Basic Character Importation

Following the tutorials i was watching, i downloaded a collection of files related to a character model. This included idle, walking and running animations alongside the character model.

To start with, an animation blueprint is created. Here, in the AnimGraph, nodes are connected to the output pose to signal what animation should be done by the character following inputs by the player and actions made via AI towards the Player.

Simply connecting an animation to the output pose will have this animation play indefinitely as you haven't told it how to react to stimulus. If errors occur in the development process this may happen to character models, for example the default T-pose could be given to a model if the animations aren't assigned properly or don't return to a neutral state after action.

The first step is to assign the appropriate parameters to the Blend Space. The X axis must become Direction and the Y axis must be Speed. The direction symbolises the angle so the parameters need a min of -180 and a max of 180. The speed is different for every model, for this it's max is set at 600 with a min of 0.

Next step is to place nodes onto the grid. Now when moving forward there are two speeds, walking and running, which have 2 different animations. However, this also counts in the area between the two speeds, allowing multiple paces. Unfortunately, this only allows you to move forward with this animation, and more is needed to allow full 360 animation when moving.

Now we have placed animations for both left and right directions, as well as backwards, for both walking speed and running speed. Backwards animations must be place at both sides of the graph to make sure it works.

It's a good safety measure to place idle animations in the graph with the movement incase a connection is severed.

Currently this is as far as i've got. Next would be assigning the speed and distance variables so the animations work, alongside adding animations for crouching and whatever else is needed.