How should you place the body Landmarks more accurately？
When using EasyAutoRig, the most important operation is placing the Landmarks. Simply put, the Landmarks you place determine the final bone positions.
Tip for 1.1.0: you can now click Auto Place on the toolbar first to let the plugin place the body and finger points, then use this guide to check and adjust them one by one, especially the “Check first” points in the Report. The spine, upper neck and collarbone points are calculated automatically from the points around them, and you can look at the fingers on their own with the Hand View in the Landmarks panel.
So, how can you place body Landmarks more accurately?
Before learning how to place body Landmarks more effectively, there is one important principle in 3D character rigging that you should understand: try to keep the bones as close as possible to the volumetric center of the character’s body.
You should also understand what the standard UE5 skeleton looks like visually.
The standard UE5 skeleton is shown below:
As you can see, the neck is controlled by neck_01 and neck_02. Their positions are shown in the image below. In the following images, the green line indicates a cross-section of the reference position. On your own character, these two bones should also be placed at the corresponding locations.
The chest area is mainly controlled by spine_04, with most of the weights concentrated around the chest region where spine_04 and spine_05 are located.
The waist is mainly controlled by spine_01 through spine_03. This area is controlled more precisely, so the spacing between these bones is relatively small.
The shoulder bone, clavicle, is mainly positioned around the collarbone.
upperarm is positioned around the shoulder joint of the body (the green box indicates the relevant area).
lowerarm is positioned around the elbow joint.
hand is positioned around the wrist.
pelvis is positioned around the human hip joint (the buttocks/hip area).
Next to it is thigh, located at the root of the upper leg.
Then calf is positioned around the knee and controls the lower leg.
foot is positioned around the ankle.
ball is positioned around the ball of the foot.
The Difference Between Bone and Joint
There are two concepts you should pay attention to: Bone and Joint. If you are not familiar with 3D modeling and rigging, or if you are only familiar with Blender, this part may be confusing. A simple way to understand it is that, in UE, a Bone is visually represented by a sphere. When creating it in UE, that point is referred to as a Joint, meaning the position of the actual joint. The cone-shaped segment you see between two Joints can be understood as a visual connection drawn to imitate the appearance of a traditional bone. In common usage, each Joint is often referred to as a Bone as well. The position of that sphere is effectively a pivot point. UE uses a joint-based system: what matters is the position of the joint, rather than a bone segment with a physical length.
The same principle applies when placing Landmarks. Of course, this is not an absolute rule because every model has different body proportions. The goal is simply to follow the position and overall direction of the standard UE5 skeleton as closely as possible. In other words, try to place each Landmark at a reasonable anatomical joint position on your own model.
For an unclothed base body, I use UE Manny as the example. The Landmark placement is shown below:
Remember to enable “Joint Center” so that Landmarks can be placed at the volumetric center of the body.
If there is any calculation error, you can adjust the Landmark manually. In the Joint Center section of the Landmarks panel, choose Front Plane or Side Plane to constrain the Landmark’s movement plane, then drag it to fine-tune its position. You can also use Depth - / Depth + to fine-tune the depth.
Check From the Front and the Side
Look at every point from at least two directions: face-on to check height and left-right position, and in profile to check depth.
Note: EasyAutoRig characters face +Y, but the Front / Back / Left / Right names in the UE view menu follow UE’s own axes, so they do not match the character:
| To see | UE 5.5 | UE 5.8 |
|---|---|---|
| The character’s front (the face) | Right view, Alt + Shift + K |
Left view, Alt + K |
| The character’s side | Front view, Alt + H |
Front view, Alt + H |
In other versions, go by what you see: if you can see the character’s face, you are looking at the front.
Finger Landmarks
Place each finger’s first point at the joint where the finger meets the palm, then the remaining points in order toward the fingertip at the finger’s bends. Keep them all inside the finger, and do not place one at the fingertip.
Fingers are small, so use the Hand View in the Landmarks panel: click Left Hand Back or Left Palm, and the viewport shows only that hand with the fingers pointing up. Clicks then only hit this hand, and with Joint Center on, dragging moves along the plane of the palm. Use the back-of-hand view for the left-right spread of the fingers, then check the depth from the side (finger points belong in the middle of the finger’s thickness). Click Show Whole Model to go back.
What to Check After Auto Place
Auto Place gets the points close to the joints, but these cases deserve a second look:
- The “Check first” points in the Report: points where the left and right detections disagreed, a head point whose height was estimated from the neck, and points whose depth is a guess.
- Shoulder (upperarm): check from the side that it is inside the shoulder joint, not on the shoulder surface or in the middle of the upper arm.
- Hip (thigh): with skirts or coats, make sure it is inside the joint at the top of the thigh, not on the skirt.
- Wrist (hand): when the hand holds a prop, make sure it is between the forearm and the hand.
- Ankle (foot): with long boots, make sure it is inside the joint between the lower leg and the foot.
- Fingers: if the Report says the fingers were not placed, or a finger point looks off its joint, adjust it in the Hand View.
When a point looks right, click Confirm Point or Confirm All Estimated in the Landmarks panel.
Placement Examples
