Split animation

[Rick]

Let's say I have a run animation and a shoot animation (separate animations). If I want to play the shoot animation while running would I need to get the lower body bone and play the run animation on that and then get the upper body bone and play the shoot animation on that or would I play the entire run animation on the entire model and then get the upper body bone and play the shoot animation after the entire body run animation, or would that cause them to fight with each other?

 

I know the LE 2 doc had a section on this but can't remember what it said or where it is.

 

 

If it's getting both sub bones for upper and lower and playing them, then I have a method to manage transitions in mind but if I can just play the entire run animation on the model and then layer on top of that the shoot animation for upper body then my idea isn't really needed.

[Josh]

I would probably try to keep the upper and lower animations separate and play them starting at that point in the model hierarchy.

 

If you call Entity::LockMatrix before all your animation input and then UnlockMatrix after it will be faster.

[Rick]

OK, then I'll make the system I have in mind where linking actor state to animation(s) and all the animation stuff is done in the setup instead of during an update. I really crave a way to just say actor state run = run animation, or actor state run+shoot plays the run on bottom 1/2 and shoot on top 1/2 where I just do all this in the setup and don't have to handle it myself for each situation in the main loop.

 

Thanks

[gamecreator]

http://www.leadwerks.com/files/Tutorials/CPP/Introduction_To_Animation.pdf

Page 14 on

[Rick]

See that's interesting because that animates the entire mesh first, then the upper body, but Josh just said to animate lower body and upper body separate right now. Does it really matter? Are there differences between the 2 methods?

[Josh]

Fewer calculations, if you animate the top-most "lower" bone and the top-most "upper" bone.

 

In that tutorial I was mixing two animations, which probably isn't what you want.

[Rick]

I would be wanting to mix 2 animations. All the character models we can buy always have a run animation and almost all their attacks are when standing still. So if I want to play their attack animations while they are running I would want to play the run animation on the lower 1/2 and the attack animation on the upper 1/2.

[Josh]

That's what I mean. You don't want to blend the run animation in the upper body though. You just want:

Upper body: shooting

Lower body: running

 

Unless you are transitioning from running to shooting in the upper body. I would probably still control the upper and lower separately, as if they were two entirely separate objects.