Reaper · Character · Unreal Engine 5

Reaper User Guide

A game-ready horned reaper for Unreal Engine 5, with five colour variants and a scythe.

UE 5.1 project folder 3 versions: full, hood only, horns only 5 colour variants · 5 faces 3 scythe looks UE5 Mannequin skeleton

Quick start

Add the Reaper to your project, or open the included UE5 project.
The project opens on its default level, the preview map (ReaperPreviewMap in ReaperCharacter/Maps). Every version, colour and scythe is set up there to look over.
Open Map_ReaperDemo (in ReaperCharacter/Demo/Maps) and press Play to run around as the Reaper in the Third Person template level.

The five colour variants standing in a row, full body, on a grey studio floor. — All five colour variants

What is where

Everything sits in Content/ReaperCharacter, in eight folders: Animations, Blueprints, Demo, Maps, Materials, Meshes, Rigs and Textures.

Folder	What is in it
`Meshes`	`SKM_Reaper`, `SKM_Reaper_Hood`, `SKM_Reaper_Horns`, the skeleton `SK_Reaper`, the physics asset `PA_Reaper` and the scythe `SM_ReaperWeapon`
`Materials`	`Master/M_Reaper` and `Master/M_ReaperWeapon`; `Instances/MI_Reaper_V01`–`V05` and `MI_ReaperWeapon_01`–`03`
`Blueprints`	`BP_ReaperCharacter` (the playable character) and `BP_ReaperPreview`
`Animations`	`ABP_Reaper` and the animations it uses
`Rigs`	IK Rig, IK Retargeter and Control Rig
`Maps`	`ReaperPreviewMap`
`Demo`	The Third Person template level `Map_ReaperDemo`, its game mode and input
`Textures`	Colour, ORM and normal maps for each variant, and the part masks

Three versions

The Reaper comes as three meshes. All three share the same skeleton, materials and animations, so any colour variant works on any version.

Mesh	Version
`SKM_Reaper`	Full: hood and horns
`SKM_Reaper_Hood`	Hood only
`SKM_Reaper_Horns`	Horns only

Three blue Reapers side by side, each holding a scythe: the first with hood and horns, the second with only the hood, the third with only the horns on a bare black head. — Full, hood only and horns only

The hood-only Reaper in the green variant, front and back, with a glowing green scythe beside him. — `SKM_Reaper_Hood`, green variant

The horns-only Reaper in the orange variant, front and back, with glowing orange scratches on the suit and a dark scythe beside him. — `SKM_Reaper_Horns`, orange variant

Five colour variants

Each variant is a material instance of M_Reaper. Put it on any of the three meshes.

Instance	Look
`MI_Reaper_V01`	Black suit, crimson glow, grinning face
`MI_Reaper_V02`	Black suit with glowing orange scratches, X face
`MI_Reaper_V03`	Tan suit, ice-blue glow
`MI_Reaper_V04`	Black suit with glowing green burnt edges, toothy grin
`MI_Reaper_V05`	Blue suit with yellow trim, round yellow eyes

The blue variant with yellow trim, front and back, on a grey studio floor. — `MI_Reaper_V05`, front and back

Adjusting materials

Open any MI_Reaper_V0x instance. The 00 Look group at the top holds the main controls:

Parameter	What it does
`Glow On`	Turns every glow on or off.
`Glow Brightness`	Makes every glow brighter or dimmer at once.
`Glow Color`	One colour for the face, horns, claws and trim, unless a part uses its own colour.

The Details panel of MI_Reaper_V04, groups in order: 00 Look with Glow On, a green Glow Color and Glow Brightness; 01 Textures with the V04 BaseColor, ORM and Normal maps; 02 Adjust with Albedo Tint, Albedo Brightness, Roughness Brightness, Normal Intensity and AO Amount; and 03 Face with Face set to 1, Face Amount, a green Face Color, Face Roughness, a green Face Emissive Color, Face Emissive Strength 3, Face Own Color and Face Mask Black Point. — `MI_Reaper_V04`: **00 Look**, **01 Textures**, **02 Adjust** and **03 Face**. The part groups follow, from **04 HandsFeet** to **10 Burn**.

Face

The 03 Face group swaps the face. Set Face to a number from 0 to 4:

The other sliders in the group apply to whichever face is showing.

Parts

Every part has its own group: face, hands and feet (claws), horns, hood, pants, shirt, and the scratch and burn effects. Every group except Face also has a mask. Each group has these sliders:

Amount, Color and Roughness: how strongly the part shows, its colour and its shine.
Emissive Color and Emissive Strength: the part's glow. A strength of 0 means no glow.
Own Color: set to 1 to give the part its own colours instead of Glow Color.

The scratch and burn effects are switched on with Use Scratch Mask and Use Burn Mask.

The claws and the horn tips are on by default. To get plain black claws or horns, untick Use HandsFeet Mask or Use Horns Mask.

To stop the glow, untick Glow On in 00 Look. The parts keep their colour but no longer glow.

To change one of these switches, tick the box next to its name, then untick the box on the right to switch it off. When a mask is off, its other sliders are hidden.

Three rows of the Details panel, each boxed: Glow On in 00 Look, Use HandsFeet Mask in 04 HandsFeet and Use Horns Mask in 05 Horns. On each row the box next to the name is ticked and the box on the right is unticked. — The three switches, all turned off

Three copies of the black and green Reaper. Left, full glow: glowing green horn tips, face, claws and burnt edges. Middle, with Use HandsFeet Mask and Use Horns Mask unticked: the horns and claws are plain black while the face and burnt edges still glow. Right, with Glow On unticked: the same parts are still green but no longer glow. — `MI_Reaper_V04`: full glow, with the claw and horn masks off, and with `Glow On` off

Textures

The 01 Textures group holds the colour, ORM and normal maps. The 02 Adjust group tunes them: Albedo Tint, Albedo Brightness, Roughness Brightness, Normal Intensity and AO Amount.

The scythe

SM_ReaperWeapon comes with three looks: MI_ReaperWeapon_01 (wooden shaft), _02 (dark metal) and _03 (glowing green). In M_ReaperWeapon you can change the blade and handle colour and roughness separately, and the glow colour and strength.

Three scythes standing side by side: a steel blade on a wooden shaft, a steel blade on a dark metal shaft, and a glowing pale-green blade on a black shaft with green lines. — The three scythe looks

The Details panel of MI_ReaperWeapon_03: groups 1 Textures, 2 Adjust, 3 Blade (mask, amount, colour, roughness), 4 Handle (amount, colour, roughness) and 5 Glow with a pale green Glow Emissive Color at strength 6. — `MI_ReaperWeapon_03`: separate Blade, Handle and Glow groups

The scythe is a separate static mesh. Attach it to the weapon_r bone to put it in the Reaper's hand.

Skeleton and animation

SK_Reaper has the same 161 bones as the UE5 Mannequin, so Mannequin animations play on the Reaper. BP_ReaperCharacter uses ABP_Reaper. The Control Rig plugin must be enabled; it is on by default in UE5.

Questions

Ask in our Discord or write to us through wandersols.com/contact. More characters are on wandersols.com.