CryEngine Character Creation Workflow

A CryEngine character is not one file. It is a skeleton, a skinned mesh, at least one animation, a material, and a character definition that points at those pieces. This workflow gets one humanoid into the Character Tool, playing one animation, with one attached prop. It does not cover facial rigs or a full locomotion set.

The steps follow CryEngine 5’s Character Tool documentation: the tool overview and the page on creating a character definition. Those pages live here:

• https://www.cryengine.com/docs/static/engines/cryengine-5/categories/23756816/pages/44961853
• https://www.cryengine.com/docs/static/engines/cryengine-5/categories/23756816/pages/44959476

Menus, file extensions, and the FBX importer move between CryEngine releases. If your build does not match the screenshots in those pages, follow the manual that shipped with your version. Do not force a CryEngine 5 click path onto a different editor and call the asset broken.

Author the body in a DCC first

Build or reuse a skinned mesh in Maya, Blender, 3ds Max, or whatever you already rig in. You need a skeleton, a bound mesh, and one animation that obviously reads in the viewport, such as a wave or a short idle. Keep the scale consistent with the rest of the project. CryEngine’s character modeling notes are worth a pass for proportions and for what the engine expects to assemble later. They are an overview, not a substitute for the Character Tool pages.

Use one material on the body for this first import. Extra materials make it harder to see whether the skin attached at all. A physics proxy and facial blend shapes wait until the base character opens without warnings.

Export FBX, because that is the path the Character Tool docs describe for getting skin, skeleton, and animation in from a DCC. Use the export settings your DCC and the current CryEngine FBX page agree on. Apply transforms in the DCC so the character stands on the ground in bind pose. Do not plan to fix a sideways skeleton inside the tool.

Import, then open the Character Tool

The Character Tool overview says you can import an FBX from inside the tool, and it also says dragging the FBX into the Asset Browser is the better habit, because a side import will not automatically attach the skin to the character. Follow that advice unless your version’s docs say the opposite. After import, you are looking for the engine-side files the docs name: a skeleton file (CHR), a skin file (SKIN), and an intermediate animation (the docs call this i_caf before compression). If your importer writes different extensions, stop and read the import page for your build. Do not rename files by hand to match this article.

Open the Character Tool. On the CryEngine 5 docs, the menu is Tools, then Animation, then Character Tool. Confirm that path in your editor. Create a new character. That writes a CDF, the character definition. The docs describe a CDF as a reference to a skeleton plus a list of attachments. It is the file you will place and reuse, not the raw FBX.

Assign the skeleton. The property panel has a control next to the skeleton field. The docs mention a folder icon. If the icon moved, you are still trying to point the CDF at the CHR. Turn on skeleton display if the viewport looks empty. The overview and the creation page both mention display options for joints. An empty viewport with no error is often just hidden joints, not a failed import.

Skin attachment and the animation list

Add an attachment. The creation docs warn that a new attachment may start as a joint attachment. Switch the type to Skin and point the geometry at your SKIN file. You should see the body on the skeleton. If the body is enormous, offset, or inside out, fix the DCC export and reimport. Scaling the CDF to hide a bad export will haunt the next animation.

Animations are not stored as a loose list you type into the CDF. The docs say the skeleton parameters, a CHRPARAMS file, hold an animation set filter: a folder that contains the animations for this character. Select the skeleton field so those parameters show up, add a filter entry, and point it at the folder with the imported animation. Save. If the tool shows a warning that the animation set is missing, that folder pointer is the first place to look.

Play the one animation from the tool’s animation list. You want to see the skin deform with the joints. A mesh that stays rigid while the skeleton moves is a skin attachment that did not bind, or a skin that was exported in the wrong pose. Go back to the DCC. Do not keyframe the CDF to fake it.

Save the CDF, the skeleton parameters, and the animation settings the tool writes. The docs mention animsettings files and compiled animation caches. Let the tool write them. Copying only the CDF to another machine will not bring the animation along.

One prop, then a physics proxy

Add a second attachment for a simple prop, such as a helmet or a holstered tool. The attachment docs distinguish a skin attachment, which deforms with the skeleton, from a joint attachment, which follows a joint. A rigid helmet is a joint attachment parented to the head joint, not another skin. Position it in the tool until it sits on the body in bind pose, then scrub the animation and check that it does not drift into the mesh. If it does, the joint you picked is wrong, or the prop’s origin in the DCC is wrong.

The Character Tool overview says the tool can also set up a collider proxy so the character can interact with physics. Do that after the mesh and the prop preview cleanly. A proxy on a broken skin is extra work you will throw away. Use a simple volume that matches the body, not a copy of the render mesh. Confirm the proxy controls in your version’s docs, because that UI is easy to miss and easy to mislabel.

Only then place the character in a test level. If the CDF warns about missing files, fix the paths before you blame the level. A character that plays one animation in the tool and stands on the terrain in the level is a complete first pass.

The next assets reuse the same CDF habits: one skeleton, skin attachments for deforming parts, joint attachments for rigid parts, and an animation folder the CHRPARAMS file actually points at. Add a second animation only after the first one loops or returns to bind without a pop. More clips on a broken bind will not teach you anything new.