Method to animate an NPC via talking?

[Kathy_Yuo]

Hi, I want to execute the following action:

1. under the first-person character, the player presses E, and it interacts with NPC. NPC then says “hello” and smoothly transfers from the idle state to a talking animation.
2. the player presses E again, and NPC says “How are you” and transfers to another talking animation.
   I’ve tried to use the “play animation” node but the state transformation is not smooth. Just wondering if is there some way to go to generate this interaction. I am a brand-new UE user so anyone can help with detailed guidance? Does this process need to go with the animation state machine?
   very appreciate.

[Quetzalcodename]

Hey @Kathy_Yuo! Welcome to the forums!

Generally speaking, if you want animations to transition smoothly and automatically between different states you do want an animation blueprint. This also entirely depends on how complicated you want your system to be. Check out this non-Epic affiliated basic overview of animation blueprints to help you get started:

The Animation Blueprint | Adv. Anim Application [UE4]

I hope the above is the solution you need!

[Kathy_Yuo]

thank you!