Best way to handle animations on my top-down shooter setup?

Questions & Answers
1

I've been mulling over this for a while now, and can't think of a solution.

I have a top-down shooter prototype set up where the root object of the character has the CharacterMotor/Controller, and FPSWalker script on it. The character model itself (with the animations) is a child of this, with a LookAtMouse script on it (this is the only way I could figure out how to do the traditional top-down shooter/twin stick control setup, where you can look/shoot in one direction and move in another). The camera is simply in the scene, with a script that targets the player object, and looks at it from an offset above.

My problem is, I have 4 animations: run, two 45 degree angle runs (running at an angle both left and right), and two side-run animations (left and right). I can't for the life of me figure out how I should determine which animations to play and when.

I was going to try basing them off of normalizing the character controller velocity.x and z, but that would only work if it was the character controller was also the object with my LookAtMouse, and if I do that, the controls get all backwards when you're looking in the wrong direction.

Obviously I can't just base them on the horizontal/vertical input axes, because you could, for example, be moving forward with the vertical input axis but looking in a different direction.

3

If I undestood what you need correctly then I would do something like this:

Vector3 velocity = get_it_from_somewhere;
// look world space direction
Vector3 lookDirection = lookAtComponenetTransform.forward;
float angle = Vector3.Angle(velocity, lookDirection);
// IIRC, angle will be always positive from 0 to 180, so we need to figure out side as well
bool right = Vector3.Dot(lookAtComponenetTransform.right, velocity) > 0;

if (right)
{
   if (angle < 20)
       // play run forward
   else if (angle < 60)
       // play diagonal run right
   else 
       // play right run
}
else
{
   if (angle < 20)
       // play run forward
   else if (angle < 60)
       // play diagonal run left
   else 
       // play left run
}

You could also blend between each pair depending on angle...

2

I think you should have one run animation, and that your rotate your player to fit the direction you want to run in.

You would play your run animation whenever the movement stick was active, and you would calculate a heading that your character is moving towards. Finally, you would Slerp toward that angle with a "smoothing" variable.

Example:

transform.rotation = Quaternion.Slerp(transform.rotation, Quaternion.LookRotation(rotateHeading), Time.deltaTime * rotationSmoothing);