Realistic Pickup System in Unreal Engine 5 (Control Rig + Grip Poses)

About this tutorial

Build a realistic hand grip system in Unreal Engine 5.8 with Control Rig IK and procedural animation. Learn object interaction using one pickup animation with per-item grips, correct wrist placement & poses. Instead of animating a separate pickup for every item, you’ll use a single animation with Control Rig hand IK to align the wrist to each object and custom grip poses to shape the fingers for a box, a knife, and a bottle — plus line trace detection, grip points that auto-pick the best grab angle, and a fix for the fake wrist rotation when grabbing from the side or back.

In this UE5 tutorial you’ll learn how to:

• Set up a reusable item Blueprint with a base class
• Line trace from a first-person camera to detect pickups
• Attach items to the character’s hand using sockets and anim notifies
• Set up Control Rig Hand IK to align the wrist to each object
• Create per-item grip poses with a Pose Asset and Layered Blend per Bone
• Use multiple grip points to pick the best grab angle automatically
• Fix the common “fake wrist rotation” problem when grabbing from the side or back
• Blend IK in and out smoothly with an alpha curve

🔗 Resources used in this video:

Knife: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/knife-b20702e7590c425cb31b0d5cdd6a5edb Bottle: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/wine-bottle-792dbf6bfa35449ea6b5b8dc6c090825 Ammo Box: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/9mm-ammo-box-fa2d01505c2041b1be4ef51f4cca7579 Animation: https://www.fab.com/listings/5b737d10-b4cd-4294-8f6b-757b9088039d

📜 License / Credits: Some third-party assets are used in this tutorial. Full credit goes to the original creators.

Music

1. Epic Build - The_Mountain License: Free for use under Pixabay Content License Source: https://pixabay.com/music/main-title-epic-build-137050/

2. Shadowstep - CFL_TurningPages License: Free for use under Pixabay Content License Source: https://pixabay.com/sk/music/bije-shadowstep-422798/