Overview of the animation system
The basic concept of the animation system is the animation clip. An animation clip is information about how a specific object changes its position, rotation or other properties over time. With this linear recording of information, animation such as a door opening and closing, a person walking or jumping can be realized. Generally speaking, an animation clip normally only contains animation information for a short period of time.
With the animation controller, animation clips can be played back in an organized manner to achieve more logical and complex animation scenes.
The animation system allows you to import custom animation clips to create unique animations or replace the default character animations.
Supported formats
Craftland Studio PC only supports animation import in FBX format.
Importing animations
Like importing any other asset, you can either drag the animation asset directly to the Assets folder or use the import function.
Preview Animation
Open the imported animation FBX file, which should contain the animation clip file.
Double-click the animation to be prompted that a model is required to play the animation.
Drag in the corresponding model you have prepared to preview the animation.
Using animations
The imported animation becomes an asset in your game project. The following describes the two main methods of using animations.
Replace the player’s movements
In the player data, the default animation of the player can be replaced with an animation.
When replacing an Animation, you need to make sure that the Animation matches the rig used in the player data. In this example, the idle Animation of a cat is used, so the player model also needs to be replaced with the model of a cat.
In this setting, the player is replaced by a cat and animations are only played when the player is idle.
Player data is described in the Player user manual.
Animation state machine
The Animation state machine allows you to define the sequence in which a group of animations is played and to play the entire group if required.
Creating an Animation state machine
Edit Animation State Machine
- The status bar, where you can set up several states for the animation state machine, so that it can switch to the corresponding state under the right conditions. The animation state machine must have at least one Idle state.
- The animation clips in the current state, where you can edit the animation clips played in a state and their playback order.
- The properties panel, where you can modify the configuration of the state or animation clip.
In the properties of a state, you can modify the name and set whether the entire state loop.
The properties of the default Idle state are not editable.
The looping property of the state means that when all Animations in the state have finished playing, they will start playing again from the first one. It should be noted that if you set a certain clip in a state to play in a loop, the state in which it is located will usually not automatically play to completion and will not enter the next loop.
A looped animation segment will not automatically advance to the next animation segment, nor will it cause the current state to loop.
You can also edit the properties of the clip
You can modify the name of the clip, the bound animation clip, the playback speed, set whether the clip plays in a loop, and set the transition time for the clip.
The animation transition time applies when automatically switching to the animation clip or switching to the clip using the API. During the transition time, the model will smoothly switch from the current animation to the animation clip.
Example of using the animation state machine
We place a model of a cat in the Scene and want it to run to a specified location at the beginning of the round, and then play the animation combination of Idle + Eating in a loop.
- Add components
The Animation State Machine relies on the Animation State Machine component, which can be added:
- Edit the Animation State Machine
Edit the Animation State Machine added to the component.
Add two states: Idle and Run.
Add two animations to the idle state: Idle and Eat.
In the idle state, the playback mode is looped, so both clips are set to not loop to meet the need for continuous playback of idle + Eat.
In the Run state, add an animation clip of running, set the animation clip to loop or set the Run state to loop. Both settings will affect a parameter of the subsequent block script. Here, we only set the playback mode of the animation clip to loop.
- Edit the script
Add scripting to this cat model and write the logic. Because the added Animation does not include actual displacement, we need to use playable to add orientation and displacement to the model:
We have added an invisible Box001 to the map at the end of the displacement, so that the cat can keep facing towards the end of the displacement at all times.
- Testing
the preparation phase, because the animation state machine has been added, the Idle state will automatically start playing.
Movement phase.
After arriving at the destination.
