Additional Features to Animator Component + Related Items

[squidge-in-the-fridge]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

This feature request is related to a handful problems that exist with the currently onboard Animator component (as of version 2.12.1430). I'm doing some work in creating a realtime animation switcher for character and avatar animations, but the workflow process and the resulting quality of animation output can definitely be improved upon.

• When a new animation is loaded to an Animator component, all animation drives (including nulled ones) load simultaneously, resulting in a lag spike while animation switching as many tracks are loaded at once (183 tracks in my use case).

  • A workaround is possible with flux, mentioned later in the alternatives section, but requires manually dragging and dropping every desired slot into a separate reference field.
  • Nulling a field only removes the drive, it doesn't stop the track from loading. Deleting a field stops the track from loading, but breaks the animation (mentioned next).

• The Animation component's fields are bound to the sequence of their field numbers, rather than being explicitly cast to the fields themselves. This means deleting a field (so as to reduce animation tracks loaded for faster performance) end up offseting and breaking the animation's original references.

https://github.com/Yellow-Dog-Man/Resonite-Issues/assets/136508754/cdef52b6-3c65-4071-b611-d440802b4870

• Animations flicker while transitioning between playing.

  • I'm not entirely sure what causes this. If there's no animation memory/cache in place, would pre-loading certain animations into memory fix the issue, or would something like that tank performance?
  • The flickering effect is intensified in the second video due to a PositionAtUser component being used on the animator root, with its offsets referencing some of the bones of the animation.

https://github.com/Yellow-Dog-Man/Resonite-Issues/assets/136508754/7342cb32-339a-404e-b1f6-a1b2d98968d1

https://github.com/Yellow-Dog-Man/Resonite-Issues/assets/136508754/d4e25d17-4b7e-4e13-9bf0-333d54533e24

• No innate system is in place for tweening/blending between StaticAnimationProviders to my awareness.
  • Perhaps a new component called ObjectTween or AnimatorTween or something can be made for this, which can be referenced in the Animator component.

Describe the solution you'd like

I'd primarily like to see the the flickering on animation load be fixed, something to support the tweening and/or smoothing of animations be added, as well as an 'add animation clips to individual slots' import option mentioned later in this section.

In addition, some animation-related components and nodes could be added as well if desired:

• StaticAnimationProvider can have an additional string field for the imported animation name.

  • An 'import animation assets to their own slot' feature on model import sounds like it can be useful. When the animations are imported, they are imported in the sequence that their actions are ordered in.

  • More labeled data on StaticAnimationProvider.

    • One string field that lists the name of the animation (if one is accessible),
    • An AnimationTrackInfo button that creates a new window that lists all index, node, and property values of the given StaticAnimationProvider.
      • This can take the mystery out of what nodes/properties exist in an animation, and what track index needs to be referenced if sampling data from an animation track.
      • This can be formatted like the drives field in VRIK, where a list index has multiple fields.
      • I think it's better to have it spawn a new window, rather than having it be something innately included in StaticAnimationProvider, which would just give more vertical data to scroll through

• A model import option to auto add animations into their own named slots, based on animation name and import order.

  • e.g. When importing a batch of animations, animation 6 would create a slot called "05 Run_Foward" under the assets root (media)
  • This is the current workflow that I use for the one character animator I'm working on right now, having one main container slot just called [Animations] and every individual animation being named their index number and action name.
    • My current (arduous) workaround is manually creating a named slot for each animation, then manually checking and playing each animation in Blender to see which one is which, then moving the StaticAnimationProvider into the slot with its name.

Describe alternatives you've considered

One thing that's possible to fix lag spikes on animation load, one can use the SampleValueAnimationTrack node to only load specified nodes and channels:

It has also been mentioned by luxkitty that animation smoothing and potential anti-flickering can be made in game as well, but would require a pretty expensive setup to get working, both in performance cost and labor, that would require three animation rigs in total. One as a source animation, another as a destination, and the third as a result that actually drives the mesh transformation. This sounds like it can work but sounds like a pretty arduous workaround for something that would be much better natively implemented.

Additional Context

No response

Requesters

meeshuggah, luxkitty

[AmriaLeiah]

I would also really like to see animation smooth/lerp and animation stacking as with just these two things a lot can be done with the animator. It would also open a lot more possibility for NPCs in worlds.