Sequencer, playing animation with world absolute coordinate

Development Cinematics & Media
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1

In our project, we have a lot of gameplay cinematics, the main character hit a trigger then we play a sequence level with him and another character.

My main problem is to find the right setting to avoid too much script before and after the sequence.

I tried a lot of configurations and I got a lot of problems.

Our animations need to be perfectly placed (2 actors interactions) so our animators place the animation in absolute coordinate in the world with Mobu.

If we play the sequence on a mesh, it work perfectly for the anim, but UE spawn a new dynamic actor with the mesh (and placed in 0.0.0) the problem is, we can see the real character in double because he is already in the world. So we need to hide all the objects/characters that the sequence will use.

If we drag n drop the actor from the world to the sequence, some other problems occurs.

  1. the sequence cannot bypass the Animation mode, so we have to remove the Animation blueprint mode before using it (if not the animation play, but never modify the position.
  2. the animation, are in world relative, but played on a actor, this become actor relative, so I must teleport my actor in 0.0.0 before playing. (and of course restore his position after the sequence).
  3. we use a CharacterBP with 4 meshes and our meshes are offseted from the capsule. Our 0 is on the character foot and not the pelvis, and his orientation is turned. pos = 0 ; 0 ; -85 ; rot = 0 ; 0 ; -90 . For playing it correctly I have to teleport the character in 0;0;85 and rot 0;0;90 to compensate the offset.

If we can flag an animation in the sequencer to be absolute, we never got any problem like that. My character root stayed where he is with his capsule and the animation place his mesh at the right position.

So to resume, in sequencer, how can I play absolute coordinate animations on actor already in the world.

Did I miss an option somewhere. Is there a better solution.

Thanks for answers :slight_smile:

2

Can you add a transform track in sequencer for each of your skeletal animations? That way, sequencer will handle the teleport to 0,0,0 so that animations are in world space. Sequencer should then also restore to the pre-sequencer applied transform when done.

3

That’s what I did, because it was the only way I found to get a preview in the editor.

But it’s not very efficient when producing a lot of sequences.
Adding a relativity flag setting on each animation bloc could be better imo or just a bool WorldSpace.

One problem is the relativity of each animation, when you have 3 or 4 animations playing at the same time, and synchro, like a handshake between 2 characters, the reference point must be the same.

One very interesting feature, should be adding for the whole sequence, a reference actor or transform.
Then every animations of those sequence can be set relative to this transform. It’s like a mini world relativity for this sequence.

It allow generic complex sequences, with easy placing in the world.
Your 4.15’s dynamic binding is great for generic sequences, rest the difficulty to wedge multiple animations.