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Animation nodes are used inside of Anim Blueprints to perform operations, such as blending of poses or direct manipulation of bones. Several animation nodes are provided, but custom nodes can be created to suit the needs of any game.

Anatomy of an Animation Node

Animation nodes are composed of two parts:

• A runtime struct that performs the actual operations to generate an output pose.

• An editor-time container class that handles visual aspects and functionality of the node within the graph, such as node titles and the context menu.

In order to add a new animation node, both of these must be created.

Node Hierarchies

It is possible to create a hierarchy of nodes, but any non-abstract editor-time classes should contain exactly one runtime node (do not add additional nodes when deriving unless the parent was abstract and did not contain one).
See the UAnimGraphNode_BlendListBase family for examples.

Runtime Node

The runtime struct is derived from FAnimNode_Base and is responsible for initialization, updating, and performing operations on one or more input poses to generate the desired output pose. It also declares any input pose links and any properties needed by the node to perform the desired operation.

Pose Inputs

In the runtime node, pose inputs are exposed by creating properties of the type FPoseLink or FComponentSpacePoseLink . FPoseLink is used when working with poses in local space, such as blending animations. FComponentSpacePoseLink is used when working with poses in component space, such as applying skeletal controllers.

A node can have a single pose input:

Local Space

UPROPERTY(Category=Links)
FPoseLink BasePose;

Component Space

UPROPERTY(Category=Links)
FComponentSpacePoseLink ComponentPose;

Or, more than one input for nodes that blend between multiple animations:

UPROPERTY(Category=Links)
FPoseLink Base;

UPROPERTY(Category=Links)
FPoseLink Additive;

Each of these properties will cause a pose link to be displayed. Properties of this type are always exposed as input pins. They cannot be optionally hidden or used only as editable properties in the Details panel.

Properties and Data Inputs

Animation nodes can have any number of properties, such as an alpha or transformation data, that are used to perform the operations of the node. These properties are declared just like any other property, using the UPROPERTY macro.

UPROPERTY(Category=Settings, meta(PinShownByDefault))
mutable float Alpha;

Properties of animation nodes can be exposed as data inputs using special metadata keys to allow values to be passed to the node. This allows properties used by the node to use values calculated outside the node. The following metadata keys are available:

Optional Pins

Editor Node

The editor class is derived from UAnimGraphNode_Base and is responsible for things like visual node title or adding context menu actions.

The editor-time class should contain an instance of your runtime node exposed as editable.

UPROPERTY(Category=Settings)
FAnimNode_ApplyAdditive Node;

Title

The background color and text of the title of the animation node displayed in the graph of the Animation Blueprint in Persona are defined by overriding the GetNodeTitle and GetNodeTitleColor functions.

For example, the UAnimGraphNode_ApplyAdditive node uses a gray background and displays "Apply Additive":

FLinearColor UAnimGraphNode_ApplyAdditive::GetNodeTitleColor() const
{
    return FLinearColor(0.75f, 0.75f, 0.75f);
}

FString UAnimGraphNode_ApplyAdditive::GetNodeTitle(ENodeTitleType::Type TitleType) const
{
    return TEXT("Apply Additive");
}

Tooltip

The tooltip displayed when hovering over the node in Persona is defined by overriding the GetTooltip function:

FString UAnimGraphNode_ApplyAdditive::GetTooltip const
{
    return TEXT("Apply additive animation to normal pose");
}

Context Menu

Each animation node can add node-specific options to the context menu displayed when Right-clicking on the node in a graph in Persona. Options are added using the GetContextMenuActions function which is a member of all Blueprint nodes.

For example, the UAnimGraphNode_LayeredBoneBlend node adds menu entries for adding a new input or removing an existing one:

void UAnimGraphNode_LayeredBoneBlend::GetContextMenuActions(const FGraphNodeContextMenuBuilder& Context) const
{
    if (!Context.bIsDebugging)
    {
        if (Context.Pin != NULL)
        {
            // we only do this for normal BlendList/BlendList by enum, BlendList by Bool doesn't support add/remove pins
            if (Context.Pin->Direction == EGPD_Input)
            {
                //@TODO: Only offer this option on arrayed pins
                Context.MenuBuilder->BeginSection("AnimNodesLayeredBoneBlend", NSLOCTEXT("A3Nodes", "LayeredBoneBlend", "Layered Bone Blend"));
                {
                    Context.MenuBuilder->AddMenuEntry(FGraphEditorCommands::Get().RemoveBlendListPin);
                }
                Context.MenuBuilder->EndSection();
            }
        }
        else
        {
            Context.MenuBuilder->BeginSection("AnimNodesLayeredBoneBlend", NSLOCTEXT("A3Nodes", "LayeredBoneBlend", "Layered Bone Blend"));
            {
                Context.MenuBuilder->AddMenuEntry(FGraphEditorCommands::Get().AddBlendListPin);
            }
            Context.MenuBuilder->EndSection();
        }
    }
}

Derived Native Getters

Many projects create their own UAnimInstance derived class to get better performance. To go along with this, you can add new getters if there is a need. In order to do so however there is a bit of a setup involved in order for them to work correctly.

• The getter functions must be tagged as UFUNCTIONS .

• They must be BlueprintPure .

• They must include the metadata AnimGetter="True" .

They must also define some specifically named parameters (this is also explained above the base anim getter functions in AnimInstance.h ). That list of parameters includes :

There are also helper functions to get the actual nodes in your getters. These exist on the UAnimInstance :