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How it’s animated

All animations target the UE5 Mannequin skeleton and rely on Epic’s IK bone set:
  • ik_hand_gun drives weapon movement..
  • ik_hand_r contains right‑hand animation data.
  • ik_hand_l contains left‑hand animation data.
The setup also uses Virtual Bones (VBs) for procedural animation:
  • VB ik_hand_gun (targets ik_hand_gun): Used to position the pistol during quick draw so the sidearm is correctly placed relative to the right hand.
  • VB ik_hand_gun_pivot (targets ik_hand_gun): All weapons are attached to this bone.
  • VB hand_r/l (targets hand_r/l): IK targets for the right/left hand.
  • VB lowerarm_r/l (targets lowerarm_r/l): Hint/pole targets for the right/left arm.
  • VB recoil_hand_r (targets root): Preserves right‑hand recoil when holding a pistol one‑handed.
  • VB ik_hand_gun_pose (targets root): Used to compute the aiming pose.
Tip: Weapons are not parented to the right hand; they attach to VB ik_hand_gun_pivot. This bone is blended in the Animation Blueprints so the final pose looks correct.

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Animation Blueprints

The pack uses modular Animation Blueprints:

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ABP_TacticalShooter_UE5

This is the main Animation Blueprint; it incorporates the other animation assets. Here’s how it works:

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Base character pose

The base combines a static idle Anim Sequence with the main Anim Montage (DefaultSlot).

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Curve-based animations

General movement (idle, walk, sprint, jump) is curve‑driven and procedural, applied primarily via Apply Additive nodes. The Grounded and InAir states provide animation curves such as:
  • IK_X/Y/Z: position.
  • IK_Pitch/Yaw/Roll: rotation.
  • Camera Pitch/Yaw/Roll: camera animation.
These curves are layered on top of the base pose. Finally, we blend curve values (not poses) using a helper bone: VB Curves is a dummy bone used solely to blend curve values - not to animate a pose.

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Pistol quick draw

This layer applies quick‑draw and holster animations additively on top of the character pose: Computes an additive pose per weapon, letting a single animation work across different poses.
Tip: Originally authored for TR15, but reused across weapons via this layer.Left hand actions
Apply left‑hand actions (e.g., take an item, push a door):

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Finger firing motion

Animate the right index finger while firing: A float smoothly interpolates to 1 while firing to rotate the finger, then returns to 0 afterward.

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ABP_IK_Pose

Positions the weapon and hands before the main procedural pass. It works in stages:

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VB ik_hand_gun_r

First, override VB ik_hand_gun_r with the base idle pose when quick‑draw is enabled: This is important for positioning the pistol properly.

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Copying the animation data

Copy the animation data from real bones to VBs. This lets us apply IK additively instead of overriding and breaking the pose: Then override VB hand_r and VB hand_l with the current grip pose: By default, all weapons attach the left hand to the gun. You can smoothly disable this via a curve - for example, many animations do this to let the left hand move freely:

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Offsets

Finally, apply FTransform offsets to all IK bones.

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ABP_IK_Ads

Applies procedural aiming in two steps:
  1. Snap the weapon to the camera socket.
  2. Apply the Aim Point local transform.
Note: The FPCamera socket is attached to neck_02:

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ABP_IK_Sway

Applies aiming and movement sway to VB ik_hand_gun. Sway is computed in AC_TacticalShooterAnimation; this layer simply retrieves the FTransform and applies it to the bone:

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ABP_IK_Main

The final Animation Blueprint, responsible for:
  1. Recoil
  2. IK Motions
  3. Leaning and Aim Offset
  4. IK
  5. Hiding the head bone

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Recoil

Recoil animation values are retrieved from the Recoil Animation component and applied via Transform (Modify) Bone. We preserve the right‑hand pose before applying recoil (needed for pistol quick draw).

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IK Motions

IK Motions are applied similarly to recoil. Motions include aiming and fire‑mode transitions (“boop”/“jiggle” animations).

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Leaning

Leaning distributes the angle evenly across spine bones:

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Curve-based animations

Movement (idle, walk, sprint, jumping) is applied directly to VB ik_hand_gun: Curve values (IK_X/Y/Z, IK_Pitch/Yaw/Roll) are retrieved here and plugged into the respective translation and rotation axes.

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Aim Offset

Like leaning, Pitch is applied across spine bones to make the character look up and down:

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IK and head bone

Finally, Two‑Bone IK nodes apply IK using VB hand_r and VB hand_l as targets. We also scale the head bone to zero if HideHeadMesh is true: