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After Creating a Blend Space and opening the asset, you will need to define the Axis Settings (or properties that drive the blending) as well as specify what animations to use as Sample Poses . With those two elements defined, you can further adjust your Blend Space by altering properties within the Blend Space Asset Details panel.
Axis Settings
The first thing you will want to do is set up your grid by defining the
Axis Settings
from the
Asset Details
panel.
For a normal Blend Space asset, you can define the Horizontal Axis and Vertical Axis as your inputs while Blend Space 1D assets use the Horizontal Axis only.
For either axis, the properties that can be defined are the same:
|
Axis Settings |
|
|---|---|
|
Name |
The name to display for this axis on the Blend Space Editor grid (also the name of the exposed pin on the Blend Space node inside an Animation Blueprint). |
|
Minimum Axis Value |
Minimum value for this parameter to which any input data will be clamped. |
|
Maximum Axis Value |
Maximum value for this parameter to which any input data will be clamped. |
|
Number of Grid Divisions |
The number of sampled points from the animation data used for interpolating. Higher values give more precise results. This is displayed as gridlines in the Blend Space Editor grid along the axis for this input. |
|
Interpolation Time |
Interpolation Time for input, when it gets input, it will use this time to interpolate to target. Used for smoother interpolation. |
|
Interpolation Type |
Type of interpolation used for filtering the input value to decide how to get to the target. |
Typically for multi-direction locomotion, you would define one axis as the Direction in degrees which you are moving and the other axis the Speed in which you are moving.
Please see the Locomotion Based Blending how-to page for a guide on setting up multi-directional locomotion with a Blend Space.
Sample Poses
With your Axis Settings defined, the next thing you will want to do is add some animations to sample from to the Blend Space Editor grid.
In the example above, we have dragged an Idle animation from the Asset Browser into the grid at the point where Direction/Speed values are 0, or the character is not moving.
You can right-click on a sample point to expand a roll-out menu with adjustable options for the sample.
You can change the location of the sample by adjusting either Axis Value (in the case above, Direction or Speed), change the Animation or adjust the Rate Scale .
You can also edit sample values using the numeric entry boxes for the sample located in the upper-left section of the Blendspace Grid.
In addition to using the roll-out menu to move the sample by changing the Axis Value properties, you can drag-and-drop the sample to a new location on the grid.
To remove a sample from the grid, select your sample and press the Delete key.
You can also replace samples by drag-and-dropping a new sample on top of an existing sample.
Previewing Blend Spaces
Once you have a few sample poses placed on the grid, you can hold the Shift key and drag the green diamond around to view the blend between poses.
While holding Shift , you can also hold the Ctrl key to show actual sample values while previewing.
When you release the Shift key, the green diamond will remain in its location enabling you to freely move the camera in the viewport to view the pose from different angles.
Grid Options
Inside the Blend Space Editor grid, you can also Show Triangulation , Show Animation Names or adjust Stretch settings.
The video below illustrates the effects of each option and you can experiment with each option to reach your desired effect.
Blend Space Asset Details
While defining the Axis Settings and Sample Poses are two of the more critical elements to setting up your Blend Space, there are other properties in the Asset Details panel that you can adjust to further define how your Blend Space is used.
Input Interpolation
This section enables you to define the Axis to Scale Animation and is useful if you have input interpolation, as you can specify which axis to drive animation speed (scale). For example, for locomotion animation, speed axis will drive animation speed (thus scale). You can set this to None if it is not applicable, Horizontal or Vertical Axis. This option is only available for normal Blend Space assets and not the Blend Space 1D asset.
Axis Settings
As described at the top of this page, this enables you to define the Horizontal and (in the case of a normal Blend Space, Vertical) Axis properties that will drive your Blend Space.
|
Axis Settings |
|
|---|---|
|
Name |
The name to display for this axis on the Blend Space Editor grid (also the name of the exposed pin on the Blend Space node inside an Animation Blueprint). |
|
Minimum Axis Value |
Minimum value for this parameter to which any input data will be clamped. |
|
Maximum Axis Value |
Maximum value for this parameter to which any input data will be clamped. |
|
Number of Grid Divisions |
The number of sampled points from the animation data used for interpolating. Higher values give more precise results. This is displayed as gridlines in the Blend Space Editor grid along the axis for this input. |
|
Interpolation Time |
Interpolation Time for input, when it gets input, it will use this time to interpolate to target. Used for smoother interpolation. |
|
Interpolation Type |
Type of interpolation used for filtering the input value to decide how to get to the target. |
When changing the number of grid divisions or the size of either axis is changed, any existing samples will be snapped to the closest available grid point. Those for which no valid position could be found are marked as invalid and will be drawn in red enabling you to reposition them manually on the grid.
Animation
This section contains options related to previewing as well as informational properties, such as what Skeleton Asset is associated with this asset.
|
Animation |
|
|---|---|
|
Preview Pose Asset |
The default Skeletal Mesh to use when previewing this asset (only applies when you opening the Blend Space asset). |
|
Skeleton |
Pointer to the Skeleton this asset can be played on. |
|
Parent Asset |
If set, enables you to add content to the mapping table. |
|
Asset Mapping Table |
When Parent Asset is set, enables you to define the mappings associated with this asset. |
|
Asset User Data |
Stores an array of any user data associated with this asset. |
Sample Interpolation
This section enables you to smooth out interpolation between sample poses on a per bone basis or per pose basis.
|
Sample Interpolation |
|
|---|---|
|
Per Bone Blend |
Define target weight interpolation per bone, this will blend in different speed per each bone setting defined. |
|
Target Weight Interpolation Speed Per Sec |
When target samples are set, this determines how fast you would like to reach the target and can improve blending. |
Animation Notifies
This section defines the mode used by the Blend Space to determine which Animation Notifiy to fire.
|
All Animations |
All notify events will fire. |
|
Highest Weighted Animation |
Notify events will only fire from the highest weight animation. |
|
None |
No notify events will fire from any animations. |
Meta Data
This section enables you to associate any custom metadata with the animation asset. You can query this by using the
GetMetaData
function.
Thumbnail
This section enables you to adjust the view perspective inside the asset thumbnail that appears in the Content Browser .