Hey ,
You are honestly the first person I’ve ever heard make that comment/complaint or assertion.
I have always heard folks for a long time use the term “root” motion as meaning the hips/pelvis/whatever you would call it actually moves/travels in space in a normal fashion, this is what Unity calls “root” motion; versus an “in-place” motion which the hips/pelvis fundamentally stays in one place except for its secondary motion, so moving the reference/origin node (UE4 names this “root”, confusing yes) at a linear speed in the correct direction adds the travelling movement and the animation appears normal and connected to the ground. For in-place motions, scripting’programming whatever needs to tell the reference/root node to move accordingly in context, am I right? For what is called “root” motion typically, programming needs to track the location/rotation of the hips/pelvis directly to calculate movement and blending into other travelling animations etc.
I used to just call them “travelling” and “in-place” animations. The term “root motion” became common and folks would ask us about it and that’s what they always meant (We have been talking to a lot of Unity users…), normal travelling hips/pelvis motion. If UE4 has a different definition/use of these terms it’s news to me, but hey I don’t know everything, I’m not a Unity or UE4 Jedi, educate me. I’d welcome anyone chiming in about the current and correct use of the the term “root” motion in UE4 specifically.
The provided motion list has the correct 1:1 linear speed of each “in-place” motion notated, so one could key frame the reference/origin(UE4 root) node in Persona at frame zero and the end to create the root motion as you describe it I suppose.
No deception intended, I’m all ears if anyone wants to discuss/comment on the use and correctness of these overlapping terms/words/programs. If consensus is our verbiage is incorrect usage we’ll of course change it. How a bout “travelling” and “in-place”?