What Technical Animator required to know/to do in Unreal?

Hey, guys!
I have been a technical animator/rigger for about 4 years, making rigs, tools for animators, and pipeline tools for Maya. Recently I started looking to switch companies and found out that technical animator is a very broad term. It can be just a rigger with python skills like myself creating rigs and tools in Maya for games, it can be an animator with some technical skills in Maya/Unreal, somebody who is making cloth simulations in Unreal and so on. I am not a very animation-oriented person, what I mean is I am not good at making poses look good, or setting keys on keyframes, and doubt that I will enjoy it. Probably personally for me to grow, become a more versitile technical animator and keep enjoying what I do, on top of good Maya skills, I really need technical Unreal skills, but there is nowhere to be found a good guide or blog on what is technical animator required to know in Unreal. It’s mostly advice like go learn animation, learn blueprints, learn c++. I was wondering if somebody can point me in a more specific direction, like if I learn C++ what kind of tools usually animators will require me to make with it, and if I study blueprints how should I apply my knowledge of blueprints? Usually, when I study something, I am setting myself a goal, I want to build something, I want to have this tool, I want this task to be easier, but with Unreal I am a little bit lost… Thank you!

Hello, I currently have a title of Technical Artist. These titles we have definitely change depending on team and company and that does make it tricky. In general if you are looking for Technical Animation in general look towards the following, engine IK, engine Retargeting, any engine Rigging and animation state machines. These tend to be the areas that are strongly animation related but are definitely the tricky technical things that can be part of a Technical Animators knowledge set and day to day job.

Take a close look at control rig.

And metahuman.

And if the object doesnt deform you are able to rig nanite meshes.