Blending anim clips in a game engine

AGoodFella

Hi,

I'm planning to create a walk cycle as well as a run cycle and importing them into Unreal. I have a question, do studios let their game engine do 100% of the blend or do they animate a transition in their 3D package to "help" the game engine out?
 
Cheers.

monster

I let the game engine do all the blending. The only thing you should try to do is keep the leading foot consistent. So if your Idle pose is left foot forward, then animate the walk, jog, run, and sprint with left foot forward first.

In addition to that, I usually create an Idle to Sprint transition. If the player's acceleration goes from 0 to max quickly, I skip the auto blending and play the transition anim. Same with stopping.

AGoodFella

Thanks, I'm planning to start from a walk cycle to a quicker walk to a run and then back to the two walk cycles.

So If I start the walks with the left foot forward, I should have the run start with the right foot forward so it can blend over?

Also, if I'm going to go from a run/jog to a walk, should I animate the transition or let the engine do the blend.

I'm new to game engine stuff. Thanks.

monster

AGoodFella said:

Thanks, I'm planning to start from a walk cycle to a quicker walk to a run and then back to the two walk cycles.

So If I start the walks with the left foot forward, I should have the run start with the right foot forward so it can blend over?

Also, if I'm going to go from a run/jog to a walk, should I animate the transition or let the engine do the blend.

I'm new to game engine stuff. Thanks.

No, all movement anims should start with the same foot forward. Unity has a system where you can tag left foot / right foot contacts, but I'm not sure about Unreal. But I don't use Unity's system anyway, I just create the animations in sync out of habit.

Going from movement to movement you should just let the game engine blend the animations together.

AGoodFella

So, you let the engine do most of the blending but a sharp change in speed like the idle to run, you would animate the transition. Ok, I'm guessing the engine is most effective at blending between similar speeds and not sharp changes.

Thanks. I'll start experimenting and post here if I have any issues. I appreciate the help. 

Mark Dygert

I don't mean to answer for Juan but it really depends on the game and the character.

For some games the quick transition might be fine, for others you might want the character to hop or you need a set of transitions to get the feet into the right place for the cycle. Or the timing might be so different on the run and walk that it blends weirdly and needs a transition.

Quadrupeds seem to cause more headaches than bipeds but it really depends on the goals of the game and the character. 

I mostly start with a straight up walk/run blend and see where it goes and balance that against the tech budget. One in depth transition might not cost that much but then it becomes expected just about everywhere else and it can balloon quickly. Plus the more moving parts you introduce between states, the chances that something will bug out and break, goes up.

AGoodFella

Thanks dude, that helps a lot. I was confused about how to decide when to animate a transition or when to let the engine do the blend but I imagine things will get clearer the more I work with it.

Cheers.