author: Sephen SMothers

Posted on 06/07/2024

The Problem:

The animations for the player were very choppy and didn't seem natural. Before we were using animation states, and the animations would snap to the next one between states. For example, if I decided to walk forward and then strafe left the player would immediately switch to left strafe animation. It was also very confusing setting up all the transition nodes which led to some bugs. 

The Solution:

I simplified the process by adding a blend tree and lerp between the values to create a smooth transition. The blend tree also allowed me to create a walk and run animations going in every direction based on if the sprint button is being pressed. Then in code I just had to set the float values of the animation parameters. I also went to the graph and added a jump animation that will exit if either the player is grounded or if the is jumping Boolean is false.