Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Animation blending
Animation blending is the process of playing multiple animations on a single mesh at the
same time. Some key things to note about animation blending are that the associated play-
ing animations must be carefully balanced against one another; otherwise, this will result in
artifacts such as clipping or impossible skeletal orientations.
We use animation blending to prevent what is commonly known as animation pops. These
animation pops happen when the position of a bone becomes discontinuous as the bone
moves. Typically, this shows up as an abrupt change in pose in a time span that is unbeliev-
able to an observer.
Blending helps alleviate pops by smoothing out abrupt skeletal changes as well as allowing
our soldier to blend together two animations that were not authored to be played back to
back.
