Creating Non-Repetitive Randomized Idle Using Animation Blending

You might have seen that the standing idle animations in video games are some kind of a magical movement. They never get repetitive. The character is looking at different directions with a non-repetitive pattern. He/she shows different facial animations or shifts his/her weight randomly and does many other usual acts in a standing idle animation.

These kind of animations can be implemented using an animation blend tree and a component which can manipulate animation weights. This post is going to show how a non-repetitive idle animation can be created.

Defining Animation Blend Tree for Idle Animation

In this section, I'm going to define an animation blend tree which can bring a range of possible animations for idle. Before creating a blend tree,  the animations which are used within are described here:

1- A simple breathing idle animation which is just 70 frames (2.33 second).

2- A left weight shift animation similar to the original idle animation while having the pelvis shifted to left and with a more curvy torso. "Similar" here, means that the animations have same timings and almost same poses but just with a difference in main poses. This difference shows the weight shift left pose. I created the weight shift animation just by adding an additive keyframe to different bones on top of the original idle animation in the DCC tool.

3- A right weight shift animation similar to the original idle animation while having the pelvis shifted to right and with a more curvy torso.

4- Four different look animations. Look left, right, up and down. These 4 are all one frame additive animations. Their transforms are subtracted from the first frame of the original idle animation.

5- Two different facial and simple body movement animations. These two animations are additive as well. They are adding some facial animations to the original idle animation and some movement over torso and hands.

So the required animations are described. Now let's define a scenario for blend tree in three steps before creating it:

1- We want the character to stand using an idle animation while often shifting his/her weight. So first we have to create a blend node which can blend between, left weight shift, basic idle and right weight shift.

2- The character wants to look around often and we have four different additive look animations for this. So first we create a blend node which can blend between 4 additive look animations. It works with two parameters. One parameter is mapped to blend between look left and right and one parameter is mapped to blend between look up and down. This blend node is going to be added to the blend node defined in step 1.

3- After adding head look animations, the two additive facial animations are going to be added to the result. These two animations are switching randomly when they are reaching at their final frame.

So a blend tree which is capable of supporting this scenario is shown here:

Idle Animation Controller to Manipulate Blend Weights

So far an animation blend tree is created which can create continuous motions with some simple additive and idle animations. Now we have to manipulate the blend weights to create a non-repetitive idle animation. This would be an easy task. I'm going to define it in four steps to obtain a non-repetitive weight shift animation. These steps can be used for facial and look animations as well:

1- First, we randomly select a target weight for the weight shift. It should be in the range of defined weight shift parameter used in blend tree.

2- I define a random blend speed which makes the character to shift weight through time until it reaches the selected target weight in step 1. The blend speed is randomly selected from a reasonable numeric range.

3- When we reach the target blend weight for weight shift, the character should remain in that blend weight for a while. That's completely like what humans do in reality. When a human stands, he/she shifts his/her weight to left or right and stay in that pose for a while. Shifting weight, helps human body to relax the spine muscles. So we select a random time from a reasonable range to set the weight shift remaining time.

4- After the selected weight shifting time ends, we get back to step 1 and this loop repeats while the character is in idle state.

The same 4 steps goes for the directional look and facial animations as well.

This random time, speed and target weight selection, creates a non-repetitive idle animation. The character always look at different directions with different times while shifting his weight to left or right and do different facial and body movement animations. All are done with different and random time, speed and poses.

You can check the result here in this video:

Here is the source code I wrote for the idle animation controller. The system is implemented in Unreal Engine 4. This component calculates the blend weights and pass them to the animation blend tree:

The header file:

 
   
 #pragma once  
   
 #include "Components/ActorComponent.h"  
 #include "ComponenetIdleRandomizer.generated.h"  
   
   
 UCLASS( ClassGroup=(Custom), meta=(BlueprintSpawnableComponent) )  
 class RANDOMIZEDIDLE_API UComponenetIdleRandomizer : public UActorComponent  
 {  
      GENERATED_BODY()  
   
 public:       
      UComponenetIdleRandomizer();  
   
      // Called every frame  
      virtual void TickComponent( float DeltaTime, ELevelTick TickType, FActorComponentTickFunction* ThisTickFunction ) override;  
   
   
 public:  
      /*Value to be used for weight shift blend*/  
      UPROPERTY(BluePrintReadOnly)  
      float mCurrentWeightShift;  
   
      /*Value to be used for idle look blend*/  
      UPROPERTY(BluePrintReadOnly)  
      FVector2D mCurrentHeadDir;  
   
      /*Value to be used for idle facial blend*/  
      UPROPERTY(BluePrintReadOnly)  
      float mCurrentFacial;  
   
      FVector2D mTargetHeadDir;  
   
      float mTargetWeightShift;  
   
      float mTargetFacial;  
   
 protected:  
   
      float mWSTransitionTime;  
   
      float mWSTime;  
   
      float mWSCurrentTime;  
   
      float mLookTransitionTime;  
   
      float mLookTime;  
   
      float mLookCurrentTime;  
   
      float mFacialTransitionTime;  
   
      float mFacialTime;  
   
      float mFacialCurrentTime;  
   
 private:  
      float mLookTransitionSpeed;  
   
      float mWSTransitionSpeed;  
   
      float mFacialTransitionSpeed;  
   
        
 };  
   

And The CPP Here:

 #include "RandomizedIdle.h"  
 #include "ComponenetIdleRandomizer.h"  
   
   
 /******************************************************/  
 UComponenetIdleRandomizer::UComponenetIdleRandomizer()  
 {  
      // Set this component to be initialized when the game starts, and to be ticked every frame. You can turn these features  
      // off to improve performance if you don't need them.  
      bWantsBeginPlay = true;  
      PrimaryComponentTick.bCanEverTick = true;  
   
      // ...  
      //weight shift initialization  
      mTargetWeightShift = FMath::RandRange(-100, 100) * 0.01f;  
      mCurrentWeightShift = 0;  
      mWSTransitionTime = FMath::RandRange(10, 20) * 0.1f;  
      mWSTime = FMath::RandRange(20, 50) * 0.1f;  
      mWSCurrentTime = 0;  
      mWSTransitionSpeed = mTargetWeightShift / mWSTransitionTime;  
   
      //look initialization  
      mTargetHeadDir.X = FMath::RandRange(-80, 80) * 0.01f;  
      mTargetHeadDir.Y = FMath::RandRange(-15, 15) * 0.01f;  
      mCurrentHeadDir = FVector2D::ZeroVector;  
      mLookTransitionTime = FMath::RandRange(10, 20) * 0.1f;  
      mLookTime = FMath::RandRange(20, 40) * 0.1f;  
      mLookCurrentTime = 0.f;  
      mLookTransitionSpeed = mTargetHeadDir.Size() / mLookTransitionTime;  
   
      //facial initialization  
      mTargetFacial = FMath::RandRange(0, 100.f) * 0.01f;  
      mCurrentFacial = 0.f;  
      mFacialTransitionTime = FMath::RandRange(20, 50) * 0.1f;  
      mFacialTime = FMath::RandRange(20.f, 40.f) * 0.1f;  
      mFacialCurrentTime = 0.f;  
      mFacialTransitionSpeed = mTargetFacial / mFacialTransitionTime;  
 }  
   
   
 /**********************************************************************************************************************************/  
 void UComponenetIdleRandomizer::TickComponent( float DeltaTime, ELevelTick TickType, FActorComponentTickFunction* ThisTickFunction )  
 {  
      Super::TickComponent( DeltaTime, TickType, ThisTickFunction );  
   
      /*look weight calculations*/  
      if (mLookCurrentTime > mLookTransitionTime + mLookTime)  
      {  
           mLookTime = FMath::RandRange(20, 40) * 0.1f;  
           mLookTransitionTime = FMath::RandRange(20, 40) * 0.1f;  
           mLookCurrentTime = 0;  
           mTargetHeadDir.X = FMath::RandRange(-80, 80) * 0.01f;  
           mTargetHeadDir.Y = FMath::RandRange(-15, 15) * 0.01f;  
           mLookTransitionSpeed = (mTargetHeadDir - mCurrentHeadDir).Size() / mLookTransitionTime;  
      }  
   
      mCurrentHeadDir += mLookTransitionSpeed * (mTargetHeadDir - mCurrentHeadDir).GetSafeNormal() * GetWorld()->DeltaTimeSeconds;  
   
      if (mLookCurrentTime > mLookTransitionTime)  
      {  
           /*Damping*/  
           float lTransitionSpeedSign = FMath::Sign(mLookTransitionSpeed);  
           mLookTransitionSpeed = mLookTransitionSpeed - lTransitionSpeedSign * 2.0f * GetWorld()->DeltaTimeSeconds;  
   
           if (lTransitionSpeedSign * FMath::Sign(mLookTransitionSpeed) == -1)  
           {  
                mLookTransitionSpeed = 0.f;  
           }  
   
           if (FMath::Abs(mCurrentHeadDir.X) > 0.9f)  
           {  
                mCurrentHeadDir.X = FMath::Sign(mCurrentHeadDir.X) * 0.9f;  
           }  
   
           if (FMath::Abs(mCurrentHeadDir.Y) > 0.2f)  
           {  
                mCurrentHeadDir.Y = FMath::Sign(mCurrentHeadDir.Y) * 0.2f;  
           }  
      }  
   
      mLookCurrentTime += DeltaTime;  
   
   
      /*weight shift calculations*/  
      if (mWSCurrentTime > mWSTransitionTime + mWSTime)  
      {  
           mWSTime = FMath::RandRange(20.f, 50.f) * 0.1f;  
           mWSTransitionTime = FMath::RandRange(30.f, 50.f) * 0.1f;  
           mWSCurrentTime = 0;  
           mTargetWeightShift = FMath::RandRange(-80.f, 80.f) * 0.01f;  
           mWSTransitionSpeed = (mTargetWeightShift - mCurrentWeightShift) / mWSTransitionTime;  
      }  
   
      mCurrentWeightShift += mWSTransitionSpeed * DeltaTime;  
   
      if (mWSCurrentTime > mWSTransitionTime)  
      {  
           /*Damping*/  
           float lTransitionSpeedSign = FMath::Sign(mWSTransitionSpeed);  
           mWSTransitionSpeed = mWSTransitionSpeed - lTransitionSpeedSign * 2.0f * GetWorld()->DeltaTimeSeconds;  
   
           if (lTransitionSpeedSign * FMath::Sign(mWSTransitionSpeed) == -1.0f)  
           {  
                mWSTransitionSpeed = 0.f;  
           }  
   
           if (FMath::Abs(mCurrentWeightShift) > 1.0f)  
           {  
                mCurrentWeightShift = FMath::Sign(mCurrentWeightShift);  
           }  
      }  
   
      mWSCurrentTime += GetWorld()->DeltaTimeSeconds;  
   
      /*facial calculations*/  
      if (mFacialCurrentTime > mFacialTransitionTime + mFacialTime)  
      {  
           mFacialTime = FMath::RandRange(20, 50) * 0.1f;  
           mFacialTransitionTime = FMath::RandRange(20, 50) * 0.1f;  
           mFacialCurrentTime = 0;  
           mTargetFacial = FMath::RandRange(0, 100) * 0.01f;  
           mFacialTransitionSpeed = (mTargetFacial - mCurrentFacial) / mFacialTransitionTime;  
      }  
   
      mCurrentFacial += mFacialTransitionSpeed * GetWorld()->DeltaTimeSeconds;  
   
      if (mFacialCurrentTime > mWSTransitionTime)  
      {  
           mCurrentFacial = mTargetFacial;  
      }  
   
      mFacialCurrentTime += DeltaTime;  
 }