Control Rig
Unreal Engine node-based rigging and animation
Also known as: Unreal Control Rig · Control Rig Unreal · In-engine rig · Control Rig Sequencer · Procedural rig Unreal
Definition
Control Rig is Unreal Engine's node-based system for rigging and animating characters directly inside the engine. It lets technical artists build animator controls, IK and FK setups and procedural behavior with a graph, and animators can pose and key characters in Sequencer without leaving Unreal. It can also run at runtime to drive procedural motion such as foot placement, look-at and aim, and it works with Unreal's retargeting and animation tools.
In production
Use it for cinematics and in-engine animation, where having the rig inside the engine saves round trips to Maya or Blender, and for gameplay procedural behavior. Many studios still do the main animation in a DCC tool and use Control Rig for tweaks and procedural parts. Learning it helps technical artists, and it follows ideas familiar from rigging in Maya and Blender, such as controls, constraints and hierarchies.
Tools that use Control Rig
See also
Foot IK
Planting feet on uneven ground
Rigging
Building a deformation skeleton
IK / FK
Inverse vs Forward Kinematics
Sequencer and Timeline
Engine tools for cinematics and scripted scenes
Procedural Animation
Motion generated by rules and physics instead of keyframes
Technical Artist
Bridge between art and engineering