I have just submitted Motion 1.2.1.0 for Unreal Engine 4.27 to the Unreal Engine Marketplace.

Changelog:

• Ported the animations used in the UE5 version of Motion to the UE4 version of Motion.
• Adjusted timing of the animations playing back.
• Adjusted footstep timing.

Hey everyone, Kia here.

Back with the news.

Some of you may have already seen that the roadmap has changed a little, with Motion 1.5 being the only remaining item in the current pipeline, and I'd like to use this post to explain why.

I have come to realise that what I and you who vote on the roadmap want is simply not feasible to implement as a solo developer, given that I am the only person working on Motion while also working full time.

It will take too long, it will grow too big and I would be forced to take shortcuts that would compromise quality.

I have also come to realise that Motion is currently too complex and difficult to use. Some features in Motion are very powerful (e.g. the curve system). However, they are not as easy to use as I would like them to be.

Therefore, regarding the future of Motion, I have made the following decisions:

- Development of Motion 2.0 will cease for the time being. Any future announcements for 2.0 will be made when 2.0 is released in the near future.

- Motion for Unreal Engine 4 will be discontinued early. The UE4 version will no longer be available from August 2023. Support for the UE4 version will end in October 2023.

There will be one final update for the UE4 version to address outstanding QoL issues. Subsequent updates will be bug fixes only.

- Motion 1.5 will be a significant reduction in complexity with the removal of a number of minor features. (e.g. the Jump Stamina feature)

If you do not wish to use Motion 1.5, Motion 1.4 will be available for download to verified customers on request.

I cannot say when all this work will be done, as the economic situation is starting to have a significant impact on me as well. It is becoming even more difficult to outsource any work.

Any development progress can be found in the #changelog channel.

These decisions were hard to make, but necessary to provide everyone with reliable updates and a quality asset you can use to build your projects.

Have a great rest of the weekend.

Sincerely,

Kia.

We have just submitted Motion 1.4 for review by Epic Games and it should be soon available in the Epic Games Launcher for download.

Here is what has changed

Motion now uses the Enhanced Input Plugin!

For projects that require more advanced input features, like complex input handling or runtime control remapping, the Enhanced Input Plugin gives developers an easy upgrade path and backward compatibility with the engine's default input system.

This plugin implements features like radial dead zones, chorded actions, contextual input and prioritization, and the ability to extend your own filtering and processing of raw input data in an Asset-based environment.

All movement sounds were replaced with Metasounds!

Unreal Engine 5 introduces MetaSounds, a high-performance audio system that provides audio designers with complete control over a Digital Signal Processing (DSP) graph for the generation of sound sources.

MetaSounds offer user customization, third-party extensibility, graph re-use, and a powerful tool for in-editor sound design.

Unlike Sound Cues, MetaSounds are fundamentally a Digital Signal Processing (DSP) rendering graph. They provide audio designers with the ability to construct powerful procedural audio systems that offer sample-accurate timing and control at the audio-buffer level.

Using MetaSounds, audio designers can generate audio synthetically at runtime and freely mix and match procedurally generated sound with other audio sources.

MetaSounds are also designed to easily integrate with game data and player interactions to create immersive experiences triggered by gameplay events.

We've updated our documentation to be better readable and added new guides for using Metasounds & retargeting Animations for Motion.

For a full video guide, check out our recent live-training on YouTube!

Other Fixes

• Added more tooltips & comments to blueprints.
• Added animation notifiers to Jump_Fall_Loop & Jump_Start
• Adjusted sprint and walk acceleration curves to match animations better.
• Implemented AimInversion modifier for use in Enhanced Input.

Hey everyone,

we've got a couple messages regarding Motion being available on unauthorized third-party websites and wanted to quickly address it.

We are in no way, shape or form affiliated with any website that illegally distributes Motion or Animate.

We would also like to clarify that support & updates to users without a paid license will be denied and we outright refuse to take any liability from anything that results from using a pirated, possibly modified (!), copy of Motion or Animate.

I understand that some people use pirated copies as a way of getting a "trial", but support is an equal, two-way conversation. We support you, you support us.

We can't afford investing our already limited time and energy for this.

If you're interested in Motion or Animate, but you're not sure if it fits your use case, please feel free to send a message to me in Discord or shoot an e-mail to contact@regensturm.com.

Alternatively, feel free to download our playable demo!

Sincerely,

Neo.

Hey everyone, Neo here.

Back with the news. Big time news.

— Discord Upgrades —

We've re-introduced Ticket Tool back to the server and cleaned up some of the channels. If you have any support question, please create a ticket in the support discord channel.

— Motion & Metahumans —

We are aware of an issue with Metahuman meshes preventing the animation warping nodes to work properly in some cases. A bug report has been sent to Epic Games but we're also actively working on a solution and will post another update when we've updated the documentation on how to integrate Metahumans with Motion with a solution to this problem.

— Motion 1.4 —

Motion 1.4 has now entered development and will feature the following updates:

Complete overhaul of the movement sound component

We will replace the most of the existing logic for sounds, especially footsteps, in favor of an animation-notification-based system for more accurate footsteps, especially when animations blend together.

This also adds footsteps to animations like turn-in-place which have not been considered before.

Introduction of Metasounds

We will also introduce Metasounds to Motion. The movement sound table will be re-purposed to include a list of _Metasound sources_ which then contain the logic for random sound selection, pitch modulation etc.

Each combination of sound type (e.g. 'StepLeft', 'CrouchRight' etc.) and surface (e.g. 'Concrete', 'Gravel' etc.) can be assigned its own Metasound source.

This allows for deeper customization using the new Metasound system on a completely new level!

Introduction of Enhanced Input

Also on the list of new shiny things: Enhanced Input. The Enhanced Input Plugin gives developers an easy upgrade path and backward compatibility with the engine's default input system. This plugin implements features like radial dead zones, chorded actions, contextual input and prioritization, and the ability to extend your own filtering and processing of raw input data in an Asset-based environment.

This deprecates existing input events like 'OnSprintKeyPressed' in favor of direct implementations in the relevant components, resulting in less code and more flexibility. The documentation will updated to reflect this change and notify users of the upcoming depreciation.

— Experimental Multiplayer Support for Motion —

In Motion 1.5 we will add experimental multiplayer support for Motion. This will be available in a seperate version of Motion which will be made available to Verified Motion Developers via Discord. More details will be shared closer to the release of 1.5.

If you have not verified your purchase of Motion yet and would like access to the role, please visit the 'verify-here' channel in our Discord server.

— Animate for Unreal 4 —

As some of you have noticed, Animate is currently only available for Unreal Engine 5.

We were trying to plan ahead for the unavoidable deprecation of Unreal 4 in the marketplace, which only allows Code Plugins to be released for the last 3 major versions of Unreal Engine, but also understand that some users are still working with Unreal 4.27.

If you're interested in a 4.27 version of Animate, please upvote and leave your feedback here

— Animate 1.1 —

The first major update for Animate will include spline support for Animate. Details haven't been worked out yet, but the general idea is that you can place splines in the editor, save them as asset and use them for spline-based animations, e.g. to move a companion along a path. In combination with curves you could enhance that spline-based movement to add some variation to the movement of the companion on the spline!

We're looking forward to see what y'all can create with it!

Big chonker today. Lots of news, even more work ahead! Looking forward to all of it though, as what we strive for is nothing less than creating the best possible tools for your projects!

Hope y'all have a nice weekend!

Sincerely,

Neo

Animate is now live on the Unreal Engine Marketplace!

We have also released a Day 1 patch for Animate. It is already included with the version of Animate that went live.

Fixes

• Updated outdated node comments.
• Updated example blueprints to be easier to read and duplicate.
• Changed the object type of the default interpreters from "Static Mesh Component" to "Mesh Component".

Improvements

• Removed "FStructAnimateCurve" in favor of just using "FStructAnimateValueSource" directly instead.
• Added "BP_AnimateActorBase_SingleSource" class as simple boilerplate class that can be used to quickly create Animate Actors with a single value source (e.g. brightness, one-axis animations).
• Added "BP_AnimateActorBase_RotLoc" class as simple boilerplate class that can be used to quickly create Animate Actors with a rotation and location value source.

Motion 1.3.0.5 has been released and is now available to download via the Epic Games Launcher.

Fixes

• Fixed sprinting sounds not playing after the latest update.
• Adjusted default global player minimum speed for sneaking to be more visible.
• Adjusted "Use Speed for Sound Volume" to be false by default to have expected behaviour to be the default behaviour.

Motion 1.3.0.4 has been released and is now available to download via the Epic Games Launcher.

Fixes

• Adjusted speed threshold detection logic to consider float inaccuracies.
• Adjusted input logic in sprinting component to represent states more accurately.

Motion 1.3.0.1 has been released and is now available to download via the Epic Games Launcher.

Features

• Added TargetCrouchCameraOffset to the Crouching Component. It defines the location offset added when the player is crouching.

Fixes

• Adjusted footstep timings to match new animations better.

We're happy to announce that Motion 1.3 has been released for Unreal Engine 5!

It provides new animation features including Turn-in-place, Foot IK, Distance Matching, Orientation Warping, Stride Warping and more!

New

• Added UE5 mannequin (Manny & Quinn) & animations!

• Added debug camera that can be enabled through the Motion character blueprint. It allows you to switch to a third-person side-perspective for debugging purposes.

Fix

• Fixed Aim Offset to use new, matching animations.
• Removed duplicate shadow from head-less mesh.
• Removed need for separate, head-less mesh.
• Adjusted default camera position to match new animations.
• Adjusted default character speeds to be a bit slower to match most environments.
• Adjusted default sprint acceleration curve to match animations better.