Animation editor usability

[theraot]

In Godot 4.3 (I'm using dev 5) we can import an FBX as an Animation Library resulting in a correct Animation for an Skeleton, so it is easy to add them to an existing AnimationPlayer that works on the Skeleton of a model.

This means we do not have to put all the animations in a single file with the model using another editor (such as Blender), and thus saving time in the long run, and also making it easier to version the animations independetly.

All good so far.

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As expected, I can't modify the imported Animations. Nor do I want to, since that would be a problem if I need to import a newer version of said animation.

Instead, I want to make "Animation Montages". That is, I want to set another AnimationPlayer with animations that play tracks on the first one, and also add other tracks (such as playing sounds, enabling and disabling colliders, triggering particles, etc).

However:

1. I can't copy the animation length from the first AnimationPlayer, because the field is disabled, because the animation is imported.
2. There is no option to extend or trim the animation to to the contents of the tracks.
3. And there is no option to move the animation cursor to the end of an animation track key (nor an audio playback track key for that matter).

As a result setting the "Animation Montages" I want to make results in a lot back and forth between the AnimationPlayers and typing the animation length manually to match.

Solving any of the points above would aliviate this. I - of course - would rather to have all three.

[theraot]

In a project with around 300 animations imported individually as FBX, some other issues get highlighted.

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Now, I want to reiterate that - despite the failings of FBX - I believe this workflow makes sense, because:

1. Animations can be versioned individually, minimizing the amount of work to incorporate a new version of an animation.
2. We do not have to merge all the animations in a single file (which we were doing using Blender), and thus individual animation files saves time, in particular if some animations come from third party software.
3. When we are optimizing the build, having the animations be separate files also makes it easier to remove animations that ended up not being used.
4. There exists aforementioned third party software that exports animations like this, including but not limted to: Mixamo, AccuRig, Cascadeur, and Unreal Engine.

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So, the issues:

1. We do not have a skeleton preview. This is worsened by the animation FBXs that have no mesh, so there is no preview, period. As a result I have to add them to an animation player to test them. Please add a skeleton preview. See Add support for visualizing bones in Advanced Import Settings godot#78188
2. Adding and removing animation libraries from an animation player has poor performance (the number of animations might be a factor, I'm using 85 in a single animation player). Even if the performance cannot be addressed the UX can: Let me select multiple animations or animation libraries and then delete them in bulk instead of click, wait, click, wait, click, wait...
3. There are some operations I want to do in bulk on FBX, so I would rather have them in the import options instead of having them in the detailed import options... That way I would be able to select the animation libraries in FileSystem, go to the Import dock, change the settings and reimport. What options? These two: 1. Set a bone map. 2. Set animation looping.

[theraot]

Now, I would have to make AnimationTrees of these... Testing the blend spaces in editor, they do not seem to be updating. By the way, I wish for a way to do blend spaces without AnimationTrees.

Addendum: To be clear, at this stage I'm trying to setup an AnimatioTree that controls an AnimationPlayer that controls another AnimationPlayer.

[theraot]

With the issue godotengine/godot#91956 fixed in the master branch, I'm testing this setup again.

As it turns out making the AnimationTree with an AnimationPlayer that controls another AnimationPlayer results in the animations taking turns instead of blending.

I cannot share this project, and I do not know if this is meant to be supported in the first place, so I'm not opening an issue. Yet, I want to bring attention to it. I have explained above why I believe this workflow makes sense. Note, for example, that I could not make a blendspace and then add additional tracks to it.

Have a look:

corvus.tscn.-.EcoPlay.-.Godot.Engine.2024-05-21.22-15-25.mp4

[theraot]

By the way the step above would be an state machine.

So we would have an AnimationTree with an state machine that controls blend spaces, which controls an AnimationPlayer that contorls another AnimationPlayer.

I think this might be too much, so I'm opening a couple proposals - which I don't know if will have enough interest, or if I'll have the time to tackle:

• Add animation blend space playback tracks #9801
• Add animation inheritance #9802

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For full disclouse, I had an horror story happen to me with Unreal (see https://x.com/theraot/status/1793021604881940955), so I decided to try doing this with Godot, but my exploration took me to godotengine/godot#91956 which was a blocker for this project in Godot, so I went back to Unreal (with about a week of lost work) and finished the project in a crunch. I'm still interested in making Godot capable in completing such project.

[theraot]

Given the combination of saving an imported animation to a res file, adding markers, and using markers in animation trees, I can rework my animation workflow to something better now. I'm closing this.