Practicing 3D animations of a character. This includes the idle, run, emote, jump, and attack sequence, as if the character was in a game. Additionally, to give the character more personality and coherency, I decided on a background for the character to have been a dancer before becoming a fighter; thus the elements of dance being included in her emote and last attack of the attack sequence.
The 3D Model itself is the Azri Rig, from www.gameanim.com
specific Azri Rig link: https://www.gameanim.com/product/azri-rig/
A video showcasing all the animations running in UE5. All the animations were done in Maya, then imported into UE5. I started with more basic motions, like an idle and running, to have the foundations of movement laid out.
The idle is her rocking back and forth on her feet with a double toe-tap at the end. Originally, the idle had a shorter rocking back and forth section, so I repeated it more; that way, the toe-tap wouldn't happen too often and seem unnatural.
Next, the jump and emote were animated since the jump has 3 parts (jump start, jump loop, and jump end) and the emote is a longer animation. The emote is a twirl beginning with a pointed toe and half-lifted arm, then ending with a hop and small bow. The scythe weapon she's holding may clip into her form since the weapon had to be imported and attached in UE5, which ends up becoming different from what it was in Maya.
Lastly is the attack combo, which is based on the number of consecutive clicks. The first attack is light and quick, followed by a short dash into a downward slice for the second, and a spinning attack based on a ballet piqué turn ending with another stronger downward slash.
Here is a more detailed version of the run in Maya, though a bit slower due to video capture. There is secondary motion for the hair, torso, and head, as well with offset so that not everything is moving at the same time. It also adds detail to the run cycle, like the torso twisting due to leg/arm position, and the head bobbing a bit after the feet make contact with the ground.
Here is the attack combo in UE5. Since there is forward motion for the second and third attacks of the sequence, it was included in the original Maya animation. However, upon importing the animations into UE5, the root bone did not sync, so instead I animated the root motion in UE5.
3D Character Blue Print: How I set up the attack sequence to detect whether the character is attacking or not, and which attack number of the combo they were at so the attacks played in the right order.
Character Animation Blue Print: As seen in the attack sequence video, there are notifiers in each attack animation, which tells the character when to transition into the next attack, and if the character is currently attacking or not.
Character Animation Locomotion: The locomotion sets the rules on when the character can go to and is in any state, as well as contains the actual animations within each state. Here it shows that the character starts in the idle, which can then lead to walking (actually should be running) or starting the attack combo. Jumping is separate but can be transitioned into through toJump and out of with toLand.
Each of these transitions between states has rules, such as how the character can only go back to idle if they are no longer attacking (pressing the left mouse button from inputs). Inversely, the character can only begin the attack combo if they are attacking (pressed left mouse button), and continues to attack based on the attack counter (counts mouse clicks). In order to jump, the space bar must be pressed, and the jump loop is based on code that detects whether the player is in-air. For walking, the character must be moving, which depends on velocity.
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