How to sync Character3D animation to movement in godot?

xyz

kuligs2 Looking good. Yeah, the graph editor is essential for finetuning animations as it shows you exactly how the value is changing with time, which you can't really see only by looking at keyframes.

kuligs2

Testing my run animation, i noticed that i can freeze it mid animation. I forgot i made something like that before.

I guess this is in my run script when state machine switches to it:

func physics_update(delta:float) ->void:
		
	animation_speed_for_unit = (step_travel_length / frames_for_one_step) * animation_fps 
	animation_speed_scale = player.velocity.length() / animation_speed_for_unit
	player.anim_player.speed_scale = animation_speed_scale

xyz

kuligs2 Looks good enough. Time to make an actual game with it 😉

kuligs2

xyz no, not good enough, still clunky and now im thinking, that good animations have something like multi-part sequences.. like wind-up/wind-down.. like when you start running and when you stop running (stop input).

The more i work on this the more im realizing its really complex... oh well.. eventually ill find a way to figure this out that and be "good enough" by my standards.

Im getting there... no hurry

Tomcat

kuligs2 no, not good enough, still clunky and now im thinking

It looks very decent. If you have an idea for a game, make a game with it. If you don't have an idea, you can polish the animation further. In any case, the idea behind the game is more important. Appearance is secondary — a good game with meaning will be forgiven for its graphical flaws.

GlyphTheWolf

Tomcat
I agree with that. That's a trap. You can work on that movement logic as long as you want and you always will be able to find some flaws or places for improvement, but if you want to make actual game it doesn't actually matters if this movement will be perfect, it just need to be good enough and if there will be other things to do in the game, no-one will even notice that it's not perfect. You will notice it, because you are one working on it, but players probably won't pay as much attention to movement itself (if that's not main game topic) to complain about it, if it will be intuitive and will just work as expected.

I had same issue with my movement logic. I still think that animations blending looks weird at some times, but it doesn't disturb main gameplay and over time I just used to it, so it doesn't bother me so much any more.

Btw. are you using root motion for your movement? I think that's the easiest way to match character movement with animation if you want to have realistic movement (and you have realistic animations).

Gowydot

Just do what artists do. If something doesn't look/feel right just call it a style choice. 😆

Tomcat

Gowydot If something doesn't look/feel right just call it a style choice.

In such cases, they say: “I am an artist, that's how I see it!” 🧑‍🎨

kuligs2

I know, yall right, the so called feature creep is getting to me ( artists eddition - attention to details)..

But i cant help it.. unless im happy with the result i just cant let it go..

Ok, so now im having problems understanding why does the animation in godot, has extra frame ...
YOu can see in godot on the right foot down, back to contact pose, godot inserts 1 frame of the contact pose..
Bare with me, sorry for the white cube, but after white cube you look at right foot contact pose.. I slowed down the animation speed to see why its clunky and noticed that in godot there is extra frame of the same pose which give that clunky feel when sped up.

In blender i dont see that problem.. looks smooth as i can get it atm.

I have 32 frames of animation, and the last looping frame is outside the animation scope.

EDIT:

Does the blender export all the keyframes when using gltf? even if they are outside the range?

I cant find what would cause that?

Tomcat

kuligs2 Ok, so now im having problems understanding why does the animation in godot, has extra frame ...

A long time ago ~~in a galaxy far, far away~~, I tried to figure out animation. I remember that when importing into Godot, you can specify exactly from which frame to which frame you want to import the animation. Maybe this will be useful.

xyz

kuligs2 With all the available "ai" tools, I'd expect you having at least a released game demo by now. Instead you seem to be stuck with finetuning the toe positions in a walk animation cycle. Endless tinkering will leave you with nothing substantial to show for all the invested time. Embrace the exponentials and make a complete game, however "imperfect" it may be 😉

kuligs2

xyz no AI atm. Asking speciffic non coding related questions is retarded to AI, you get retarded answers.

Im in no hurry.. i would like to think i still have time to finish 1 game. Might not be the best might not be the worst thing out there, but achievement complete.

Tomcat I remember that when importing into Godot, you can specify exactly from which frame to which frame you want to import the animation. Maybe this will be useful.

Where? as you saw i have specified the 32 frames to be the animation region in blender, so i would assume it imports all 32 and not 32 +1

My walk cycle is broken aswell.. hmm.. could it be godot shenanigans? Godot cant loop animations?.. hmm..

xyz

kuligs2 I know you enjoy tinkering but I'd just leave the walk cycle be for a while to rest your perception. Give this guy an axe, make a swing animation and let him smash the endless supply of barrels. Half of a game right there. No shortage of animation tinkering opportunities with axe swings as well.

You can return to the walk later. You may even find it not remotely as bad as you thought when you were hyperfocused on it.

Tomcat

kuligs2 Where?

In the animation import settings in Godot.

as you saw i have specified the 32 frames to be the animation region in blender, so i would assume it imports all 32 and not 32 +1

+1 — it could be a zero frame (resting pose). But I watched it a long time ago. Since then, they've reworked a lot and changed how they work with animation. A little later, I'll need to refresh my knowledge of working with animation, and I'll look into it more closely.

kuligs2

Tomcat Nothing that would suggest +1 frame

GLTF exporter on blender you already saw, there is no way to specify to start from 0 or 1 (frame)

Tomcat

kuligs2 Checking this box, fixed my problem

Im shocked that nobody here told me exactly that this was the issue.. tsk tsk tsk.. Feels like im the only one here making character animations and exporting them to godot.. smh..

Tomcat +1 — it could be a zero frame (resting pose). But I watched it a long time ago. Since then, they've reworked a lot and changed how they work with animation.

How did you do the breathing?

Tomcat

kuligs2 Nothing that would suggest +1 frame

The slice is here, but I don't remember where I indicated the zero frame.

kuligs2

Tomcat i tried the slice, but then no animation was detected in code after i used slice... not sure how to use slice

kuligs2

Few exports later:
Turns out godot is brainless, and needs to start on frame 0, rather than what blender does out of the box by default from frame 1.

Checking this box, fixed my problem, but im not sure if i lost one frame or did blender moved all animations by one frame over to left.. looks smooth now.

Im shocked that nobody here told me exactly that this was the issue.. tsk tsk tsk.. Feels like im the only one here making character animations and exporting them to godot.. smh..

This is normal speed

xyz

kuligs2 It it finally perfect now? 🐱 What's the next step?

kuligs2

xyz As for this topic, yes topic could be marked as solved.

As for the personal progression - more animations.. like jump, fight, etc etc.. without these there is no game.. you just walk around and do nothing.. ..

Tomcat Tomcat +1 — it could be a zero frame (resting pose). But I watched it a long time ago. Since then, they've reworked a lot and changed how they work with animation

Resting not resting.. Resting pose as i understand just adds animation named REST with a default pose. In my case, the animation is a named one such as Walking or Running.. and yes it was a zero frame, but no documentation explains that blender gltf when exporting "animation region that is visible" would not start at frame zero when exported.

I assumed that the region would be exported and no animation info that the frame 0 exist and godot would be smart enough not to insert frame zero and would start from frame 1 as it was exported.. but noo.. someone had other plans.. either way. Now its all clear and i can move on.

Tomcat How did you do the breathing?

Scale on main bone over 90 frames - 49 scale up 89 scale to normal.

But now that i learned this export "glitch/feature" i need to check if its really 90 frames, or some other number..

Run is 32 frames long @ 30fps = 1.06s

Idle is 90frames long @ 30fps = 3s

Good, at least this works as "expected"

EDIT: But now im thinking.. how the heck blender knows i want 90 frames on idle to be exported and not lets say from keyframe to keyframe which would be 91 or from frame 0 90 and then i would get the janky double frame on anim loop?? Sheesh.. this is convoluted..

Visually it looks like the idle loops, but when i export animations, i have selected previouslylets say the last animation i was working on was run which is 32 frames, and in blender i have set the anim region to 32 frames.. but it exports all animations on export.. and some have different framing region size.. how does it know what is the correct anim region size?..

For looping animation you want to have the last keyframe that is to be looped on outside the "render" region.

Since i was working on the run anim, which is 32, i never changed the region size but the idle anim exports correctly..

So it seems..