Customize Avatar Animations

You can express yourself by overriding Overte's standard set of animations with your own custom animations such as dancing, juggling, or waving. Any custom animations you set up will be independent to each avatar you own and wear.

참고

We often update our process for importing custom animations to make it more user friendly. As you develop custom animations, keep in mind that you may need to modify them in the future as our custom animation support continues to improve.

전제조건

As we delve deeper into creating custom animations, we may use terminology that you are unfamiliar with. Here are some terms you might come across:

Term	설명
Avatar animations	Avatar animations are FBX files that define how your avatar moves. For example, turn_left.fbx is the standard animation file for your avatar turning left.
Animation roles	Animation roles are triggers that map to an action that an avatar can perform. For example, turnLeft is an animation role that makes your avatar turn left while standing in place. This animation role is mapped to the turn_left.fbx file. You can see this in action by pressing the left arrow key or A in Desktop mode or using your hand controllers in VR mode.
Avatar Animation JSON or Animation Graph File	The standard animation system blends and layers a series of animations from FBX files using a JSON data file. This JSON file is called the Animation Graph file, and it specifies exactly which animations to play and how they are blended. It also determines the order of operations, so that operations like Inverse Kinematics occur after the rest of the body has been animated by traditional means. By default, every avatar uses the same Animation Graph file.

Prepare Your Custom Animation

Before you replace the existing standard animations, you need to prepare your custom animation file. Use our Avatar Standards Guide and keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Animations must have standard joint names for Overte.

• Animations must have standard joint orientations (y down the bone).

• Key frames must have key frames for every joint at a uniform interval of 30 frames per second.

• Locomotion animation phase has the left ankle in passing position on the first frame. Try to match this phase if you want your locomotion animation to blend with the default set.

Once you create your animation:

1. Export your animation from the external tool of your choice as an FBX file.

2. Upload your animation FBX file to a cloud server and copy the URL.

Replace Standard Animations

You can have your avatar use your custom animations by overriding the default animations. There are two different ways to do this:

• Override Using a Script: Write a script to override standard animations.

• Create a Custom Avatar Animation JSON file: You can modify this file or create a new data file.

Override Using a Script

You can write a script and use the MyAvatar namespace to override an existing animation or animation role.

We've listed the methods you can use to replace the standard animations on your avatar.

Method	설명
MyAvatar.overrideAnimation	This method can be used to play any animation on the current avatar. It will move smoothly from the current pose to the starting frame of the custom animation. For example, if your avatar is waving, this script will stop your avatar waving and play the custom animation provided.
AnimationCache.prefetch	This method fetches a resource. You can use this to fetch a custom animation you've hosted on a cloud server. If you do not prefetch your animations before playing them, you might see a t-pose appear briefly as the animation is downloaded.
MyAvatar.restoreAnimation	This method stops the override function from playing any custom animation. Your avatar will go back to playing the standard animations.

참고

This process to replace an existing animation will take complete control of all avatar joints. Inverse Kinematics of the hands and head of HMD users will be disabled.

You can also override an existing animation role mapping:

1. Use MyAvatar.getAnimationRoles to view the list of roles for the current avatar.

2. You can replace the animation for each role with a custom animation (FBX file) using MyAvatar.overrideRoleAnimation.

We've listed the animation roles and their description. These are frequently updated, so we recommend using MyAvatar.getAnimationRoles to get the latest animation roles before continuing. The standard animation FBX files for these roles can be found in the Overte source code repository on GitHub.

Animation Roles	설명
rightHandGraspOpen	When hand controller trigger is not squeezed.
rightHandGraspClosed	When hand controller trigger is fully squeezed.
rightIndexPointOpen	Point gesture.
rightIndexPointClosed	Point gesture with trigger squeezed.
rightThumbRaiseOpen	Thumbs up gesture.
rightThumbRaiseClosed	Thumbs up gesture with trigger squeezed.
rightIndexPointAndThumbRaiseOpen	Simultaneous thumbs up and point gesture.
rightIndexPointAndThumbRaiseClosed	Simultaneous thumbs up and point gesture, with trigger squeezed.
leftHandGraspOpen	When hand controller trigger is not squeezed.
leftHandGraspClosed	When hand controller trigger is fully squeezed.
leftIndexPointOpen	Point gesture.
leftIndexPointClosed	Point gesture with trigger squeezed.
leftThumbRaiseOpen	Thumbs up gesture.
leftThumbRaiseClosed	Thumbs up gesture with trigger squeezed.
leftIndexPointAndThumbRaiseOpen	Simultaneous thumbs up and point gesture.
leftIndexPointAndThumbRaiseClosed	Simultaneous thumbs up and point gesture, with trigger squeezed.
idleStand	Standing still, not talking.
idleTalk	Standing still, but avatar is talking.
walkFwdShort_c	Walking forward at 0.5 m/s.
walkFwdNormal_c, walkFwdFast_c	Walking forward at 1.8 m/s. Walking forward at 2.3 m/s.
walkFwdJog_c, walkFwdRun_c	Walking forward at 3.2 m/s. Walking forward at 4.5 m/s.
idleToWalkFwd, idleSettle	Short transition from standing idle to walking forward. Transition from walk to idle.
walkBwdShort_c	Walking backward at 0.6 m/s.
walkBwdFast_c, jogBwd_c, runBwd_c	Walking backward at 1.6 m/s. Jog backward at 2.3 m/s. Jog backward at 3.1 m/s.
turnLeft	Standing turning in place animation.
turnRight	Standing turning in place animation.
strafeLeftShortStep_c	Sidestep at 0.1 m/s.
strafeLeftStep_c, strafeLeftWalk_c, strafeLeftWalkFast_c, strafeLeftJog_c	Sidestep at 0.5 m/s. Side walk at 1.0 m/s. Side walk at 2.6 m/s. Side jog at 3.0 m/s.
strafeRightShortStep_c, strafeRightStep_c	Sidestep at 0.1 m/s. Sidestep at 0.5 m/s.
strafeRightWalk_c, strafeRightFast_c, strafeRightJog_c, stepLeftShort_c, stepLeft_c, strafeLeftAnim_c, stepRightShort_c, stepRight_c, strafeRightAnim_c	Side walk at 1 m/s. Sidewalk at 2.6 m/s Side jog at 3 m/s. HMD step left at 0 m/s. HMD step left at 0.5 m/s. HMD strafe left at 2.5 m/s. HMD step right at 0 m/s. HMD step right at 0.5 m/s. HMD strafe right at 2.5 m/s.
fly	Flying idle.
takeoffStand	Standing jump takeoff.
TAKEOFFRUN	Running jump takeoff.
inAirStandPreApex	Standing jump in air on the way upward towards the jump apex.
inAirStandApex	Standing jump in air at apex of the jump.
inAirStandPostApex	Standing jump in air on the downward arc of the jump.
inAirRunPreApex	Running jump in air on the way upward towards the jump apex.
inAirRunApex	Running jump in air at apex of the jump.
inAirRunPostApex	Running jump in air on the downward arc of the jump.
landStandImpact	Standing land.
landStand	Standing land.
LANDRUN	Running land.

Create a Custom Avatar Animation JSON file

If you're not comfortable using a script, you can edit or replace the existing Avatar Animation JSON file to override the standard animations.

참고

If you create a custom JSON file for your avatar's animations, you will not inherit any updates made to the standard animations' JSON file. You can perform a text merge to the latest version at any time.

The JSON file shows which animation role is mapped to which animation FBX file. You can replace standard animation FBX files with your custom animation's FBX files. Or, you can write a new JSON file with the new mappings for each animation role.

To replace standard animations:

1. Upload your custom JSON file to a cloud server and copy the URL.

2. In Interface, pull up your HUD or Tablet and go to Avatar.

3. Click on the Settings icon on the top-right corner.

4. Under 'Avatar Animation JSON', paste the URL for your JSON file.

OR

1. Open your avatar's FST file in a text editor.

2. Add your Animation Graph file's URL.

참고

You will need to run your avatar's files through the Avatar Packager to include the changes in your FST file.

animGraphUrl = URL

Examples

• Here is the current default avatar-animation.json file.

• This scoot-animation.json file replaces the idle and walk animations with a sitting pose. This example shows how you can replace some of an avatar's default animations.

Advanced Topic: AnimNode System

The Avatar Animation JSON file contains a hierarchical tree of nodes called the AnimNode System. The AnimNode system defines how an avatar moves and is described in the Animation Graph JSON file.

The movement of an avatar is determined by a complex blend of procedural animation, pre-recorded animation clips, and inverse kinematics. This blend is calculated at every frame to ensure that the avatar body follows physics and controller input as rapidly as possible. It must handle animation for desktop users, HMD users, and users wearing a full set of HTC Vive trackers. It must be configured on the fly as sensors are added and removed from the system. It should also be open to extensions so unique animations and avatar configurations are possible. These functionalities are handled by the AnimNode system.

We've listed some features of the system:

• The AnimNode system is a graph of nodes.

• Some nodes are output only, such as pre-recorded animation clips.

• Other nodes produce output by processing nodes below it in the graph and blending the results together.

• By manipulating the node hierarchy, certain animation actions will occur before or after other animation actions.

• The node parameters can be dynamically changed at runtime. This flexibility is necessary to achieve good visual results.

• The system is in the default Animation Graph JSON file and is loaded during avatar initialization.

Key Concepts

The AnimNode system operates like an expression parse tree. For example the following expression: 4 + 3 * 7 - (5 / (3 + 4)) + 6, can be represented by the following parse tree.

This parse tree can then be evaluated at runtime to compute the actual value. In this tree, the leaf nodes are values and interior nodes are operations that combine two or more sub-trees and produce a new value. The tree is evaluated until there is a single value remaining, which should be the result of the entire expression: 30.2957142.

In the expression case, the output value of each node is a floating point number, and operations can be implemented simply by evaluating each sub-tree, and then combining them with an arithmetic operation, such as addition or multiplication.

The AnimNode system works on a similar concept. Except the value of each node contains all of the avatar's joint translations and rotations. Leaf nodes can be static avatar poses, such as the T-pose or can be a single frame of an animation clip. Interior nodes can perform operations such as blending between two or more sub-trees, or combining the upper body of one animation with the lower body of another.

See Also

• Avatar Standards Guide

• Script

• API Reference: MyAvatar