gamedev:animators
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| ===== Controller ===== | ===== Controller ===== | ||
| - | Controllers provide the connection between the animation logic and the animation production. The game developer uses in his game a given set of variables to track the state of an actor for example. The idea is to allow the game developer to map these variables directly to the animation system not having to worry about converting them into whatever system one might use. This is done using the controllers which act as dial knobs the game developer can mock around with like on a mixer. Each controller has a minimum and maximum value. The current value of the controller is always kept inside this boundary. The game developer can set here the limits of the values he uses in his variables. He is not required to normalize or otherwise apply fancy math to the values in his game to match them with the animation system. It's the animator system that adapts to the game developer. Controllers can either clamp or wrap values outside the limits. Clamping is typically used for controllers attached to actions like raising or lowering the head where you want the motion to stop at the extreme points. Wrapping on the other hand is used if the controller is incremented with respect to the elapsed time. Hence using clamping an animation would stop at the end while with wrapping it would loop forever. The game developer is responsible to increment the value of a controller if it is supposed to be driven by the elapsed time. This can be done easily using an increment function which does all the clamping or wrapping for you. In addition controllers can be frozen which prevents their current value from changing. This way the game designer is not required to keep track in his game when to manipulate a controller and when to spare it. On a frozen controller all methods intended to change the value will be silently ignored. It is fully valid to call such methods on a frozen controller. The controller normalizes the current value itself. A particularity about the controllers is that they own in addition to the single value also a 4-component vector value. This value is used by specific rules and is neither clamped nor altered. The order of the controllers is important since they are referenced by their index later on. | + | Controllers provide the connection between the animation logic and the animation production. The game developer uses in his game a given set of variables to track the state of an actor for example. The idea is to allow the game developer to map these variables directly to the animation system not having to worry about converting them into whatever system one might use. This is done using the controllers which act as dial knobs the game developer can mock around with like on a mixer. |
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| + | Each controller has a minimum and maximum value. The current value of the controller is always kept inside this boundary. The game developer can set here the limits of the values he uses in his variables. He is not required to normalize or otherwise apply fancy math to the values in his game to match them with the animation system. It's the animator system that adapts to the game developer. Controllers can either clamp or wrap values outside the limits. | ||
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| + | Clamping is typically used for controllers attached to actions like raising or lowering the head where you want the motion to stop at the extreme points. Wrapping on the other hand is used if the controller is incremented with respect to the elapsed time. Hence using clamping an animation would stop at the end while with wrapping it would loop forever. The game developer is responsible to increment the value of a controller if it is supposed to be driven by the elapsed time. This can be done easily using an increment function which does all the clamping or wrapping for you. | ||
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| + | In addition controllers can be frozen which prevents their current value from changing. This way the game designer is not required to keep track in his game when to manipulate a controller and when to spare it. On a frozen controller all methods intended to change the value will be silently ignored. It is fully valid to call such methods on a frozen controller. The controller normalizes the current value itself. | ||
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| + | A particularity about the controllers is that they own in addition to the single value also a 4-component vector value. This value is used by specific rules and is neither clamped nor altered. | ||
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| + | The order of the controllers is not important since they are referenced by their name later on. It is also possible to refer to them by index for specific use cases. | ||
| ===== Link ===== | ===== Link ===== | ||
| - | Controllers deliver a linear and normalized value. This is though not always the desired result. For example an animation sequence could be desire to have full influence for a controller value or 0 decreasing linearly down to no influence at the point 0.5 while staying at no influence up to the value 1. Links take on the duty to map controller values to actual weight values which can be consumed by rules later on. A link consist of a piecewise linear curve which maps incoming controller values ( x coordinate ) to weight values ( y coordinate ). Furthermore the source controller is indicated using the index of the controller ( for speed and handling reasons not a pointer ). A link is valid if the source controller is a valid index of a controller otherwise it is an empty link. Vector values of controllers are not altered by the mapping curve in any ways and are handed to the target as they are. The order of links is important since they are referenced by their index later on. | + | Controllers deliver a linear and normalized value. This is though not always the desired result. For example an animation sequence could be desire to have full influence for a controller value or 0 decreasing linearly down to no influence at the point 0.5 while staying at no influence up to the value 1. Links take on the duty to map controller values to actual weight values which can be consumed by rules later on. |
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| + | A link consist of a piecewise linear curve which maps incoming controller values (x coordinate) to weight values (y coordinate). Furthermore the source controller is indicated using the index of the controller (for speed and handling reasons not a pointer). | ||
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| + | A link is valid if the source controller is a valid index of a controller otherwise it is an empty link. | ||
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| + | Vector values of controllers are not altered by the mapping curve in any ways and are handed to the target as they are. The order of links is important since they are referenced by their index later on. | ||
| ===== Target ===== | ===== Target ===== | ||
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| ====== Rule ====== | ====== Rule ====== | ||
| - | Rules provide the production rules for an animation. There exist various rules each belonging to one of the three animation types. All rules together have common properties. Each rule can be enabled and disabled individually which allows to modify the animation production process without altering the rules itself ( which is faster ). The result of each rule is blended with the existing animation state using the source and destination blend factor. The rule animation state is multiplied with the source factor and added to the existing animation state multiplied by the destination factor. For both the blend factors there exists an appropriate target. This can be used to alter the influence strength of a rule which is useful to gradually blend in animations ( for example an idle animation or typically used on inverse kinematic rules to avoid jumping ). By default the source factor is set to 1 and the destination factor to 0. A typical setting is 1 for both in which case the animation state of the rule is added to the existing one ( used for doing parametric animation setups ). In addition each rule has a list of bones. This list indicates which bones are affected by this rule and can be used to apply rules only to subsets of a character ( for example torso and legs separately ). If the bone list is empty this equals to the rule influencing all bones. The order of rules is important since they are applied in the order they are specified. The following list contains all existing rules. | + | Rules provide the production rules for an animation. There exist various rules each belonging to one of the three animation types. All rules together have common properties. |
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| + | Each rule can be enabled and disabled individually which allows to modify the animation production process without altering the rules itself (which is faster). | ||
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| + | The result of each rule is blended with the existing animation state using the source and destination blend factor. The rule animation state is multiplied with the source factor and added to the existing animation state multiplied by the destination factor. For both the blend factors there exists an appropriate target. This can be used to alter the influence strength of a rule which is useful to gradually blend in animations (for example an idle animation or typically used on inverse kinematic rules to avoid jumping). By default the source factor is set to 1 and the destination factor to 0. A typical setting is 1 for both in which case the animation state of the rule is added to the existing one (used for doing parametric animation setups). | ||
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| + | Each rule has a list of bones. This list indicates which bones are affected by this rule and can be used to apply rules only to subsets of a character (for example torso and legs separately). If the bone list is empty this equals to the rule influencing all bones. | ||
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| + | Each rule has a list of vertex position sets (aka "blend shapes", | ||
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| + | The order of rules is important since they are applied in the order they are specified. The following list contains all existing rules. | ||
| ===== Animation ===== | ===== Animation ===== | ||
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| The animation difference rule works similar to the animation rule in that it takes frames from an animation sequence. The difference is that two frames are queried at the same time and the difference between both becomes the result of the rule. This can be used to apply an animation relative to the existing one ( for example a turret motion ). For both frames the move name and the time can be specified. The same rules apply as for the animation rule. Care has to be taken to not obtain zero quaternions which happens if both frames have the same orientation. Usually this rule is used with the source and destination blending factors 1 and 1 to add the difference to the existing animation. In this case zero quaternions are no problem. For both the leading ( the frame to take the difference from ) and the reference ( the frame to subtract from the former ) frame time there exists a target which behaves as the one in the animation rule. | The animation difference rule works similar to the animation rule in that it takes frames from an animation sequence. The difference is that two frames are queried at the same time and the difference between both becomes the result of the rule. This can be used to apply an animation relative to the existing one ( for example a turret motion ). For both frames the move name and the time can be specified. The same rules apply as for the animation rule. Care has to be taken to not obtain zero quaternions which happens if both frames have the same orientation. Usually this rule is used with the source and destination blending factors 1 and 1 to add the difference to the existing animation. In this case zero quaternions are no problem. For both the leading ( the frame to take the difference from ) and the reference ( the frame to subtract from the former ) frame time there exists a target which behaves as the one in the animation rule. | ||
| - | ===== Bone Rotator | + | ===== Animation Select ===== |
| - | The bone rotator | + | The animation select rule works similar to the animation rule in that it takes frames from an animation sequence. The difference is that a list of animation sequences can be defined. Using the select target one animation sequence is selected from the list. 0 target value picks the first entry in the list. 1 target value picks the last entry in the list. All other entries in the list are linearly mapped. Only one animation sequence is picked. To blend multiple animation sequences use group rule with animation rules as children.haves as the one in the animation rule. |
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| + | ===== Bone Transformator | ||
| + | The bone transformat | ||
| ===== Inverse Kinematic ===== | ===== Inverse Kinematic ===== | ||
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| ===== Foreign State ===== | ===== Foreign State ===== | ||
| The foreign state rule applies the state of a specific bone to the influenced bones. This can be used to transfer a state from one bone to another. Typically these are bones which are not animated otherwise as for example attachments on clothing which are applied to an actor and should animate reasonably with it. You can determine relative to which coordinate system ( bone or component ) the state is obtained and and applied. It is possible to mix those ( for example obtaining the state relative to the component but applying it relative the the bone local coordinate system for the target bones ) but usually for both component space is used. You can specify for each attribute individually a scaling factor with which the incoming bone state is first multiplied. This scaling factor also owns a target for each attribute. Scaling can be used to weight multiple bones into a new one. For example if you have an attachment which is located halfway between two animated bones you can use two foreign state rules one for each bone scaling them by 0.5 and adding the result to obtain the final bone position. Each attribute can be enabled separately which prevents altering the appropriate attribute. | The foreign state rule applies the state of a specific bone to the influenced bones. This can be used to transfer a state from one bone to another. Typically these are bones which are not animated otherwise as for example attachments on clothing which are applied to an actor and should animate reasonably with it. You can determine relative to which coordinate system ( bone or component ) the state is obtained and and applied. It is possible to mix those ( for example obtaining the state relative to the component but applying it relative the the bone local coordinate system for the target bones ) but usually for both component space is used. You can specify for each attribute individually a scaling factor with which the incoming bone state is first multiplied. This scaling factor also owns a target for each attribute. Scaling can be used to weight multiple bones into a new one. For example if you have an attachment which is located halfway between two animated bones you can use two foreign state rules one for each bone scaling them by 0.5 and adding the result to obtain the final bone position. Each attribute can be enabled separately which prevents altering the appropriate attribute. | ||
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| + | ===== Group ===== | ||
| + | The group rule applies a list of child rules. The rules can be applied using all or select mode. In all mode all rules are applied similar to how animation rules are applied in general. If the select mode is used the select target picks two children rules and blends between them linearly. A target value of 0 picks the first rule. A target value of 1 picks the last rule. All other rules are mapped linearly across the range from 0 to 1. If you want to seamlessly blend back to the first rule when approaching a target value of 1 you have to duplicate the first rule as last rule. | ||
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| + | ===== Sub Animator ===== | ||
| + | The sub animator rule applies an animator file as if the content of the file is present instead of the sub animator rule. This allows to reuse animators and simplifies creating complex animation systems. By default controllers of the sub animator are matched by name against the controllers of this animator. The controller value and vector are copied unmodified to the sub animator before running. Optionally you can define manual mapping replacing the default one. | ||
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| + | ===== Track To ===== | ||
| + | The track to rule adjusts the orientation of the affected bones to point towards a target bone. | ||
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| + | ===== Limit ===== | ||
| + | The limit rule clamps the position, orientation and scale parameters of affected bones to predefined ranges. | ||
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gamedev/animators.1557353664.txt.gz · Last modified: 2019/05/08 22:14 by dragonlord
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