rdInst Tutorial 11.2 – Creating VATs
Last Updated: 21st January 2026
Tutorial created using rdInst version 1.53
The rdECS system supports Vertex Animated Texture (VAT) StaticMeshes – these meshes use WPO to simulate the bone movement of Skeletal Meshes in a fast and low-memory way.
There are a couple of Plugins/Assets available to help make this as simple as possible:
- AnimToTexture (Built into UE5.1 and above, just enable it) This has the Materials and Functions used to animate the StaticMesh with Material based WPO.
- AnimToTextureHelpers (On Github copy to your Content Folder) This is a Utility Widget that makes setting up the VAT data a lot easier.
If you’re wanting to use the modified Bone material (ML_BoneAnimationBlended) you’ll need that and it’s functions in your project too, and make sure when creating the VATs that it’s using that one.
This tutorial is going to create a VAT Static Mesh from both Manny and Quinn, with some Idle and Chase Animations.
Step 1. Copy the Manny and Quinn Skeletal Meshes and materials ready for VATting
Create a folder to work in and copy the Skeletal Meshes you’re wanting to create VATs from into it. Copy the “EUW_VAT_Utils_544” Editor Utility from the AnimToTextureHelpers into there too.
Open the SKMs in UE and set the Reduction Amount in the SKM Details panel for LOD0 to around 5% (0.05 in the editor) – this reduces the amount of calculations needed in the material for the WPO and normals.
Copy the Material Instances that the meshes are using along with the M_Mannequin master material into your folder, suffix them all with “_vat”. Re-parent the Instances to the _vat master material. We will use these materials soon. Add this code to the M_rdMannequin material
Step 2. Set up the details and animations using the Utility Widget and Bake
The next step is to create the StaticMesh and animation textures using the AnimToTextureHelpers Utility Widget.
Right-Click on the “EUW_VAT_UTILS_544” asset and “Run Editor Utility Widget”
Set the “SKM” value in the “Assets” section to the SkeletalMesh, then click the “Create Static Mesh from Selected” option – this will create the SM we’ll use for the VAT at the reduced number of vertices.
Open up the new StaticMesh and change the Materials over to the VAT based ones, created in Step 1.
Now Click the “Create Textures” button, this will create some blank textures ready to be rendered with the animation bone data. Then add the animations you want in the VAT in the “Motions” section and click the “Create DataAsset” – this DataAsset will contain all the information you need for the VAT and its animation.
Then Click “Set Data Params”, then click “BAKE DATA” – after it’s finished, your VAT Tools window should look like this:
After Baking, open all the Material Instances the VAT uses – in the “Layer Parameters” tab along the right hand side of the window you’ll see a “Background” entry – often, the “Layer Asset” it sets is the wrong one – you’ll need to set it to “ML_BoneAnimation” for the default, non-blending VAT animator, or “ML_rdBoneAnimation” for the blending version – then you will need to click “BAKE DATA” again to get the tool to fill in the layer information again (shouldn’t overwrite the Layer Asset value).
Once you’ve done that, if you open “SM_SKM_Manny”, you should see it animating in the StaticMesh Editor window.
Step 3. Repeat for all Entity VATs you want.
That’s all you need to do, the animation frame counts are stored in the DataAsset (DA_SKM_Manny or DA_SKM_Quinn) – you can use those values to enter into your rdECS Entity Descriptors.
