Multiple questions about animation

Hello everyone,

I have many questions, i will try to be concise while it will be a long post.

  • First one is about file format export : Babylon format VS GLTF.
    I red that Babylon countain more things at the export, like particles (wich i won’t use) than Gltf. Are there any other things ? So is Gltf for the same scene lighter ?
    A thing i find a bit confuse about Gltf is the use of a root above all.

I have noticed that when i export for Babylon format from blender i obtain my animation list as animation range while importing as Gltf i obtain Animation groups. Am i doing something wrong ?

  • My project involve 3D character animations. I’m trying to limit the number of animations to reduce animation work but also limit the total file size.
    This is why i will use weighted animations to combine animations.
    My question is about adding specific movement on a weighted animations without changing what is actually animated.
    For exemple, i have two kneeling animations only involving legs and torso animations. One wide stance and the other close stance. Using weighted animation i can generate in between animations. Admit here 50/50, so a medium stance. So i have my character animated kneeling with medium stance, torso going down, legs flexing, no animation on the arms.

Now i have a third animation group of my character only moving its arms around, no leg / torso animation. How could i apply only the arms movement on top of the weighted animation without changing legs and torso moves i.e adding only arms animations ? If i use weighted animation again straight legs of the arm animation will melt with the reste of the two animations wich is not what i want.

Do i have to use bone hierarchy and applying arms animation only to the armes / shoulder bones ? How to do that ? Or is there a simpler way to do that ?

  • Inside animation groups there are plenty of sub nodes, what are they ?

  • Is there a simple way to program the rotation of a joint ? For exemple with a slider the user could rotate ankle joint.

Thank you for your answers.

Physics, sounds, babylon dedicated features. But on the other hand GLTF/B adoption is growing fast so if you want top notch PBR and mainly models/materials/textures I would suggest it as a nice base.

Let me add @PatrickRyan our in house artist as he might have lots more insights than me on the subject.

@Thibaut, I’m happy to help you with your animation questions. Is there any way you can share a playground with your example so that I can debug? Answering rigging/animation questions by reading text can be tricky.

@Thibaut, for your reference, here is a Playground that animates the top and bottom halves of a mesh separately: https://playground.babylonjs.com/#S0VVNV#53

Please click inside the Playground scene to activate pointer lock.

Pressing the following keys will start the animations for the bottom half:
W: Run Forward
A: Run Left
S: Crouch Backward
D: Run Right
SPACE: Jump

The top half automatically cycles between Rifle Aim and Punch.

Please check out the Question thread where this was discussed: Animation/Blend Trees? (Part 2)

This thread mentions how the mesh was split into two (top and bottom halves), and @MackeyK24 showed his awesome progress on bringing Unity animation blend trees to Babylon!

Hello thank you, i m not able right now to provide a playground but i will next week

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Thank yoy very much i will read that

I have found a solution using additive animation, for my purpose it’s working, i had prefer to use blend trees, but it’s working.

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