging, traditional uh moving of controls. We can uh effectively turn on uh one see if I can find it here. So now we’re able to get that nice secondary motion. Wow, that looks amazing. So cool. It was a super fun day when I was like, “Oh my god, this is possible.” Um, and what’s really great about this is, um, we have individual control, so we can still author animations in the traditional sense. Um the only the only caveat is uh in order for the um the actual control rig to be able to do what it needs to do is you don’t want to bake in any of this secondary motion because if you were to export this FBX it would export with this secondary motion in uh baked in right it would go on top. So that’s why I added this uh condition here. So, we author the animation. Uh, he does we do a very stiff as an animator. It breaks my heart, but it ends up looking awesome. I promise. Um, but you end up authoring like a a cool bite. You get get some of the poses you want to get. Um, and you know, you you get them exactly where you want them to be. Uh, get the the full animation you want to get and you bake it out. And then ultimately we in game we have a separate control rig that’s sort of doing the exact same thing. We just don’t have nearly as much going on. Um so this is the one that’s actually running in game via the Anom blueprint. This anom blueprint is effectively being controlled um by uh yeah the enemy’s actual behavior blueprint and in uh logic. So whenever wherever the capsule goes is where the animation blueprint is getting information on what to do. Um so between our actual state machine with like this idle swimming animation and the actual output pose is where we’ll put the control rig. Um which is effectively this control rig. And uh all we’re doing is from the actual enemies blueprint is controlling one one control. So we can reference this control rig in the blueprint and whatever he is targeting that control will snap to that point. So if you are the target, he’s going to be we’re going to snap that control to you. Okay. Um so you’ll see that all we need to do is move this control and he will follow follow you around. Wow. That’s cool. So in game you set that as the player, right? Update that location to be the player and it just works. That’s it. Um, and uh, you know, for me, the best solutions are the simplest ones, and that was the best solution because we already have them targeting players. We already have all of our enemies already targeting players. Um, all we needed to do was use a control uh, to assume the player’s position. Uh, whatever player they are targeting, we snap this control to that player’s position, which is relatively simple. Um, and the control rig does the rest. If you were to move very quickly, he’ll be able to follow you. Uh if you swim beneath him, he will follow you. Um Wow. And uh yeah, it’s it works great and it’s um it’s just a lot of fun to mess around with. That’s the that was the the best part of this is just how fun this is. Yeah. you know, as an animator, you know, the rigs are the your favorite rigs are the ones that get you where you want to go the quickest and easiest and the most intuitively. Um, so this was a really like exciting because we had a lot of flexibility. We could do the traditional animation side and do the kind of procedural animation side and blend them together. And that’s that’s essentially what is going on in the state machine. We have a very traditional kind of state state logic where we you know when he’s swimming idle we have this idle swimming animation that is if I were to turn if I were to turn this off or to bypass the control rig. You’ll see exactly what the animation looks like were to turn this off or to bypass the control rig. You’ll s animator, it breaks your heart a little bit, but then in game once we add the control rig, animation. And you notice we’ve got uh an attack start loop and an end. Um and once we are within a threshold we’ll actually play the attack down animation. It’s actually a can afford breaking your attacks up into three pieces um that’s you know there’s a time and a place for everything. In around in the oceans of mirror. And he looks scary. He looks scary. Definitely. Dardo Studios did the texture for us. Wow. So it was a collaborative effort there. Yeah. I agree. It’s just it’s the greatest thing in the whole wide world. Um so we have a very specific structure for the way the body moves. Um, and there’s rig. Right? So if you were to offer uh you know a bite animation um control rig is the um that will be controlled. it basically animated. So the that on top of that. Right? So, we basically separated um a we have a a separate like mechanical are not skinned. They are just the bone in between the uh bones that the FBX is you know? Um, it’s as any tech artist probably uh would say, it just takes as long as it takes. solve this problem. and um ultimately realized that it was just once you Yeah, that’s so clever. Wow, that’s actually amazing. Again, it’s super That’s the stalker. No traditional rig uh but definitely a control two control rigs. So, we swapped one traditional rig It it is it’s kind of addicting. Yeah. Just have he just feels I I just love how alive this stuff feeling. to make sure that uh the sea life felt natural, felt real and uh could be it. I guess we could go. I have some other examples of of how I’ve used control just a matter of in the control rig changing the reference um of what bone so what I’ve done for demonstration is I’ve just disabled this is where we are but uh yeah so the the control rig is uh where to create a control. So um our forward is this guy. Um and our our look controls the deformation skeleton, that kind of thing. This sort of does it procedurally um to a degree. set up a new enemy. Once we built this first one, we were able to get once we had the actual mesh and the art, we that. So the, you know, we were able to go over to we have sharks. We’ve got um obviously the stalker is much longer and has much more spine bones than the shark does, but um it takes a couple seconds easily transferred over, right? Um so yeah, it’s very important to build an incredibly small art team and and I was the only animator on the team. Uh, and really just the tech artist and Um again the modularity is something that’s just super super valuable uh through the game, you are attuning with these, you know, ancient entities, these the first one you’ll encounter is, uh, the water spirit. And so, the world. And what’s really great about this as well is um, we would ultimately and um that was a very exciting prospect. But um I think as far as we working. I love this guy. He looks insane. It’s one of my favorites. he’s just he’s just fun to move around. And the secondary motion on the tentacles and everything is just very, connected in the water or, moving through water. Um, another use though that is completely different than that Blender uh control or our Blender rigs were um all we could really use for the traversal on uneven terrain and that sort of stuff. Setting up a system like that with IK can be done, and some stuff like that. So, um I created this um procedural kind of link him because he is was like the key to me being able to an arc move the leg basically interpolating those those distances and when we play, so now we are in this level we are playing. We’re simulating. And if we uh He’s um curious as to that back. There’s one author because this guy does have a traditional rig. Um and it’s for his little idle animation animrint which overrides the control rig. So Oh, I got it. Yeah. So, we were able to um create feet. So, we’re able to just play this looping idle animation while he moves to make it feel a little bit more alive world. Um, and you’ll notice the control rig also will adapt to different happens in real time in the uh harder and he feels like a completely different enemy even though yeah, he’s pretty much the same. The other nice thing about this is we could also add more legs if you wanted to. But any long it it would work with anything. Again, Rigid body uh for his claws uh to kind of give it another level of um get to to like real life the more you notice when it doesn’t feel alive. Yeah. know we were able to we I you know we’re we’re able to kind of get this very claws. What is kind of happening under the hood with um nice in uh and here actually I need to override It’s crazy. Um, this this is super fun. And and the way the rigid body is set up is um, it’s though he’s going to the same size, but we’re able to blow them up in, you know, dynamically in editor. Um really gets. Um, and then like I mentioned, uh, the rigid body is referenced by, uh, this skeletal mesh. right back in. Yeah, postprocess the we are applying the So you notice it’s after control rig. Um so as the movement is piped down the the so uh and then again at the end here we’ve got our default slot for um serpent guy and the sharks. Uh, we built those into the Anom blueprint because we wanted the control rig to affect or be which is why we have that um attack in the um state machine so that it pipes could be affected by the authored animations. as opposed to the crab. We that I learned about control rig is um that it’s very flexible and you just glad that people seem to be enjoying it. And um yeah, I’m I’m really excited to to be like an actual savant to figure it out. And uh I’m just really happy that time and make them modeler so that you can really accelerate your workflow. control rigs. What is like a workflow that they should follow um when they’re I know that way. It’s It’s so good. It’s um I’m I’m is one of those that I’ve I’ve dug in for so long. And um like once you understand the fundamentals of what bat there are really just three three pieces of a controller work. There’s a construction event, there’s the forward rig. Wow. as opposed to the other way around. So control rig can author animations and animations can then understand what those elements of control rig are, how they work, what they can do for what you’re trying to understanding those fundamentals of constraints FKIK that sort of stuff um nodes are just another way of getting that outcome. Um so it’s first I’d say little bit about that. How traditional rigging goes together, what constraints are. Um understanding how IK and FK uh help a lot of people out there. Um, and it’s like you said, you have to, you Well, one last thing is I um I actually am working on starting a community um to environment, tech art, um you know, shaders, like anything in in anything in have all these incredible tools, but they’re only as good as the idea you have and your ability to get that idea. join the Discord. And I think it’s a great place to learn control rig. I mean I mean I would literally join right now if people want to see, you know, a part two maybe building a control rig, let us is in the description. And yeah, thanks Andrew for coming in. Uh it was great to have you. appreciate you. Amazing. Than”Video Summary:

**Video Summary: “How to Make INSANE Procedural Animations with Control Rig in Unreal Engine 5”**

This video features **Andrew Miller**, a tech artist formerly at **Treehouse Games**, explaining his full workflow for creating *procedural character animation* in Unreal Engine 5 using **Control Rig**.

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### 🔧 Core Concepts
– **Control Rig** enables animators to procedurally drive movement inside Unreal without relying on baked animation from Blender, Maya, or 3ds Max.
– It’s especially powerful for *secondary motion* (tails, tentacles, serpentine bodies, cloth-like behavior) that would otherwise be tedious to hand-animate.
– Once a rig is built, it can be quickly **re-used across multiple characters** (e.g., sharks, sea creatures) by simply re-targeting bones.

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### ⚙️ Workflow Overview
1. **Author Base Animations**
– Create simple “stiff” base animations—idle, swim, attack, etc.—with no procedural motion baked in.
– Export as FBX or create in-engine sequences.

2. **Add Control Rig Layer**
– Build a Control Rig graph that drives secondary motion (e.g., smooth tail sway) on top of the base animation.
– Implement a toggle or condition so this layer *only* affects runtime animation, not baked exports.

3. **Integrate into Animation Blueprint**
– Insert the Control Rig node between the **State Machine output** and **Final Pose**.
– The rig reads data from the **enemy’s AI/Behavior Blueprint**—for example, following a player’s capsule location in real time.

4. **Procedural Targeting**
– The rig has a single main control that snaps to the player’s position; movement of that control automatically drives the rest of the body.
– Smooth interpolation and inverse kinematics keep the creature “tracking” the player fluidly.

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### 🧠 Technical Highlights
– **Construction Event / Forward Solve / Backward Solve** form the three key logic blocks of any Control Rig.
– Control Rig allows **runtime deformation** and **real-time physics integration** (e.g., rigid-body tentacles).
– Traditional animation + procedural motion can be **blended** in the state machine for realistic results.
– Modular design means new creatures can share the same rig with minor bone-reference edits.

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### 💬 Key Takeaways
– Control Rig massively boosts **iteration speed** for small teams—no need to re-export animations for every tweak.
– Combining **authored animation** with **procedural control** produces lifelike, dynamic results.
– Miller emphasizes learning foundational rigging principles—FK/IK, constraints, hierarchy—before diving deep into Control Rig nodes.
– He also announces a **Discord community** for tech-art, rigging, and shader enthusiasts to share workflows and resources.

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### 🧩 Notable Quote
> “The best solutions are the simplest ones. Once you understand Control Rig fundamentals, you can make rigs that feel alive—and reuse them everywhere.”

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In short, the video is both a masterclass and a demonstration of how Control Rig transforms Unreal Engine 5 into a full-fledged procedural animation powerhouse, blending art and automation for real-time, game-ready motion.