Contextual Animation Warp Point moves to Door origin when I assign the Door animation how can I fix this?

Development Character & Animation
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1

I’m building a physical door interaction system in Unreal Engine using Contextual Animation.

The player physically walks up to the door, reaches for the handle, and opens it with their hand. I have already created two synchronized animations in Cascadeur:

  • Player animation — contains root motion.
  • Door animation — contains the actual door opening animation and does not contain root motion.

The two animations are perfectly synchronized in Cascadeur.

Contextual Animation setup

My Contextual Animation scene has two roles:

  • Player — Primary Role
  • Door — Secondary Role

The Player animation is assigned to the Player track and the Door animation is assigned to the Door track.

For the Warp Point I have:

Index: 0
Mode: Custom
Origin: Door
Primary Role: Player

The reason I’m using the Door as the warp-point origin is that I want the player to move to the correct position relative to the door before the interaction starts.

The problem

When I assign both animations to the Contextual Animation scene, the Warp Point is located at the Door origin.

When I start the Contextual Animation in-game, the player gets moved directly toward the Door location.

However, the Player is not supposed to end up exactly at the Door origin. The player should stop at the position where the player animation was authored, in front of the door.

At first I thought the problem might be related to the animation or the player’s starting location, so I started doing controlled tests.

Test 1 — Door has NO animation

I created a completely new Contextual Animation scene.

I set:

Player → Player montage
Door → No Animation
Warp Point → Custom
Origin → Door

In this case, the Warp Point stays directly underneath the Player in the scene preview.

This is what I’m calling Image A.

A.PNG
A.PNG1920×927 298 KB

Test 2 — Assign Door animation

Using the same scene, without changing the Warp Point configuration, I selected the Door track and assigned the Door’s opening montage.

The moment I assign the Door animation, the Warp Point jumps from underneath the Player to the Door origin.

This is shown in Image B.

B.PNG
B.PNG1919×923 311 KB

So the important observation is:

Door track = No Animation
→ Warp Point is under Player

Door track = Door Opening Animation
→ Warp Point jumps to Door origin

I reproduced this from scratch in multiple new Contextual Animation assets.

Another test

I also selected the Player track and changed:

Mesh To Scene Y = -5000

just to make the difference extremely obvious.

The Warp Point did move somewhat farther away from the Door, but it still remained strongly associated with the Door side rather than following the huge Player offset I expected.

What I already tried

I’ve tried:

  • Creating completely new Contextual Animation scenes.
  • Changing the Player Mesh To Scene transform.
  • Changing the Door Mesh To Scene transform.
  • Swapping the order of the Player and Door tracks.
  • Updating the Warp Point.
  • Using the Door as the Custom Warp Point origin.
  • Testing with and without the Door animation.
  • Testing the Player animation with root motion.
  • Testing different Player/scene offsets.

The important part is that the issue reproduces in a brand-new Contextual Animation scene, so it doesn’t seem to be corruption of my original scene.

What I’m trying to understand

Why does assigning an animation to the Door track cause the Contextual Animation Warp Point to move to the Door origin?

And more importantly:

How can I keep the Door animation assigned to the scene while still having the Warp Point/alignment use the Player’s authored position relative to the Door?

I’m wondering whether I’m misunderstanding how Contextual Animation’s Warp Point / alignment data is generated when multiple animated roles are present, or whether there is another setting that determines which role’s transform becomes the alignment reference.

Any explanation of why the Warp Point changes as soon as the Door animation is assigned, and the correct way to author this kind of Player + animated Door interaction, would be greatly appreciated.

Images A and B are attached below showing the exact difference.

This version makes the actual mystery very clear: the Door animation assignment itself causes the Warp Point to change. That’s the part I’d want other UE developers to focus on rather than getting distracted by root motion or the player’s world position.