Control Rig Physics: Fast, Fun, and Expressive Character Animation | Unreal Fest Stockholm 2025

In this talk recorded at Unreal Fest Stockholm, we explore how physically simulated characters can be created and controlled within the framework of Control Rig. This has the potential to transform the way game developers and content creators portray powerful and believable characters.

Traditionally, adding simulation to characters in UE has been straightforward, so long as the setup is simple and secondary (e.g. ponytail).

It is much harder to set up physics to work directly alongside animation, operating on the same bones that the animator is authoring. Animators and game developers need tools to enable physics to contribute to the realism of the movement while letting the animator tell the story through the character.

Control Rig already exposes a rich set of tools, enabling animators to concentrate on being expressive. Integrating physics simulation into these tools enables animators to use exactly the amount and type of simulation they need, and to animate and control the effects.

We show how Control Rig Physics makes animating characters more fun, more expressive, and faster. We also show how Control Rig Physics has enabled us to create realistic motion that stays under artistic control in The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo (an Unreal Fest Orlando showcase), and how doing it under Control Rig provides significant performance and workflow wins for game developers.

Learn more about Unreal Engine here: unrealengine.com

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