Custom Animations

Want to change a Pal’s walk cycle, give it a different idle, or add a hat that flies back when it runs? Custom animations were historically painful because adding bones to a modded skeleton tended to break every other animation. Shifty solved the fiddly part with a tool and wrote up the workflow, shared in the guides channel (linked in Credits).

What you need

• UnrealModSkeletonFixer - Shifty’s tool that automates the skeleton/bone fix and the build/push into your mod directory (read its README for the in-depth details).
• Python 3.4+ installed.
• A working mod folder from the model-swap tutorial - do that first.
• FModel to export the original skeleton.

The workflow

1. Download and unpack the tool into any directory.
2. Follow the model-swap tutorial up to the point where you have an initial mod folder structure (e.g. a <YourMod>_P folder).
3. Move that mod folder into the tool’s mods folder (alongside the provided ExampleMod_P).
4. Edit the tool’s config.json, setting:
   • cook_content_folder - the Content folder in your Unreal cook output.
   • packer_path - your UnrealPak.exe (the packing tool from the model-swap tutorial).
   • mods_p_path - the folder where mod .pak files go.
5. Run ModBuilder.bat - the tool builds and pushes the mod into the mod directory. At this point the bones are not yet fixed for build mods.
6. To fix the bones, export the original skeleton .uasset (+ .uexp) for the model you’re animating, using FModel with Export as Raw Data (.uasset) - make sure it’s the Skeleton file (e.g. SK_PinkCat_Skeleton.uasset). Feed it to the tool as its README describes.

The result is a model that carries your new animation without losing its existing ones.

Credits

• Custom-animation workflow and the UnrealModSkeletonFixer tool created and shared by Shifty (ShiftyChesh), which makes adding animations/bones to modded Palworld skeletons practical.

  Source: Shifty - original message

• Tool: UnrealModSkeletonFixer by Shifty.