AdamCodd/unreal-engine-5-raw · Datasets at Hugging Face

Blueprint Post Evaluate Animation

The Blueprint Post Evaluate Animation event node will activate sequential nodes after the AnimBP has been evaluated. With this node, you can activate logic that will run after the AnimBP has been evaluated.

Blueprint Update Animation

The Blueprint Update Animation event node is executed every frame allowing the Animation Blueprint to perform calculations and updates to any values it needs. This event node is the entry point into the update loop of the EventGraph. The amount of time elapsed since the last update is available from the DeltaTimeX output pin so time-dependent interpolations or incremental updates can be performed.

Input

Input event nodes will activate connected logic when the specified player input is received or released, depending on the output pin the logic is connected to. You can use this node to create animation logic that is dependent on user inputs, with specific input functions, such as keys, mouse movements, or touch controls.

Input Action

With Input Action event nodes, sequential logic will be activated when the player initiates a defined input action during run time. You can use this node to create animation logic that is dependent on user interactions with specified mechanics and systems in your project. These systems are definable in the project settings.

Anim Notify

You can use specific Anim Notify event nodes to activate animation logic when the connected Anim Notify is activated in an animation. These nodes are dependent on the Anim Noties present in your project and will activate any connected logic when the notify is triggered in your animation sequence, composite or montage. You can use these event nodes to build animation logic that is connected to animation playback.

Custom Event

With the Custom Event node you can build and define the custom parameters in which you want to activate animation logic in your project. See the Programming and Scripting documentation for more info on blueprints and blueprint nodes.

Remarks

You can use the following Event Nodes in your AnimBP's EventGraph to begin animation logic using project specific parameters, player input, and custom parameters.

Animation Budget Allocator

The Animation Budget Allocator is a plugin, you can use in Unreal Engine, to constrain the computation time allotted for animation data running on specified skeletal meshes. You can use the Animation Budget allocator to reduce the cost of many animating characters, by setting a processing budget, that the Budget Allocator will dynamically throttle Skeletal Mesh Component animation ticking. By setting a fixed CPU budget for animation data, you can maximizing perceived animation quality with minimal system overhead when animating many characters at once.

The Animation Budget Allocator determines a fixed budget, that can be adjusted on a per-platform basis, in milliseconds of work to perform on the game thread. The Budget Allocator then determines if it can update all necessary animation updates, or if optimiziation are needed. If optimizations are required, the Budget Allocator determines the Significance of the requested updates, and identifies targets, based on several criteria, with the goal of dynamically adjusting the load to fit within the fixed game thread budget.

The following are targeted areas the Budget Allocator makes optimizations to reduce the performance load:

Stop ticking on individual skeletal mesh components, and favors any present Leader Pose Component.

Performs animation updates at a lower rate.

Chooses whether or not to Interpolate between updates.

Enable the Animation Budget Allocator Plugin. Navigate in the Menu Bar to Edit > Plugins and locate the Animation Budget Allocator, listed under the Animation section, or by using the Search Bar. Enable the Plugin and restart the editor.

A Skeletal Mesh character with a character blueprint.

An animation to play on the character.

In order to take advantage of the Animation Blueprint Allocator, you must set the character blueprint's mesh component's Component Class to use the SkeletalMeshComponentBudgeted class.

To set the character's component class, navigate in the character's blueprint to the Components panel and select the Mesh component to open the Details panel. Set the Component Class property to the SkeletalMeshComponentBudgeted option from the drop-down menu.

Alternativly, you can also add the following C++ code to your ACharacter subclass constructor:

: Super(ObjectInitializer.SetDefaultSubobjectClass<USkeletalMeshComponentBudgeted>(ACharacter::MeshComponentName))

In the Budgeting section enable Auto Calculate Significance and ensure Auto Register with Budget Allocator is enabled.

Create and connect the Enable Animation Budget node to the Event Begin Play node in the Character's Blueprint Event Graph, and check the Enabled property.

You can now add the character blueprint to the level, by dragging the asset from the Content Browser into the level viewport, or by spawning the character using blueprints. The Budget Allocator will be enabled by default when beginning the simulation. You can observe the processing load, using the graph that is rendered over the scene in the viewport.

Both the Enable Animation Blueprint Budget node and the feature must be enabled for the budget allocator to operate. By default the feature is enabled, but can be toggled using the a.Budget.Enabled console command during simulation. You can enter a console command using the backtik (`) key, and input the command in the field.

You can toggle the Animation Budget Allocator's debug overlay, to observe its operations in real-time during your project's simulation with the a.Budget.Debug.Enabled console command.

The Animation Budget Allocator impliments optimizations to being the total animation processing load within the budget, while retaining the maximize animation quality that the system can produce. It will favor the closest, most significant meshes, running their animations at the highest framerate it can while reducing the framerate and quality of less significant meshes.

The Animation Budget Allocator's debug graph observes the project's processing load, along the y-axis, over time, along the graph's x-axis, and updates in real-time. The project's budget for the total animation system is rendered as the dotted line and is labeled Budget, along the right side of the graph.

The solid line represents the Performance of the animation system at the individual moments along the graphs observed time.

The performance will vary based on the amount of work that needs to be done, when factoring in the Animation Budget Allocator's chosen optimizations.

You can view additional information about the processes of the Budget Allocator by enabling the stat overlay. To enable the stat overlay, navigate in the viewport menu to Stat > Advanced and toggle the AnimationBudgetAllocator option.

You can now view additional information when beginning the project simulation.

Here you can reference a list of the information present the Animation Budget Allocator's stat overlay:

Each Skeletal Meshes that is being optimized with the Animation Budget Allocator will be rendered with a unique overlay containing debug information.

The number value indicates the rate at which the mesh is being updated. A value of one means that the mesh is being updated and ticking every frame. A value of five would mean that the mesh is updated and tick every five frames.

The other present information indicates at what fidelity the animation data is being processed. The following are the options the Animation Budget Allocator will process animation data:

When using Modular Characters, you can view individual groups of debug information for each skeletal mesh component that comprises the modular character.