How to import an FBX character into Unreal Engine 5 (skeleton, scale and animations)

A few minutes in your 3D tool, or with the listing open, saves a re-import later. Check four things:

• Units. Unreal works in centimetres. Our UE5 FBX is already in centimetres; the Unity and Godot version is in metres. Use the file made for Unreal when a pack offers one.
• Axes and facing. Unreal is Z up. Note which way the character faces in the source file so you can tell whether the import turned it.
• Skinning. The mesh must be bound to the armature (in Blender, an Armature modifier). An unskinned mesh imports as a static mesh with no skeleton.
• Bone names. UE5-style names (pelvis, spine_01, upperarm_l) make retargeting to the UE5 mannequin quicker, but they are not required.

Since Unreal Engine 5.5, FBX files go through the Interchange framework by default. Its dialog groups options into sections such as Common, Common Skeletal Meshes and Animations, Animations, and Materials and Textures. Several options were renamed from the legacy importer, which is why older tutorials can be hard to follow:

Convert Scene, Force Front XAxis and Convert Scene Unit still exist as FBX translator settings. Epic’s knowledge base notes that you can fall back to the legacy importer with the console variable Interchange.FeatureFlags.Import.FBX False, but recommends learning Interchange for new projects. The steps below use Interchange names.

1. Make a folder in the Content Browser for the character, for example Characters/Mannequin. Everything the import creates lands there.
2. Drag the FBX into the folder, or click Import and pick the file. The Interchange dialog opens.
3. Under Common Skeletal Meshes and Animations, leave Skeleton empty. With no skeleton chosen, Unreal creates a new Skeleton asset from the file. Leave Import Only Animations off.
4. Keep Convert Scene and Convert Scene Unit on, and Offset Uniform Scale at 1.0. Leave Force Front XAxis off unless you know the file was authored facing X.
5. Keep Import Morph Targets on if the character has shape keys, and Create Physics Asset on if you want ragdolls or physics-driven hit reactions later.
6. If the file contains animation takes (our mannequin has A_Pose, T_Pose and ROM_Test), keep Import Animations on to bring them in as Animation Sequences.
7. Click Import. Expect a Skeletal Mesh, a Skeleton, a Physics Asset, materials, textures and any Animation Sequences.

1. Drag the Skeletal Mesh into a level next to something of known size. In a project made from the Third Person template, the default mannequin is a good reference. Our mannequin is 1.75 m tall, so it should read about 175 units.
2. Check that it stands upright with its feet on the floor and faces the same way as the template character.
3. Open the Skeleton asset and look at the Skeleton Tree. The hierarchy should start with the root bone you expect and contain no extra bones at the top or at the ends of the fingers and toes.
4. Play the ROM_Test take, or any take that bends the limbs, and watch the elbows, knees and shoulders for skinning problems before you build anything on top.

Animation packs usually ship clips as separate FBX files. Import them onto the skeleton you already have:

1. Select all the clip FBX files and drag them into their own folder together. You get one dialog for the batch.
2. Under Common Skeletal Meshes and Animations, set Skeleton to your character’s Skeleton asset and turn on Import Only Animations. This stops Unreal making a new mesh and skeleton for every clip.
3. Leave Animation Length at its default so each clip keeps the frame range it was exported with. Our clips are authored at 30 fps.
4. Import, then open a few Animation Sequences to check them. For root-motion clips, tick Enable Root Motion in Asset Details. The root motion vs in-place guide covers the Animation Blueprint side.

If the clips were made for a different skeleton, such as the UE5 mannequin, import them onto that skeleton instead and retarget them to yours with the IK Retargeter. Our guide to retargeting animations in Unity, Unreal Engine 5 and Godot covers the IK Rig and IK Retargeter setup step by step.

The importer creates materials and imports any textures it can find. FBX texture paths often break between machines, so expect to reconnect some by hand.

• Base colour textures stay sRGB. Packed maps such as an ORM texture (occlusion, roughness and metallic in the red, green and blue channels) hold data, not colour: open the texture, untick sRGB and set Compression Settings to Masks (no sRGB).
• Unreal expects DirectX-style normal maps. If a normal map was authored OpenGL-style, turn on Flip Normal Map Green Channel at import or flip the green channel in the texture settings.

Our PBR textures guide explains colour space and the two normal map conventions in more detail.

The character is 100 times too small or too big

The file’s unit tag doesn’t match its contents. With Convert Scene Unit on, a correctly tagged metre file arrives at the right size, so a factor of 100 means the file says one thing and contains another. Fix it at export where you can. As a stopgap, re-import with Offset Uniform Scale set to 100 or 0.01.

It lies on its back or faces sideways

An axis mismatch. Check that Convert Scene is on. If the model was authored facing X, try Force Front XAxis; otherwise set Offset Orientation to rotate it at import, rather than rotating the actor in the level.

It imported as a Static Mesh

The mesh isn’t skinned, or the armature wasn’t exported with it. Bind the mesh to the armature in your 3D tool and export both together.

Every clip made its own skeleton

Skeleton was left empty when the clips were imported. Delete the extra skeletons and meshes, then re-import the clips with Skeleton set and Import Only Animations on.

Extra bones at the top of the hierarchy or the tips of the fingers

Exporters sometimes add an armature node or leaf end bones. In Blender, untick Add Leaf Bones in the FBX export options. Extra bones are harmless for playback but get in the way of retargeting chains.

The animation imports but the character snaps back or slides

This is usually root motion. A root-motion clip played without Enable Root Motion snaps back when it loops; an in-place clip with the wrong playback speed slides. See the root motion guide.

Weapon sockets

Bones can act as sockets. The Melee Weapon Combat Pack adds socket bones prefixed x_, such as x_hand_r_weapon, so you can attach a weapon mesh to that bone name directly.

Every AssetLoom animation pack includes FBX files with UE5-style bone names in centimetres, plus the skinned mannequin to import them onto. The listings were checked by re-importing every file in Blender; they were not opened in Unreal for the listing, so run the checks above on your first import.

• Locomotion Animation Pack: walks, runs, strafes, turns, starts and stops.
• Unarmed Combat Animation Pack: punches, kicks, blocks and hit reactions.
• Jumps, Falls and Interactions Pack: jumps, landings and everyday interactions with event frames.
• Vehicle and Seated Animation Pack: driving, riding and desk work.

Browse them all in Animations, characters in Characters and kits in Game Assets. Not sure which file to use? Read FBX vs GLB vs BVH.